Jenni Rivera, Latin music star, dies in plane crash

Mexican-American singer Jenni Rivera has died in a plane crash in northern Mexico, her father has confirmed.

Pedro Rivera, flanked by his two sons, told Mexican TV that all seven of those people on board the plane, including two pilots, had died.
Officials earlier said they had found wreckage believed to be that of the singer's Learjet in Nuevo Leon state.
Rivera, born in California in 1969 to Mexican parents, sold more than 15m records of norteno and banda music.
She was a judge in the popular television programme La Voz, Mexico's version of The Voice.
"Everyone was lost," Mr Rivera told Telemundo television.
Civil aviation chief Alejandro Argudin told Mexican media that the plane had been "totally destroyed" and the wreckage scattered over a wide area.
It was not clear what caused the crash.
Rivera, known as the "diva de la banda", had performed in the northern city of Monterrey on Saturday.
She was travelling to the city of Toluca, outside Mexico City, when the plane disappeared, officials said.
A spokesman for Nuevo Leon's government said the plane had left Monterrey in the early hours of Sunday and aviation authorities lost contact with it about 10 minutes later.
It had been scheduled to arrive in Toluca about an hour later.
"She was the Diana Ross of Mexican music," Gustavo Lopez from Universal Music Latin Entertainment, which includes Rivera's music label, told the Los Angeles Times.
He said that she was the top-grossing female artist in Mexico, based on ticket sales.
Fans and fellow music stars expressed their grief at the news.
"This is sad. A bit in shock. Much peace to her family," singer Ricky Martin wrote in Spanish on Twitter.
Rivera was believed to have been travelling with her publicist, lawyer and stylists.
She leaves five children and two grandchildren.

Italian shares hit by Mario Monti departure

Italian stocks have fallen sharply, reacting to news that Prime Minister Mario Monti plans to resign and former premier Silvio Berlusconi is to run for office again.

Mr Monti was brought in to try to steer Italy away from financial disaster

The main Italian stock index fell 2.3%.
Other indexes throughout Europe were also lower, with banks the worst hit among shares.
French President Francois Hollande said Mr Monti's decision to step down early was "a pity" but said Mr Monti would stabilise Italy before the election.
"It's a pity for the short term, but in one month or two months, it will appear that Mr Monti is able to join a coalition or to go forward to stabilise Italy," Mr Hollande told Reuters in Oslo, after European leaders were presented with the Nobel Peace Prize.
"So we support the efforts of Mr Monti until the election, and after that the Italian people will choose the best government."
Record borrowing costs Mr Monti became the leader of a technocrat government in 2011 after investors became worried about Italy's economic health.
Mr Berlusconi's People of Freedom party withdrew its support from the government on Thursday, and Mr Berlusconi confirmed he would lead his party into next year's elections - now on course to be held slightly earlier than expected.
Mr Monti had planned to serve until April 2013, when the current parliamentary term runs out. He had hoped this would be enough time to "rescue Italy from financial ruin".
The withdrawal of his political support means that elections are now set for February.

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He replaced Mr Berlusconi after Italy's long-term borrowing costs reached levels widely perceived as unsustainable. The Italian 10-year bond yield hit a euro-era record of 7.48% in November 2011, bringing about Mr Berlusconi's departure.

Since then, Italy's yields have dropped and the focus has shifted to Spain, which has taken a bailout for its banks, and back to Greece.
However, on Monday, Italy's 10-year bond yield jumped 0.3 percentage points to 4.8%.
Among individual shares in Italy, banks were the hardest hit. Italy's biggest, Unicredit, fell 6%. Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena fell 7% and Banca Popolare di Milano declined 6.9%.
Across banks in Europe, Germany's Commerzbank fell 2.9% and France's BNP Paribas dropped 2.5%. In Spain, banks such as Santander, Bankia and BBVA all turned lower.
"Monti is the one who managed to stabilise Italy and stop the contagion from Greece," said David Thebault, a trader at Global Equities. "His surprise resignation brings back the political risk in the equation, something we had forgotten about."
Italy's government has the biggest debt burden of any of the major eurozone countries at 123% of economic output (GDP), which makes it particularly susceptible to a loss of market confidence. This is because higher borrowing costs would make it very difficult, if not impossible, for the government to roll over its debts as they come due for payment.
'Political theatre'

“Start Quote

Italians in the weeks ahead will be able to address one of the key issues facing Europe: are the austerity measures and reforms designed in Brussels and Berlin working?” 

Jane Foley, a currency strategist at Rabobank, said: "The resignation of Italy's technocrat PM Monti at the weekend has re-awakened fears of a return to old style political theatre in the country and brought some fresh downside pressure for the euro."

The 17-nation currency fell against the dollar and British pound.
Mr Monti, an economist who heads a unelected cabinet of technocrats, has said he will try to pass a budget and financial stability law before standing down.
A statement from the office of President Giorgio Napolitano over the weekend said that Mr Monti "does not think it possible to continue his mandate and consequently made clear his intention to present his resignation".
If the law for next year's budget can be passed "quickly", Mr Monti would immediately confirm his resignation, the statement said.
An election must come within 70 days of the government resigning. Italy had been due to go to the polls by April at the latest.
"Although Mario Monti is respected abroad as the leader who brought stability and reform to Italy, at home the economy remains mired in recession," said the BBC's Europe editor Gavin Hewitt.
"The speed with which Mario Monti announced he would stand down raises the question of whether he might be persuaded to lead some parliamentary grouping. It is what Brussels and Berlin want."

How some eurozone economies are faring
	Q4 2011	Q1 2012	Q2 2012	Q3 2012
Source: Eurostat; figures show % change compared with previous quarter
Eurozone	-0.3	0	-0.2	-0.1
Germany	-0.1	0.5	0.3	0.2
France	0	0	-0.1	0.2
Italy	-0.7	-0.8	-0.7	-0.2
Spain	-0.5	-0.3	-0.4	-0.3
Netherlands	-0.6	0.2	0.1	-1.1
Portugal	-1.4	-0.1	-1.1	-0.8

Mr Monti - a respected former commissioner at the European Union - has tried to pass reforms, including implementing in July a series of spending cuts of 26bn euros (£21bn, $32bn) over three years to tackle the deficit.
But many of the proposals have been watered down or stalled as they have gone through parliament.
German foreign minister Guido Westerwelle urged Italy to push on with its reforms.
"That would bring new turmoil not only to Italy, but also to Europe," he said.
Italy's economy has been shrinking all year - its fourth recession of the past 10 years.
Employers' lobby group Confindustria predicts that the economy will shrink 2.4% this year, with unemployment hovering around 11%. The government forecasts the economy will contract by 1.2% this year.
Mr Berlusconi was convicted of tax fraud in October, though he is appealing against that ruling, and he is also on trial accused of paying for sex with an underage prostitute.
He has already served as Italy's prime minister for three separate terms and built up what is believed to be a vast personal fortune from his business empire.

Verizon leads among major carriers in latest Consumer Reports cell-phone service ratings

Verizon Wireless was the highest-rated major carrier in Consumer Reports’ annual cell-phone service ratings, based on a survey of 63,253 subscribers by the Consumer Reports National Research Center.

The full report can be found online at ConsumerReports.org and in the January 2013 issue of Consumer Reports, which is on newsstands now.

Of the four major U.S. national cell-phone standard service providers, Verizon Wireless led the pack, receiving favorable scores for voice and data service quality, and also for support attributes like staff knowledge and resolution of issues. Sprint, T-Mobile, and AT&T each received mostly middling to low marks, particularly for voice and text service quality.

AT&T was among the lower-scoring providers, but its 4G LTE network was rated the most favorably of any carrier. Its users reported the fewest problems with that higher-speed service, which most new smart phones now use.

Consumer Cellular, a national carrier that uses AT&T’s network, received high marks across the board in Consumer Reports’ ratings of standard (monthly bill) carriers. The no-frills carrier caters to users with the simplest wireless needs and offers the simplicity of monthly billing without a contractual commitment.

The report found that no-contract plans can be major cost-savers. Two-thirds of Consumer Reports survey respondents who switched to so-called “prepaid plans,” which typically lack a contract commitment and bill each month in advance, saved more than $20 a month by switching to prepaid. Those savings can allow wireless customers to quickly recoup the cost of the phone itself, which can be higher if they don’t make a contractual commitment.
www.dominicanflash.com
TracFone was among the top-rated prepaid providers, receiving high marks for value, voice and text. Like Consumer Cellular, it specializes in those who seek simple, low-cost phone service.

Even those whose phone needs are less than basic can save by going prepaid. “Some smaller carriers that scored respectably in our ratings and offer low-priced plans, such as Straight Talk and Virgin Mobile, now offer fairly sophisticated smart phones,” said Paul Reynolds, electronics editor for Consumer Reports. “And you can even save by switching a phone from a major carrier that’s coming off contract to a prepaid plan.”

Israel says prefers diplomacy but ready to invade Gaza

• Members of the Palestinian Civil Defense help a survivor after he was pulled out from under the rubble of his destroyed house after an Israeli air strike in Gaza City November 18, 2012. Israel bombed militant …

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GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel bombed dozens of targets in the Gaza Strip on Monday and said that while it was prepared to step up its offensive by sending in troops, it preferred a diplomatic solution that would end Palestinian rocket fire.

Mediator Egypt said a deal for a truce to end the fighting could be close. The leader of Hamas said it was up to Israel to end the new conflict it had started. Israel says its strikes are to halt Palestinian rocket attacks.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, touring the region in hopes of helping broker a peace arrived in Cairo, where he met Egypt's foreign minister in preparation for talks with the new, Islamist president, Mohamed Mursi, on Tuesday. He also plans to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem.
Israeli attacks on the sixth day of fighting raised the number of Palestinian dead to 101, the Hamas-run Health Ministry said, listing 24 children among them. Hospital officials in Gaza said more than half of those killed were non-combatants. Three Israeli civilians died on Thursday in a rocket strike.
Militants in the Gaza Strip fired 110 rockets at southern Israel on Monday, causing no casualties, police said.
For the second straight day, Israeli missiles blasted a tower block in the city of Gaza housing international media. Two people were killed there, one of them an Islamic Jihad militant.
Khaled Meshaal, exiled leader of Hamas, said a truce was possible but the Islamist group, in charge of the Gaza Strip since 2007, would not accept Israeli demands and wanted Israel to halt its strikes first and lift its blockade of the enclave.
"Whoever started the war must end it," he told a news conference in Cairo, adding that Netanyahu, who faces an election in January, had asked for a truce, an assertion a senior Israeli official described as untrue.
Meshaal said Netanyahu feared the domestic consequences of a "land war" of the kind Israel launched four years ago: "He can do it, but he knows that it will not be a picnic and that it could be his political death and cost him the elections."

For Israel, Vice Prime Minister Moshe Yaalon has said that "if there is quiet in the south and no rockets and missiles are fired at Israel's citizens, nor terrorist attacks engineered from the Gaza Strip, we will not attack."

Yaalon also said Israel wanted an end to Gaza guerrilla activity in the neighboring Egyptian Sinai peninsula.
Although 84 percent of Israelis supported the current Gaza assault, according to a poll by Israel's Haaretz newspaper, only 30 percent wanted an invasion, while 19 percent wanted their government to work on securing a truce soon.

DIPLOMACY "PREFERRED"

"Israel is prepared and has taken steps, and is ready for a ground incursion which will deal severely with the Hamas military machine," a senior official close to Netanyahu told Reuters.
"We would prefer to see a diplomatic solution that would guarantee the peace for Israel's population in the south. If that is possible, then a ground operation would no longer be required. If diplomacy fails, we may well have no alternative but to send in ground forces," he added.
Egypt, where Mursi has his roots in the Muslim Brotherhood seen as mentors to Hamas, is acting as a mediator in the biggest test yet of Cairo's 1979 peace treaty with Israel since the fall of Hosni Mubarak.
"I think we are close, but the nature of this kind of negotiation, (means) it is very difficult to predict," Egyptian Prime Minister Hisham Kandil, who visited Gaza on Friday in a show of support for its people, said in an interview in Cairo for the Reuters Middle East Investment Summit.
Egypt has been hosting leaders of both Hamas and Islamic Jihad, a smaller armed faction.
Israeli media said a delegation from Israel had also been to Cairo for truce talks. A spokesman for Netanyahu's government declined comment on the matter.
Egypt's foreign minister, who met U.N. chief Ban on Monday, is expected to visit Gaza on Tuesday with a delegation of Arab ministers.
THOUSANDS MOURN FAMILY

Thousands turned out on Gaza's streets to mourn four children and five women, among 11 people killed in an Israeli strike that flattened a three-storey home the previous day.

The bodies were wrapped in Palestinian and Hamas flags. Echoes of explosions mixed with cries of grief and defiant chants of "God is greatest".

The deaths of the 11 in an air strike drew more international calls for an end to six days of hostilities and could test Western support for an offensive Israel billed as self-defense after years of cross-border rocket attacks.

Israel said it was investigating its air strike that brought the home crashing down on the al-Dalu family, where the dead spanned four generations. Some Israeli newspapers said the wrong house may have been mistakenly targeted.

In scenes recalling Israel's 2008-2009 winter invasion of the coastal enclave, tanks, artillery and infantry have massed in field encampments along the sandy, fenced-off border and military convoys moved on roads in the area.

Israel has also authorized the call-up of 75,000 military reservists, so far mobilizing around half that number.

The Gaza fighting adds to worries of world powers watching an already combustible region, where several Arab autocrats have been toppled in popular revolts for the past two years and a civil war in Syria threatens to spread beyond its borders.

In the absence of any prospect of permanent peace between Israel and Islamist factions such as Hamas, mediated deals for each to hold fire unilaterally have been the only formula for stemming bloodshed in the past.

Israel's declared goal is to deplete Gaza arsenals and force Hamas to stop rocket fire that has hit Israeli border towns for years.

Hamas and other groups in Gaza are sworn enemies of the Jewish state which they refuse to recognize and seek to eradicate, claiming all Israeli territory as rightfully theirs.

Hamas won legislative elections in the Palestinian Territories in 2006. A year later, after the collapse of a unity government under President Mahmoud Abbas, the Islamist group seized Gaza in a brief civil war with Abbas's forces.

Health Tips From People Who've Lived 100-plus Years

Blowing out 100 birthday candles is more possible than ever. According to the U.S. National Institute on Aging, we're on the brink of a watershed moment in history. Quite soon, there will be more people on Earth who are 65 than 5.
And longevity is reaching new records. The oldest documented woman alive today is 116—this means she was 45 years old during the attack on Pearl Harbor, 73 years old when the first man walked on the moon, and already 93 when the Berlin Wall fell.
So what does it take to live to 100? According to study conducted by the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, it's mostly a matter of genes. But science is also showing that even small efforts toward taking care of our health, such as exercise and diet, can have a striking effect on how long we live.  http://www.wdalaw.com/espanol/Oficinadeabogadosenrepublicadominicana.php
But what about quality of life after 100? We've gone around the U.S. to find centenarians who are showing us the way. Our centenarians offered great insight. This advice might not be anything we've not heard before, but it takes on deeper meaning when it's from those who have lived long enough and well enough to know what they're talking about.
Now, meet the Centarians!

Prince Harry Naked Photos During Vegas Rager

Prince Harry put the crown jewels on display in Vegas this weekend ... getting BARE ASS NAKED during a game of strip billiards with a room full of friends in his VIP suite.
It all went down Friday night during a raging party in a high rollers hotel suite.

We're told Harry, along with a large entourage, went down to the hotel bar and met a bunch of hot chicks ... and invited them up to his VIP suite.

Once in the room, things got WILD ... with the group playing a game of strip pool that quickly escalated into full-on royal nudity.

Some of the partiers snapped photos of the madness. In one photo, a fully nude Harry cups his genitals while a seemingly topless woman stands behind him.

In another photo, a naked Harry is bear-hugging a woman who appears to be completely naked as well.

No word on who the women are ... or if they got Harry's phone number.

A rep for the Royal Family tells us, "We have no comment to make on the photos at this time."

Abogado se desvincula Grupo Buonpensiero

El abogado Francisco Manuel Lazala Puello se desvinculó de las actividades comerciales que ejecuta la empresa Grupo Buonpensiero, a la cual el Consejo Estatal del Azúcar (CEA), concedió un contrato para gestionar el cobro de 6,000 acuerdos de compra de terrenos, los cuales muestran atraso en el pago.

Lazala Puello, quien tiene su oficina en la suite 301 de la Torre Profesional Biltmore, ensanche Piantini, en esta capital, dijo que constituyó y registró la referida compañía en su condición de abogado, puesto que esa es una de las actividades a la cual se dedica, además de ofrecer servicio de derecho penal, divorcios, cobros, particiones y sucesiones.

La empresa Grupo Buonpensiero la adquirió en el 2010, el ex diputado del Partido de la Liberación Dominicana (PLD), Pedro Vicente Jiménez Mejía, a quien más tarde la administración del CEA le concedió el cobro de los expedientes en mora.

El abogado Lazada Puello hizo la aclaración al figurar su nombre en un trabajo de investigación hecho por este multimedios DominicanosHoy, en fecha 18 de mayo de 2011, sobre el estatus del Grupo Buonpensiero y la razón por la cual el CEA lo favoreció con el mencionado contrato.

Según las indagatorias realizadas por DominicanosHoy, el Grupo Buonpensiero envió una comunicación a todos los adquirientes, a quienes les exigía para normalizar su contrato, el pago inmediato del 50% de la deuda, más el desembolso de RD$3,500 para gastos legales, lo que es igual a RD$21 millones

US adds 115,000 jobs in April, fewer than expected

The US economy created 115,000 jobs during April, down on the previous month and fewer than analysts had expected, official figures have shown.

However, the unemployment rate fell slightly to 8.1% from 8.2% in March, the Labor Department said.
Employment has been rising for the past eight months, but the jobless rate has been stuck above 8% since early 2009.
The weak report pushed US and European shares lower, with the Dow Jones index falling 168 points to 13,038.
Both the Nasdaq and the Standard & Poor's 500 had their worst week of the year, while markets in London, Paris and Frankfurt closed almost 2% lower.
Meanwhile, the oil price continued to fall, with US light crude dipping below $100 a barrel on concerns about the strength of the world's largest economy.
President Barack Obama said he would urge Congress next week to implement "common sense ideas" to accelerate job growth.
Speaking after the data was released, he said: "We've got to do more if we're going to recover all the jobs lost in the recession."

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Andrea Saul, a spokesperson for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, said: "President Obama has broken countless promises during his time in office - but none more important than his promise to help create jobs and get our economy moving again".

'Bad sentiment'

US Secretary of Labor: Older and younger people are not in the workforce

The stubbornly high unemployment rate is seen as a drag on economic growth in the US.
Jobs were created in the business services, retail and healthcare sectors in April, but were lost in transport.
The Labor Department said the number of long-term unemployed was "little changed at 5.1 million".
The unemployment rate hit a three-year low, but part of the reason for the fall was a drop in the number of people looking for work, which reduced the size of the workforce.
"The drop in the unemployment rate was actually an unhealthy drop - you had less people looking for work, which shows a bad sentiment," said Ron Florence at Wells Fargo Private Bank.
'Sluggish growth' The US saw two consecutive months of robust jobs growth in January and February, with increases of well over 200,000 jobs in both months.
But the past two months have seen a sharp fall in job creation, with 154,000 jobs added in March, a figure revised up from 120,000.
Analysts had expected a rise in April.
"We're still growing just gradually," said Nigel Gault at IHS Global Insight in Massachusetts.
"Hiring is coming back into line with what you would expect with sluggish growth."
Last week, official figures showed that US economic growth slowed to an annualised rate of 2.2% in the first three months of the year, down from 3% in the final quarter of last year.
The Commerce Department said a cut-back in business investment was the key reason for the slowdown in growth.
The Federal Reserve expects economic growth of between 2.4% and 2.9% in 2012, with an unemployment rate of between 7.8% and 8%.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other '9/11 plotters' back in court

 

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has claimed responsibility for planning the 9/11 attacks 

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other men accused of plotting the 9/11 attacks in 2001 are appearing before a US military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay to be formally charged.

An earlier attempt to try the four in a civilian US court was halted in 2009.
New rules for Guantanamo trials have been since introduced, including a ban on evidence obtained under torture.
However, defence lawyers still say the system lacks legitimacy, because of restricted access to their clients.
US President Barack Obama tried to shut Guantanamo at the beginning of his term. But his efforts to hold Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's trial in New York foundered in the face of political and public opposition.
A small number of victims' relatives are attending Saturday's hearing at the military complex.
'Proud' of attacks Self-proclaimed 9/11 "mastermind" Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the four others - Waleed bin Attash, Ramzi Binalshibh, Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali and Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi - are accused of planning and executing the terror attacks of 11 September 2001, which saw hijacked planes strike New York, Washington and Shanksville, Pennsylvania and left a total of 2,976 people dead.

Edward Bracken: 'I'm going to see the people that killed my sister face-to-face'

At Saturday's arraignment, they face charges including terrorism, hijacking, conspiracy, murder and destruction of property.
They are expected to be asked to enter a plea for the first time.
The charges can carry the death penalty.
Ahead of the hearing, Jim Harrington, the civilian lawyer for Ramzi Binalshibh, told Associated Press that although his client had previously said he was "proud" of his role in the attacks he had "no intention of pleading guilty".
"I don't think anyone is going to plead guilty," he added.
The decision to hold a military rather than a civilian trial remains controversial and follows a lengthy legal wrangle over where the five men would face justice.
Another of the defendants' lawyers, James Connell, predicted the trial would take years to complete.
Torture claim Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who is of Pakistani origin but was born in Kuwait, was captured in Pakistan in 2003 and transferred to the Guantanamo base in Cuba in 2006.

Who are the suspects?

• Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the most high profile of the suspects, has allegedly admitted to masterminding the 9/11 attacks and others. Captured in 2003, he has been at Guantanamo Bay since 2006
• Ramzi Binalshibh, a Yemeni who allegedly helped locate flights schools for the hijackers
• Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali allegedly helped nine of the hijackers enter the US
• Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi, of Saudi Arabia, is said to have helped set up some of the hijackers with money, clothes and credit cards
• Waleed bin Attash, a Yemeni, is said to have been a bodyguard to Osama Bin Laden and trained some 9/11 hijackers

During an earlier, controversial attempt to try him before a military tribunal in 2008, he said he intended to plead guilty and would welcome martyrdom.

In 2009 the Obama administration tried to move their trial into US civilian courts, but reversed its decision in 2011 after widespread opposition.
The five were eventually charged in June 2011 with offences similar to those they were accused of by the Bush administration.
The Pentagon has previously said Khalid Sheikh Mohammed admitted he was responsible "from A to Z" for the 9/11 attacks.
US prosecutors allege that he was involved with a host of other terrorist activities.
These include the 2002 nightclub bombing in Bali, Indonesia, the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl and a failed 2001 attempt to blow up an airliner using a shoe bomb.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has alleged that he was repeatedly tortured during his detention in Cuba.
CIA documents confirm that he was subjected to simulated drowning, known as waterboarding, 183 times.