Tory rebels trying to claw back power handed to Brussels won't get their way while I'm in power, crows Clegg

Coalition tensions over Europe exploded into the open last night as Nick Clegg told Tory rebels a ‘smash and grab raid’ to claw back powers handed over to Brussels would never take place under this Government.
As David Cameron reeled from the biggest rebellion over Europe ever suffered by a Conservative prime minister, his Liberal Democrat deputy rubbed salt in the wound, insisting that presenting the EU with a list of demands for looser ties ‘won’t work’.
And Downing Street was forced to make clear that Mr Cameron’s commitment to seizing back control in areas such as employment law did not represent Government policy, only that of the Conservative Party.
The Prime Minister insisted yesterday that there was ‘no bad blood, no rancour’ after 81 Conservative MPs defied him to vote in favour of giving people a choice between leaving the EU, staying in, or renegotiating a more distant relationship with Brussels in a referendum.
Number Ten was shocked by the scale of the revolt, which saw half of all Conservative backbenchers either vote against the Government or abstain despite what some called ‘appalling’ attempts to bully them into line.
Mr Cameron’s allies were sent on to the airwaves yesterday to try to offer an olive branch to the rebels. Education Secretary Michael Gove insisted he wanted to see negotiations to win back powers from Brussels within the term of this Parliament and prompted incredulity by claiming the Conservative Party was ‘united as never before’ over the issue of Europe.
‘We are already winning powers back – we need to win more and that process will require careful negotiation,’ Mr Gove said.

‘I think that we should take powers back over employment law. I think that we should take powers back that affect our capacity to grow.
‘There are some specific regulations that govern who we can hire and how we can hire and how long they work for, which actually hold us back.’

But within minutes, Mr Clegg said there was no question of the Government ‘unilaterally trying to kind of grab powers back’.
‘I think it is a monumental distraction from what is, in effect, an economic firestorm on our doorstep to tie ourselves up in knots late at night in Westminster about a treaty or inter-governmental conference that might never happen,’ he told ITV News.
‘Eurosceptics need to be quite careful what they wish for, because if they succeed – and they won’t succeed, as long as I’m in government – to push this country towards the exit sign, let’s be clear: The people that will be damaged are British families, British businesses, British jobs, British communities, and I won’t let that happen.’

Mr Clegg did give some ground – suggesting there was a case for ‘rebalancing the responsibilities between the EU and its member states’ and citing the Common Fisheries Policy as one area in need of reform.
But he insisted the only way to change the EU was by ‘winning the argument, leading the argument and actually persuading other countries’.
Mr Cameron is being warned he will face relentless pressure from rebel MPs to use discussions on changing EU treaties to allow closer fiscal union among countries in the single currency as an opportunity to redefine Britain’s relationship with the EU.

But Germany is understood to be determined do whatever it takes to make sure Britain does not get an opportunity to turn imminent treaty change into an opportunity for repatriation of powers.
The Prime Minister said Europe had long been a difficult issue for the Conservatives and ‘always will be’ but insisted he had no regrets about the handling of this week’s vote.
‘It wouldn’t be right for the country right now to have a great big vote on an in-out referendum,’ he said.
Former shadow home secretary David Davis said the Government’s handling of the issue would increase support for leaving the EU altogether.
‘I don’t want to leave – that would just give them an excuse for protectionism against us,’ he said. ‘But it is very hard to understand what the Government’s European strategy is. They talk about a repatriation of powers but then say the Liberals won’t let us do it.’
Stewart Jackson, who risks losing his post after voting against the Government despite being a ministerial aide, said: ‘It’s pretty unhelpful when the Deputy Prime Minister seeks to disregard what is happening in the eurozone and says that we’re not going to take any powers back.
‘Repatriation of significant powers from Brussels is not just what the Parliamentary Conservative Party want and has been elected upon, but what most people in this country think is right.’

New planet, the youngest ever found, is revealed by cosmic trick photography

A University of Hawaii astronomer has captured the first direct image of a planet forming around a star. Dubbed LkCa 15 b, it is the youngest planet ever found.

The university's Institute for Astronomy said Adam Kraus used telescopes on Mauna Kea island to find the planet. He was working with Michael Ireland from Macquarie University and the Australian Astronomical Observatory.

LkCa 15 b is 450 light years away from Earth and being built by dust and gas.

Scientists had not been able to see such young planets before because their parent solar systems' light outshines them.

Krause and Ireland used mirrors to cancel out the starlight and were able to see discs of dust near the planet.

The astronomers used 10-metre Keck telescopes to reveal the forming planet sitting inside a wide gap between the young parent star and the outer disc of glowing dust.
"LkCa 15 b is the youngest planet ever found, about five times younger than the previous record holder," Kraus said. "This young gas giant is being built out of the dust and gas. In the past you couldn't measure this kind of phenomenon because it's happening so close to the star. But for the first time we've been able to directly measure the planet itself as well as the dusty matter around it."

Kraus presented the discovery at Nasa's Goddard Space Flight Centre on Wednesday after his research paper on the discovery with Ireland was accepted by the Astrophysical Journal.

The optical sleight of hand used by the astronomers combined the telescope's "adaptive optics" with a technique called aperture mask interferometry: using a a deformable mirror to rapidly correct for atmospheric distortions to starlight. It involves placing a small mask with several holes in the path of the light collected and concentrated by a giant telescope, and using it to manipulate the light waves.
"It's like we have an array of small mirrors," Kraus said. "We can manipulate the light and cancel out distortions." The technique allows the astronomers to remove the bright light of stars. They can then resolve discs of dust around stars and see gaps in the dusty layers where protoplanets may be hiding.

"We realized we had uncovered a super Jupiter-sized gas planet but that we could also measure the dust and gas surrounding it. We'd found a planet, perhaps even a future solar system at its very beginning."

Kraus and Ireland plan to continue their planet search around nearby young stars.

Lord Sugar attacks youth 'expectancy culture'

Lord Sugar has railed against the "expectancy culture" in Britain, as he launched the second series of the Young Apprentice.

Against a background of high youth unemployment and a summer of rioting, Sugar said he hoped to show a different side of the nation's teenagers – or at least the super-articulate, highly driven individuals competing in the show –and motivate those struggling to find work.

"This programme goes to prove that you can start to make some money and stand on your own two feet. That's what I think you should do," the Labour peer said. "There's too much of … what I call an expectancy culture of things being provided. And I'm afraid to say the goody-goody benefits system we have in this country has made it a bit too cushy for people, and now its a wake-up call. Not everybody needs to go to university. They can go out and start working straight away."

The former enterprise tsar said that while he had been a supporter of Gordon Brown, he had not backed all the Labour government's choices. "Not everything that went on under Labour I agree with [such as] the benefits system and social apprenticeship schemes, which are really parking people and moving them out of the unemployment numbers," he said.

At the beginning of the past decade, young people had believed they could skip getting their hands dirty and start at the top because they had an idea, he said. "They wanted to come in, be a dotcom, go to a venture capitalist … That's all gone. That's finished. That era is over," he said.

As the show begins next Monday, this year's 16- and 17-year-old would-be entrepreneurs get off to a typical Apprentice start – badgering passersby into paying wild amounts of cash for ice-cream with sometimes questionable flavours.

Sugar suggested the young apprentices might actually be better than their adult equivalents, who have amused audiences for years with their fondness for business jargon, machiavellian plotting and bulletproof self-belief.

The winner will receive ￡25,000 to spend on their business, but Sugar admits he controls the cashflow, and that he drip feeds it into projects slowly. Last year's winner, Arjun Rajyagor, has yet to receive all of his prize money.

Sugar hopes the show will encourage people to start their own businesses even without his – or another investor's – backing.

In typically irascible style, Sugar does not cut the young apprentices any slack, lambasting them for claiming credit where it's not due and not being able to do basic maths. But their results are impressive and, he hopes, inspirational.

"We want to show you can start something from nothing and get away from this culture of university, then gap year for two years, then go and get a job at some consultancy, then go on the dole," he said.

'Dirty Girl' star Juno Temple fashions success

"I dress like such a bag lady every day. But I always have good underwear on," says the up-and-coming actress, 22, who plays an obnoxiously sweet strumpet in Dirty Girl, now in theaters.
Should the acting thing not pan out for Temple, she has a backup plan.
"I'd be designing clothes. I want to design lingerie at some point. I've been fascinated by lingerie since I was 15 or 16," she says. "I'm not a huge makeup person. But I pick out my underwear. As a woman, we have so many beautiful curves and shapes and such power in our body. Our sexuality is delicious."
In the meantime, Temple, the daughter of filmmaker Julien Temple, is keeping busy in front of the camera. In Dirty Girl, she's Danielle, seemingly outrageous yet internally sensitive and seeking to connect with her missing father.
On Oct. 21, she's a young royal opposite Orlando Bloom in The Three Musketeers. Next summer, she's in the hotly anticipated but hush-hush final installment of Christopher Nolan's Batman series, The Dark Knight Rises. "It's so cool to be a part of it. I didn't have any expectations," she says. "I just enjoyed it."
After getting her sea legs with supporting roles in Atonement and Notes on a Scandal, does Temple feel like this is her breakout moment? "Oh, God, I don't know. You don't sit there and think about it. You're always trying to fight for the job you want. You don't sit there and think, 'I've got it made.' People might not like your movie. I might move to Cuba in a year and change my name. Who knows? I just hope I keep working."
Acting, Temple says, is a job she loves. And one that has its perks for someone as style-conscious as she is.
"The first time I made money for a movie, I went into Miu Miu and I bought a tweed coat that fit me like a glove," she says. "It has a pleat in the back, and the entire bottom is covered in studs. I had to have it. I bought it. That was my first major purchase. I wore that thing to death. I've had that since I was 17."

Wall Street Journal circulation scam claims senior Murdoch executive

One of Rupert Murdoch's most senior European executives has resigned following Guardian inquiries about a circulation scam at News Corporation's flagship newspaper, the Wall Street Journal.

The Guardian found evidence that the Journal had been channelling money through European companies in order to secretly buy thousands of copies of its own paper at a knock-down rate, misleading readers and advertisers about the Journal's true circulation.

The bizarre scheme included a formal, written contract in which the Journal persuaded one company to co-operate by agreeing to publish articles that promoted its activities, a move which led some staff to accuse the paper's management of violating journalistic ethics and jeopardising its treasured reputation for editorial quality.

Internal emails and documents suggest the scam was promoted by Andrew Langhoff, the European managing director of the Journal's parent company, Dow Jones and Co, which was bought by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation in July 2007. Langhoff resigned on Tuesday.

The highly controversial activities were organised in London and focused on the Journal's European edition, which circulates in the EU, Russia, and Africa. Senior executives in New York, including Murdoch's right-hand man, Les Hinton, were alerted to the problems last year by an internal whistleblower and apparently chose to take no action. The whistleblower was then made redundant.

In what appears to have been a damage limitation exercise following the Guardian's inquiries, Langhoff resigned on Tuesday, citing only the complaints of unethical interference in editorial coverage. Neither he nor an article published last night in the Wall Street Journal made any reference to the circulation scam nor to the fact that the senior management of Dow Jones in New York failed to act when they were alerted last year.

The affair will add weight to the fears of shareholders in Murdoch's parent company, NewsCorp, that the business has become a 'rogue corporation', operating outside normal rules. Some shareholders have launched a legal action in the US, attacking the Murdoch family after the phone-hacking scandal at the News of the World and following lawsuits in which NewsCorp subsidiaries have been accused of hacking into competitors' computers and stealing their customers.

The Journal's decision to secretly purchase its own papers began with an unusual scheme to boost circulation, known as the Future Leadership Institute. Starting in January 2008, the Journal linked up with European companies who sponsored seminars for university students who were likely to be future leaders. The Journal rewarded the sponsors by publishing their names in a special panel published in the paper. The sponsors paid for that publicity by buying copies of the Journal at a knock-down rate of no more than 5￠ each. Those papers were then distributed to university students. At the bottom line, the sponsors enjoyed a prestigious link to the Journal, and the Journal boosted its circulation figures.

The scheme was controversial. The sponsoring companies were not reading the papers they were paying for; they were never even seeing them; and they were buying at highly reduced rates. The students to whom they were distributed may or may not have read them; none of the students paid for the papers they were being offered. But the Audit Bureau of Circulation ruled that the scheme was legitimate and by 2010, it was responsible for 41% of the European edition's daily sales – 31,000 copies out of a total of 75,000.

In early 2010 the scheme began to run into trouble when the biggest single sponsor, a Dutch company called Executive Learning Partnership, ELP, threatened to back out. ELP alone were responsible for 16% of the Journal's European circulation, sponsoring 12,000 copies a day for which they were paying only 1￠ per copy. For the 259 publishing days in a year, they were sponsoring 3.1m copies at a cost to them of €31,080 (￡27,200). They complained that the publicity they were receiving was not enough return on their investment.

On 9 April 2010, Andrew Langhoff emailed ELP to table a new deal, explaining that "our clear goal is to add a new component to our partnership" and offering to "provide a well-branded showcase for ELP's valuable services". On 30 April, ELP agreed to continue to sponsor 12,000 copies at the same rate. But that deal included a new eight-page addendum, which the Guardian has seen.

The addendum included a collection of side deals: the Journal would give ELP free advertising and, in exchange, the ELP would produce "leadership videos" for them; they would jointly organise more seminars and workshops on themes connected to ELP's work; but, crucially, Langhoff agreed that the Journal would publish "a minimum of three special reports" that would be based on surveys of the European market which ELP would run with the Journal's help.

It is this agreement that is now being cited as the reason for Langhoff's resignation on Tuesday. It led to the Journal publishing a full-page feature on 14 October 2010 that reported a survey conducted by ELP about the use of social media in business, quoting ELP's chief executive at length. The story carried no warning for readers that it was the result of a deal between the Journal and ELP, nor that ELP were sponsoring 16% of the paper's European circulation. Similarly, there were no warnings attached to a second story, published on 14 March 2011, which consisted of an interview with one of ELP's senior partners, Ann de Jaeger, about the role of women in company boardrooms.

The ELP deal continued to cause more serious problems. Some Journal staff complained the agreement to run stories promoting ELP was unethical. On 12 July 2010, one London executive emailed that "some elements of the deal do not fit easily within best practice, brand guidelines and company policy". Others warned about the quality of the surveys on which the stories were to be based.

By the autumn of 2010, ELP were complaining that the Journal was failing to deliver its end of the agreement. They threatened not to make a payment of €15,000 that was due at the end of December, for the copies of the Journal which they had sponsored since April 30. Without the payment, the Journal could not officially record the sales and their circulation figures would suddenly dive by 16%, undermining the confidence of advertisers and readers.

So Langhoff set up a complex scheme to channel money to ELP to pay for the papers it had agreed to buy – effectively buying the papers with the Journal's own cash. This involved the use of other companies although it is not suggested that they were aware they were taking part in a scam.

The best-documented example involves an Indian technology company, HCL, who had separately agreed to pay the Journal €16,000 to organise a special event at the Grosvenor House hotel in London on 30 September 2010. Langhoff proposed that instead of paying the Journal, HCL should pass some of this money to a middleman – a Belgian publishing company – who would then pass it on to ELP.

Invoices and emails seen by the Guardian show that in November 2010, ELP sent two invoices, for €2,000 and €6,000, to the Belgian publishers of a magazine called Banking and Finance. The Belgians duly paid €8,000 to ELP, even though ELP had not provided any goods or services for which they owed this money. According to the invoices, however, the magazine were paying ELP sponsorship money for an event run by the Journal in the Belgian towns of Bree and Schilde in November 2010.

The Belgian magazine was sent €2,000 by HCL. A second payment of €6,000 was never made because HCL fell into dispute with the Journal. In December 2010, as part of an attempt to persuade the Journal to pay them the missing €6,000, the Belgian publishers' managing director, Michel Klompmaker, signed a formal letter that "hereby states that there has never been a contract between us and ELP regarding the sponsorship of a Wall Street Journal Bree/Schilde summit for €6,000. We agreed to be a facilitator in a payment process between the Journal, HCL and ELP per request of the Journal".

An email from Andrew Langhoff on 26 November 2010 includes a diagram that indicates money was channelled to ELP through two other middlemen. This suggests that Langhoff wanted €15,000 sent to ELP via a Belgian company called Think Media, which sells space on billboards. An invoice dated 2 December 2010, shows that ELP invoiced Think Media for €15,000. An email from 20 December shows that Think Media had paid the €15,000 to ELP. In a series of phone calls and emails to Think Media, the Guardian put it to the company that ELP had provided no goods or services in exchange for this payment, and that the payment was made at the request of the Journal. Think Media declined to respond.

The same diagram suggests Langhoff wanted a further €2,000 channelled to ELP through a Belgian technology company, Nayan, which had occasionally sponsored Journal events. Nayan confirmed to the Guardian that they had paid ELP €2,000 in December 2010. They say they understood that ELP were owed this money by the Journal because they had put in some work on a Journal event, and that Nayan paid it as part of their agreement to sponsor the event. A Journal source with direct knowledge of the event says that Nayan were misled by the paper, and that ELP provided no services at the event for which they were due to be paid.

While these payments were being made, a whistleblower from the Journal in Europe contacted the management of Dow Jones in New York and alerted them to the circulation scam and to the controversial agreement to publish articles promoting ELP. Emails seen by the Guardian indicate that the whistleblower's complaint was seen by New York executives, including Les Hinton – then the chief executive of Dow Jones and a close confidant of Rupert Murdoch. Hinton resigned in July in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal at the News of the World.

The emails show that the chief human resources officer for Dow Jones, Gregory Giangrande, organised a meeting in London on 14 December at which the whistleblower detailed his allegations to a Dow Jones lawyer from New York, Tom Maher, and Dow Jones' European human resources executive Carol Bosack.

After the meeting, Bosack emailed the whistleblower: "You are expected to keep details and your reaction or beliefs about the recent events confidential and not shared with anyone external or internal to the business. This matter is to be kept between us, Andrew [Langhoff], Internal Audit and Corporate Legal." No action was apparently taken at that time on the whistleblower's allegations. The whistleblower, who had worked for Dow Jones for 9 years, was made redundant in January.

According to one source, recent Guardian inquiries among former Journal staff and companies who were involved in the payments to ELP "caused a panic" at Dow Jones, resulting in Andrew Langhoff's resignation on Tuesday.

The Wall Street Journal last night reported that Langhoff's resignation "following an internal investigation into two articles published in the Wall Street Journal Europe that featured a company with a contractual link to the paper's circulation department."

It quoted an email sent to staff yesterday by Langhoff about the agreement to publish the ELP stories: "Because the agreement could leave the impression that news coverage can be influenced by commercial relationships, as publisher with executive oversight, I believe that my resignation is now the most honorable course." Disclaimers have now been added to the two stories, warning readers that the "impetus" for the stories was an agreement between the Journal's circulation department and ELP.

Asked about the payments from the Journal to ELP via the various middlemen, the chairman of ELP, Nick van Heck, said it was the company's policy not to make public comment on their contracts. He added: "I am confident that every member of our staff is fully aware of the European norms, which are very rigid when it comes to accounting. I'm pretty confident that what we did was in line with the law."

On Tuesday afternoon Dow Jones issued a statement saying said it initiated the original investigation into the deals in question and the employees involved in late 2010. "The circulation programs and the copies associated with ELP were legitimate and appropriate, and the agreement was shared with ABC UK before the deal was signed," the statement said. "All circulation periods during the ELP arrangement have been certified."

"We came to the conclusion that ELP was only compensated for valid services; however, we were uncomfortable with the appearance of these programs and the manner in which they were arranged. We subsequently eliminated the position of one of the employees responsible for those deals in January 2011.

"At this point, we no longer have relationships with the employees or third parties directly involved in these agreements, and we continue to believe that these deals were valid. They were however of poor appearance. We were not fully aware of the details of the editorial component of the relationship until last week, when we immediately took action."

Rift splits real-life Downton: Heir to Carnarvon estate has yet to meet his maternal grandmother

As events in ITV’s Downton Abbey unfold at almost breakneck speed, there is an even more dramatic storyline being played out by the real-life occupiers of Lord Grantham’s fictional stately pile.
It concerns the eldest children of the Earl of Carnarvon, whose 400-year-old family seat Highclere Castle is where the drama starring Michelle Dockery is filmed, who to this day have never met their maternal grandmother.
The children - George, 19, who will one day inherit the Carnarvon title, and Saoirse, 20 - are from the Earl’s first marriage to Jayne Wilby. They married in 1989 in a lavish ceremony at Highclere attended by the Queen and Princess Margaret.
The marriage ended in divorce in 1998, and Carnarvon married his second wife, Fiona, with whom he has a son, Edward, 11, in 1999.
But because of a family rift, Jayne’s mother, Princess Frances Colonna di Stigliano, has never set eyes on her grandchildren.
Speaking from Clonmannon, her Georgian estate in County Wicklow, Ireland, Frances, 71, tells me: ‘I have been watching Downton Abbey and remember Highclere very well. I was only there for Jayne’s wedding which I paid for. I haven’t spoken to Jayne for more than 22 years.
‘It is all tremendously sad. She was the most lovely daughter. I adored her. But now I don’t have anything to do with her. I’d rather not say the reason.’
The rift stems from the estate belonging to her father, racehorse owner Ken Wilby, which he left to Frances and his children. Friends say Jayne and her brothers, David and Charles, accused their mother of selling off chunks of the estate.
Frances had also divorced their father and when she formalised her civil marriage to Italian aristocrat Prince Prospero in 1991, Jayne refused to go.
Asked about the matter, Jayne has said: ‘I don’t want to talk about it. I made a pact with my brothers we all agreed it was better if there was no mudslinging.’
Meanwhile, Frances has not given up hope of a rapprochement: ‘I would love to meet George and Saoirse. I am in touch with Lord Carnarvon but there is little sign of any change of mind from Jayne.’

Battle of the Smithsonian: Protesters squirted in face with pepper spray as Washington museum is closed after attempt to storm it

The National Air and Space Museum in Washington was closed Saturday after anti-war demonstrators swarmed the building to protest a drone exhibit and security guards used pepper spray to repel them.
Smithsonian spokesman John Gibbons said a large group of demonstrators, estimated at 100 to 200 people, arrived at about 3 p.m. and tried to enter the National Mall museum.
The protest came as thousands of anti-greed protesters descended on New York's Washington Square Park today in the latest Occupy Wall Street rally.
The crowd of about 3,000 flooded the iconic park and used slogans likening themselves to the 'Arab Spring' demonstrations that have toppled several Middle East regimes.
A showdown was looming, however, as protesters standing face-to-face with police officers, who are thought to be considering imposing a curfew at midnight.
When a security guard stopped group members from entering, saying they could not bring in signs, he was apparently held by demonstrators, Gibbons said.
A second guard who arrived used pepper spray on at least one person and the crowd dispersed, he added.
A number of groups have been demonstrating in the city in the past week.
The group that arrived at the museum Saturday included individuals taking part in the October 2011 Stop the Machine demonstration in the city's Freedom Plaza, which has an anti-war and anti-corporate greed message.
The group also included protesters affiliated with Occupy D.C., a group modelled on the Occupy Wall Street protests in New York City.
Occupy D.C. has been holding marches and meetings in Washington's McPherson Square.
David Swanson, 41, of Charlottesville, Virginia, said he was among dozens of people sickened by the pepper spray.
He said he got sick even though he was outside the building when the spraying began.
'I began choking and vomiting and got a headache,' Swanson said.
One speaker at the New York rally urged the crowd to squat in empty or abandoned buildings.
She shouted: 'There are foreclosed homes, empty school buildings that should be made available to all. Occupy everything.'
Officers kept a close eye on the protest but by late Saturday afternoon there were no reports of violence or arrests.
Police fenced off grassy areas in the park, and put up 10-foot high chain link fences around public bathrooms before the march from Zuccotti Park to Washington Square began.
Group spokesman Patrick Bruner said there were no plans to force a confrontation with police.
Officers, however, seem determined to enforce a curfew and prevent protesters from camping out there as they have done for weeks at Zuccotti Park, the New York Post reports.
One protest organizer Justine Tunney, 26, said: 'We plan to stay in Washington Square Park and form a second permanent occupation.'
The NYPD said it hadn’t issued any permits for today’s rally.
Bruner said demonstrators have never applied for a permit - and don’t plan to.
He said: 'We don’t think it’s right that you need permission to peacefully assemble.'
The protesters are angry about the 2008 Wall Street bailout that they say allowed banks to reap huge profits while average Americans suffered high unemployment and job insecurity.
More than 700 people were arrested last Saturday when thousands of the protesters tried to get across the Brooklyn Bridge and spilled on to the roadway.
Dozens more were arrested at the biggest rally so far on Wednesday when about 5,000 people marched on Wall Street.
The demonstrators are also campaigning against other social and economic inqualities, including the gap between rich and poor, as well as what they regard as a corrupt political system.
The protest movement has now to more than 100 cities coast to coast.

Big boys should cry: College football players who shed tears have higher self-esteem, study shows

It's an alpha male world of tough tackles and stoic demeanours, where crying is often seen as a sign of weakness.

But college footballers who are at ease with tears have higher self-esteem, research shows.

Although players feel pressure to conform to some male stereotypes, those who feel it’s fine to cry after losing a game are happier than those who think emotions should be kept in check, the study discovered.
The findings come from Psychology of Men & Masculinity, published by the American Psychological Association.

'Overall, college football players who… are emotionally expressive are more likely to have a mental edge on and off the field,' said psychologist Jesse Steinfeldt, PhD, of Indiana University-Bloomington, a co-authored of the study.

In one part of the study, researchers surveyed 150 college football players from two universities with an average age of 19.
The players in the experiment were mostly white and played for one of two teams, one from the NCAA Division II and the other at the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics level.

They were randomly assigned to four groups to read different vignettes about 'Jack' – a football player who cries after a football game.
In the short stories, Jack either sobs or tears up after his team loses or wins.

Those who read about Jack tearing up after losing thought his behaviour was appropriate, but drew the line at his sobbing.

The players also said they were more likely to tear up than sob if they were in Jack's situation.
Players who read scenarios in which Jack sobs after losing a game said his reaction was more typical among football players than the players who read that Jack sobs after his team won the game.

'In 2009, the news media disparaged University of Florida quarterback Tim Tebow for crying on the sidelines after losing a big game, even labeling him Tim 'Tearbow,'' said psychologist Y. Joel Wong, PhD, the study's lead author.

'However, the college football players in our study who believed Jack's crying was appropriate had higher self-esteem.

In contrast, players who believed Jack's crying was inappropriate yet felt they would likely cry in Jack's situation had lower self-esteem.'

In another experiment at the same colleges, researchers surveyed 153 football players, also mostly white and with an average age of 19.
The researchers asked the players if they felt pressured to act a certain way because society expects men to be powerful and competitive, and to show little emotion and affection in front of other men.

Other studies have shown that this type of pressure to conform can lead to poor self-esteem and disruptive behaviour.

The researchers also asked the players about their overall life satisfaction and how they expressed emotions on and off the field.

The study found players do feel pressure to conform to these gender roles. But players who were never affectionate toward their teammates were less satisfied with life.

Mr Steinfeldt said that the footballers 'acknowledged some masculine stereotype pressures, and previous research has shown that can have a negative impact on a player's psyche.'

With Chris Christie not running for president, will Mitt Romney or Rick Perry prosper?

With New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie forgoing a run for the Republican presidential nomination, two questions hold the key to the future of the GOP race: Can Mitt Romney finally expand his support within the party, and can Rick Perry bounce back?
As the primary season kicks into gear, Republican presidential hopefuls are hitting the road and meeting voters in Iowa , New Hampshire and other early primary states.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie says he will not run for president in 2012. Heavily courted by Republican donors, he says, "I have a commitment to New Jersey that I simply will not abandon."

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie says he will not run for president in 2012. Heavily courted by Republican donors, he says, "I have a commitment to New Jersey that I simply will not abandon."

Christie’s announcement Tuesday that he will not join the race, while not unexpected, probably ended a long period in which many Republicans spent as much time dreaming about a candidate who wasn’t in the contest as focusing on those who were. Only former Alaska governor Sarah Palin remains as a possible late entrant, and time and interest in her candidacy are quickly running out.

“The campaign just got a whole lot more real,” said Todd Harris, a Republican strategist. “No more hypotheticals about this or that person swooping in to save the day. The field is set, and it’s not going to change. The race has been frozen in place while everyone waited to see what Christie was going to do. Now we know, and it’s time to resume the clock.”

The comings and goings of potential candidates have obscured what has long been the reality of the Republican race: that it has been two contests in one. The first was all about Romney and whether he could persuade a reluctant party to embrace his candidacy. So far he hasn’t. That highlights the importance of the second contest, which is the campaign among the other candidates to become the principal alternative to Romney.

The courtship of Christie spoke to a wider problem for the Republicans. At a time when they view President Obama as extremely vulnerable, they are caught up in an internal debate about which candidate most expresses the heart and soul of conservatism and whether that person is best equipped to win a general election.

That has produced fluctuations in support for contenders who appear to speak for the tea party activists, starting with Rep. Michele Bachmann (Minn.), followed by Perry and more recently by businessman Herman Cain. But the gyrating polls highlight the degree to which the Republican race, though just three months away from the first votes in Iowa and New Hampshire, is still taking shape.

Christie’s decision was welcome news for Romney and Perry. Romney will now have a fresh opportunity to consolidate support among established Republicans who have been keeping their options open. The former Massachusetts governor also will have a freer hand to pursue some major fundraisers who have stayed on the sidelines looking for a seemingly more appealing candidate.

There was at least one immediate dividend on Tuesday. Ken Langone, a Home Depot co-founder and GOP fundraiser who was the prime mover behind the effort to persuade Christie to run, signed up with Romney. Also joining was Georgette Mosbacher, longtime GOP fundraiser and co-chairman of the Republican National Committee’s finance committee. Others appear ready to jump aboard in the next few days.

Perry’s campaign, which started quickly, has hit a rough patch. He has fallen into a tie for second place with Cain in the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll. Christie’s decision offers the Texas governor a better chance to regroup and emerge as Romney’s main challenger once the primaries and caucuses begin in January and the voters start to winnow the field.