12/21/2012 at 12:00 PM ET
Getty; Splash News Online; WireImage
Even though we didn’t see as many stars on the red carpet this week as last — it’s quiet in Hollywood this holiday season! — we still saw some strong trends emerge at various events. What were they? Let’s get to it!
Up: Pops of red. You can thank the holidays for this festive mini-trend, which we spotted on Hailee Steinfeld’s purse, Bella Heathcote’s dress and Rose Byrne’s jacket. Adding just a hint of the bold hue to your outfit is an easy way to look all holiday-y without going overboard.
Up: Head-to-toe black. What, are stars sick of sequined dresses already? This week we saw nearly one dozen leading ladies wear all black: Britney Spears, Demi Lovato, LeAnn Rimes, Alexa Chung, Jessica Chastain, Miley Cyrus, Krysten Ritter and Kerry Washington … to name a few. As New Yorkers, we’re always happy to see all-black ensembles en force, and it is a look that’s usually pretty failsafe — and slimming.
Down: Stick-straight hair. Rita Ora was the only woman we saw with pin-straight locks this week; everyone else went for bouncy curls and elegant updos (and cropped cuts, if you count Miley Cyrus!). With Christmas and New Year’s Even upon us, we predict we’ll be seeing a lot more exciting hairdos and less of the minimalist straight looks.
Tell us: Which color are you more likely to wear at the holidays: red or black?
Want more Trend Report? Click to hear our thoughts on mini dresses, cut-outs and collars.
FIND ALL THE LATEST RED CARPET NEWS AND PHOTOS HERE!
NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks finished lower on Friday after a Republican plan to avoid the "fiscal cliff" failed to gain sufficient support on Thursday night, draining hopes that a deal would be reached before 2013.
Still, stocks managed to rebound from the day's lows near the end of the session, and for the week, the three major U.S. stock indexes still ended higher, with the S&P 500 gaining 1.2 percent.
Trading was volatile because of waning confidence in the prospect of a deal out of Washington, and in part, as the result of the quarterly expiration of options and futures contracts. The CBOE Volatility Index <.vix> or VIX, the market's favorite barometer of investor anxiety, finished below its session high.
Republican House Speaker John Boehner failed to garner enough votes from even his own party to pass his "Plan B" tax bill late on Thursday. It was the latest setback in negotiations to avoid $600 billion in tax hikes and spending cuts that some say could tip the U.S. economy into recession.
"The failure with Plan B was disappointing, if not terribly surprising, but now there's a real lack of clarity about what will happen, and markets hate that," said Mike Hennessy, managing director of investments for Morgan Creek in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> dropped 120.88 points, or 0.91 percent, to 13,190.84 at the close. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> fell 13.54 points, or 0.94 percent, to 1,430.15. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> lost 29.38 points, or 0.96 percent, to 3,021.01.
"Amazingly, this sharp decline today may not actually change the technical picture much - unless the decline gets worse," said Larry McMillan, president of options research firm McMillan Analysis Corp, in a research note.
For the week, the Dow gained 0.4 percent and the Nasdaq climbed 1.7 percent.
On Friday, Herbalife
Plan B, which called for tax increases on those who earn $1 million or more a year, was not going to pass the Democratic-led Senate or win acceptance from the White House anyway. But it exposed the reality that it will be difficult to get Republican support for the more expansive tax increases that President Barack Obama has urged.
Still, the declines of about 1 percent in the three major U.S. stock indexes suggest that investors do not believe the economy will be unduly damaged by the absence of a deal, said Mark Lehmann, president of JMP Securities, in San Francisco.
"You could have easily woken up today and seen the market down 300 or 400 points, and everyone would have said, 'That's telling you this is really dire,'" Lehmann said.
"I think if you get into mid-January and (the talks) keep going like this, you get worried, but I don't think we're going to get there."
Banking shares, which outperform during economic expansion and have led the market on signs of progress on resolving the fiscal impasse, led Friday's declines. Citigroup Inc
Volatility on Friday was exacerbated in part by "quadruple witching," the quarterly expiration of stock index futures and options, stock options and single stock futures contracts.
About 8.59 billion shares changed hands on major U.S. exchanges, more than the daily average of 6.47 billion daily in 2012, in part because of the "quadruple witching" expiration.
The day's round of data indicated the economy was surprisingly resilient in November; consumer spending rose by the most in three years and a gauge of business investment jumped.
But separate data showed consumer sentiment slumped in December. The S&P Retail Index <.spxrt> fell 1.2 percent.
U.S.-listed shares of Research in Motion
(Additional reporting by Ryan Vlastelica and Leah Schnurr; Editing by Bernadette Baum, Nick Zieminski and Jan Paschal)
Illustration by Tadaomi Shibuya
Entering the Bank of England is like walking back in time to the old British Empire. Its brass door is attended by the Pinks, men in black hats and pink tailcoats. Vast meeting rooms are decorated with richly colored carpets, high ceilings with gold filigree and ornate furniture. Between rooms, the marble floors bear monetary-themed mosaics. One depicts the development of the British pound. Elsewhere, the mosaics take the form of constellations — a reminder that the empire and its economy once dominated everywhere you could see the stars at night.
Adam Posen at the Bank of England in August.
One morning this summer, I went to the bank to visit Adam Posen, a member of its Monetary Policy Committee, the custodian of the pound. With bright red curly hair and a trim beard, Posen, who is 46, stands out in all the M.P.C.’s official photographs. He is “ fatter” and “fuzzier” than the other officials, he joked. Posen also happens to be only the second American economist ever to serve on the committee.
It’s impossible to imagine the uproar if President Obama ever nominated a British academic to work at the highest level of the Federal Reserve. But when Posen arrived, in September 2009, his job was to provide an outsider’s perspective. The bank was trying to steer Britain through the global financial crisis, and Posen seemed like a uniquely perfect fit. In the late 1990s, when he was a 30-year-old economist, his contrarian critique of Japan’s central bank and finance ministry helped that country put an end to its so-called Lost Decade. In the years since, Posen has become a well-respected adviser to (and critic of) many of the world’s key financial institutions. With this appointment, Posen crossed the line from scholar to decision maker. It was the first time that he had real power.
Posen arrived in London after the acute panic of the financial crisis had given way to the long slog we’re still in. At that point, policy makers around the world were given the task of assessing the damage and devising a plan that would best position the economy to function at normal levels. The United States had already responded with a roughly $800 billion stimulus package. In the spring of 2010, British voters went in another direction. They elected Prime Minister David Cameron, who had promised to reset the economy by severely cutting government spending, which would lead to significant public-sector layoffs. The economy’s only chance to return to long-term growth, Cameron argued, would be a painful, but brief, period of austerity. By shrinking the size of an inefficient government, Cameron explained, the budget would be balanced by 2015 and the private sector could lead the economy to full recovery.
Today these two approaches offer a crucial case study and perhaps a breakthrough in an age-old economic argument of austerity versus stimulus. In the past few years, the United States has experienced a steep downturn followed by a steady (though horrendously slow) upturn. The U.S. unemployment rate, which shot up to 10 percent at the end of 2009 from 4.4 percent in mid-2007, has now dropped steadily to 7.7 percent. It might be a frustrating pace, but it’s enough to persuade most economists that a recovery is under way.
The British economy, however, is profoundly stuck. Between fall 2007 and summer 2009, its unemployment rate jumped to 7.9 percent, from 5.2 percent. Yet in the three and a half years since — even despite the stimulus provided by this summer’s Olympic Games — the number has hovered around 7.9. The overall level of economic activity, real G.D.P., is still below where it was five years ago, too. Historically, it’s almost unimaginable for a major economy to be poorer than it was half a decade ago. (By comparison, the United States has a real G.D.P. that is around a half-trillion dollars more than it was in 2007.) Yet austerity’s advocates continue to argue, as Cameron has, that Britain’s economic stagnation shows that the government is still crowding out private-sector investment. This, they say, is proof that austerity is even more essential than was first realized. Once the debts have been paid off and the euro zone solves its political problems, the thinking goes, the British economy will bounce back quickly.
When I visited Posen this summer, he refused to publicly criticize a sitting administration’s policies, but every time the topic of austerity came up, he was unable to hide his frustration. Posen’s term ended in August, and his subsequent nondisclosure agreement expired last month. Now he wants to persuade everyone he can that Britain should abandon its austerity program. He says that he has a solution that would quickly return healthy economic growth. His critics say that his prescription would bring about another financial panic. But whether you think he’s right or wrong depends on what you make of the data.
Economics often appears to be an exercise in number-crunching, but it actually resembles storytelling more than mathematics. Before the members of the Monetary Policy Committee gather for their monthly meeting, they sit through a presentation from the Bank of England’s economic staff. The staff members take the most recent economic data — G.D.P. growth, the unemployment rate and more subtle details gathered from interviews with businesspeople throughout the country — and try to fashion it into a narrative. Does a sudden spike in new factory orders represent a fundamental shift, or is it just a preholiday blip? Do anecdotal reports of rising food prices herald a period of inflation, or is it the result of a cold snap? Which story feels truer?
Video games represent a true luxury for most North Koreans living in a country where even the elite have only hours of electricity each day. That has not stopped a Western company in the capital city of Pyonyang from creating what may be the first North Korean game widely available online.
The game, called “Pyongyang Racer,” is a simple Web browser game that allows players to drive a car around North Korea’s capitol city of Pyongyang, according to Beijing Cream. Players must avoid hitting cars and collect gasoline in the form of petrol barrels to keep their run going as long as possible — all while getting warnings from one of Pyongyang’s famously picturesque traffic girls.
“Pyongyang Racer” has an unusual development history as a video game. The North Korean programmers who made the game work for Nosotek, a Western company that describes itself as the “first western IT venture” in North Korea.
Nosotek’s North Korean programmers previously made mobile-phone games based on the Hollywood films “The Big Lebowski” and “Men in Black.” Those games ended up getting published through a subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch‘s News Corp (owner of Fox News), according to Bloomberg News.
Nosotek claims to have “attracted the cream of local talent as the only company in Pyongyang offering Western working conditions and Internet access.” That would likely be true in North Korea, given the nuclear-armed country’s pariah status among Western countries and businesses.
The Nosotek website also praises the advantages of working in North Korea because “IP secrecy and minimum employee churn rate are structurally guaranteed.” Translation: North Korean programmers would likely never leave Nosotek with the company’s intellectual property secrets because they have practically no other employment options.
Nosotek built the game for Koryo Tours, a company based in Beijing, China, to distribute “Pyongyang Racer” through the Koryo Tours website. Koryo Tours is currently the leading company that runs tours of secretive North Korea for Westerners and other foreigners.
“This game was developed in 2012 and is not intended to be a high-end technological wonder hit game of the 21st century, but more a fun race game (arcade style) where you drive around in Pyongyang and learn more about the sites and get a glimpse of Pyongyang,” Koryo Tours said on the game’s website.
This story was provided by TechNewsDaily, a sister site to LiveScience. You can follow TechNewsDaily Senior Writer Jeremy Hsu on Twitter @jeremyhsu. Follow TechNewsDaily on Twitter @TechNewsDaily, or on Facebook.
Copyright 2012 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Gaming News Headlines – Yahoo! News
The X Factor
from left: Fifth Harmony, Tate Stevens and Carly Rose Sonenclar
Ray Mickshaw/FOX
After performing live one last time the night before, Britney Spears's contestant Carly Rose Sonenclar, along with L.A. Reid's Tate Stevens and Simon Cowell's Fifth Harmony all vied for the $5 million recording contract awarded to the season's winner.
Click after the jump to find out who won the coveted prize.
L.A. Reid's "Over 25" contestant Tate Stevens, 37, is the winner of The X Factor season 2. He's a dad of two and a road worker from Missouri.
"First and foremost I got to thank the man upstairs for taking care of me, my family, all the country music fans – God bless you," he said after hearing the results. "Thank you so much for all the votes. This is the best day of my life."
L.A. said, "You deserve this. I'm proud to work with you. I think you represent The X Factor really, really well. So on behalf of Simon and myself and all the judges, congratulations."
Britney's teen contestant, Carly Rose Sonenclar, landed in second place. She and Britney looked emotional but didn't get a chance to say anything at the end.
Third place went to Simon Cowell's girl group, Fifth Harmony.
Member Camila Cabello, said, "I feel like in this competition we've gained more than $5 million could because we've gained friends for life ... I'm so happy to be where I am right now."
Simon said, "I have a feeling that we're going to be hearing and seeing a lot more of these girls in the future."
WASHINGTON (AP) — With steroids easy to buy, testing weak and punishments inconsistent, college football players are packing on significant weight — 30 pounds or more in a single year, sometimes — without drawing much attention from their schools or the NCAA in a sport that earns tens of billions of dollars for teams.
Rules vary so widely that, on any given game day, a team with a strict no-steroid policy can face a team whose players have repeatedly tested positive.
An investigation by The Associated Press — based on interviews with players, testers, dealers and experts and an analysis of weight records for more than 61,000 players — revealed that while those running the multibillion-dollar sport say they believe the problem is under control, that control is hardly evident.
The sport's near-zero rate of positive steroids tests isn't an accurate gauge among college athletes. Random tests provide weak deterrence and, by design, fail to catch every player using steroids. Colleges also are reluctant to spend money on expensive steroid testing when cheaper ones for drugs like marijuana allow them to say they're doing everything they can to keep drugs out of football.
"It's nothing like what's going on in reality," said Don Catlin, an anti-doping pioneer who spent years conducting the NCAA's laboratory tests at UCLA. He became so frustrated with the college system that it was part of the reason he left the testing industry to focus on anti-doping research.
___
EDITOR'S NOTE — Whether for athletics or age, Americans from teenagers to baby boomers are trying to get an edge by illegally using anabolic steroids and human growth hormone, despite well-documented risks. This is the first of a two-part series.
___
While other major sports have been beset by revelations of steroid use, college football has operated with barely a whiff of scandal. Between 1996 and 2010 — the era of Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Marion Jones and Lance Armstrong — the failure rate for NCAA steroid tests fell even closer to zero from an already low rate of less than 1 percent.
The AP's investigation, drawing upon more than a decade of official rosters from all 120 Football Bowl Subdivision teams, found thousands of players quickly putting on significant weight, even more than their fellow players. The information compiled by the AP included players who appeared for multiple years on the same teams.
For decades, scientific studies have shown that anabolic steroid use leads to an increase in body weight. Weight gain alone doesn't prove steroid use, but very rapid weight gain is one factor that would be deemed suspicious, said Kathy Turpin, senior director of sport drug testing for the National Center for Drug Free Sport, which conducts tests for the NCAA and more than 300 schools.
Yet the NCAA has never studied weight gain or considered it in regard to its steroid testing policies, said Mary Wilfert, the NCAA's associate director of health and safety.
The NCAA attributes the decline in positive tests to its year-round drug testing program, combined with anti-drug education and testing conducted by schools.
The AP's analysis found that, regardless of school, conference and won-loss record, many players gained weight at exceptional rates compared with their fellow athletes and while accounting for their heights.
Adding more than 20 or 25 pounds of lean muscle in a year is nearly impossible through diet and exercise alone, said Dan Benardot, director of the Laboratory for Elite Athlete Performance at Georgia State University.
In nearly all the rarest cases of weight gain in the AP study, players were offensive or defensive linemen, hulking giants who tower above 6-foot-3 and weigh 300 pounds or more. Four of those players interviewed by the AP said that they never used steroids and gained weight through dramatic increases in eating, up to six meals a day. Two said they were aware of other players using steroids.
"I ate 5-6 times a day," said Clint Oldenburg, who played for Colorado State starting in 2002 and for five years in the NFL. Oldenburg's weight increased over four years from 212 to 290.
Oldenburg told the AP he was surprised at the scope of steroid use in college football, even in Colorado State's locker room. "There were a lot of guys even on my team that were using." He declined to identify any of them.
The AP found more than 4,700 players — or about 7 percent of all players — who gained more than 20 pounds overall in a single year. It was common for the athletes to gain 10, 15 and up to 20 pounds in their first year under a rigorous regimen of weightlifting and diet. Others gained 25, 35 and 40 pounds in a season. In roughly 100 cases, players packed on as much 80 pounds in a single year.
In at least 11 instances, players that AP identified as packing on significant weight in college went on to fail NFL drug tests. But pro football's confidentiality rules make it impossible to know for certain which drugs were used and how many others failed tests that never became public.
Even though testers consider rapid weight gain suspicious, in practice it doesn't result in testing. Ben Lamaak, who arrived at Iowa State in 2006, said he weighed 225 pounds in high school. He graduated as a 320-pound offensive lineman and said he did it all naturally.
"I was just a young kid at that time, and I was still growing into my body," he said. "It really wasn't that hard for me to gain the weight. I love to eat."
In addition to random drug testing, Iowa State is one of many schools that have "reasonable suspicion" testing. That means players can be tested when their behavior or physical symptoms suggest drug use. Despite gaining 81 pounds in a year, Lamaak said he was never singled out for testing.
The associate athletics director for athletic training at Iowa State, Mark Coberley, said coaches and trainers use body composition, strength data and other factors to spot suspected cheaters. Lamaak, he said, was not suspicious because he gained a lot of "non-lean" weight.
But looking solely at the most significant weight gainers also ignores players like Bryan Maneafaiga.
In the summer of 2004, Bryan Maneafaiga was an undersized 180-pound running back trying to make the University of Hawaii football team. Twice — once in pre-season and once in the fall — he failed school drug tests, showing up positive for marijuana use but not steroids.
He'd started injecting stanozolol, a steroid, in the summer to help bulk up to a roster weight of 200 pounds. Once on the team, he'd occasionally inject the milky liquid into his buttocks the day before games.
"Food and good training will only get you so far," he told the AP recently.
Maneafaiga's former coach, June Jones, said it was news to him that one of his players had used steroids. Jones, who now coaches at Southern Methodist University, believes the NCAA does a good job rooting out steroid use.
On paper, college football has a strong drug policy. The NCAA conducts random, unannounced drug testing and the penalties for failure are severe. Players lose an entire year of eligibility after a first positive test. A second offense means permanent ineligibility for sports.
In practice, though, the NCAA's roughly 11,000 annual tests amount to a fraction of all athletes in Division I and II schools. Exactly how many tests are conducted each year on football players is unclear because the NCAA hasn't published its data for two years. And when it did, it periodically changed the formats, making it impossible to compare one year of football to the next.
Even when players are tested by the NCAA, experts like Catlin say it's easy enough to anticipate the test and develop a doping routine that results in a clean test by the time it occurs. NCAA rules say players can be notified up to two days in advance of a test, which Catlin says is plenty of time to beat a test if players have designed the right doping regimen. By comparison, Olympic athletes are given no notice.
Most schools that use Drug Free Sport do not test for anabolic steroids, Turpin said. Some are worried about the cost. Others don't think they have a problem. And others believe that since the NCAA tests for steroids their money is best spent testing for street drugs, she said.
Doping is a bigger deal at some schools than others.
At Notre Dame and Alabama, the teams that will soon compete for the national championship, players don't automatically miss games for testing positive for steroids. At Alabama, coaches have wide discretion. Notre Dame's student-athlete handbook says a player who fails a test can return to the field once the steroids are out of his system.
The University of North Carolina kicks players off the team after a single positive test for steroids. Auburn's student-athlete handbook calls for a half-season suspension for any athlete caught using performance-enhancing drugs.
At UCLA, home of the laboratory that for years set the standard for cutting-edge steroid testing, athletes can fail three drug tests before being suspended. At Bowling Green, testing is voluntary.
At the University of Maryland, students must get counseling after testing positive, but school officials are prohibited from disciplining first-time steroid users.
Only about half the student athletes in a 2009 NCAA survey said they believed school testing deterred drug use. As an association of colleges and universities, the NCAA could not unilaterally force schools to institute uniform testing policies and sanctions, Wilfert said.
"We can't tell them what to do, but if went through a membership process where they determined that this is what should be done, then it could happen," she said.
___
Associated Press writers Ryan Foley in Cedar Rapids, Iowa; David Brandt in Jackson, Miss.; David Skretta in Lawrence, Kan.; Don Thompson in Sacramento, Calif., and Alexa Olesen in Shanghai, China, and researchers Susan James in New York and Monika Mathur in Washington contributed to this report.
___
Contact the Washington investigative team at DCinvestigations (at) ap.org.
Whether for athletics or age, Americans from teenagers to baby boomers are trying to get an edge by illegally using anabolic steroids and human growth hormone, despite well-documented risks. This is the first of a two-part series.
TOKYO (Reuters) - Asian shares slid on Friday after a Republican proposal to fend off a U.S. fiscal crunch failed to get enough support, deepening uncertainty over prospects for the negotiations to avert automatic spending cuts and tax increases set to start in January.
"Markets disliked signs of further delay in talks, with the risk that a deal may not be reached by the end of the year deadline," said Yuji Saito, director of foreign exchange at Credit Agricole in Tokyo. "It clearly hit risk sentiment."
Risk assets were sold off, from shares, oil to currencies such as the Australian dollar and the euro, while the yen rirmed slightly, though it was pinned near multi-month lows versus the dollar and the euro.
U.S. S&P 500 stock futures plunged 1.5 percent on worries over the U.S. "fiscal cliff".
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan <.miapj0000pus> fell 0.4 percent, after having traded up 0.2 percent at the open.
The U.S. House of Representatives will adjourn until after Christmas, Republican Representative Peter Roskam said on Thursday, after House Speaker John Boehner's proposed tax bill designed to avert the fiscal cliff failed to pass. The proposal was aimed at extracting concessions from the White House, which had threatened to veto it, and advance talks closer to a deal.
The Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives, which abruptly recessed on late Thursday, may return as soon as December 27 with a yet-to-be-decided new plan, said a senior party aide.
U.S. 10-year Treasuries rose in Asia on Friday, with yields moving away from an 8-week high hit this week, after Boehner conceded that his tax bill lacked the votes to pass.
Australian shares <.axjo> slipped to a 0.1 percent drop from a 0.4 percent gain earlier and Japanese Nikkei average <.n225> erased nearly all gains as the yen strengthened. <.t/>
The dollar was down 0.2 percent to 84.20 yen, easing from around 84.40 earlier, but still near a 20-month high of 84.62 yen hit on Wednesday.
The euro slumped 0.6 percent to 111.11 yen from around 111.78 yen earlier, but also near a 16-month high of 112.59 yen reached on Wednesday.
The yen was kept under pressure after the Bank of Japan further eased monetary policy as expeced on Thursday, with investors anticipating that the central bank will be persuaded to pursue more drastic measures next year. The incoming prime minister, Shinzo Abe, has called for bolder action by the central bank to help bring Japan out of decades-long deflation.
For all the worries of a fiscal cliff debacle, several data series showed the United States remained on a recovery track, helping to underpin the U.S. currency.
The world's largest economy grew at a faster-than-expected 3.1 percent annual rate in the third quarter, while other data on Thursday showed factory activity in the mid-Atlantic region picked up this month and home resales in November were the best in three years.
The euro fell 0.4 percent to $1.3195, off an 8-1/2-month high of $1.33085 touched on Wednesday.
The improving U.S. economy and a stabilizing Europe eroded the appeal of gold as a crisis hedge, triggering a technical sell-off and heavy liquidation by hedge funds before the year-end.
Spot gold prices plunged more than 1 percent on Thursday to a low of $1,635.09 an ounce, the weakest since August 22, sending the market below its 200-day moving average. Gold fell 0.2 percent to $1,643.71 on Friday.
U.S. crude fell 0.8 percent to $89.38 a barrel and Brent shed 0.4 percent to $109.70.
(Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)
NAGOYA, Japan — Ahmed Fathi, a defensive midfielder, ran for his life when he saw thousands of Egyptian opposition supporters streaming toward him on the field. His team, Al Ahly of Cairo, had just lost a local league game in February to Al Masry in the city of Port Said.
Elsayed Hamdy, center of Egypt's Al Ahly celebrated with teammates after scoring against Japan during their Club World Cup soccer match in Toyota, Japan, in December.
The
Times's soccer blog has the world's game covered from all angles.
Al Ahly does not lose often. It is the biggest and most successful soccer club in Egypt, and it claims to have tens of millions of fans worldwide. But the Masry supporters were not celebrating their victory. Something had gone terribly wrong.
“The fans were coming, sprinting after the match,” Fathi, 28, recalled last week. “I knew they hated me and all the players. All the players ran. I didn’t know what was happening outside. But something was happening outside. After this they killed the boys. Not the men, the boys.”
As Fathi and his teammates took refuge from the Masry supporters in a changing room, one of the darkest incidents in soccer history was unfolding in the nearby bleachers.
Within the hour, more than 70 people, many of them Ahly fans and members of the club’s fan group, the Ultras Ahlawy, lay dead.
“One of the fans came to the room and said: ‘You have a problem outside. Someone has been killed.’ And then another has been killed, and another,” he said.
“After this another comes in, and he has a wound.”
Fathi slowly ran a finger from the left side of his temple to his chin, to illustrate the gash to the young man’s face.
It was the bloodiest day in Egypt in the wake of the ouster 22 months ago of President Hosni Mubarak, who ruled for nearly three decades. There were widespread accusations that the military-led government that had replaced Mubarak allowed the violence to escalate to justify its powers and undermine the revolution.
In the aftermath, the soccer league’s season was immediately canceled. Play has yet to resume, and some clubs are teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. But Fathi and his teammates have somehow endured and continue to play on. The team dedicated itself to taking part in the most prestigious competition that remained — the tough African Champions League — and vowed to honor those who died by winning it.
And it did. Last month, the Ahly beat Esperance of Tunisia to be crowned champion of Africa, taking a path to the title that meant fending with protests, conspiracy theories and a coup in Mali during a match on the road.
Not only was it the Ahly’s seventh victory in the club competition — making it the most decorated club in African history — but it also meant the team qualified for the Club World Cup in Japan, where the champions of six regional soccer confederations battled it out through last weekend to be crowned the best in the world. Another title, another chance to honor those who had died, was at stake.
The man who had taken the Ahly this far, who had put it back on track after the blood bath, who had gotten through to players who had been scarred by the mayhem they had witnessed, was the 52-year-old coach, Hossam el-Badry.
“The club called me to take charge as head coach, but it was very difficult for me to prepare the players emotionally after Port Said,” Badry said the day before the Ahly was to play the Japanese champion Sanfrecce Hiroshima in the Club World Cup quarterfinal.
The Port Said incident had led several of the players to retire immediately from soccer. Among them was Mohamed Aboutrika, the Ahly’s renowned midfielder and one of the greatest players Africa has produced.
As the fans were being killed in Port Said — some crushed to death in a stampede, others stabbed and beaten by the Masry supporters — Aboutrika was said to have held a fan in his arms as he died on the dressing room floor.
For Badry, the answer to getting his players to focus on soccer again was to convince them that redemption for what had occurred could be found on the field.
“I told them I know it is very difficult to forget that day,” he said. “You have to change this bad moment to make something good for them.”
The X Factor
from left: Fifth Harmony, Tate Stevens and Carly Rose Sonenclar
Ray Mickshaw/FOX
The X Factor's season 2 finale got underway Wednesday night with the finalists performing three songs each – including a duet with a music superstar.
Britney Spears's contestant, Carly Rose Sonenclar, has been a favorite, trading the No. 1 spot with her fellow finalist, L.A. Reid's country singer Tate Stevens, through out the competition.
Carly first reprised "Feeling Good," and sang it better than the first time she performed it during her audition, according to judge Simon Cowell. "It's shocking how bright your star is," Spears said. She performed her duet with Leann Rimes, singing the country star's hit, "How Do I Live." Her final performance – of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" – had the judges gushing. "You looked like an angel," Demi Lovato said. "You sang like a ridiculously talented angel."
Tate, the competition's only country singer, first performed "Anything Goes" by Randy Houser. "I'm still obsessed with you," Demi said. Added Simon, "You are made in America. You are authentic." For his duet, he sang Little Big Town's cheeky party anthem, "Pontoon." And for his final performance in the competition, Tate sang Chris Young's "Tomorrow." "In a year's time," Simon said, "We're going to be hearing about your record sales."
"I'm almost crying because I realize it's the last time I'm going to see you perform on that stage," Demi said.
Simon's remaining act, girl group Fifth Harmony, may have had their best night yet in the competition, beginning with "Anything Can Happen." L.A. called it "magical," adding that they're "the one to beat." Britney said the colorful performance was "spectacular, girly and fun." Their duet, with The X Factor's own Demi Lovato, of "Give Your Heart a Break" was a highlight of the night.
"These girls are so easy to work with," the judge said. "They're so down to earth, so sweet and I love you guys. This was so much fun."
Their last song, "Let It Be" by the Beatles, proved how much the five members have "blossomed as a group," Britney said. Admitting his bias, their mentor Simon said, based on their performances on Wednesday, the girls of Fifth Harmony "deserve to win the competition."
Do you agree? Or is Tate or Carly your choice for the big prize? Tell us in the comments below.
The winner will be revealed Thursday in a two-hour show that will include a performance by One Direction.
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