Cameron Reschedules Europe Speech for Wednesday

LONDON — Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain, who postponed a much-awaited address on his country’s future relations with Europe because of the Algeria hostage crisis, will deliver the speech in London on Wednesday, his office said Monday.

Mr. Cameron had planned to deliver the speech in the Netherlands on Friday but postponed it as the fate of British captives in Algeria seemed ever more dire. In a statement on Sunday, Mr. Cameron said three Britons had been confirmed killed, three were feared dead and a person usually resident in Britain had died.

Mr. Cameron’s initial choice of Amsterdam as the venue reflected a long tradition of using European cities as the platform for British pronouncements on Europe.

“We were planning to give it in Amsterdam. Unfortunately, that didn’t prove possible and Wednesday morning in London fits better with the prime minister’s schedule,” said a spokesman for Mr. Cameron, speaking in return for anonymity under departmental protocols.

“There is a debate going on across the E.U. There is also an active debate going on here in the U.K. The prime minister’s speech will be reflecting both those aspects,” the spokesman said.

On Friday, after Mr. Cameron postponed the speech, his office released excerpts suggesting that he had planned to deliver an explicit warning that Britain might leave the European Union unless the bloc changed the way it is run.

Mr. Cameron planned to say that there was “a gap between the E.U. and its citizens which has grown dramatically in recent years and which represents a lack of democratic accountability and consent that is — yes — felt particularly acutely in Britain.”

“If we don’t address these challenges, the danger is that Europe will fail and the British people will drift toward the exit,” Mr. Cameron planned to say.

“I do not want that to happen. I want the European Union to be a success, and I want a relationship between Britain and the E.U. that keeps us in it.”

Mr. Cameron’s views have drawn unusual public comment from American officials.

Last week, a White House spokesman quoted President Obama as telling Mr. Cameron in a telephone call that “the United States values a strong U.K. in a strong European Union, which makes critical contributions to peace, prosperity and security in Europe and around the world.”

That theme resurfaced Sunday when the American ambassador in London, Louis B. Susman, told Sky News that “we cannot imagine a strong E.U. without a vibrant partner in the U.K.”

“That is what we hope will come about, but it is up to the British people to decide what they want,” Mr. Susman said, according to the Press Association news agency.

Mr. Cameron is under pressure from members of his own Conservative Party to promise a referendum on Europe and he has signaled his readiness to hold one, although the precise question to be asked has not been made clear.

Liam Fox, a former defense secretary who is regarded as leading euroskeptic, said that he had been briefed on the content of the address and “if that is the speech that is finally delivered, a great many of us will think that it’s a speech that we’ve been waiting a long time for any prime minister to deliver.”

Foreign Secretary William Hague said Sunday there was a strong case for seeking “fresh consent” about the relationship between the European Union and Britain, which held a referendum approving membership in 1975.

“We want to succeed in the European Union — we want an outward-looking E.U. to succeed in the world, and for the United Kingdom to succeed in that,” he said.

“But we have to recognize that the European Union has changed a lot since the referendum of 1975, and that there have been not only great achievements to the E.U.’s name but some things that have gone badly wrong, such as the euro,” Mr. Hague said, referring to the protracted crisis over the bloc’s single currency. Britain does not participate in the single currency.

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Notre Dame hoax tip was emailed: Deadspin.com editor

CHICAGO (Reuters) – The tip that led to the revelation that one of the most widely recounted U.S. sports narratives of the past year was a hoax came to the editors of an online sports blog as many of their news tips do: an unsolicited email.

That email led Deadspin.com assignment editor Timothy Burke on the hunt of a story that exposed the heart-wrenching tale of standout Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te’o's dead girlfriend as a fabrication, Burke said on CNN on Thursday.

Te’o sprang to national prominence last fall when the senior co-captain was seen heroically leading the Fighting Irish to an underdog victory against the Michigan State Spartans within days of learning his grandmother had died. Moreover, it was widely reported, Te’o's girlfriend had died of leukemia just hours after his grandmother’s death.

From that point, Te’o's narrative was a prominent feature in coverage of the team, which has a dedicated following and whose games are televised nationally each week.

Notre Dame went on to an undefeated regular season, culminating in a berth in the national championship game, which the Fighting Irish lost to the Alabama Crimson Tide on January 7.

“We got an email last week at Deadspin.com that said ‘Hey, there’s something real weird about Lennay Kekua, Manti Te’o's allegedly dead girlfriend. You guys should check it out,’” Burke said.

The email prompted Burke and co-author Jack Dickey to begin searching online for background on Kekua. “So we start Googling the name Lennay Kekua. We can’t find any evidence of this person that wasn’t attached to stories about her being Manti Te’o's dead girlfriend.”

Their investigation led about a week later to a 4,000-word expose, published Wednesday under the headline “Blarney,” that painstakingly debunked the story of Kekua’s existence. The story went viral online.

Within hours of its publication, officials at Notre Dame, one of the most powerful institutions in college football and U.S. collegiate athletics overall, held a hastily organized press conference to assert that Te’o had been duped in a hoax perpetrated by a friend of his.

The girlfriend, who called herself Kekua and claimed to be a Stanford University graduate, was merely an online persona who “ingratiated herself with Manti and then conspired with others to lead him to believe she had tragically died of leukemia,” university spokesman Dennis Brown said in a statement.

Notre Dame Athletic Director Jack Swarbrick said the university learned of the hoax from Te’o on December 26. Te’o answered questions forthrightly and private investigators uncovered several things that pointed to Te’o being a victim in the case, Swarbrick said.

Deadspin’s Burke said he remains skeptical of this being a hoax perpetrated on Te’o rather than by Te’o.

“Ask yourself why and what incentive a person would have to execute such a lengthy, time-consuming and expensive con that would involve multiple people and essentially consume his entire life just to screw around with a guy that he knows?” Burke said on CNN.

Deadspin.com said the woman whose photograph was frequently shown on TV and in news reports about Kekua was actually a young California woman who had never met or communicated with Te’o. The website declined to identify her by name.

On Thursday, TV newsmagazine “Inside Edition” said the woman in the photograph was a 23-year-old marketing professional in Los Angeles named Diane O’Meara. Inside Edition, which is syndicated by CBS Television Distribution, said O’Meara was a former classmate of one of Te’o's friends. It Aredid not give the friend’s name.

In the expose published Wednesday, Deadspin.com said a friend of Te’o's named Ronaiah Tuiasosopo was “the man behind” the hoax.

Outside Tuiasosopo’s home in Palmdale, California on Thursday, a member of his family who did not identify himself told reporters, “Please, we have no comment. Please respect that.”

The Te’o hoax is the latest black eye Notre Dame’s legendary football program has suffered in recent years.

In 2011, the school was fined $ 42,000 by an Indiana agency over the death of football videographer Declan Sullivan, 20, who died in October 2010 after a hydraulic lift he was using to record practice toppled over in high winds.

In 2010, Elizabeth “Lizzy” Seeberg, a freshman at nearby St. Mary’s College, killed herself ten days after accusing a Notre Dame football player of sexual battery. Her family began questioning the campus police department’s reluctance to gather evidence and a 15-day delay in interviewing the accused.

After a federal investigation into the matter, the school agreed to revise its policies on sexual misconduct.

(Additional reporting by Dan Burns, Dana Feldman, David Bailey and Mary Wisniewski.; Editing by Vicki Allen, Greg McCune and Andrew Hay)

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It's a Boy for American Idol's Danny Gokey

Mom & Babies
Celebrity Baby Blog

01/21/2013 at 12:00 AM ET

Courtesy Danny Gokey

Now he’s got a little Idol of his own!

American Idol season eight finalist Danny Gokey and his wife Leyicet welcomed their first child, son Daniel Emanuel Gokey, on Sunday, Jan. 20, PEOPLE confirms exclusively.

Weighing in at 8 lbs. 11 oz., Daniel arrived at 9:52 p.m. EST on his due date.

“Leyicet and I are overjoyed to welcome the new member of our family. I’m ecstatic to be a first time dad and to have a new little buddy to hang out with,” Gokey tells PEOPLE.

“Thankfully, because of what I do, it will also allow me the flexibility to spend a lot of quality time with him. I have so many exciting projects ahead this year but a brand new baby is an amazing way to get the new year started. We feel really blessed!”

The timing for their newborn couldn’t be better. Almost exactly one year ago, Gokey, 32, and his model wife, 26, tied the knot in a low-key affair in Florida on January 29. Six months later, they shared the happy news of their pregnancy.

This is the second marriage for Gokey, who tragically lost his first wife Sophia in 2008 after a routine surgery for congenital heart disease. Gokey now runs the Sophia’s Heart Foundation, which helps homeless families, in her honor.

– Kevin O’Donnell

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Flu season fuels debate over paid sick time laws

NEW YORK (AP) — Sniffling, groggy and afraid she had caught the flu, Diana Zavala dragged herself in to work anyway for a day she felt she couldn't afford to miss.

A school speech therapist who works as an independent contractor, she doesn't have paid sick days. So the mother of two reported to work and hoped for the best — and was aching, shivering and coughing by the end of the day. She stayed home the next day, then loaded up on medicine and returned to work.

"It's a balancing act" between physical health and financial well-being, she said.

An unusually early and vigorous flu season is drawing attention to a cause that has scored victories but also hit roadblocks in recent years: mandatory paid sick leave for a third of civilian workers — more than 40 million people — who don't have it.

Supporters and opponents are particularly watching New York City, where lawmakers are weighing a sick leave proposal amid a competitive mayoral race.

Pointing to a flu outbreak that the governor has called a public health emergency, dozens of doctors, nurses, lawmakers and activists — some in surgical masks — rallied Friday on the City Hall steps to call for passage of the measure, which has awaited a City Council vote for nearly three years. Two likely mayoral contenders have also pressed the point.

The flu spike is making people more aware of the argument for sick pay, said Ellen Bravo, executive director of Family Values at Work, which promotes paid sick time initiatives around the country. "There's people who say, 'OK, I get it — you don't want your server coughing on your food,'" she said.

Advocates have cast paid sick time as both a workforce issue akin to parental leave and "living wage" laws, and a public health priority.

But to some business owners, paid sick leave is an impractical and unfair burden for small operations. Critics also say the timing is bad, given the choppy economy and the hardships inflicted by Superstorm Sandy.

Michael Sinensky, an owner of seven bars and restaurants around the city, was against the sick time proposal before Sandy. And after the storm shut down four of his restaurants for days or weeks, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars that his insurers have yet to pay, "we're in survival mode."

"We're at the point, right now, where we cannot afford additional social initiatives," said Sinensky, whose roughly 500 employees switch shifts if they can't work, an arrangement that some restaurateurs say benefits workers because paid sick time wouldn't include tips.

Employees without sick days are more likely to go to work with a contagious illness, send an ill child to school or day care and use hospital emergency rooms for care, according to a 2010 survey by the University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center. A 2011 study in the American Journal of Public Health estimated that a lack of sick time helped spread 5 million cases of flu-like illness during the 2009 swine flu outbreak.

To be sure, many employees entitled to sick time go to work ill anyway, out of dedication or at least a desire to project it. But the work-through-it ethic is shifting somewhat amid growing awareness about spreading sickness.

"Right now, where companies' incentives lie is butting right up against this concern over people coming into the workplace, infecting others and bringing productivity of a whole company down," said John A. Challenger, CEO of employer consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

Paid sick day requirements are often popular in polls, but only four places have them: San Francisco, Seattle, Washington, D.C., and the state of Connecticut. The specific provisions vary.

Milwaukee voters approved a sick time requirement in 2008, but the state Legislature passed a law blocking it. Philadelphia's mayor vetoed a sick leave measure in 2011; lawmakers have since instituted a sick time requirement for businesses with city contracts. Voters rejected a paid sick day measure in Denver in 2011.

In New York, City Councilwoman Gale Brewer's proposal would require up to five paid sick days a year at businesses with at least five employees. It wouldn't include independent contractors, such as Zavala, who supports the idea nonetheless.

The idea boasts such supporters as feminist Gloria Steinem and "Sex and the City" actress Cynthia Nixon, as well as a majority of City Council members and a coalition of unions, women's groups and public health advocates. But it also faces influential opponents, including business groups, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who has virtually complete control over what matters come to a vote.

Quinn, who is expected to run for mayor, said she considers paid sick leave a worthy goal but doesn't think it would be wise to implement it in a sluggish economy. Two of her likely opponents, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio and Comptroller John Liu, have reiterated calls for paid sick leave in light of the flu season.

While the debate plays out, Emilio Palaguachi is recovering from the flu and looking for a job. The father of four was abruptly fired without explanation earlier this month from his job at a deli after taking a day off to go to a doctor, he said. His former employer couldn't be reached by telephone.

"I needed work," Palaguachi said after Friday's City Hall rally, but "I needed to see the doctor because I'm sick."

___

Associated Press writer Susan Haigh in Hartford, Conn., contributed to this report.

___

Follow Jennifer Peltz at http://twitter.com/jennpeltz

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European shares test two-year highs, yen volatile before BOJ

LONDON (Reuters) - European shares inched towards two-year highs and German Bund futures dipped on Monday, as a political attempt to break a budget impasse in the United States revived appetite for shares and dented demand for safe-haven assets.

U.S. House Republican leaders said on Friday they would seek to pass a three-month extension of federal borrowing authority in the coming days to buy time for the Democrat-controlled Senate to pass a plan to shrink budget deficits.

European shares <.fteu3> were supported by the news <.eu>, but with no clear response from the Democrats and a thin session expected due to a market holiday in the United States, the impact on other assets such as Bunds is likely to be limited.

An early morning push by London's FTSE 100 <.ftse>, Paris's CAC-40 <.fchi> and Frankfurt's DAX <.gdaxi> was beginning to fade by mid-morning, leaving the pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 up 0.1 percent and MSCI's world index <.miwd00000pus> steady at a 20-month high. <.l><.eu/>

"There's a bit of encouragement coming out of the U.S.," said Toby Campbell-Gray, head of trading at Tavira Securities in Monaco.

He added that equity markets had remained resilient in the face of an uncertain economic outlook as many investors had stepped in to buy "on the dip" on days when shares had fallen.

Ahead of the region's first finance ministers' meeting of the year, the euro was down slightly at just over $1.33 against the dollar, while the yen firmed after touching a new low, ahead of a Bank of Japan decision expected to deliver bold monetary easing.

According to sources familiar with the Bank of Japan's thinking, the government of new Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and the central bank have agreed to set 2 percent inflation as a new target, supplanting a softer 1 percent 'goal'.

The dollar rose to as high as 90.25 yen earlier on Monday, its highest since June 2010. It later slipped 0.7 percent on the day to 89.39 yen, as traders cut short positions given the BOJ has often fallen short of market expectations.

"Investors are being mindful that the moves we have seen over the course of the last month or two are just worth locking in at least until we understand how the BOJ are really going to play in the future," said Jeremy Stretch, head of currency strategy at CIBC World Markets.

CURRENCY WAR

Japanese equities have surged in recent weeks in anticipation of a more aggressive monetary policy stance, but not everyone is happy.

The slump in the yen has prompted Russia's deputy central bank governor to warn of a new round of 'currency wars' and the medium-term risk of running ultra-loose monetary policies is likely to be a theme of the World Economic Forum in Davos, which opens on Wednesday.

With little in the way of economic data or debt issuance and U.S. markets shut for the Martin Luther King public holiday, the rest of the day was expected to be a fairly quite day for investors.

In bond markets, German Bund yields rose close to the top of this year's 30 basis points range, after Republican lawmakers' efforts to give the U.S. government leeway to pay its bills for another three months. Most other euro zone bonds were trading virtually flat.

The U.S. Treasury needs congressional authorisation to raise the current $16.4 trillion limit on U.S. debt sometime between mid-February and early March. A failure to achieve that could lead to a debt default.

"This is part of the political game, it remains to be seen whether the Democrats will accept it," KBC strategist Piet Lammens said, adding that investors' working scenario was that a solution to raise the ceiling would be eventually found anyway.

OIL OVERSUPPLY

German markets showed no reaction after the country's centre-left opposition party edged Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives from power in a regional election on Sunday, reviving its flagging hopes for September's national election.

Oil prices took their cues from a report in the United States at the end of last week that showed consumer sentiment at its weakest in a year as a result of the uncertainty surrounding the country's debt crisis.

Concerns about demand overshadowed supply disruption fears reinforced by the Islamist militant attack and hostage-taking at a gas plant in Algeria, a member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.

Brent futures were down by 17 cents to $111.72 per barrel by 1030 GMT. U.S. crude shed 40 cents to $95.16 per barrel after touching a four-month high last week.

"The over-riding fundamental feeling in the market is that crude oil is over-supplied in 2013," said Tony Nunan, an oil risk manager at Mitsubishi.

Last week's data showing a pick-up in the Chinese economy helped keep growth-sensitive copper prices steady at roughly $8,058 an ounce. Gold, meanwhile, reversed Friday's losses to stand at $1,688 an ounce.

(Additional reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta, Marious Zaharia and Anooja Debnath; Editing by Will Waterman and Giles Elgood)

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Africa Must Take Lead in Mali, France Says

Marco Gualazzini for The New York Times

A French armored vehicle patrolled a strategic bridge over the Niger River in Markala, Mali, on Saturday.

PARIS — With French officials saying confidently on Saturday that an advance by Islamist militants on Bamako, Mali’s capital, had been halted, France’s foreign minister told African leaders that “our African friends need to take the lead” in a multilateral military intervention in Mali.

The foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, spoke in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, at a summit meeting to discuss how to accelerate the involvement of West African troops in Mali, although he acknowledged that it could be weeks before they were there in force.

“Step by step, I think it’s a question from what I heard this morning of some days, some weeks,” said Mr. Fabius, referring to the time frame when the bulk of troops from the Economic Community of West African States, the regional group known as Ecowas, would arrive.

On Sunday, Mr. Fabius told Europe 1 radio that Russia, which has previously remained on the sidelines of the conflict, had suggested helping France transport soldiers and equipment to Mali. He did not say whether France had accepted the offer.

He also said African forces would be transported in part with European and Canadian logistical support.

France intervened militarily on Jan. 11 after the Malian government said it was afraid that Islamist militants, who control the north, could continue their push south and take over Bamako with little opposition from a dispirited army.

Once the situation is more stable, France wants African troops to do most of the work to wrest the north from the Islamists, as called for under a United Nations Security Council resolution passed in December.

French officials conceded, however, that there were disputes over how African participation would be financed and about the best way to transport troops to Mali. In Paris, French officials said the United States, while willing to help ferry African troops, wanted to bill France for the use of transport aircraft, which officials said would not go down well with the French. The Pentagon favors providing rapid help with transport and even with air-to-air refueling, but the White House is more reluctant, the officials said.

But the officials said France and that the United States were sharing intelligence about Mali and the Sahel region of North Africa that was garnered from drones and other means, and that discussions with Washington continued amicably.

The African troops also need equipment and training, and Mr. Fabius pointed to a donors’ meeting in Ethiopia scheduled for Jan. 29 as “a key moment.”

The French defense minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, said Saturday that France now had 2,000 troops in Mali, with more in the region, and that France was likely to add to its forces there. He said the Mali operation could involve at least 4,000 soldiers in the region, and French officials said they would put no fixed limit on the number of troops that might be required to restore the territorial integrity of Mali and drive back the Islamist fighters, who have ties to Al Qaeda.

The French officials emphasized that the targets of the mission were the Islamists, not the Tuaregs or other Malians fighting for more autonomy or independence in the north. They also said Islamist terrorists in Mali had made four or five efforts to carry out operations in France in the last few years.

Despite reports of French forces fighting on the ground in and around the village of Diabaly, Mr. Le Drian said that “there has been no ground combat” there, only airstrikes. He dismissed reports from Malian Army sources that French troops were fighting or even in the town. “I think someone is hallucinating,” he said. Residents have told local news agencies that the Islamists have left Diabaly, which they seized as an important way station on the road to the administrative capital, Ségou, north of Bamako.

The Associated Press reported on Sunday that it had obtained video filmed by a resident of Diabaly showing a street dotted with burned out vehicles and scattered bullets. The town remained calm on Sunday, the A.P. said. The video showed residents inspecting vehicles and charred weaponry destroyed by French airstrikes.

In the Islamist-controlled northern town of Gao on Saturday, young residents lynched an Islamist police commissioner in retaliation for the killing of a local radio journalist earlier in the day, according to a Twitter post from the office of Mali’s president, Dioncounda Traoré. The journalist had been suspected of working with foreign radio stations, Reuters reported.

French airstrikes have halted the Islamist advance toward Mopti and nearby Sévaré, French officials said, while they confirmed that the village of Konna, north of Mopti, was now back in the hands of Mali’s government.

Also on Saturday, Human Rights Watch said it had received what it called credible reports of abuses being committed by Malian security forces against Tuareg and Arab civilians.

Alan Cowell contributed reporting from London.

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Hundreds attend NYC memorial for Internet activist Aaron Swartz

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Supporters of Aaron Swartz, the 26-year-old Internet activist who committed suicide last week, gathered in New York to remember the computer prodigy on Saturday, with some calling for changes in the criminal justice system they blame for his death.

Swartz, who at 14 helped create an early version of the Web feed system RSS and believed the fruits of academic research and other information should be freely available to all, was found dead a week ago in his Brooklyn apartment.

The city’s chief medical examiner ruled the death a suicide by hanging.

He had been facing trial on federal charges he used the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s computer networks to steal more than 4 million articles from JSTOR, an online archive and journal distribution service.

Swartz, who had also worked on the popular website Reddit, had faced a maximum sentence of 31 years in prison and fines of up to $ 1 million.

“He told me about the 4.5 million downloads of scholarly articles, and my first thought was why isn’t MIT celebrating this?” Edward Tufte, an emeritus professor of computer science at Yale University and a friend of Swartz, said to applause from the crowd gathered in The Cooper Union’s Great Hall in Manhattan.

Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman, Swartz’s partner, criticized what she described as MIT’s “indifference” to the saga, saying the school could have acted to end his prosecution.

The president of MIT said this week the school was investigating its role in Swartz’s case. JSTOR has said in a statement it settled any dispute with Swartz in 2011 and praised his “important contributions to the development of the Internet.”

CALL FOR CHANGE

At the memorial, attended by hundreds of friends and supporters, the strongest criticisms were reserved for prosecutors in the office of Carmen Ortiz, the U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts.

Roy Singham, the chairman of ThoughtWorks, a software consultancy firm where Swartz worked, called the case against Swartz “an abuse of state power” intended to intimidate Swartz. He called for the reform of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act under which Swartz was prosecuted.

Swartz’s partner said it all became too much for him to bear.

“He was so scared and so frustrated and more than anything so weary I just don’t think he could take it another day,” Stinebrickner-Kauffman said, adding the pair had discussed getting married after the trial.

Ortiz has defended her office’s actions, saying prosecutors “took on the difficult task of enforcing a law they had taken an oath to uphold, and did so reasonably.”

She said they offered Swartz a deal to plead guilty to multiple counts of wire fraud and computer fraud and spend six months at a low-security facility.

Swartz was remembered as a precocious talent who began addressing technology conferences as a teenager and whose quirks included being loath to wash his dishes and preferring bland foods like crackers and white rice.

Many speakers said he was by far the smartest and most intellectually curious person they had known, and called on those in attendance to continue his work of trying to widen the public’s access to information and communication channels.

Stinebrickner-Kauffman said Swartz disliked grand ceremonies and would have been uncomfortable with some aspects of his own memorial.

“But memorial services are for the living,” she said, repeating it several times like a mantra, “and last Friday he forfeited his right to decide that.”

(Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Xavier Briand)

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Big Brother Alums Daniele Donato and Dominic Briones Marry

TV Watch
People Exclusive

By Steve Helling

01/20/2013 at 07:45 AM EST

Daniele Donato and Dominic Briones

CBS

In a bohemian-style wedding Saturday afternoon, Big Brother alums Dominic Briones and Daniele Donato tied the knot at the Newland House Museum in Huntington Beach, Calif.

The couple met while filming CBS's Big Brother 13 in the summer of 2011. She was a returning contestant; he, a newbie.

"Truth be told, I really didn't like him at first," she says with a laugh. "I thought he was a little troublemaker. But we became friends, and although I didn't like him like that, it just grew."

She adds, "After the finale, we became inseparable. We got to know each other really well, and we fell in love!"

As their relationship developed, Briones says he tried to think of the perfect way to propose.

"I took Dani on a road trip last August and we stopped at the St. Louis Zoo," he says. "We both love penguins, because they mate for life, so I set up a behind-the-scenes tour without her knowing. One of the zoo workers brought out two little penguins. As we were playing with them, I turned and popped the question right there. She loved it!"

The ring, he says, "is a solitary diamond with a half bezel set. She had told me what she liked and didn't like, but it was still a surprise."

Avoided Tradition

Next came the wedding planning. "We wanted something that was a good reflection of who we are," says Daniele. "We didn't want a traditional ceremony, because that's not exactly us."

After looking at "maybe 1,000 dresses," Daniele found the perfect one online – a vintage-style dress from BHLDN, the wedding line of Anthropologie.

"It's vintage but modern," she says, "with little sequins in copper. I'm sort of a hippie girl. I saw the dress and immediately knew it was the one. I went into one bridal stores and I felt like the dresses looked like down comforters. So when I saw this, I was like, 'Perfect.' We had a much harder time looking for something for Dominic to wear."

Briones wore dark purple pants from the Gap and a matching plaid purple shirt and a cardigan sweater. His bow tie was off-white, with matching Converse shoes.

The bridal party included family and friends. The ring bearer was the 5-year-old son of Big Brother 6 contestant April Lewis. Fittingly, he was dressed as a penguin. The bridesmaids and groomsmen entered to the strains of Meiko's "Stuck On You."

"It's an upbeat, happy song," says Donato. "And this is the happiest day of my life, so it made perfect sense."

Honeymoon on Hold

When the bride walked down the aisle – with her grandmother giving her away – the DJ played The Beatles' "All You Need Is Love."

About 120 guests – including Big Brother and Amazing Race couple Brendan and Rachel Reilly Villegas – watched as the bride and groom exchanged vows. After the ceremony, there was a cocktail hour, followed by dinner. The spread included a panini section, a pasta area and a gourmet macaroni and cheese bar for the kids.

The couple have no immediate honeymoon planned, but both have a future trip in mind. "I've always wanted to go to an airport and take the next flight to wherever it goes out," says Briones. "That's what we're going to do."

"I don't care where we go for the honeymoon," says Daniele. "All I care about is that I married my best friend, and we're going to share our lives together. We mesh so well. We don't like being away from each other. We love being around each other so much. That's enough for me. I couldn't be happier."

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More than 140 nations adopt treaty to cut mercury

GENEVA (AP) — A new and legally binding international treaty to reduce harmful emissions of mercury was adopted Saturday by more than 140 nations, capping four years of difficult negotiations but stopping short of some of the tougher measures that proponents had envisioned.

The new accord aims to cut mercury pollution from mining, utility plants and a host of products and industrial processes, by setting enforceable limits and encouraging shifts to alternatives in which mercury is not used, released or emitted.

Mercury, known to be a poison for centuries, is natural element that cannot be created or destroyed. It is released into the air, water and land from small-scale artisanal gold mining, coal-powered plants, and from discarded electronic or consumer products such as electrical switches, thermostats and dental amalgam fillings. Mercury compound goes into batteries, paints and skin-lightening creams.

Because it concentrates and accumulates in fish and goes up the food chain, mercury poses the greatest risk of nerve damage to pregnant women, women of child-bearing age and young children. The World Health Organization has said there are no safe limits for the consumption of mercury and its compounds, which can also cause brain and kidney damage, memory loss and language impairment.

A decade ago, Switzerland and Norway began pushing for an international treaty to limit mercury emissions, a process that culminated in the adoption of an accord Saturday after an all-night session that capped a weeklong conference in Geneva and previous such sessions over the past four years.

"It will help us to protect human health and the environment all over the world," Swiss environment ambassador Franz Perrez told a news conference.

But the treaty only requires that nations with artisanal and small-scale gold mining operations, one of the biggest sources of mercury releases, draw up national plans within three years of the treaty entering force to reduce and — if possible — eliminate the use of mercury in such operations. Governments also approved exceptions for some uses such as large measuring devices for which there are no mercury-free alternatives; vaccines where mercury is used as a preservative; and products used in religious or traditional activities.

Switzerland, Norway and Japan each contributed $1 million to get the treaty started, but U.N. officials say tens of millions more will be needed each year to help developing countries comply. The money would be distributed through the Global Environment Facility, an international funding mechanism.

The U.N. Environment Program said the treaty will be signed later this year in the southern Japanese city of Minamata, for which it is to be named. After that, 50 nations must ratify it before it comes into force, which officials predicted would happen in three to four years.

So-called Minimata disease, a severe neurological disorder caused by mercury poisoning, was discovered in the late 1950s because of methylmercury escaping from the city's industrial wastewater. The illness, which sickened people who ate contaminated fish, killed hundreds and left many more badly crippled. Some 12,000 people have demanded compensation from Japan's government.

"To agree on global targets is not easy to do," Achim Steiner, the executive director of the U.N. Environment Program, told reporters. "There was no delegation here that wished to leave Geneva without drafting a treaty."

Over the past 100 years, mercury found in the top 100 meters (yards) of the world's oceans has doubled, and concentrations in waters deeper than that have gone up by 25 percent, the U.N. environment agency says, while rivers and lakes contain an estimated 260 metric tons of mercury that was previously held in soils.

The treaty was originally blocked by powers such as the United States, but President Barack Obama's reversal of the U.S. position in early 2009 helped propel momentum for its adoption. China and India also played key roles in ensuring its passage; Asia accounts for just under half of all global releases of mercury.

"We have closed a chapter on a journey that has taken four years of often intense, but ultimately successful, negotiations and opened a new chapter toward a sustainable future," said Fernando Lugris, the Uruguayan diplomat who chaired the negotiations.

Some supporters of a new mercury treaty said they were not satisfied with the agreement.

Joe DiGangi, a science adviser with advocacy group IPEN, said that while the treaty is "a first step," it is not tough enough to achieve its aim of reducing overall emissions. For example, he said, there is no requirement that each country create a national plan for how it will reduce mercury emissions.

His group and some of the residents of Minamata have opposed naming the treaty for their city because they feel it does not do enough to fix the problem.

"This treaty should be called the 'Mercury Convention,' not the 'Minamata Convention," said Takeshi Yasuma, a Japanese activist. "Water pollution resulting in contaminated sediment and fish caused the Minamata tragedy, but the treaty contains no obligations to reduce mercury releases to water and no obligations to clean up contaminated sites."

Treaty proponents called it a good first step, however, and Steiner said the document would evolve over time and hopefully become a stronger instrument.

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Wall Street Week Ahead: Earnings, money flows to push stocks higher

NEW YORK (Reuters) - With earnings momentum on the rise, the S&P 500 seems to have few hurdles ahead as it continues to power higher, its all-time high a not-so-distant goal.

The U.S. equity benchmark closed the week at a fresh five-year high on strong housing and labor market data and a string of earnings that beat lowered expectations.

Sector indexes in transportation <.djt>, banks <.bkx> and housing <.hgx> this week hit historic or multiyear highs as well.

Michael Yoshikami, chief executive at Destination Wealth Management in Walnut Creek, California, said the key earnings to watch for next week will come from cyclical companies. United Technologies reports on Wednesday while Honeywell is due to report Friday.

"Those kind of numbers will tell you the trajectory the economy is taking," Yoshikami said.

Major technology companies also report next week, but the bar for the sector has been lowered even further.

Chipmakers like Advanced Micro Devices , which is due Tuesday, are expected to underperform as PC sales shrink. AMD shares fell more than 10 percent Friday after disappointing results from its larger competitor, Intel . Still, a chipmaker sector index <.sox> posted its highest weekly close since last April.

Following a recent underperformance, an upside surprise from Apple on Wednesday could trigger a return to the stock from many investors who had abandoned ship.

Other major companies reporting next week include Google , IBM , Johnson & Johnson and DuPont on Tuesday, Microsoft and 3M on Thursday and Procter & Gamble on Friday.

CASH POURING IN, HOUSING DATA COULD HELP

Perhaps the strongest support for equities will come from the flow of cash from fixed income funds to stocks.

The recent piling into stock funds -- $11.3 billion in the past two weeks, the most since 2000 -- indicates a riskier approach to investing from retail investors looking for yield.

"From a yield perspective, a lot of stocks still yield a great deal of money and so it is very easy to see why money is pouring into the stock market," said Stephen Massocca, managing director at Wedbush Morgan in San Francisco.

"You are just not going to see people put a lot of money to work in a 10-year Treasury that yields 1.8 percent."

Housing stocks <.hgx>, already at a 5-1/2 year high, could get a further bump next week as investors eye data expected to support the market's perception that housing is the sluggish U.S. economy's bright spot.

Home resales are expected to have risen 0.6 percent in December, data is expected to show on Tuesday. Pending home sales contracts, which lead actual sales by a month or two, hit a 2-1/2 year high in November.

The new home sales report on Friday is expected to show a 2.1 percent increase.

The federal debt ceiling negotiations, a nagging worry for investors, seemed to be stuck on the back burner after House Republicans signaled they might support a short-term extension.

Equity markets, which tumbled in 2011 after the last round of talks pushed the United States close to a default, seem not to care much this time around.

The CBOE volatility index <.vix>, a gauge of market anxiety, closed Friday at its lowest since April 2007.

"I think the market is getting somewhat desensitized from political drama given, this seems to be happening over and over," said Destination Wealth Management's Yoshikami.

"It's something to keep in mind, but I don't think it's what you want to base your investing decisions on."

(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos, additional reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak and Caroline Valetkevitch; Editing by Kenneth Barry)

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