Australian wildfires spare observatory, uncover bush drug lab

CANBERRA (Reuters) - Raging wildfires destroyed at least another 28 homes and licked at Australia's leading optical space observatory on Monday, officials said, but spared giant telescopes that have mapped far-away galaxies and discovered new planets.
Less fortunate were a father and son who police arrested after a fire was lit deliberately to destroy illegal drug laboratories they were alleged to be running in dense bushland. Police were closing in on the drug labs when the fire was lit.
More than 140 fires are burning across vast areas in the north and west of New South Wales state (NSW), Australia's most populated state, and in the island state of Tasmania despite cooler weather giving firefighters some respite.
A searing heat-wave had fuelled the fires over the past week. Only one person, an elderly firefighter working alone in Tasmania, has died so far in the fires.
The biggest blaze, with a perimeter of 100 km (60 miles), destroyed around 40,000 hectares (100,000 acres) of bushland and 28 homes around the Warrambungle National Park in NSW.
That fire also forced the evacuation of the Siding Springs Observatory, which houses 15 major telescopes.
Cameras inside the mountain-top observatory showed large flames and thick smoke sweeping over it. There appeared to be little damage to telescopes and dishes but scientists have been unable to visit the site yet to assess any damage.
"We do not yet know what impact the extreme heat of the ash might have on the telescopes themselves," said Erik Lithander, acting vice chancellor of the Australian National University, which operates the observatory.
The fire damaged five buildings at the observatory, including accommodation for visiting astronomers, but Lithander said scientists were confident the telescopes would still work.
Siding Springs is home to the 4-metre (13 ft) Anglo-Australian Telescope, which has surveyed 200,000 galaxies and was instrumental in confirming the existence of dark energy.
That discovery led to Australian Brian Schmidt sharing the 2011 Nobel Prize for physics.
The observatory has also helped find more than 30 new planets over the past decade and is being used to map the southern sky.
In Sydney, police arrested two men late on Sunday over a fire that broke out in the Blue Mountains National Park west of the city last week. The fire destroyed more than 50 hectares of bushland in the Blue Mountains, a popular tourist destination.
Police said they had been aware of the illegal, outdoor drug labs but were forced to postpone a raid due to the extreme fire danger in the area last week.
"The two sites ... were only accessible by foot and required police to trek through tick, leech and snake-infested scrubland to reach them," NSW police said in a statement on Monday.
Police said a father and son had been charged with "the large commercial manufacture of a prohibited drug" and contaminating a water catchment area. The younger man was also charged with lighting the fire.

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Will game live up to hype in BCS championship?

MIAMI (AP) — Sometimes, the buildup to a game can overwhelm what actually happens on the field.
Certainly, No. 1 Notre Dame and No. 2 Alabama would have to play nothing less than a classic to live up to all the hype for Monday night's BCS championship.
Before either team stepped on the field in balmy South Florida, this was shaping up as one of the most anticipated games in years, a throwback to the era when Keith Jackson & Co. called one game a week, when it was a big deal for teams from different parts of the country to meet in a bowl game, when everyone took sides based on where they happened to live.
North vs. South. Rockne vs. Bear. Rudy vs. Forrest Gump.
The Fighting Irish vs. the Crimson Tide.
College football's two most storied programs, glorified in movie and song, facing off for the biggest prize.
"It's definitely not any other game," said Alabama linebacker C.J. Mosley.
For the Crimson Tide (12-1), this is a chance to be remembered as a full-fledged dynasty. Alabama will be trying to claim its third national championship in four years and become the first school to win back-to-back BCS titles, a remarkable achievement given the ever-increasing parity of the college game and having to replace five players from last year's title team who were picked in the first two rounds of the NFL draft.
"To be honest, I think this team has kind of exceeded expectations," coach Nick Saban said Sunday. "If you look at all the players we lost last year, the leadership that we lost ... I'm really proud of what this team was able to accomplish."
That said, it's not a huge surprise to find Alabama playing for another title. That's not the case when it comes to Notre Dame.
Despite their impressive legacy, the Fighting Irish (12-0) weren't even ranked at the start of the season. But overtime wins against Stanford and Pittsburgh, combined with three other victories by a touchdown or less, gave Notre Dame a shot at its first national title since 1988.
After so many lost years, the golden dome has reclaimed its luster in coach Brian Kelly's third season.
"It starts with setting a clear goal for the program," Kelly said. "Really, what is it? Are we here to get to a bowl game, or are we here to win national championships? So the charge immediately was to play for championships and win a national championship."
Both Notre Dame and Alabama have won eight Associated Press national titles, more than any other school. They are the bluest of the blue bloods, the programs that have long set the bar for everyone else even while enduring some droughts along the way.
ESPN executives were hopeful of getting the highest ratings of the BCS era. Tickets were certainly at a premium, with a seat in one of the executive suites going for a staggering $60,000 on StubHub the day before the game, and even a less-than-prime spot in the corner of the upper deck requiring a payout of more than $900.
"This is, to me, the ultimate match-up in college football," said Brent Musberger, the lead announcer for ESPN.
Kelly molded Notre Dame using largely the same formula that has worked so well for Saban in Tuscaloosa: a bruising running game and a stout defense, led by Heisman Trophy finalist Manti Te'o.
"It's a little bit old fashioned in the sense that this is about the big fellows up front," Kelly said. "It's not about the crazy receiving numbers or passing yards or rushing yards. This is about the big fellas, and this game will unquestionably be decided up front."
While points figure to be at a premium given the quality of both defenses, Alabama appears to have a clear edge on offense. The Tide has the nation's highest-rated passer (AJ McCarron), two 1,000-yard rushers (Eddie Lacy and T.J. Yeldon), a dynamic freshman receiver (Amari Cooper), and three linemen who made the AP All-America team (first-teamers Barrett Jones and Chance Warmack, plus second-teamer D.J. Fluker).
"That's football at its finest," said Te'o, who heads a defense that has given up just two rushing touchdowns. "It's going to be a great challenge, and a challenge that we look forward to."
The Crimson Tide had gone 15 years without a national title when Saban arrived in 2007, the school's fifth coach in less than a decade (including one, Mike Price, who didn't even made it to his first game in Tuscaloosa). Finally, Alabama got it right.
In 2008, Saban landed one of the greatest recruiting classes in school history, a group that has already produced eight NFL draft picks and likely will send at least three more players to the pros (including Jones). The following year, the coach guided Alabama to a perfect season, beating Texas in the title game at Pasadena.
Last season, the Tide fortuitously got a shot at another BCS crown despite losing to LSU during the regular season and failing to even win its division in the Southeastern Conference. In a rematch against the Tigers, Alabama romped to a 21-0 victory at the Superdome.
The all-SEC matchup gave the league an unprecedented six straight national champions, hastening the end of the BCS. It will last one more season before giving way to a four-team playoff in 2014, an arrangement that was undoubtedly pushed along by one conference hoarding all the titles under the current system.
"Let's be honest, people are probably getting tired of us," Jones said. "We don't really mind. We enjoy being the top dog and enjoy kind of having that target on our back, and we love our conference. Obviously, we'd rather not be a part of any other conference."
This title game certainly has a different feel than last year's.
"That was really kind of a weird national championship because it was a team we already played," Jones remembered. "It was kind of another SEC game. It was in the South, and it just had a very SEC feel to it obviously. This year is much more like the 2009 game (against Texas) for me. We're playing an opponent that not only we have not played them, but no one we have played has played them (except for Michigan). So you don't really have an exact measuring stick."
In fact, these schools have played only six times, and not since 1987, but the first of their meetings is still remembered as one of the landmark games in college football history. Bear Bryant had one of his best teams at the 1973 Sugar Bowl, but Ara Parseghian and the Fighting Irish claimed the national title by knocking off top-ranked Alabama 24-23.
If you're a long-time Notre Dame fan, you still remember Parseghian's gutty call to throw the ball out of the end zone for a game-clinching first down. If you were rooting for the Tide, you haven't forgotten a missed extra point that turned out to be the losing margin.
Of course, these Alabama players aren't concerned about what happened nearly four decades ago.
For the most part, all they know is winning.
"There's a lot of tradition that goes into Alabama football," Mosley said, "and our plan is to keep that tradition alive.

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Riddick, Wood interchanging for Notre Dame

MIAMI (AP) — Notre Dame tailbacks Theo Riddick and Cierre Wood showed how interchangeable they are in the final two games of the regular season for the Fighting Irish.
Game 11 against Wake Forest, Wood ran for 150 yards, while Riddick had 20.
Game 12 against USC, it was Riddick running for 146 yards, and Wood for 20.
And so has been the theme for the Irish this season: Two running backs — and sometimes three — are better than one. That approach has served Notre Dame pretty much since training camp, and the top-ranked Irish (12-0) are hoping it holds true once Monday night when they face No. 2 Alabama (12-1) in the BCS title game.
Riddick has run for 880 yards and five touchdowns this season, Wood 740 yards and four scores, and George Atkinson III — who got only 51 carries, compared with 180 for Riddick and 110 for Wood — added five touchdowns and 7.1 yards per carry.
"We try to utilize all their strengths," Notre Dame offensive coordinator Chuck Martin said. "The truth be told, they all could be a feature back, they all could do all the things. Everybody is like, 'He plays more, what's wrong with him?' There's nothing wrong with any of the three. We'd like to get George 20 carries a game but there's one football."
Notre Dame was unranked to start the year, which means not many — well, very few — people thought the Irish would be in the national title game against the reigning champion Crimson Tide.
Among those who thought the Irish would play in the season's last game: Riddick, Wood and Atkinson.
"We've had RB meetings where we talk about what we want to do and what we all want to accomplish," Wood said. "In the beginning of the season, what we said normally was, 'We want to win them all.' That was word-for-word what we said. We want to win them all. And up to this point, we have. So we took that upon ourselves. We think we're one of the more skilled groups on the whole team. That's just how we go about our business."
Martin was asked in the days leading up to the BCS title game to describe all three backs, rapid-fire style. His responses:
On Riddick, "pound for pound as good a football player as they make."
On Wood, "as explosive a player as they make."
On Atkinson, "really explosive athlete."
Notice any trends there? The Irish love their backs, and Alabama is raving about what they see from them all as well.
"Riddick is probably quicker than the other two," Alabama defensive coordinator Kirby Smart said. "Great one-step quickness, the ability to make you miss, good stiff arm. Didn't think a former receiver would run with that much power, but he does run with power. They're really good backs."
Riddick came to Notre Dame as a running back, then primarily played wide receiver for two years and returned to the backfield this season. He said he never complained, said he never wondered which position better suited him.
Whatever it took to win was fine with him, Riddick said.
"What can I say? I feel like I'm at ease," Riddick said. "Everything slows down tremendously and I think it's just helped me."
Ask anyone on the Notre Dame offensive line how Riddick has handled his return to running back, and they'll say they believe he's hitting his best stride at the perfect time.
That being, title game.
"He's been unbelievable," offensive lineman Zack Martin said. "Especially in the last three or four games of the season, he's been great. To have a guy like that behind you, he's fun to block for."
That probably can be said for Wood and Atkinson as well.
"It's a credit to all three of them that they've stuck with it and prepared hard every week, and some weeks they've gotten more touches, but that's the nature of the beast," said Chuck Martin, the offensive coordinator. "But we're very fortunate to have three very talented kids at that position.

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Alabama AD made a brief stop at Notre Dame

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Mal Moore's career was adrift.
A quarter century of winning games and titles as an Alabama player and assistant to Bear Bryant had ended, and Moore was passed over to succeed the famed coach.
He was thinking about getting out of the profession altogether before Notre Dame's Gerry Faust called one Sunday morning to gauge his interest in a job.
"At the time, I kind of felt like a man without a country," Moore said. "I was in a strange position that I'd never been in before."
He flew to South Bend that day for an interview, then served as running backs coach from 1983-85. From one elite program to another and, ultimately, back to his alma mater to stay.
Moore's stopover in northern Indiana is now a footnote in a 50-year career defined by the eras of Bryant, Gene Stallings and now Nick Saban. He has been around for nine national titles at Alabama and is hoping to crack double digits Monday night when the Tide faces No. 1 Notre Dame.
But back in the 1980s, Moore's career moves were the height of intrigue and drama in the college football world.
He was either a player or assistant for Bryant during all but one season of a historic 25-year run. Bryant, who died a couple of months after stepping down following the 1982 season, won 323 games, six national titles and 13 Southeastern Conference championships during his tenure in Tuscaloosa.
When he left, Moore and fellow assistant Ken Donahue interviewed for a job that went to Ray Perkins, then coaching the NFL's New York Giants. And Notre Dame made an attention-getting hire.
"It was considered quite a coup, an amazing coup," said Lou Somogyi, senior editor of 247Sports' Notre Dame site and Blue and Gold Illustrated. "All of a sudden, here's Mal Moore, who's been part of so many national titles with Bear, and he's looking for work.
"Out of the blue, Gerry Faust called him. That was a pretty extraordinary set of circumstances."
It was also quite an adjustment for a Southern Baptist heading to a Catholic university.
Moore lived for several months in the Morris Inn on campus, where he could step out the door, glance left and see the golden dome. Wife Charlotte, who died in 2010, and daughter Heather moved to South Bend after their home was built.
"It was a good three years," said Moore, who had become Alabama's first offensive coordinator in 1975. "We weren't a great team during that time. We went to two bowl games, but it was quite an experience. Especially for Charlotte. Charlotte was Catholic growing up. She loved her time there and on the campus."
Moore then went on to coaching stops in the NFL before returning to his alma mater as Stallings' offensive coordinator in 1990, helping the Tide to a national title two years later. He's been athletic director since 1999, hiring Saban from the Miami Dolphins in his best career move. The football and athletic administration building is named after him.
Moore was on the opposite sideline for the first four of six meetings between Notre Dame and Alabama. The Fighting Irish won by one point in 1973, two in 1975 and three in 1976.
Notre Dame's 7-0 win in 1980 broke the pattern of one-point increase in scoring margin.
"Bear Bryant said after the (1976) game: "I don't think I'm going to be around for the four-pointer," Somogyi recalled.
He noted that "Notre Dame fans were groaning" after Alabama missed a field goal in '80 that would have created that four-point margin.
Moore and Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbuck had several discussions about trying to set up regular-season meetings, perhaps at some neutral site like New York or Orlando.
"We just never could quite pull it off," Moore said. After the BCS matchup was set: "I called him and said, 'Jack, you and I couldn't put a game together but now we let the players do it.'"
After ups and downs for both programs, they're once again vying for national supremacy. And Moore, of course, will have a prime view.
His stop at Notre Dame showed him the similarities both programs share. Notre Dame had Knute Rockne and Ara Parseghian, Alabama Wallace Wade and Saban. Both have had five different coaches claim national titles.
Traditions galore.
"A powerful university. Great history, great tradition," said Moore, who has talked to several of his former Notre Dame players leading up to the matchup. "That is what's so similar between the two programs, is the great success that both have enjoyed through the years.
"There's a lot of people that have had success at both universities. The alumni at both expect greatness. This is what here at Alabama I hope never changes. Once it doesn't matter then you are in trouble.

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Lakers guard Bryant finally joins Twitter world

(Reuters) - Los Angeles Lakers All-Star guard Kobe Bryant finally succumbed to the social network Twitter when he opened his own verified account on Friday.
"The antisocial has become social #mambatweets," Bryant, who is nicknamed "Black Mamba", said in his first tweet.
Within five hours of his account being open, the 14-time All-Star and five-time NBA champion had attracted nearly 300,000 followers.
One of the most popular players in the game and a regular user of Facebook, Bryant had flirted with Twitter when he briefly took over Nike basketball's account last week.
"You're able to get a lot of great feedback about the game but also about the product as well -- what they thought, what they like, what they didn't like," the 34-year-old told reporters about the benefits of Twitter.
"It's the best way to gauge reaction."

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Kobe Bryant: I'm on Twitter now

against the Los Angeles Clippers, Friday, Jan. 4, 2013, in Los Angeles. (AP …more
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Kobe Bryant is no longer a holdout. He's on Twitter.
With five words — "The antisocial has become social" — the Los Angeles Lakers guard sent the first tweet from his account Friday. About 270,000 people followed his verified account, (at)kobebryant, within a few hours and he was up to 365,000 late Friday night as the Lakers played the Clippers.
Bryant tiptoed into the Twitterverse last week when he briefly took over Nike basketball's account, when he sent out things like a photo of him hanging out with his daughter, an ice bath that he was dreading and even a suit he was wearing to a particular game.
Bryant says those few days made him consider starting his own account, saying he enjoyed connecting with fans "with no filters."
Heat star LeBron James has 6.8 million followers, the most of any NBA player.

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Monti, in Twitter Q&A, says new voting law priority for Italy

ROME (Reuters) - Outgoing Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti said on Saturday if he wins February's parliamentary election one of his first acts would be to overhaul the voting law to improve democracy and government stability.
Monti, 69, who last week confirmed he would lead a centrist coalition in the February 24-25 vote, called himself a "bit of a pioneer" in politics during nearly 2 hours of #MontiLive tweets.
The electoral law is unpopular because party leaders select candidates and voters cannot choose their representatives. For technical reasons, it also makes forming a stable majority more difficult, leading to broad and unwieldy coalitions.
"This electoral law is not worthy of a country like Italy," said Monti of the 2005 legislation passed when centre-right rival Silvio Berlusconi was in power.
Monti and Berlusconi trail the centre-left in opinion polls and have made multiple appearances, mainly on TV, over the past week as they seek to recoup support and motivate voters who have said they do not intend to vote.
A poll by the Tecne research institute released on SkyTG24 on Friday showed Monti's grouping would likely attract slightly more than 12 percent of the vote.
That compared with 40 percent for the centre-left bloc led by Pier Luigi Bersani's Democratic Party (PD); and 25 percent for the most likely centre-right coalition of Berlusconi's People of Freedom (PDL) and the Northern League.
In a separate tweet, Monti indicated he would "dialogue" with anyone after the vote whether he wins or not, as long as they are "reformists".
BERLUSCONI BROADSIDE
Speaking at the same time in a live interview on the website of Corriere della Sera newspaper, Berlusconi said he would never again ally himself with Monti even though he offered him the leadership of the centre-right just a few weeks ago.
"All Italian citizens, in one way or another, are suffering" as a result of Monti's 13 months in power, said Berlusconi, who says austerity has led the country into a recessionary spiral.
Monti took over in November 2011 when Italy was scrambling to avert a financial crisis and after Berlusconi, besieged by a sex scandal involving an underage prostitute, stepped down.
Berlusconi repeated on Saturday that his resignation was the result of an international plot to oust him and denied having made mistakes during his more than nine years in power.
"My only error is that I have not been able to explain what I have done for the country," Berlusconi said.
"By now (Monti's) image has become that of a person with whom I could not possibly collaborate," Berlusconi said, calling the prime minister's new alliance with two of Berlusconi's former allies a "triple disaster".
Berlusconi said a renewed accord with the Northern League may be finalized on Sunday. The Northern League has said the 76-year-old billionaire must not be the bloc's prime ministerial candidate for a sixth time.
"Monti is an enemy of the north, and stopping him from returning to government is a categorical priority for us. Who is against Monti is an ally of the League," Northern League leader Roberto Maroni tweeted on Saturday.

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Kobe Bryant joins Twitter, 100s of thousands immediately follow him

LOS ANGELES, Calif. - Kobe Bryant is no longer a holdout. He's on Twitter.
With five words — "The antisocial has become social" — the Los Angeles Lakers guard sent the first tweet from his account Friday. About 250,000 people followed his verified account, (at)kobebryant, within a few hours and he was up to 365,000 late Friday night as the Lakers played the Los Angeles Clippers.
Bryant tiptoed into the Twitterverse last week when he briefly took over Nike basketball's account, when he sent out things like a photo of him hanging out with his daughter, an ice bath that he was dreading and even a suit he was wearing to a particular game.
Bryant says those few days made him consider starting his own account, saying he enjoyed connecting with fans "with no filters."
Heat star LeBron James has 6.8 million followers, the most of any National Basketball Association player.

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Tax filing season starts Jan. 30 for most filers

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Internal Revenue Service says late changes to federal tax laws should mean only a short delay for most taxpayers to file their 2012 returns.
The agency said Tuesday that more than 120 million taxpayers — about 80 percent of all filers — should be able to start filing their federal returns on Jan. 30. Others will have to wait until late February or March to file because the agency needs time to update and test its systems.
Those who will have to wait include people claiming residential energy credits, depreciation of property or general business credits. The filing season had been slated to start Jan. 22 but was delayed because of the big tax package passed by Congress Jan. 1.

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New York governor wants casinos to spur upstate economy

(Reuters) - New York Governor Andrew Cuomo proposed on Wednesday dozens of new initiatives for the state, including new casinos and other measures aimed at helping upstate areas regain their financial footing after decades of economic decline.
Cuomo, in his annual State of the State address, proposed locating up to three casinos upstate to increase tourism and provide some local property tax relief and education funds for struggling cities.
New York legislators agreed last year to legalize public casinos, saying they would amend the state constitution to expand gambling outside Native American resorts. They must still finalize the legislation.
Cuomo also said the state, with a population of nearly 20 million, would launch new marketing plans that include duty-free stores for New York-made products and a national white-water rafting competition.
Cuomo floated several ideas for supporting fledgling businesses, including the creation of a $50 million venture capital fund. He also proposed 10 high-tech incubator "hot spots" in which start-up companies would not have to pay business, property or sales taxes.
The plans were just a few of the dozens put forward by Cuomo in what he said was the most aggressive agenda he has proposed since taking office in January 2011. But he did not indicate in his speech how any of the proposed programs would be funded.
Speaking for more than an hour, Cuomo said he would focus on upgrading the state's fuel delivery system, subways, and other infrastructure to prevent multibillion-dollar damage from severe weather events like Superstorm Sandy, which slammed into the region on October 29.
He also proposed specific new restrictions on firearms in the wake of deadly shooting rampages in late 2012 in Newtown, Connecticut, and Webster, New York.
And he said the state's minimum wage should rise to $8.75 an hour from the current $7.25.
"We have daunting challenges," he said. "But these challenges also pose exciting opportunities."
Several of New York's local governments have faced severe financial struggles after the recession, including Nassau and Suffolk counties, both on Long Island to the east of New York City.
But several cities in the northern and western parts of the state, including Syracuse, Rochester and Buffalo, have been losing jobs for many years.
On Wednesday, Moody's Investors Service downgraded Niagara Falls to Baa1 from A2, warning that it could cut the credit rating further if the city loses a legal dispute with the Seneca Nation over gambling revenue.
Cuomo proposed creating a program that would advise local governments on how to restructure their finances.
The program would be run jointly by private consultants, the state's budget division, the attorney general and New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, whose program to monitor municipal fiscal distress went into effect this year.
He also said the state should consider spending $1 billion to create or preserve 14,000 units of affordable housing over the next five years.

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