Armstrong: Doping Claim Is 'Bull----' Retires

Almost a month after finishing 65th in his last competitive race in Australia, and nearly six years removed from the last of an unprecedented seven straight Tour de France titles, the 39-year-old cyclist made clear there is no reset button this time.

This time, he's leaving professional racing behind for good.
"Never say never," Armstrong laughed at the start of an exclusive interview Tuesday with The Associated Press, then quickly added, "Just kidding."
His retirement ends a comeback effort that failed to produce an eighth title or diminish talk that performance-enhancing drugs helped his career. The timing has as much to do with his growing responsibilities and family as it does with the physical limitations time has imposed. He's tired, and tired of being hounded. Armstrong will miss competing — let alone dominating a sport like none before him — but not the 24/7/365 training regimen that made it possible.
"I can't say I have any regrets. It's been an excellent ride. I really thought I was going to win another tour," Armstrong said about his comeback attempt in 2009, four years after his first retirement. "Then I lined up like everybody else and wound up third.
"I have no regrets about last year, either," he added, despite finishing 23rd. "The crashes, the problems with the bike — those were things that were beyond my control."
Armstrong spoke to the AP in a telephone interview and in a videotaped interview from his office in Austin, Texas.
Armstrong zoomed out of relative obscurity after a life-threatening bout with testicular cancer to win his first tour in 1999, then set about recalibrating both the popularity of his sport and how much influence athletes can wield as advocates for a cause — in his case, on behalf of cancer survivors and researchers worldwide.
International Cycling Union President Pat McQuaid had high praise for Armstrong.

Crackdown in Bahrain as Protests Spread - 4 feared dead

Political unrest continued to spread across the Arab world as tens of thousands of protesters flooded Bahrain's Pearl Square and riot police responded with tear gas and rubber bullets, leaving at least four people dead and wounding hundreds more.

The crackdown on anti-government rallies early Thursday morning local time led to the dismantling of protest camps set up at Pearl Square after the Interior Ministry "declared the camp illegal" and warned citizens to "stay off the streets," the Associated Press reported.
It marked the first time armored vehicles were seen in the streets after the pre-dawn raid and "effectively shut down the island nation" as workers located at the capital were not allowed to pass checkpoints.
This morning, ABC News has learned that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other senior officials will be calling their Bahraini counterparts today to urge restraint and to advise this U.S. ally on how best to proceed.
Bahrain, a small, but strategic nation located in the Persian Gulf is crucial in the U.S. fight against Al-Qaeda. It is also the home to the 5th Fleet - a major U.S. Naval Forces Central Command.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and his entourage of lawyers, supporters, protesters and journalists are headed back to a London court for a showdown between the secret-spilling computer hacker and Swedish authorities who want him extradited to face sex crimes allegations.

A two-day hearing that begins Monday will decide Assange's legal fate. It will also keep the spotlight away from WikiLeaks' revelations and on its opinion-dividing frontman.

Assange is accused of sexual misconduct by two women he met during a visit to Stockholm last year. At Belmarsh Magistrates' Court, a high-security judicial outpost beside a prison, defense lawyers will argue that he should not be extradited because he has not been charged with a crime, because of flaws in Swedish prosecutors' case — and because a ticket to Sweden could land him in Guantanamo Bay or on U.S. death row.
American officials are trying to build a criminal case against WikiLeaks, which has angered Washington by publishing a trove of leaked diplomatic cables and secret U.S. military files. Assange's lawyers claim the Swedish prosecution is linked to the leaks and politically motivated.

Preliminary defense arguments released by Assange's legal team claim "there is a real risk that, if extradited to Sweden, the U.S. will seek his extradition and/or illegal rendition to the USA, where there will be a real risk of him being detained at Guantanamo Bay or elsewhere."
The document adds that "there is a real risk that he could be made subject to the death penalty" if sent to the United States. Under European law, suspects cannot be extradited to jurisdictions where they may face execution.
Many legal experts say the Guantanamo claims are fanciful, and Sweden strongly denies coming under American pressure.
Nils Rekke, head of the legal department at the Swedish prosecutor's office in Stockholm, said Assange would be protected from transfer to the U.S. by strict European rules.

Israelis Torn

Ohio college student killed, 11 wounded, university says

A student at Ohio's Youngstown State University was killed and 11 others, including six students, were wounded in an off-campus shooting Sunday morning, university officials said.

No further details were immediately available about the shooting in the northeast Ohio city, and the condition of the wounded was not known. University spokesman Ron Cole said there was no threat to the campus, but campus police have stepped up their presence "as a precaution."
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OMG!!! Aguilera flubs national anthem at Super Bowl

Christina Aguilera helped kick off Sunday’s Super Bowl with a singer’s nightmare, flubbing the words of "The Star-Spangled Banner" about 40 seconds into the song as tens of millions prepared to watch the game between the Green Bay Packers and the Pittsburgh Steelers. Details inside.


Standing at midfield at Texas' Cowboys Stadium, the singer-actress mixed a previously sung clause with the one she was supposed to be on.
Here's what she sang, with the error in bold:
"O say can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hail’d at the twilight’s last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight
What so proudly we watched at the twilight’s last [unintelligible].”
That fourth line was supposed to be: "O'er the ramparts we watch'd were so gallantly streaming."
In a statement released by her publicist, Aguilera explained what happened: "I got so lost in the moment of the song that I lost my place," the singer said. "I can only hope that everyone could feel my love for this country and that the true spirit of its anthem still came through."
Aguilera isn't the first person to have trouble with the song, as Time magazine's "Top 10 Worst National-Anthem Renditions" will remind us.
The list includes Michael Bolton's effort at a 2003 playoff baseball game in Boston's Fenway Park, where he had to pause midsong and check some notes before correctly getting through the same line that troubled Aguilera.
Aguilera sang the national anthem twice during last year's NBA finals.
She delivered both performances without incident.

Happy Birthday Ronald Reagan