LONDON 2012: Aerial photos show Olympic Park is 90 percent completed

Posted: Thursday 22nd December 2011 | 23:51

By Sportsbeat staff

LONDON 2012's Olympic Park is over 90 percent complete, with new aerial photos showing the progress of the multi-billion project just over seven months before next year's Games.

PROGRESS: Aerial photos show the progress made at London 2012's Olympic Park with just over seven months to go until the Games (Locog via Getty Images)

Six of the seven competition venues, including the main stadium, aquatic centre and velodrome, are completed while the ?1bn Olympic Village is on course to be handed over to organisers early next year.

The two-year planting programme completed last month has created the UK's largest new urban park for more than a century, with 4,000 semi-mature trees, over 300,000 wetland plants and more than ten football fields worth of meadows planted.

?The building of the venues and infrastructure for the London 2012 Games is well over 90 per cent complete," said Olympic Delivery Authority chairman John Armitt.?

"It is thanks to the expertise of the construction industry that this has been achieved ? transforming a run-down area into the setting for the world?s greatest sporting event and creating new communities that will live and thrive long after the athletes have gone home.?

The year drawing to a close was the ODA?s busiest, with the workforce peaking and the bulk of the project delivered - on time and within budget.?

"In 2012 we will complete our task, finishing the Olympic Village, Water Polo Arena, shooting venue at Woolwich and parklands, as we work alongside the Organising Committee to prepare for next summer.?

Meanwhile, Locog chairman Seb Coe will look to upcoming early New Year test events on the park, including cycling's UCI World Cup and the British Gas Swimming Championships, as key indicators of his organisation's preparedness for the Games.

?A huge amount has been achieved over the past 12 months with iconic new venues completed and test events bringing world-class sport to the Olympic Park for the first time," he said.?

"We still have much to do but there is growing excitement as we count down to the Games next summer."

??Sportsbeat 2011

Source: http://www.morethanthegames.co.uk/london-2012/2216101-london-2012-aerial-photos-show-olympic-park-90-percent-completed

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Occupy Berkeley campers face imminent eviction (Reuters)

BERKELEY, Calif (Reuters) ? Anti-Wall Street activists who have camped out since October in the college town of Berkeley, across the bay from San Francisco, braced for an eviction that city officials warned would be enforced late Wednesday night.

The city distributed flyers announcing plans to shut down the Occupy Berkeley encampment at Civic Center Park starting at 10 p.m. local time, citing an escalating rash of violence and other criminal behavior in recent weeks, capped by an attempted rape on Tuesday.

As the eviction deadline passed, a number of protesters were seen packing up their tents and belongings and leaving on their own, while others milled about waiting for police to arrive.

But police, whose headquarters sits just across the street from the park, remained out of sight as of 11:30 p.m., leaving protesters who lingered to speculate that a raid on the camp might not come until the wee hours of Thursday morning.

Some campers stood around a 12-foot Christmas tree erected in the middle of the park and adorned with electric lights powered by a car battery.

The camp is one of few remaining high-profile redoubts of a 3-month-old Occupy Wall Street movement that sprung up in parks and other public spaces across the United States to protest economic inequality, high unemployment and the excesses of a financial system seen as favoring the wealthy.

A sister Occupy protest on the nearby campus of the University of California at Berkeley, a cradle of 1960s student activism, was broken up in November by campus police who struck some students and faculty members with nightsticks.

Most of the larger protest camps in cities such as New York and Los Angeles were shut down by police in recent weeks.

Only about 25 tents remained at Berkeley's Civic Center Park Wednesday night, about half of the number pitched during the height of the encampment, which began on Oct 8.

Few of the demonstrators who spoke with reporters appeared to be actually still camping there, and some acknowledged that the compound had attracted a large number of homeless individuals and mentally ill people in recent days.

Miles Murray, a high school teacher who has been showing up at the camp on a daily basis after work since October, said the problems seen at the camp exist "all over society."

"The fact that the cops are going to roll through here tonight does upset me," he said. "I wish it was an army of social workers and rehab and housing and actual compassion."

The closure notice, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters, warned that anybody found in the park after 10 p.m. on Wednesday, whether camping or not, would be subject to arrest.

City officials also distributed a list of emergency homeless shelters along with the park closure notice, city spokeswoman Mary Kay Clunies-Ross said.

Protest organizers issued a "call to action" in the wake of the announcement, asking for supporters to congregate at the protest site in advance of the expected closure, but the turnout was relatively light, with no more than about 150 people in all visible late Wednesday night.

(Additional reporting by Mary Slosson; Writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Doina Chiacu)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/us/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111222/us_nm/us_protest_berkeley

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Kenya HIV families torn between health or food (AP)

NAIROBI, Kenya ? Rosalia Adhiambo won't take the free anti-HIV drugs that would prolong her life. The spiraling price of food in Kenya means she can't afford to feed both her grandniece and herself.

So she feeds 5-year-old Emily and doesn't take her own medicine, fearing that the nausea she would get from taking the drugs without adequate food will make her too weak to look for work.

Prices for staple foods this year are almost twice as high as in 2009, the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization says. The rising prices and a dwindling of funds for HIV programs mean countless poor families must decide whether to focus on the health of an HIV-positive adult or on a child's hunger.

Valerian Kamito, a nurse at the clinic that gives Adhiambo her food, says some patients are refusing to start treatment for HIV and around a quarter of his 1,555 patients on anti-HIV drugs are now skipping their medication.

"They say they cannot take them on an empty stomach," Kamito said. Before prices rose, he said, "it was very rare."

HIV-positive adults need 10 percent more calories than other people just to maintain their body weight. Children with HIV need between 30 percent to 50 percent more calories than other children. They will lose weight and be vulnerable to infections without those calories, said nutritionist Kate Greenaway from the aid agency Catholic Relief Services.

Annual inflation in Kenya is around 20 percent, but wages haven't kept pace. Around half of Kenyans live on less than $2 a day, including 52-year-old Adhiambo, who makes $1 each day she does housework.

"When there is nothing to eat, we go to bed hungry. I tell Emily it is because God did not send us food today," said Adhiambo, motioning to a cardboard picture of Jesus on the wall of their corrugated iron shack.

"Emily stands before that picture and prays, 'God, please remember to send us food tomorrow,'" said Adhiambo.

She had work for two weeks last month, but the younger women get most of the jobs. Adhiambo relies on her daily free meal of rice, beans and vegetables from a clinic run by Catholic Relief Services in the Mathare slum, though she sometimes misses that if she is searching for work. The staff there are trying to persuade her to take her anti-HIV drugs.

But Adhiambo carries the food home and gives most of it to Emily, who isn't signed up for the CRS program, though workers there are trying to get her into it. The bright-eyed little girl in the torn blue dress is almost all that's left of Adhiambo's family. Adhiambo's brother, two sisters and husband are all dead. Emily's mother is alive, but ill. She refuses to be tested. Emily has been tested and is HIV positive.

Adhiambo needs to take drugs called anti-retrovirals, or ARVs, and so will Emily. Taken regularly, the medicine can prolong life by years, possibly decades. But if taken sporadically, the medicine will lose its effectiveness.

Patients say the medicine can cause nausea, fatigue, and diarrhea at first, especially if there is no food to go with it, said Greenaway. The drugs also cause a ravenous hunger as the body starts to recover. Adhiambo, afraid that the side effects will prevent her from working, refuses to take the pills.

The clinic gives 400 of its patients, Adhiambo among them, "prescribed food" to eat with their medicines so they'll continue the treatment. But most take the meals home to share with their families, said Kamito. The program has a long waiting list. The financial crisis means there is no money to expand it.

Globally, there has been around a 10 percent decline in HIV/AIDS funding, said Michel Sidibe, the UNAIDS executive director. The world's top funder of public health programs ? the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria ? has disbursed $15 billion since 2002, but it cannot afford to pay for any new or expanded programs until 2014.

Poverty, meanwhile, continues to eat at the gains made by modern medicine in fighting HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

Twenty to 30 percent of HIV-positive patients in the developing world drop out in the first two years of treatment, said Nils Grede, the deputy chief of the World Food Program's nutrition and HIV/AIDS unit.

"Barriers to continue the treatment ... are often related to poverty. You don't have the money to pay for the bus, you don't have enough food, so you spend your time on trying to make sure that your family eats," Grede told The Associated Press in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

"People adhere much better to drug regimens when there is food," said Greenaway. "But in poor families, that might mean mothers who want to stay strong have to decide whether to take something from their children's plates."

Adhiambo's neighbor Ishmael Abongo, a 35-year-old father of four, must do just that. He and his wife Mary are both HIV positive, as is one of their sons. The whole family shares the clinic's food. When he has found work, Abongo takes a bit of porridge from dinner and saves it for the morning so he isn't too dizzy for a two-hour bus journey.

"I know it is important to take the drugs," he said.

He recounted knowing four people who did not take the pills because they had no food. They are now all dead, Abongo said.

A clinic social worker visited Adhiambo in her tiny shack in December, trying to persuade her to take her medication or risk dying, and leaving Emily with no family to care for her. But Adhiambo was more worried about their present situation.

"What will happen to her if I take these drugs and I get sick?" Adhiambo asked, adding that if she can't work or even walk because of side effects from the medicine they won't have any food.

Eventually, Adhiambo stood up. She needed to find some clothes or a floor that needed washing. She was two months behind with the rent ? $15 a month ? and could be evicted.

The white-winged Jesus that Emily prays to was shown in the picture walking through a garden, nothing like the smelly alley outside the shack.

Words below picture said: "May my prayers come before you, that you heal me according to your will."

___

Associated Press writer Luc van Kemenade in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia contributed to this report.

___

Follow Katharine Houreld at http://twitter.com/khoureld

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/health/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111222/ap_on_he_me/af_kenya_hiv_no_food

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Verizon To Launch a Home Media Server In 2012, Plans To Eliminate Set-Top Box

Verizon will be rolling out a new Media Server product for its FiOS customers late next year, which will be a single hardware device that will eventually eliminate the need for a set-top box altogether. The server will be capable of streaming HD TV to all devices in the home, including the TV, of course, but also gaming systems, mobile devices and tablets like the iPad. Although the company has not officially announced details, timeframe or pricing, we were given a sneak peek into the company's plans.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/e9TBZb20FKQ/

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Sinaloa cartel OK's Mexico's newest drug ballads (AP)

NAUCALPAN, Mexico ? Trumpets and trombones blast across a rodeo ring where women in miniskirts dance with men in cowboy hats and gold chains. Some fans try to climb onto the stage while others whoop to the deafening music and sing along to an outlaw ballad about one of the most-wanted criminal suspects in North America, an alleged drug kingpin.

"We take care of El Mayo

"Here no one betrays him...

"We stay tough with AK-47s and bazookas at the neck

"Chopping heads off as they come

"We're bloody-thirsty crazy men

"Who like to kill."

At the microphone is Alfredo Rios, whose stage name is "The Komander." He's a singer of Movimiento Alterado ? "Altered Movement" in English ? a new commercial brand of "narcocorrido" ballads that bluntly describe drug violence to the oompah beat of Mexico's norteno music.

The songs are filled with unusually explicit lyrics about decapitations and torture, and praise for one drug gang in particular: the Sinaloa cartel and its bosses, Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada and Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman.

The increasingly popular music is banned on radio stations in parts of Mexico but is heavily promoted over the Internet. It is the brainchild of twin brothers based in Burbank, California, who have long turned to the Sinaloa cartel for artistic inspiration. They won a Grammy award in 2008 for producing an artist who goes by the name of "El Chapo de Sinaloa."

Omar Valenzuela says the music not only tells of the violent world of the Sinaloa cartel, but has received its blessing at least once, when the producers worried about the group's reaction to a song about Manuel Torres, allegedly a top hit man for Zambada.

"We looked for them and asked for permission," Valenzuela said. "We sent them the song and they told us it was OK to release the song. We were afraid. They told us through their people that we were authorized to release any song. Sometimes people can get offended. We didn't want any problems."

The song since then has been downloaded 5 million times from the company website, Valenzuela said, and the accompanying video, which tells of how much gunmen working for Torres enjoy killing, has been watched more than 13 million times on YouTube.

Rios and Valenzuela deny any direct relationship with any cartel, and say they don't receive any money from the gangs. "I wish they were putting in money to promote (the music)," Valenzuela said with a laugh.

For Jose Manuel Valenzuela, an expert on narcocorridos at Mexico's College of the Northern Border, the success of the Movimiento Alterado's music shows that drug traffickers have become more socially acceptable in many circles.

"The social presence of drug trafficking helps this music circulate, and this is also made easier by the easy access to it through the Internet," said Valenzuela, who is not related to the twins.

The new music was born in Culiacan, capital of the Pacific coast state of Sinaloa. The fact that the bands Valenzuela promotes sing exclusively about the Sinaloa cartel has mostly to do with geography, he said.

"In Culiacan, you can't sing about anyone else because they are from here," he said referring to the Sinaloa cartel. "Singing about the Zetas it's not even something you think about. Someone could complain. Nobody wants any trouble."

The Zetas gang, which had its beginning in the border state of Tamaulipas, across the border from Texas, is fighting the Sinaloa cartel for control of drug traffic routes. The battle has caused many of the roughly 40,000 drug war deaths since Mexican President Felipe Calderon ramped up the military offensive on cartels as he took office in 2006.

Some Movimiento Alterado musicians wear camouflage and bulletproof vests on stage and some have names clearly alluding to the Sinaloa cartel, such as Los Mayitos, referring to Zambada's nickname, or The Buchones, as the new rich who made their fortunes in drug trafficking are called in Sinaloa.

That identification can bring dangers.

Gunmen attacked the car of one of the Movimiento's singers, Gerardo Ortiz, in March in the western state of Colima. He survived but his representative and driver were killed.

Valenzuela said the violent lyrics merely describe the times.

The narcos "are cutting heads, and they are more bloodthirsty," he said. "It's in the news every day. If (the ballads) didn't speak about that, they would sound false. If a ballad doesn't express today's language it sounds old."

That's not a new phenomenon: Popular singers from early English troubadours to American gangsta rappers have treated violent outlaws sympathetically.

Movimiento Alterado's boom began in 2009 when the Valenzuela brothers recorded songs by two bands and released them on the Internet because radio stations wouldn't play them. In the states of Sinaloa and Baja California, it's illegal to play songs that advocate drug trafficking on the radio. In May, Sinaloa state Gov. Mario Lopez Valdez went further and banned them at bars and public places. In Chihuahua state, radio stations agreed not to play them.

But on the Internet, the songs are downloaded by the tens of thousands and Movimiento Alterado bands fill dirt-floor rodeo rings and swanky auditoriums across Mexico and the United States.

"The biggest market for this music is in Los Angeles because there we still sell CDs," Valenzuela said.

They also have greater media exposure there. The bilingual Mun2 cable channel of NBCUniversal Inc. ran a reality series, Los Twiins, about the brothers last year. It showed them developing new artists, such as Rios, and featured a guest appearance by Snoop Dogg.

Most of the albums are recorded in Los Angeles at Twiins Enterprises studios, though the Valenzuelas say some are recorded in Culiacan.

Back at the rodeo ring in Naucalpan, on the northwest edge of Mexico City, it was 3 a.m. and the crowd was getting impatient waiting for the star of the night. Finally, the MC announced "the king of the Movimiento Alterado."

Dressed in a black shirt and black pants, Rios looked the part of a pop singer. He invited the audience "to drink solid." The women cheered, and men offered him a drink from their whiskey bottles. The music went on until close to dawn.

Rios doesn't sing about drug traffickers. He sings as if he is one.

"Honestly, I don't like guns, in the first place because I'm not very good at using them," he said. "What I like is playing a role, like in a video game called 'The Executioner.' I play the executioner."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/music/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111222/ap_en_mu/lt_mexico_drug_ballads

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Sinaloa cartel OK's Mexico's newest drug ballads (AP)

NAUCALPAN, Mexico ? Trumpets and trombones blast across a rodeo ring where women in miniskirts dance with men in cowboy hats and gold chains. Some fans try to climb onto the stage while others whoop to the deafening music and sing along to an outlaw ballad about one of the most-wanted criminal suspects in North America, an alleged drug kingpin.

"We take care of El Mayo

"Here no one betrays him...

"We stay tough with AK-47s and bazookas at the neck

"Chopping heads off as they come

"We're bloody-thirsty crazy men

"Who like to kill."

At the microphone is Alfredo Rios, whose stage name is "The Komander." He's a singer of Movimiento Alterado ? "Altered Movement" in English ? a new commercial brand of "narcocorrido" ballads that bluntly describe drug violence to the oompah beat of Mexico's norteno music.

The songs are filled with unusually explicit lyrics about decapitations and torture, and praise for one drug gang in particular: the Sinaloa cartel and its bosses, Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada and Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman.

The increasingly popular music is banned on radio stations in parts of Mexico but is heavily promoted over the Internet. It is the brainchild of twin brothers based in Burbank, California, who have long turned to the Sinaloa cartel for artistic inspiration. They won a Grammy award in 2008 for producing an artist who goes by the name of "El Chapo de Sinaloa."

Omar Valenzuela says the music not only tells of the violent world of the Sinaloa cartel, but has received its blessing at least once, when the producers worried about the group's reaction to a song about Manuel Torres, allegedly a top hit man for Zambada.

"We looked for them and asked for permission," Valenzuela said. "We sent them the song and they told us it was OK to release the song. We were afraid. They told us through their people that we were authorized to release any song. Sometimes people can get offended. We didn't want any problems."

The song since then has been downloaded 5 million times from the company website, Valenzuela said, and the accompanying video, which tells of how much gunmen working for Torres enjoy killing, has been watched more than 13 million times on YouTube.

Rios and Valenzuela deny any direct relationship with any cartel, and say they don't receive any money from the gangs. "I wish they were putting in money to promote (the music)," Valenzuela said with a laugh.

For Jose Manuel Valenzuela, an expert on narcocorridos at Mexico's College of the Northern Border, the success of the Movimiento Alterado's music shows that drug traffickers have become more socially acceptable in many circles.

"The social presence of drug trafficking helps this music circulate, and this is also made easier by the easy access to it through the Internet," said Valenzuela, who is not related to the twins.

The new music was born in Culiacan, capital of the Pacific coast state of Sinaloa. The fact that the bands Valenzuela promotes sing exclusively about the Sinaloa cartel has mostly to do with geography, he said.

"In Culiacan, you can't sing about anyone else because they are from here," he said referring to the Sinaloa cartel. "Singing about the Zetas it's not even something you think about. Someone could complain. Nobody wants any trouble."

The Zetas gang, which had its beginning in the border state of Tamaulipas, across the border from Texas, is fighting the Sinaloa cartel for control of drug traffic routes. The battle has caused many of the roughly 40,000 drug war deaths since Mexican President Felipe Calderon ramped up the military offensive on cartels as he took office in 2006.

Some Movimiento Alterado musicians wear camouflage and bulletproof vests on stage and some have names clearly alluding to the Sinaloa cartel, such as Los Mayitos, referring to Zambada's nickname, or The Buchones, as the new rich who made their fortunes in drug trafficking are called in Sinaloa.

That identification can bring dangers.

Gunmen attacked the car of one of the Movimiento's singers, Gerardo Ortiz, in March in the western state of Colima. He survived but his representative and driver were killed.

Valenzuela said the violent lyrics merely describe the times.

The narcos "are cutting heads, and they are more bloodthirsty," he said. "It's in the news every day. If (the ballads) didn't speak about that, they would sound false. If a ballad doesn't express today's language it sounds old."

That's not a new phenomenon: Popular singers from early English troubadours to American gangsta rappers have treated violent outlaws sympathetically.

Movimiento Alterado's boom began in 2009 when the Valenzuela brothers recorded songs by two bands and released them on the Internet because radio stations wouldn't play them. In the states of Sinaloa and Baja California, it's illegal to play songs that advocate drug trafficking on the radio. In May, Sinaloa state Gov. Mario Lopez Valdez went further and banned them at bars and public places. In Chihuahua state, radio stations agreed not to play them.

But on the Internet, the songs are downloaded by the tens of thousands and Movimiento Alterado bands fill dirt-floor rodeo rings and swanky auditoriums across Mexico and the United States.

"The biggest market for this music is in Los Angeles because there we still sell CDs," Valenzuela said.

They also have greater media exposure there. The bilingual Mun2 cable channel of NBCUniversal Inc. ran a reality series, Los Twiins, about the brothers last year. It showed them developing new artists, such as Rios, and featured a guest appearance by Snoop Dogg.

Most of the albums are recorded in Los Angeles at Twiins Enterprises studios, though the Valenzuelas say some are recorded in Culiacan.

Back at the rodeo ring in Naucalpan, on the northwest edge of Mexico City, it was 3 a.m. and the crowd was getting impatient waiting for the star of the night. Finally, the MC announced "the king of the Movimiento Alterado."

Dressed in a black shirt and black pants, Rios looked the part of a pop singer. He invited the audience "to drink solid." The women cheered, and men offered him a drink from their whiskey bottles. The music went on until close to dawn.

Rios doesn't sing about drug traffickers. He sings as if he is one.

"Honestly, I don't like guns, in the first place because I'm not very good at using them," he said. "What I like is playing a role, like in a video game called 'The Executioner.' I play the executioner."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/music/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111221/ap_en_mu/lt_mexico_drug_ballads

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Romney ignores Gingrich's taunts on ads, tax spat (AP)

BETHLEHEM, N.H. ? Mitt Romney, seemingly happy with how the Republican presidential campaign is playing out, is not explaining or apologizing for TV attack ads paid for by his allies that have damaged his chief rival's political standing 12 days before the Iowa caucuses.

Whether he's the true front-runner or not, Romney is acting like one. He refuses to be dragged into debates about the campaign's tone, high-stakes brinkmanship in Congress over a payroll tax dispute ? or into a one-on-one debate sought by Newt Gingrich.

The former Massachusetts governor on Thursday shrugged off Gingrich's complaints about the ads and Romney's reluctance to weigh in on the political standoff over extending payroll tax cuts, which lawmakers late in the day appeared to be resolving just in time to head off a hit on workers' paychecks Jan. 1.

Gingrich, the former House speaker, has repeatedly called on Romney to face him before cameras and defend the ads, which are largely financed by a heavily bankrolled group friendly to Romney.

"We've had many occasions to debate together, and we'll have more, I presume quite a few more, before this is finished," Romney told The Associated Press. "But I'm not going to narrow this down to a two-person race while there are still a number of other candidates that are viable."

Some party insiders expect a strong showing in the lead-off Iowa caucuses Jan. 3 by libertarian-leaning Rep. Ron Paul of Texas. But they generally see Gingrich, a prominent GOP figure for more than 30 years, as having the best chance to compete with Romney for weeks or months.

Gingrich and Romney planned to campaign through Friday, underscoring the stakes for both candidates even as the pace by the crowded field began to lighten for Christmas weekend. The barrage of ads, though, kept up in Iowa and New Hampshire.

In a sign of his late organizing start, Gingrich spent Thursday in Virginia, scrambling to secure the 10,000 voter signatures he needs to get on the state's March 6 primary ballot. It cost him a precious day of campaigning in Iowa and in New Hampshire, which holds its primary Jan. 10.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry has been by far the heaviest spender in Iowa. However, his campaign this week gave 30-day termination notices to all political consultants in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. Aides said the campaign was moving toward fiscal discipline as it prepares for a long multistate strategy.

But even in states that vote early, political consultants rarely receive such notices. Some are usually retained with an eye toward the general election, or sent to other states.

Gingrich renewed his call for Romney to condemn or defend ads sponsored in Iowa by a so-called super PAC. It's run by Romney supporters who are legally barred from coordinating with the official campaign.

Romney, interviewed during his bus tour of New Hampshire, didn't take the bait.

"Could I come out and speak about ads, generally, and speak about positive ads and negative ads?" Romney asked. "Of course, that's available to everybody. But I'm not in any way coordinating the ads or the approach that's taken by the super PAC."

Gingrich scoffed at the explanation, saying Romney could easily condemn the ads without breaking campaign finance laws.

"It tells you a lot about Gov. Romney," Gingrich told reporters in Richmond, Va. "I'm happy to go all over Iowa and point out that he doesn't mind hiding out behind millions of dollars of negative ads, but he doesn't want to defend them. The ads are false."

Ads showing in Iowa accuse Gingrich of supporting amnesty for illegal immigrants, and remind voters of his 1998 ethics problems in Congress, which involved his paying a $300,000 penalty. More subtle ads tout Romney's 42-year marriage, an indirect swipe at Gingrich's two messy divorces.

Gingrich said some ads dealing with abortion are inaccurate. Iowans will not reward "falsehoods by millionaires," he said.

Despite such remarks, Gingrich has vowed to stay positive. It's a decision partly driven by his inability to match Romney, Paul and Texas Gov. Rick Perry with heavy ad buys.

Some prominent Republicans came to Romney's defense. Former New Hampshire Gov. John H. Sununu, a Romney supporter, said he's getting tired of Gingrich's "whining."

And former President George H.W. Bush told the Houston Chronicle that Romney is the best choice for president. "I like Perry, but he doesn't seem to be going anywhere," Bush said.

Romney also dissociated himself anew from the debate in Washington over a proposed two-month extension of a cut in payroll taxes.

"I really don't think it's productive for me to describe which of all of the compromises within the sausage-making process is my favorite compromise position," Romney said, refusing to go "deep in the weeds."

Gingrich responded: "If you're a candidate for president and you're not prepared to talk about the hottest issue right now which affects every single working American ? there's a concept called leadership. And people sometimes think that I'm too aggressive, but at least I lead."

"I think there's a timidity of calculation," Gingrich said. "I suspect some candidates have had consultants say `Oh, don't take any risks.'"

Afterward, House Speaker John Boehner, in a retreat from the position Gingrich favored, announced that he expects to pass a new bill by Christmas to renew the tax break and federal unemployment benefits for two months while congressional negotiators work toward the yearlong extension House Republicans had been holding out for.

Some of Gingrich's and Romney's rivals rolled through Iowa on long bus tours. Rep. Michele Bachmann, stretched thin as she tries to visit all 99 counties, planned 10 visits Thursday before taking a brief break for Christmas. With her voice failing, she relied on supporters to make the case for her as she walked around diners and restaurants, whispering greetings to her fans in rural Iowa.

She was shouted down at the popular Hamburg Inn in Iowa City, with protesters blasting her conservative position on gay rights, health care and taxes.

"You're not wanted here. So go, just go," they chanted.

Perry stopped at two meet-and-greets with Iowa caucus-goers, many of whom remain undecided. He also attended a town hall-style meeting near Des Moines before returning to Texas for the holidays. While Perry has struggled to regain his one-time, front-runner mantle, his ads have blanketed Iowa and helped paint him as a conservative alternative to Romney and Gingrich.

Perry's campaign has spent $4.4 million on TV ads in Iowa ? twice as much as any other candidate there ? and $234,000 in New Hampshire. The super PAC behind Perry, Make Us Great Again, has spent an additional $200,000 on Iowa TV this week, bringing its total to more than $1.65 million.

Paul is also spending heavily in Iowa. His campaign spent about $500,000 on Iowa TV this week, bringing its total to about $2.2 million. The Romney-friendly super PAC, Restore Our Future, has spent almost $2.8 million in Iowa, largely on ads hitting Gingrich.

Gingrich aimed his sharpest barbs Thursday at President Barack Obama. He blamed the president for the impasse over the payroll tax, said a two-month extension made no sense and commented that the political squabbling makes the U.S. look "like Italy on a bad day."

___

Associated Press writers Steve Peoples in Bethlehem, N.H., and Philip Elliott in Iowa contributed to this report. Babington reported from Richmond, Va.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/politics/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111223/ap_on_el_pr/us_gop_campaign

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