Polygamist leader held for sex charges in Texas - Reuters

By Jim Forsyth

SAN ANTONIO, Texas | Wed Dec 1, 2010 4:15pm EST

SAN ANTONIO, Texas (Reuters) - Polygamist leader Warren Jeffs, whose rape conviction in Utah was overturned on appeal in July, has been extradited to Texas, where he was ordered held without bond on Wednesday on sexual assault and bigamy charges.

Jeffs, 54, whose word was considered God's will by thousands of followers, is the self-proclaimed prophet of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a breakaway Mormon sect known to practice illegal plural marriages.

Jeffs was indicted by a Texas grand jury in July 2008 following a raid on an FLDS ranch near the tiny west Texas town of Eldorado. He is charged with bigamy and with sexual assault involving two girls, aged 12 and 13, whom he allegedly took as wives.

All three counts are felonies that carry penalties ranging from five to 99 years in prison if convicted.

State authorities removed more than 400 children from the FLDS compound at the time of the raid, sparking a child custody battle that gripped the nation with lurid allegations of adolescent brides and teenage pregnancies. But the children were all later returned to relatives.

The mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the official name of the Mormon faith, renounced polygamy more than a century ago as Utah was seeking statehood and tries to distance itself from splinter groups that still espouse it.

FLDS men typically marry one legal wife while taking others as their "spiritual wives" -- a practice that attempts to skirt the law and entitles the women and their children to various welfare benefits.

Female members of the sect wear long, pioneer-style dresses, keep their hair in long-braided plaits and are raised to be submissive to their husbands. Church members are generally suspicious of outsiders.

Revered as infallible by some and reviled as power-crazed by others, Jeffs has been characterized by his lawyers as an "unpopular religious figure" unfairly singled out for prosecution on the basis of unorthodox beliefs and teachings.

He spent 15 months on the run and made the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list of fugitives before his August 2006 arrest near Las Vegas.

Jeffs was convicted in Utah in September 2007 on two counts of first-degree felony rape as an accomplice, stemming from a 2001 marriage between a 14-year-old girl and her 19-year-old cousin performed by Jeffs over the girl's objections.

At the time of the April 2008 raid on the sect's ranch in Texas, he was serving a prison sentence of 10 years to life in the Utah case and awaiting trial on a similar charge in Arizona, which was later dropped.

The Utah Supreme Court threw out his conviction in July of this year and ordered a new trial, ruling the presiding judge had given faulty instructions.

Last week, Utah's high court ruled Jeffs could be extradited to Texas, a move defense lawyers said would effectively end the case against him in Utah by denying his rights to a speedy retrial.

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott said Jeffs was picked up in Utah by Texas Rangers on Tuesday night and "escorted into the state," where he was booked into the county jail in San Angelo, about 200 miles northwest of San Antonio.

Twelve other FLDS men from the Yearning for Zion Ranch near Eldorado were indicted on charges ranging from setting up sham marriages to bigamy and child sexual assault. Seven of those have either pleaded guilty or been convicted and have been sentenced to prison.

(Writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Jerry Norton)

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Plan could charge some users higher Internet fees - USA Today

People who spend a lot of time watching videos or downloading files from the Internet could pay higher prices as part of a controversial proposal that Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski unveiled Wednesday.He will ask the five-member regulatory agency to vote on Dec. 21 on rules that he says would "preserve the freedom and openness of the Internet." President Obama has said that protecting what's known as net neutrality would be a top goal.

Genachowski said that his proposal would bar "unreasonable" efforts by Internet providers — led by cable and phone companies — to help some services and hurt others. For example, providers couldn't provide smooth and uninterrupted transmissions for communication services that they own, and jittery or delayed transmissions for competitors such as YouTube or Skype.

But Genachowski apparently hopes to win cable and phone company support by endorsing their right to make heavy Internet users pay more. It's been unclear whether the FCC would deem such pricing plans to be discriminatory: For example, consumers might favor unlimited conventional cable TV over a Web video service such as Netflix if broadband prices were tied to how many minutes or megabytes they use.

"The thrust of the proposal has shifted from purely preserving 'openness' to now simultaneously acknowledging the need for broadband rationing," says analyst Craig Moffett of financial services firm Bernstein Research.

Genachowski also made a concession to cable and phone companies by abandoning his effort to reclassify the Internet as a regulated communications service, similar to telephone connections.

Internet providers vigorously objected to that effort, launched in May following a U.S. Court of Appeals ruling. Justices said the FCC lacked authority to set rules for the Internet because the agency has classified it as an unregulated information service.

Republican Commissioner Robert McDowell challenged the FCC's authority to adopt what he called an "ill-advised" and "highly interventionist" plan. House Republicans are "promising to attack the FCC move to write rules," says analyst Rebecca Arbogast at financial services firm Stifel Nicolaus.

Net neutrality supporters were divided. Free Press CEO Josh Silver called the proposal "disappointing." Craigslist founder Craig Newmark said it would "help ensure certainty in markets while also preserving the openness ... of the Internet."

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Best Buy Cyber Monday Deals Up Now - TheHDRoom

November 28, 2010 Best Buy has officially launched part of their 2010 Cyber Monday deals a day early today and is promoting free shipping as well. The rest of the deals will be released tomorrow on the actual Cyber Monday day of the week.

I took a quick run through today's Best Buy Cyber Monday deals and pulled out some notables. Like Target, Walmart and Amazon.com, Best Buy has priced Halo: Reach and Fable 3 at $39.99. Other video game deals that fall into the $34.99 category include all the EA Sports games (Madden NFL 11, Fifa Soccer 11, EA Sports MMA, etc. on Xbox 360, PS3); Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit on Xbox 360 and PS3; Medal of Honor for Xbox 360 and PS3; The Sims 3 for Xbox 360 and PS3; and Shaun White Skateboarding for Wii and Xbox 360.

I'd like to personally recommend LucasArts' Fracture, a fun enough terrain-altering game Best Buy has priced to sell at a mere $9.99. Some other $9.99 games include Deca Sports for DS; Guitar Hero II for Xbox 360; Battle Rage: Mech Conflict for Wii; and WWII Aces for Wii.

Blu-ray and DVD pickings are slim so far with only 7 total titles available led by Lost: The Complete Collection on Blu-ray for $179.99 and Weeds: Season Five for $9.99. The graphic on Best Buy's Cyber Monday deals page shows Predators and Saving Private Ryan on Blu-ray so those might be added tomorrow.

TV deals are also slim at Best Buy right now with an LG 32" LED/LCD set for $899.99 and a Mitsubishi DLP 60" monster for $599.99.

Check out Best Buy's Cyber Monday 2010 deals right here.

Browse all Amazon.com Blu-ray pre-orders

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WikiLeaks: Leaked cables reveal the rough workings of diplomacy - Christian Science Monitor

After days of anticipation and unheeded warnings from the Obama administration, the huge and controversial data dump from whistle-blower website WikiLeaks is being published and broadcast.

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As reported by the New York Times (which, along with the British newspaper the Guardian and the German news magazine Der Spiegel, began revealing the data Sunday afternoon), the cache of a quarter-million confidential American diplomatic cables “provides an unprecedented look at backroom bargaining by embassies around the world, brutally candid views of foreign leaders and frank assessments of nuclear and terrorist threats.”

The Guardian reports the leaked information as including: Arab leaders privately urging an air strike on Iran, US officials being instructed to spy on the United Nation's leadership, alleged links between the Russian government and organized crime, “devastating criticism” of British military operations in Afghanistan, and claims of “inappropriate behavior” by a member of the British royal family.

RELATED: Julian Assange - the hacker who created WikiLeaks

“The cables name countries involved in financing terror groups, and describe a near ‘environmental disaster’ last year over a rogue shipment of enriched uranium,” reports the Guardian. “They disclose technical details of secret US-Russian nuclear missile negotiations in Geneva, and include a profile of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, who they say is accompanied everywhere by a ‘voluptuous blonde’ Ukrainian nurse.”

According to the New York Times, the cables include: “A dangerous standoff with Pakistan over nuclear fuel … gaming out an eventual collapse of North Korea … bargaining to empty the Guantánamo Bay prison … suspicions of corruption in the Afghan government … and a global computer hacking effort” directed by the Chinese Politburo.

The New York Times reports leaked diplomatic message traffic indicating that “Saudi donors remain the chief financiers of Sunni militant groups like Al Qaeda,” “clashes with Europe over human rights,” and an “intriguing alliance” between Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin and Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi involving “lavish gifts,” lucrative energy contracts and a “shadowy” Russian-speaking Italian go-between.

As the information was being released, the White House called the publication of confidential diplomatic cables "reckless and dangerous,” warning that it could "deeply impact" US interests as well as those of allies and friends.

"To be clear, such disclosures put at risk our diplomats, intelligence professionals, and people around the world who come to the United States for assistance in promoting democracy and open government," presidential press secretary Robert Gibbs said Sunday. "These documents also may include named individuals who in many cases live and work under oppressive regimes and who are trying to create more open and free societies."

"By releasing stolen and classified documents, WikiLeaks has put at risk not only the cause of human rights but also the lives and work of these individuals," Gibbs said. "We condemn in the strongest terms the unauthorized disclosure of classified documents and sensitive national security information."

Late last week, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton tried to soften the potentially-embarrassing impact of the leaks by contacting government officials in China, Germany, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Britain, France, and Afghanistan. Canada, Denmark, Norway, and Poland were also warned.

In a letter to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange Saturday, State Department legal adviser Harold Koh said the publication of secret diplomatic cables would "place at risk the lives of countless innocent individuals," ''place at risk on-going military operations," and "place at risk on-going cooperation between countries."

US officials have known for some time that WikiLeaks held the diplomatic cables. No one has been charged with passing them to the website, but suspicion focuses on US Army Pfc. Bradley Manning, an intelligence analyst arrested in June and charged regarding an earlier leak of some 400,000 documents related to the war in Iraq.

Most of the current batch of leaked diplomatic cables go back to 2007, including message traffic from both the Obama and Bush administrations.

RELATED: Julian Assange - the hacker who created WikiLeaks

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Obama Returns to Basketball Court After Injury - ABC News

After receiving 12 stitches on his upper lip from an injury sustained while playing basketball with friends and family on Friday at Fort McNair in Washington, D.C., President Barack Obama is back on the basketball court.

The White House says that Obama was joined on the court with his daughters Malia and Sasha today inside the building that houses the Interior Department, according to The Associated Press.

On Friday the president was inadvertently elbowed while playing a game with Rey Decerega.

"I learned today the president is both a tough competitor and a good sport," Decerega, who works for the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute, said in a written statement. "I enjoyed playing basketball with him this morning. I'm sure he'll be back out on the court again soon."

The president was given a local anesthetic for the procedure.

The White House Medical Unit used a smaller filament that requires more stitches but makes them tighter, resulting in a smaller scar, the administration said.

The injury occurred in the last of the five games Obama was playing with his friends, which included his nephew, Avery Robinson, personal aide Reggie Love and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.

Neither the first lady nor the Obama daughters, Malia and Sasha, were there at the time of the injury.

Obama's love of basketball is well documented and he's regularly spotted shooting hoops with friends. The president, who played basketball for his high school team in Hawaii, has stepped away from the White House on a few occasions to attend college and professional games.

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