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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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US tax code longer than Bible _ without good news

WASHINGTON (AP) — Too intimidated to fill out your tax return without help? Join the club.At nearly 4 million words, the U.S. tax law is so thick and complicated that businesses and individuals spend more than 6 billion hours a year complying with filing requirements, according to a report Wednesday by an independent government watchdog.That's the equivalent of 3 million people working full-time,...

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