Evening Edition

ek is off to a 3 dimensional life party, leaving the nightly news in my hands. Bwahahahah

Being the first holiday of the year the news is a bit sparse which makes my job easier tonight, although a bit disappointing to those who are looking for a distraction from the lack of TV fare or family affairs. Well, BBC America is running a marathon of Dr. Who.

1. Words “viral” and “epic” consigned to college trash

By Ros Krasny

BOSTON | Fri Dec 31, 2010 12:38pm EST

(Reuters) – This story might be epic, and could even go viral, but not if Lake Superior State University has anything to do with it. Just sayin.’

The small college in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, released on Friday its annual list of “banished words” — terms so overused, misused and hackneyed they deserve to be sent to a permanent linguistic trash can in the year ahead.

“Viral,” often used to describe the rapid spreading of videos or other content over the Internet, leads the list for 2011.

“This linguistic disease of a term must be quarantined,” Kuahmel Allah of Los Angeles said in making a nomination.

Runners-up included “epic” and “fail,” often twinned to describe a blunder of monumental proportions.

A total of 14 words were on the list.

Cliched terms such as “wow factor,” “a-ha moment,” “back story” and “BFF” (Best Friends Forever) rated highly. The very au courant use of “Facebook” and “Google” as verbs got a thumbs down as well.

2. Egypt bomb kills new year churchgoers

David Batty and agencies

guardian.co.uk, Saturday 1 January 2011 15.48 GMT

At least 21 dead and more than 70 injured after bomb explodes outside Coptic church in Alexandria

At least 21 people have been killed and more than 70 injured in Egypt in a suspected suicide bombing outside a church in Alexandria as worshippers left a new year service.

It was initially thought a car bomb had caused the explosion just after midnight at the Coptic orthodox al-Qidiseen church. But the interior ministry suggested a foreign-backed suicide bomber may have been responsible.

3. Brazil’s first female president sworn in

by Marc Burleigh – 1 hr 14 mins ago

BRASILIA (AFP) – Dilma Rousseff took over as Brazil’s first female president Saturday with pledges to “govern for all” and build on the policies of her hugely popular predecessor Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

The 63-year-old divorced grandmother, who was Lula’s former cabinet chief, assumed the presidency in a carefully staged ceremony under at times rainy skies.

4. Ouattara ultimatum runs out as I.Coast’s Gbagbo defiant

by Thomas Morfin – 4 mins ago

ABIDJAN (AFP) – Ivory Coast on Saturday faced the threat of open conflict after a New Year’s midnight deadline set by Alassane Ouattara for his rival Laurent Gbagbo to quit passed unheeded.

As pressure mounted on Gbagbo, Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan said West African regional body ECOWAS will decide on the next steps to deal with the political standoff in Ivory Coast by Tuesday.

5. Nigerian leader vows to rid country of ‘terrorists’

by Ola Awoniyi – 1 hr 23 mins ago

ABUJA (AFP) – President Goodluck Jonathan vowed Saturday to rid Nigeria of “terrorists” after a bomb ripped through a crowded market in Abuja on New Year’s Eve, killing four people in the latest of a spate of attacks.

Speaking at a New Year church service, Jonathan said late Friday’s bombing in the capital Abuja bore the hallmarks of a series of attacks on Christmas Eve that left about 80 people dead, including after reprisals.

6. We are on ‘dangerous’ road: Haiti’s president

47 mins ago

PORT-AU-PRINCE (AFP) – Haitian President Rene Preval warned Saturday that a political impasse over a disputed presidential elections has put his quake-hit Caribbean nation on a “dangerous” course.

“This is a dangerous road we are on. In addition to natural disasters, we are in a political crisis following the November 28, 2010 elections,” Preval said on television from the northern city of Gonaives as the country marked 207 years of independence from France.

International monitors have started a verification process aimed at breaking the political impasse in Haiti following the disputed elections.

7. France rejects ‘absurd’ Taliban hostage spy claims

2 hrs 30 mins ago

PARIS (AFP) – France rejected as “absurd” Saturday Taliban claims that two French journalists held hostage in Afghanistan for more than a year may have been spying, and said it was committed to securing their release.

A Taliban spokesman accused France earlier Saturday of not paying “much attention” to its demands for the release of Herve Ghesquiere and Stephane Taponier, whom it said had been intelligence gathering rather than reporting.

8. Chavez, Clinton chat at Brazil inauguration

19 mins ago

BRASILIA (AFP) – Despite a simmering diplomatic row, President Hugo Chavez and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton were seen having a brief, friendly chat Saturday at the inauguration of Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff.

“They talked and smiled, at least for five minutes. It looked like a social conversation, both were smiling,” a Brazilian official who witnessed the encounter told AFP on condition of anonymity.

9. Karzai, US homeland security chief talk border security

Sat Jan 1, 2:21 pm ET

KABUL (AFP) – The US Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, met Afghan President Hamid Karzai Saturday to discuss border security as Afghanistan battles a nine-year Taliban insurgency.

Napolitano, who is on a two-day visit to Afghanistan, held talks with Karzai and his finance minister Omar Zakhilwal.

10. Americans resolve to tighten belts, quit smoking in 2011

by Karin Zeitvogel – Fri Dec 31, 9:24 pm ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Quitting smoking and tightening belts around their waists and on the household budget top the list of Americans’ new year’s resolutions for 2011.

Of the 44 percent of Americans who plan to make a new year’s resolution, 17 percent said they wanted to kick the cigarette habit, 16 percent to lose weight, and 13 percent to spend less money, a poll published this week by the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion found.

11. Bolivian president rescinds decree that raised fuel prices

by Raul Burgoa – Sat Jan 1, 1:21 pm ET

LA PAZ (AFP) – Faced with spreading civil unrest, Bolivian President Evo Morales late Friday rescinded a government decree that significantly raised fuel prices and provoked violent protests that left 15 people injured.

Vice President Alvaro Garcia issued the decree on Sunday removing subsidies that keep fuel prices artificially low but cost the Bolivian government an estimated 380 million dollars per year.

12. GM’s turnaround now fully in Akerson’s hands

by Joe Szczesny – Sat Jan 1, 12:32 pm ET

DETROIT, Michigan (AFP) – The future of General Motors is now firmly in the hands of Dan Akerson, who on Saturday expanded his role to become both chairman and chief executive officer of the iconic American carmaker.

Akerson replaced Ed Whitacre as chief executive in September, but the straight-talking Texan who came out of retirement to lead GM through a government-backed bankruptcy and back to profitability remained chairman until the end of the year.

13. Pipeline begins supplying oil from Russia to China

– Sat Jan 1, 1:16 pm ET

BEIJING (AFP) – The first oil pipeline between Russia and China, feted as a mark of growing ties between the world’s biggest oil producer and its biggest energy consumer, started operation Saturday, state media said.

Oil began flowing through the pipeline that links Siberia with refineries in the northeastern Chinese city of Daqing at 11:50 am (0350 GMT) after two months of testing, according to the Xinhua news agency.

14. FBI in hunt for pro-WikiLeaks hackers: report

Fri Dec 31, 3:01 pm ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The FBI has joined the hunt for hackers who took down websites like PayPal, after they stopped processing payments to whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks, US media reports said Friday.

The Smoking Gun website published five pages of an FBI affidavit, detailing an operation that took US federal investigators to Europe, Canada and back to the United States as they hunted down the “Internet activists” who launched attacks “against perceived corporate enemies of WikiLeaks.”

15. Haiti cholera death toll soars past 3,000

Thu Dec 30, 9:48 pm ET

PORT-AU-PRINCE (AFP) – Haiti’s cholera death toll has soared in recent days with 3,333 people dead, official figures have shown, including a one-day record high for the daily number of fatalities since the outbreak erupted in mid-October.

The new data up to December 26 of 432 more recorded deaths compared with previous Haitian health ministry data marked a major jump in fatalities, although it was unclear exactly when they occurred.

16. ‘Boomers’ set to swamp US seniors’ health program

by Karin Zeitvogel – Fri Dec 31, 2:49 am ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The struggling US Medicare program is about to be swamped as the post-World War II generation becomes eligible for the government-administered health insurance for seniors.

Thousands of the oldest of the so-called baby boomers — people born between 1946 and 1964 — will Saturday turn 65, the age at which they become eligible for the Medicare program for older Americans that has been run by the US government since 1965.

17. Lethal bird flu confirmed in S.Korea wild duck

Sat Jan 1, 9:46 am ET

SEOUL (AFP) – One of five wild ducks found dead in South Korea this week was confirmed Saturday to have been infected with a lethal strain of the bird flu virus as the country battles its first outbreak in over two years.

Tests showed one of the five dead birds found in Sacheon City on December 26 had been stricken with the H5N1 virus, the agriculture ministry said in a statement.