The News Of …

About a half-hour before practice Thursday at Halas Hall, reports surfaced that the Minnesota Vikings were releasing quarterback Donovan McNabb.
The Bears immediately were pegged as his next stop.
Jay Cutler is potentially sidelined for the rest of the regular season as he recovers from right thumb surgery, and Caleb Hanie struggled in his first NFL start, throwing three interceptions in a 25-20 loss to the Oakland Raiders.
During an appearance on ESPN’s “SportsCenter,” McNabb never was specifically asked about the Bears or any other team. But he suggested a team with “veteran players who know how to win” would be appealing.
The 7-4 Bears fit that description. That they play their home games in his hometown can’t be discounted.
Ultimately, though, the decision isn’t McNabb’s.
He’ll be subject to the NFL’s waiver wire, and all 32 teams will have a chance to claim him. Last week, former Bears quarterback Kyle Orton reportedly wanted to return to Chicago. And while the Bears wanted him, the claims of the Dallas Cowboys and Kansas City Chiefs superseded their position, based on record and strength of schedule.
Orton is taking 40 percent of the practice snaps for the Chiefs, and Josh McCown is working overtime at Halas Hall as the backup to Hanie.
The Bears, Cowboys and Houston Texans were widely cast as teams that could claim McNabb and save the Vikings the 1,4 million dollars he’s due for the rest of this season. The Cowboys would have the priority, followed by the Bears, then the Texans.

Donovan McNabb.

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Rapper Kanye West led the field of Grammy contenders on Wednesday with seven nominations, including for his album “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy” and his joint venture with Jay-Z “Watch The Throne”.
But British singer Adele – whose album “21″ is the biggest-selling of 2011 – and R&B artist Bruno Mars were close behind with six apiece, including nods for the three big awards of album, song and record of the year.
Other leading contenders for the major music industry awards show include U.S. alternative rock band Foo Fighters, also with six nominations, while rapper Lil Wayne and newcomer Skrillex had five nominations apiece.
The nominations for the top awards were announced during a televised concert in Los Angeles featuring performances by Lady Gaga, Usher and up-and-coming country singers The Band Perry.
Winners in all 78 categories will be announced at the Grammy Awards ceremony and show on Feb. 12.
Traditional rock bands were largely missing from the leading categories, with hip-hop artists and female singers including Lady Gaga, Rihanna and Katy Perry grabbing the spotlight.
The best new artist category produced a particularly eclectic mix of female rapper Nicki Minaj, hip-hop artist J. Cole, country sensations The Band Perry, house and electropop performer Skrillex and American folk band Bon Iver.

Kanye West.

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Patrice O’Neal (41) a veteran stand-up comic who gained a wider following through TV and radio and helped roast Charlie Sheen in September, died Tuesday from complications of a stroke he suffered last month. O’Neal’s manager (Jonathan Brandstein) said he died at a New York-area hospital.
O’Neal grew up in Boston and started his stand-up career there. He appeared on Conan O’Brien and David Letterman’s late-night TV shows and was a frequent guest on the “Opie & Anthony” radio show on Sirius XM.
His performance was a highlight of the Comedy Central roast of Sheen, who had been fired from the hit CBS comedy “Two and a Half Men.”
O’Neal had half-hour specials on Showtime and HBO and was the host of “Web Junk 20″ on VH1. He also acted in the TV series “Arrested Development,” “Chappelle’s Show” and “The Office.”
O’Neal (who was 6 feet 5) weighed about 300 pounds and had diabetes, suffered a stroke October 19.

Patrice O'Neal.

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Anne Hathaway has announced she is engaged to actor and jewellery designer boyfriend Adam Shulman.
“The Devil Wears Prada” star confirmed her engagement after she was photographed wearing a ring with her boyfriend Shulman in Brooklyn.
Shulman, an actor and jewellery designer, collaborated with Kwiat Heritage Jewels to create the sparkler.
Although the pair had been seeing each other since 2008, they were discreet about it and were not photographed together until the next year.
“We hit if off immediately but it took us a pretty long time to get together” – the Daily Express quoted her as saying in the September issue of U.K.’s Marie Claire magazine.
“He thought that I had a boyfriend and I thought that he had a girlfriend, so I thought that I’d better keep my distance because I didn’t want to be that girl” – she said.
She described her union with Shulam as more ‘mellow’ than her previous liaisons.
“Mellow doesn’t always make for a good story, but it makes for a good life” – she said. Peaking about the relationship the 29-year-old star said that she was looking forward to spending time as a bachelorrette when she fell for him.
“Adam totally ruined my plan. I was really actually looking forward to a little alone time and then I fall in love like a fool” – she said.

Anne Hathaway.

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Hundreds of anti-Wall Street activists who faced eviction early Monday from their eight-week-old encampment outside Los Angeles City Hall will be allowed to stay put until at least dawn – a police official said.
But police Commander Andrew Smith said demonstrators who continued to block downtown streets adjacent to the camp would be subject to immediate arrest.
The Los Angeles encampment is among the oldest and largest on the West Coast aligned with a two-month-old national Occupy Wall Street movement protesting economic inequality, high unemployment and the excesses of the U.S. financial system.

Occupy LA.

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The Georgia Bulldogs have a 2011 SEC Championship Game (CBS, 4 p.m. ET on Dec. 3) opponent – the LSU Tigers will make their first appearance in the Georgia Dome since last year’s Chick-fil-A opener. The Tigers outlasted the Arkansas Razorbacks in Baton Rouge to clinch an unbeaten regular season and clinch the SEC Western Division for the fourth time.
This will be the third time UGA and LSU have played in the conference title game. They’ve split the Dome series – the Tigers won in 2003, while the Dawgs won in 2005.
Georgia will be a significant underdog. The perception – and stats – show LSU to be the best and most-tested team in the country, and one capable of beating any team in any building. UGA has coasted, relatively speaking, through about the easiest SEC schedule possible, losing handily in their only game against legit top-10 competition.
But if the Bulldogs can pull out a win, they’ll reach their first Sugar Bowl since ’2007 and the fourth of Mark Richt’s time in Athens. A loss would likely send them to the Capitol One or Outback. A LSU loss wouldn’t necessarily knock them out of the national championship game, since Alabama and Oklahoma State each has a significant loss of its own.

Sugar Bowl.

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Kurt Busch’s adventurous final race day Sunday at Homestead-Miami Speedway has produced yet another negative reaction.
NASCAR took the unusual action of announcing a major fine against Busch Friday, saying Busch’s actions during the Homestead race will cost him a 50,000 dollars fine.
Busch made an obscene hand gesture – caught by an in-car camera – after his transmission blew early in the Ford 400. A few minutes later, while waiting to be interviewed by television reporter Jerry Punch, Busch unleashed a profanity-laced tirade at Punch and his camera crew, ultimately leading Punch to walk away without doing the interview.
NASCAR said late Friday afternoon that it hit Busch with the fine for his “poor judgment in making an inappropriate hand gesture” and because he showed “disrespect towards a media member.”
Although it is rare for NASCAR to fine a competitor for a confrontation with news media representatives, the NASCAR release announcing the fine included the fact that Busch’s encounter with Punch “followed similar inappropriate media confrontations earlier in the season.”
Those included actions at the second Richmond race, where Busch had to be restrained from going after a NASCAR.com reporter and later took an interview transcript from another reporter and tore it in half.
After the incident with Punch, which was videotaped and seen by thousands on the internet, Busch and his Penske Racing team issued apologies.

Kurt Busch.

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J.R Martinez, who was crowned the new champion of “Dancing With the Stars” Tuesday night, in one of the closest and most thrilling finales ever, admits that the suspense before the show unveiled the winner was killing him.
“I said to Karina … ‘Can they just tell us already?’ It seemed like the moment was just lasting forever when they were building up the suspense” – the actor and war hero said today on “Good Morning America.” “It’s amazing. We’ve all been putting over three months of work into this. To be able to hold that (mirror ball trophy) up was a tremendous honor.”
It was also the first win for Martinez’s professional partner, Karina Smirnoff. “I think I was screaming so loud, I lost my voice. It is an amazing feeling” – she said today on “GMA,” “and what a person to share it with.”
Martinez, who survived an IED explosion while serving in Iraq that burned 40 percent of his body, danced his heart out against finalists Rob Kardashian and Ricki Lake in the two-night finale. Lake, who was leading the pack after the first round of dances, surprisingly failed to advance to the top two, taking third place.
Kardashian, the dark horse of the bunch who had showed tremendous improvement in recent weeks, went on to dance an instant samba against Martinez. Both received perfect scores from the judges, but combined with viewers’ votes, Martinez was awarded the mirror ball trophy.
“I literally couldn’t have asked myself to have done any better. I went as far as I could go” – Kardashian (24) said. “J.R. deserved that trophy.”

JR Martinez.

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Anne McCaffrey, author of the “Dragonriders of Pern” series, has died. She was 85 years old.
Her publisher Random House reportedly announced that the author passed away after suffering a stroke.
McCaffrey’s books about a distant planet in which some inhabitants rode telepathic dragons to combat deadly falling alien Threads are considered seminal works of fantasy fiction. The books combined mythic inspiration, sci-fi and adventure.
McCaffrey was born in Cambridge, Mass., and published “Dragonflight” – the first volume in her “Dragonriders of Pern” series, in 1968. “When is a legend a legend? Why is a myth a myth? How old and disused must a fact be for it to be relegated to the category ‘Fairy-tale’?” she wrote in the introduction to “Dragonflight.” McCaffrey’s 1978 book “The White Dragon” was a breakthrough in the series, and made the New York Times bestseller lists.
While much of fantasy fiction focused on male protagonists, McCaffrey’s works featured both men and women as risk-taking heroes and heroines. Her blend of the sci-fi and fantasy genres was also unique and groundbreaking. McCaffrey was the first woman to win a Hugo Award and the first female to win a Nebula Award. She won both sci-fi/fantasy writing prizes in the late 1960s.
Her books reimagined the ancient mythology of dragons, transforming them from enemies of men into friends, creating a psychological and emotional bond between humans and the fire-breathing creatures, and successfully tapping into a deep-seated fantasy most readers didn’t even know they had–the desire to ride on the back of a dragon and fly across the sky.

Anne McCaffrey.

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Ali Fedotowsky and Roberto Martinez the “Bachelorette” couple has split and their wedding has been officially called off, after 18 months.
The “Bachelorette” couple Ali Fedotowsky and Roberto Martinez, who found their love on the sixth season of the popular show “Bachelorette”. Roberto proposed her on the season finale that was aired last year. Ali has reportedly said that, their wedding was put on hold, while they were figuring out their lives together. However, the relationship of the couple has officially been called off.
Ali and Roberto has released a statement which reads that, they have ended their relationship and asked to respect their privacy, as they are going through difficult time. The 27-year-old former Facebook employee Ali also reportedly denied the rumors that, their wedding has been delayed due to their relationship issues. She added that, they did not meet each other in a traditional way and they had a very short courtship and they know each other for just nine weeks, before they got engaged.
However, Ali is allegedly planning to tie the knot with her former fiance and said that, they are still engaged, living together. She added – they do not feel to marry soon. But the sources claim that, her romance has been in trouble with 28-year-old Robert Martinez for some time. The sources also added that, the relationship of the “Bachelorette” couple has been turbulent since day one. The couple has already set a wedding date this year, but was withdrawn due to Ali Fedotowsky’s knee injury. Do you think, Ali Fedotowsky and Roberto Martinez reunite and tie the knot, despite their split?

Ali Fedotowsky and Roberto Martinez.

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