The Twitter account associated with the fast-food chain Burger King was suspended after an apparent hacking that defaced the page with messages that the account had been sold to rival McDonald's.
The @BurgerKing account name was changed today to "McDonalds" and the Golden Arches' familiar logo was added to the page, as was a message that the account had been sold to McDonald's "because the whopper flopped."
The page has since been taken down, but images of the defacement are still visible on Web cache.
Before the feed's suspension, hackers posted messages to Burger King's some 83,000 followers that included racial epithets.
The online hacktivist collective Anonymous appeared to take responsibility for the hack in a tweet that mentioned a new operation dubbed #OpMadCow, although it was not immediately clear what the aim of that campaign was.
CNET has contacted Burger King and will update this report when we learn more.
LOS ANGELES Jerry Buss, the Los Angeles Lakers' playboy owner who shepherded the NBA franchise to 10 championships from the `80s Showtime dynasty to the Kobe Bryant era, died Monday, his assistant said.
Buss died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, said Bob Steiner, his assistant. He was 80.
23 Photos
Jerry Buss: 1933-2013
He'd been hospitalized for cancer, but the immediate cause of death was kidney failure, Steiner said.
Various Los Angeles media reported late last week that several current and former Lakers players had visited Buss in the hospital, including Kobe Bryant, Magic Johnson, Shaquille O'Neal and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
Under Buss' leadership since 1979, the Lakers became Southern California's most beloved sports franchise and a worldwide extension of Hollywood glamour. Buss acquired, nurtured and befriended a staggering array of talented players and basketball minds during his Hall of Fame tenure.
Few owners in sports history can even approach Buss' accomplishments with the Lakers, who made the NBA finals 16 times through 2011 during his 32 years in charge, winning 10 titles between 1980 and 2010. The Lakers easily are the NBA's winningest franchise since he bought the club.
Few owners have ever been more beloved by their players than Buss, who always referred to the Lakers as his extended family. Working with front-office executives Jerry West and Mitch Kupchak, Buss spent lavishly to win his titles despite lacking a huge personal fortune, often running the NBA's highest payroll while also paying high-profile coaches Pat Riley and Phil Jackson.
Always an innovative businessman, Buss paid for the Lakers through both their wild success and his own groundbreaking moves to raise revenue. He co-founded a basic-cable sports television network and sold the naming rights to the Forum at times when both now-standard strategies were unusual, adding justification for his induction into the Pro Basketball Hall of Fame in 2010.
Magic Johnson and fellow Hall of Famers Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and James Worthy formed lifelong bonds with Buss during the Lakers' run to five titles in nine years in the 1980s, when the Lakers earned a reputation as basketball's most exciting team with their glamorous Showtime style.
Jackson then led Shaquille O'Neal and Bryant to a threepeat from 2000-02, rekindling the Lakers' mystique, before Bryant and Pau Gasol won two more titles under Jackson in 2009 and 2010.
Although Buss was proudest of his two hands full of NBA title rings, he also was a scholar, Renaissance man and bon vivant who epitomized California cool — and a certain Los Angeles lifestyle — for his entire public life.
The father of six rarely appeared in public without at least one attractive, much younger woman on his arm at USC football games, boxing matches, poker tournaments — and, of course, Lakers games from his private box at Staples Center, which was built under his watch.
Buss earned a Ph.D. in chemistry at age 24 and had careers in aerospace and real estate development before getting into sports. With money largely from his Santa Monica real-estate ventures, Buss bought the then-struggling Lakers, the NHL's Los Angeles Kings and both clubs' arena — the Forum — from Jack Kent Cooke in a $67.5 million deal that was the largest sports transaction in history at the time.
The Lakers were recently valued at $900 million by Forbes, CBS Los Angeles reports.
Buss also helped change televised sports by co-founding the Prime Ticket network in 1985, even receiving a star on Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2006 for his work in television. Breaking the contemporary model of subscription services for televised sports, Buss' Prime Ticket put beloved broadcaster Chick Hearn and the Lakers' home games on basic cable.
Buss also sold the naming rights to the Forum in 1988 to Great Western Savings & Loan — another deal that was ahead of its time.
Born in Salt Lake City, Gerald Hatten Buss was raised in Wyoming and attended USC for graduate school, eventually becoming a chemistry professor and working as a chemist for the Bureau of Mines before his life took an abrupt turn into wealth and sports.
The former mathematician claimed his fortune grew out of a $1,000 real-estate investment in a West Los Angeles apartment building with partner Frank Mariani, an aerospace engineer.
Buss purchased Cooke's entire Los Angeles sports empire in 1979, including a 13,000-acre ranch in Kern County. Buss' love of basketball was the motivation for his purchase, and he immediately worked to transform the Lakers — who had won just one NBA title since moving west from Minneapolis in 1960 — into a star-powered endeavor befitting Hollywood.
"One of the first things I tried to do when I bought the team was to make it an identification for this city, like Motown in Detroit," he told the Los Angeles Times in 2008. "I try to keep that identification alive. I'm a real Angeleno. I want us to be part of the community."
Buss' plans immediately worked: Johnson, Abdul-Jabbar and coach Paul Westhead led the Lakers to the 1980 title. Johnson's ball-handling wizardry and Abdul-Jabbar's smooth inside game made for an attractive style of play evoking Hollywood flair and West Coast cool.
Riley, the former broadcaster who fit the L.A. image perfectly with his slick-backed hair and chiseled good looks, was surprisingly promoted by Buss early in the 1981-82 season after West declined to co-coach the team. Riley became one of the best coaches in NBA history, leading the Lakers to four straight NBA finals and four titles, with Worthy, Michael Cooper, Byron Scott and A.C. Green playing major roles.
Overall, the Lakers made the finals nine times in Buss' first 12 seasons while rekindling the NBA's best rivalry with the Boston Celtics, and Buss basked in the worldwide celebrity he received from his team's achievements. His womanizing and partying became Hollywood legend, with even his players struggling to keep up with Buss' lifestyle.
Johnson's HIV diagnosis and retirement in 1991 staggered Buss and the Lakers, the owner recalled in 2011. The Lakers struggled through much of the 1990s, going through seven coaches and making just one conference finals appearance in an eight-year stretch despite the 1996 arrivals of O'Neal, who signed with Los Angeles as a free agent, and Bryant, the 17-year-old high schooler acquired in a draft-week trade.
Shaq and Kobe didn't reach their potential until Buss persuaded Jackson, the Chicago Bulls' six-time NBA champion coach, to take over the Lakers in 1999. Los Angeles immediately won the next three NBA titles in brand-new Staples Center, AEG's state-of-the-art downtown arena built with the Lakers as the primary tenant.
After the Lakers traded O'Neal in 2004, they hovered in mediocrity again until acquiring Gasol in a heist of a trade with Memphis in early 2008. Los Angeles made the next three NBA finals, winning two more titles.
Through the Lakers' frequent successes and occasional struggles, Buss never stopped living his Hollywood dream. He was an avid poker player, frequently participating in high-stakes tournaments, and a fixture on the Los Angeles club scene well into his 70s, when a late-night drunk-driving arrest in 2007 — with a 23-year-old woman in the passenger seat of his Mercedes-Benz — prompted him to cut down on his partying.
Buss owned the NHL's Kings from 1979-87, and the WNBA's Los Angeles Sparks also won two league titles under Buss' ownership. He also owned Los Angeles franchises in World Team Tennis and the Major Indoor Soccer League.
Buss' children moved into leadership roles with the Lakers in their father's later years. Jim Buss, the Lakers' executive vice president of player personnel and the second of Buss' six children, has taken over much of the club's primary decision-making responsibilities in the last few years, while daughter Jeanie is a longtime executive on the franchise's business side — and Jackson's longtime companion.
Yet Jerry Buss served two terms as President of the NBA's Board of Governors, and was actively involved in the 2011 lockout negotiations, developing blood clots in his legs attributed to his extensive travel during that time
Police in South Africa investigating the shooting death of model Reeva Steenkamp, allegedly by boyfriend and Paralympics champion Oscar Pistorius, consider a bloody cricket bat to be a central piece of evidence, according to South Africa's City Press newspaper.
Pistorius, 26, was arrested Thursday and charged with killing Steenkamp, 29, at his home in the South African capitol of Pretoria. His family says the shooting was an accident. He is in jail awaiting a bail hearing Tuesday.
PHOTOS: Paralympic Champion Charged in Killing
The City Press reported Sunday that police are investigating different scenarios involving the bat. Among them is the possibility that the flat-fronted bat was used in a violent argument before the shooting.
The paper also reported that Pistorius might have first shot Steenkamp in the bedroom, and that she possibly fled to the bathroom where she was shot three more times through the door.
When Pistorius' family arrived at the scene before paramedics, they saw him carrying Steenkamp down the stairs and performing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on her, City Press reported.
Adrian Dennis/AFP/Getty Images; Mike Holmes/The Herald/Gallo Images/Getty Images
Oscar Pistorius: Possibly Incriminating Information Leaked Watch Video
'Blade Runner' Murder Charges: Family Insist Accidental Shooting Watch Video
'Blade Runner' Murder Mystery: Family Speaks Out Watch Video
Pistorius, who is nicknamed the "blade runner" because of the carbon-fiber blades on which he runs, has canceled all his upcoming racing appearances, his agent said Sunday night.
The decision was made to "allow Oscar to concentrate on the upcoming legal proceedings and to help and support all those involved as they try to come to terms with this very difficult and distressing situation," Peet Van Zyl of In Site Athlete Management said in a statement.
Pistorius' father was quoted overnight in the South African paper The Sunday Times saying his countrymen are destroying a national icon.
"There is something fundamentally wrong with our society," Henke Pistorius said. "We build people up into heroes, who overcome immense challenges, only to take great glee in breaking them down."
Family and friends rallied to Pistorius' defense, saying they believe the Paralympic gold medalist shot the South African model by accident after he mistook her for an intruder.
"We have no doubt here that there's no substance for the allegations," uncle Arnold Pistorius said.
Pistorius' best friend, Justin Divaris, told reporters that he received a call from a distraught Pistorius just before 4 a.m. Feb. 14 in which he said there had been a terrible accident, and that he shot Steenkamp.
If convicted, Pistorius could face at least 25 years in jail. A memorial service for Steenkamp will be held in Port Elizabeth Tuesday evening. Her body has been flown back for the service before being cremated, her family told local media.
Speaking with the media for the first time since her daughter's death in a phone interview with The Sunday Times from her home in Seaview, Port Elizabeth, June Steenkamp said, "Why? Why my little girl? Why did this happen? Why did he do this? What for?"
GENEVA (Reuters) - United Nations investigators said on Monday that Syrian leaders they had identified as suspected war criminals should face the International Criminal Court (ICC).
The investigators urged the U.N. Security Council to "act urgently to ensure accountability" for violations, including murder and torture, committed by both sides in a conflict that has killed an estimated 70,000 people since a revolt against President Bashar al-Assad began in March, 2011.
"Now really it's time...We have a permanent court, the International Criminal Court, who would be ready to take this case," Carla del Ponte, a former ICC chief prosecutor who joined the U.N. team in September, told a news briefing in Geneva.
The inquiry, led by Brazilian Paulo Pinheiro, is tracing the chain of command to establish criminal responsibility.
"Of course we were able to identify high-level perpetrators," del Ponte said, adding that these were people "in command responsibility...deciding, organising, planning and aiding and abetting the commission of crimes".
She said it was urgent for the Hague-based war crimes tribunal to take up cases of very high officials, but did not identify them, in line with the inquiry's practice.
Del Ponte, who brought former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to the ICC on war crimes charges, said the ICC prosecutor would need to deepen the investigation on Syria before an indictment could be prepared.
Pinheiro, noting that the Security Council would have to refer Syria's case to the ICC, said: "We are in very close dialogue with all the five permanent members and with all the members of the Security Council, but we don't have the key that will open the path to cooperation inside the Security Council."
Karen Koning AbuZayd, an American member of the U.N. team, told Reuters it had information pointing to "people who have given instructions and are responsible for government policy, people who are in the leadership of the military, for example".
The inquiry's third list of suspects, building on lists drawn up in the past year, remains secret. It will be entrusted to U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, upon expiry of its mandate at the end of March, the report said.
Pinheiro said the investigators would not speak publicly about "numbers, names or levels" of suspects, adding that it was vital to pursue accountability for international crimes "to counter the pervasive sense of impunity" in Syria.
FIGHT AGAINST IMPUNITY
The investigators' latest report, covering the six months to mid-January, was based on 445 interviews conducted abroad with victims and witnesses, as they have not been allowed into Syria.
"The ICC is the appropriate institution for the fight against impunity in Syria. As an established, broadly supported structure, it could immediately initiate investigations against authors of serious crimes in Syria," the 131-page report said.
Pillay, a former ICC judge, said on Saturday Assad should be probed for war crimes, and called for outside action on Syria, including possible military intervention.
Government forces have carried out shelling and air strikes across Syria including Aleppo, Damascus, Deraa, Homs and Idlib, the U.N. report said, citing corroborating satellite images.
"In some incidents, such as in the assault on Harak, indiscriminate shelling was followed by ground operations during which government forces perpetrated mass killing," it said, referring to a town in the southern province of Deraa where residents told them that 500 civilians were killed in August.
"Government forces and affiliated militias have committed extra-judicial executions, breaching international human rights law. This conduct also constitutes the war crime of murder. Where murder was committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack against a civilian population, with knowledge of that attack, it is a crime against humanity," the U.N. report said.
Those forces have targeted bakery queues and funeral processions to spread "terror among the civilian population".
"Syrian armed forces have implemented a strategy that uses shelling and sniper fire to kill, maim, wound and terrorize the civilian inhabitants of areas that have fallen under anti-government armed group control," the report said.
Government forces had used cluster bombs, it said, but it found no credible evidence of either side using chemical arms.
Rebels fighting to topple Assad have also committed war crimes including murder, torture, hostage-taking and using children under age 15 in hostilities, the U.N. report said.
"They continue to endanger the civilian population by positioning military objectives inside civilian areas" and rebel snipers had caused "considerable civilian casualties", it said.
"The violations and abuses committed by anti-government armed groups did not, however, reach the intensity and scale of those committed by government forces and affiliated militia."
Foreign fighters, many of them from Libya, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Iraq and Egypt, have radicalised the rebels and helped detonate deadly improvised explosive devices, it said.
(This story corrects the name of the U.N. expert in the ninth paragraph to Koning)
(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Alistair Lyon)
MADRID: Strikers at Spanish airline Iberia clashed with police at Madrid-Barajas airport on Monday as they launched a five-day action against job cuts.
Thousands of strikers tried to force their way into one of the terminals at the airport before being pushed back by police, an AFP reporter at the scene said.
After several charges by police armed with batons, the Iberia staff finally entered the terminal where they carried on a protest during the strike action, which led to hundreds of flight cancellations.
Iberia's cabin crew, ground staff and maintenance workers were striking from Monday to Friday in the first of a series of three five-day strikes to protest plans to axe 3,800 jobs.
The flag carrier said it scrapped 415 flights across Spain and Europe for the week including 81 on Monday alone. The airline said it expected to operate 135 flights on Monday.
Iberia's offshoots were hard hit. Iberia Express chopped 20 flights on Monday alone and regional carrier Air Nostrum cut another 57.
Iberia ground crew service flights for budget carrier Vueling, forcing that airline, also, to curb operations.
Vueling said it had cut 354 flights for the five days - 39 percent of its usual service. A list posted on the airline's web site showed 78 cancellations for Monday alone.
Iberia workers also plan to strike from March 4-8 and again from March 18-22 to protest against the job cuts announced by International Airlines Group (IAG), which owns Iberia and British Airways.
IAG announced last week that it would axe 3,800 jobs at Iberia to save costs but said it was still open to talks with unions during a formal 30-day consultation process.
Iberia executives say the airline accumulated 850 million euros ($1.1 billion) in losses between 2008 and September 2012.
The airline aims to cut its capacity by 15 percent this year, eliminating some loss-making routes to Latin America and trimming its fleet by 25 aircraft, including five long-haul jets
Iberia said there were no significant incidents during the first day of the strike action, with 85 percent of passengers already put on other flights and the other 15 percent reimbursed.
Halo's Master Chief watches over Bungie headquarters in Bellevue, Wash.
(Credit: Bungie)
BELLEVUE, Wash.--Halo, the multibillion-dollar-grossing video game franchise, set an incredibly high bar for its creator, Bungie, to meet with its next title.
"After Halo, a bunch of us thought, 'What comes next?'" Bungie co-founder Jason Jones told a group of journalists visiting Bungie's Bellevue, Wash., headquarters Wednesday.
Jones and Bungie's leadership, who sold the company to Microsoft in 2000 and then spun it out of the software giant in 2007, wanted to find a project worthy of the groundbreaking work in Halo. They wanted to come up with not just a new game, but a new model for gaming, something that could change the way gamers play.
Jones thinks Bungie's Destiny is exactly that. Destiny is something of a first-person shooter with bits of massively multiplayer online role-playing gaming mixed in. Bungie, which has kept mum about the title while gamer sites fulminated for the last two years about what it might be, is beginning to rev up the hype machine for its next title.
Eric Hirschberg, the chief executive of Activision, which will publish Destiny, said the game defied typical genres, giving it a new one -- "shared-world shooter." Even so, there are plenty of parallels with the Halo franchise, particularly that you're still shooting up aliens. Players guard the last city on Earth, while exploring the ruins of the solar system, moving from Mars to Venus, in order to defeat Earth's enemies.
One of the big differences this time is that the game is a persistent online universe, where players come across others, matched to their skills. They're encouraged to work together to rout evil, visit new worlds, and earn rewards.
"This is one of those areas (collaborating with strangers) where I was most skeptical," said Hirschberg, whose company has also published such franchises as Call of Duty and World of Warcraft.
Bungie concept art for its next game, Destiny.
(Credit: Bungie)
But gamers don't have go through the awkward dance of hooking up in a lobby before setting out on their adventure. They naturally come across allies and, if Bungie and Activision succeed, feel entirely comfortable teaming up with complete strangers to set out on the next adventure. While Bungie didn't share how those interactions come about, it could be similar, perhaps, to the wildly popular indie title Journey for the Playstation 3, which did away with the premise of playing with your friends in favor of encountering others randomly.
"It almost feels scripted," Hirschberg said.
Gamers also will be able to play solo. But Bungie Chief Operating Officer Pete Parsons said the goal for Bungie is to get gamers working together.
"If you want to do it yourself, that's totally OK," Parsons said. "We want to slope the floor and prove to you that there are a bunch of cool things you can do with others."
One thing gamers won't be able to do is play Destiny without an Internet connection, a bold move for the console gaming crowd that expects to be able to play offline. Even so, Activision has no plans to charge subscription fees to play the game. And while he wouldn't talk about a release day, Hirshberg told analysts on the company's earnings call earlier this month that the new Bungie game was not factored into the company's 2013 guidance, implying that the game won't likely arrive until 2014. It will be available on both the Xbox and Playstation platforms.
Bungie showed no game play during the presentation and gave little detail about how far along the development actually is. Instead, executives talked in sweeping themes about the new universe Bungie created, while highlighting production art, engineering details, and some of the music in its plans for its first post-Halo effort.
It's not just the first time Bungie has talked about the new game; it's really the first time Bungie has given a glimpse into its post-Microsoft life. Two years ago, the company moved from Kirkland, Wash., to an old movie theater and bowling alley in the Bellevue Galleria retail complex. It rebuilt the site, adding a theater, a fireplace, and a climbing wall. Bungie also added a motion-capture studio dubbed Spandex Palace, as well as a massive production floor where 280 of the companies 360 employees work on game development and design.
It's one of those new-age workplaces, where every desk has wheels, so that teams can be reconfigured on the fly as problems or opportunities emerge. The floor has a neon blue glow and is eerily quiet as the crew develops Destiny. Nothing on the floor is more than 6-feet high, so that everyone can see where the action is, where they might be needed. "This is a great space for making a great universe," Bungie's Parsons said.
The main production space at Bungie's Bellevue, Wash., headquarters.
(Credit: Bungie)
There's little doubt, when you walk in the door at Bungie, that this is the company that Halo built. A giant Master Chief, the hero of that series, stands watch in the hallway. And a massive trophy case, brimful of awards for the Halo series, with a few other titles sprinkled in, greets every visitor.
The company is focused solely on Destiny now. The Halo franchise is now entirely handled by Microsoft Studios. And Bungie has cast its lot with Activision.
Last year, the Los Angeles Times dug out details of the deal with Activision from a legal dispute between the publisher and Call of Duty developers Jason West and Vincent Zampella. Activision's contract with Bungie, unsealed in that suit, calls for Bungie to develop four "sci-fantasy, action shooter games," under the code-name Destiny, released every other year, starting in the fall of 2013. The deal also called for Bungie to release four downloadable expansion packs every other year starting in the fall of 2014.
Under the terms of that contract, which may have been modified since it was unsealed, Bungie was to receive royalties of 20 percent to 35 percent of operating income from the game. Activision was also to pay Bungie $2.5 million a year in bonuses between 2010 and 2013 for meeting quality and budget milestones. And the deal called for Activision to pay Bungie $2.5 million if the first Destiny game scores 90 or higher on GameRankings.com.
The executives didn't address the unsealed contract, except for a few passing quips during a question and answer session. But there's little doubt that much is riding on Destiny for both companies.
And Bungie is putting its resources, much more considerable now with its Activision partnership, behind the new title. Its audio director, Marty O'Donnell, is working with Paul McCartney on the music for Destiny. O'Donnell played a few of the pieces recorded at Abbey Road Studios in London with a 106-piece orchestra and a choir of more than 40 singers.
O'Donnell, whose music is as responsible for the tone of Halo as the graphics and gameplay itself, gushed about collaborating with McCartney. Rather than dictate the way a piece should work, McCartney has shared ideas with O'Donnell and left it up to him how the final arrangements should work.
"He said, 'Some of my melodies, some of your spooky bits, it's going to be great,'" O'Donnell said. "So far, he's been really happy with it."
Bungie Audio Director and Computer Marty O'Donnell
Oscar Pistorius weeps in court in Pretoria, South Africa, Feb 15, 2013, at his bail hearing in the murder case of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp. /AP Photo
Double-amputee Olympian Oscar Pistorius has claimed he shot and killed his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp accidentally because he thought she was an intruder, but a report in a major South African newspaper casts some doubt on that scenario.
Police recovered a "bloodied cricket bat" at the 26-year-old runner's Pretoria home after the shooting, and it has turned into a central piece of evidence in the case, City Press reports.
The paper also claims Steenkamp's skull had been "crushed," and police are investigating whether the bat was the cause of that injury.
Play Video
Pistorius, Steenkamp families in shock
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The fall of Oscar Pistorius
32 Photos
Oscar Pistorius' model girlfriend
There are allegedly three scenarios police are investigating involving the bat, according to City Press: The first is that Pistorius somehow used it against Steenkamp; the second involves the possibility that Steenkamp used it to defend herself after barricading herself inside a bathroom; the final scenario is that Pistorius used it to break down the bathroom door once she had been barricaded inside.
Police have also allegedly requested a drug test from Pistorius, City Press reports.
A police spokeswoman told The Guardian newspaper she could not explain how the "bloody cricket bat" and drug test claims had emerged in South African newspapers, but did not deny them.
"We are not commenting on anything in the newspapers today as the case is still before the court," she said on Sunday. "They are insinuating they got the information from the police."
Meanwhile, Pistorius' agent told the Associated Press that the double-amputee Olympian has received "overwhelming support" from his fans as he remains in custody in a South African police station.
Peet van Zyl said Sunday outside the Brooklyn police station that "international fans from literally all over the world" have sent their good wishes to Pistorius.
Responding to sharp criticism from Sen. Marco Rubio over the leaked White House immigration proposal, President Obama’s chief of staff Denis McDonough pushed back this morning on “This Week,” in an interview with ABC’s Chief White House Correspondent Jonathan Karl, saying it was up to those in Congress to ensure the president’s proposal would not be sent to Congress.
“He [Marco Rubio] says its ‘dead on arrival’ if it’s proposed. Well let’s make sure that it doesn’t have to be proposed,” McDonough said. “Let’s make sure that that group up there, the gang of eight, makes the good progress on these efforts as much as they say they want to.”
After the White House proposal was leaked, Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, who is currently part of a bipartisan group at work on legislation to overhaul the immigration system of the United States, issued a statement saying “President Obama’s leaked immigration proposal is disappointing to those of us working on a serious solution. The President’s bill repeats the failures of past legislation.” He went on to say that if it was actually proposed, it would be “dead on arrival” in Congress.
Karl asked McDonough for a response, but said he was not interested in engaging in a political “scrum” with Rubio.
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VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Benedict asked the faithful to pray for him and for the next pope, addressing a crowded St. Peter's Square in his penultimate Sunday address before becoming the first pontiff in centuries to resign.
The crowd chanted "Long live the pope!," waved banners and broke into sustained applause as he spoke from his window. The 85-year-old Benedict, who will resign on February 28, thanked them in several languages.
Speaking in Spanish, he told the crowd which the Vatican said numbered more than 50,000: "I beg you to continue praying for me and for the next pope".
It was not clear why the pope chose Spanish to make the only specific reference to his upcoming resignation in his Sunday address.
A number of cardinals have said they would be open to the possibility of a pope from the developing world, be it Latin America, Africa or Asia, as opposed to another from Europe, where the Church is crisis and polarized.
After his address, the pope retired into the Vatican's Apostolic Palace for a scheduled, week-long spiritual retreat and will not make any more public appearances until next Sunday.
Speaking in Italian in part of his address about Lent, the period when Christians reflect on their failings and seek guidance in prayer, the pope spoke of the difficulty of making important decisions.
"In decisive moments of life, or, on closer inspection, at every moment in life, we are at a crossroads: do we want to follow the ‘I' or God? The individual interest or the real good, that which is really good?" he said.
FOR THE GOOD OF THE CHURCH
Since his shock announcement last Monday, the pope has said several times that he made the difficult decision to become the first pope in more than six centuries to resign for the good of the Church.
"In a funny way he is even more peaceful now with this decision, unlike the rest of us, he is not somebody who gets choked up really easily," said Greg Burke, a senior media advisor to the Vatican.
"I think that has a lot to do with his spiritual life and who he is and the fact he is such a prayerful man," Burke told Reuters Television.
The pope has said his physical and spiritual forces are no longer strong enough to sustain him in the job of leading the world's 1.2 billion Roman Catholics at a time of difficulties for the Church in a fast-changing world.
Benedict's papacy was rocked by crises over the sex abuse of children by priests in Europe and the United States, most of which preceded his time in office but came to light during it.
His reign also saw Muslim anger after he compared Islam to violence. Jews were upset over his rehabilitation of a Holocaust denier. During a scandal over the Church's business dealings, his butler was convicted of leaking his private papers.
People in the crowd said the pope was a shadow of the man he was when elected on April 19, 2005.
"Like always, recently, he seemed tired, moved, perplexed, uncertain and insecure," said Stefan Malabar, an Italian in St. Peter's Square.
"It's something that really has an effect on you because the pope should be a strong and authoritative figure but instead he seems very weak, and that really struck me," he said.
The Vatican has said the conclave to choose his successor could start earlier than originally expected, giving the Roman Catholic Church a new leader by mid-March.
Some 117 cardinals under the age of 80 will be eligible to enter the secretive conclave to elect Benedict's successor. Church rules say the conclave has to start between 15 and 20 days after the papacy becomes vacant, which it will on February 28.
But since the Church is now dealing with an announced resignation and not a sudden death, Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said the Vatican would be "interpreting" the law to see if it could start earlier.
CONSULTATIONS BEGUN
Cardinals around the world have already begun informal consultations by phone and email to construct a profile of the man they think would be best suited to lead the Church in a period of continuing crisis.
The Vatican appears to be aiming to have a new pope elected and then formally installed before Palm Sunday on March 24 so he can preside at Holy Week services leading to Easter.
New details emerged at the weekend about the state of Benedict's health in the months before his shock decision.
Peter Seewald, a German journalist who wrote a book with the pope in 2010 in which Benedict first floated the possibility of resigning, visited him again about 10 weeks ago and asked what else could be expected from his papacy.
According to excepts published in the German magazine Focus, the pope answered: "From me? Not much from me. I'm an old man and the strength is ebbing. I think what I've done is enough."
Asked if he was considering resigning, the pope said: "That depends on how much my physical strength will force me to that".
Seewald said he was alarmed about the pope's health.
"His hearing had deteriorated. He couldn't see with his left eye. His body had become so thin that the tailors had difficulty in keeping up with newly fitted clothes ... I'd never seen him so exhausted-looking, so worn down."
The pope will say one more Sunday noon prayer on February 24, hold a final general audience on February 27. The next day he will take a helicopter to the papal summer retreat at Castle Gandalf, south of Rome, flying into the history books.
Vatican officials said he would stay there for the two months or so needed to restore the convent inside the Vatican where he will live out his remaining years.
(Additional reporting by Hanna Rantala; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)
SINGAPORE: More youths have stepped up to do volunteer work in Singapore's North West District. Last year, the number more than doubled, from about 470 to some 1,000.
Volunteers' Night was held on Sunday evening to show appreciation to those who have helped.
Members of Parliament from Holland-Bukit Timah GRC were present to show their support.
This year, the district aims to boost the number of volunteers of all ages from the current 2,880 to 4,000.
Programmes to assist the needy and bond residents will be beefed up, with a focus on building a caring and healthy community.
Mayor of North West District Dr Teo Ho Pin said: "We'll be engaging a lot of volunteers, especially from companies and the community to come forward to help our needy families, especially (those living in) rental blocks, so we're expecting about maybe 500, 600, or even 800 volunteers in that area."
The district had 1,250 volunteers across various age groups in 2011, which doubled in the following year.
