pimblr.com

High school boys
State Open Championship
At Willowbrook Park, New Britain
1. Danbury, 60; 2. Manchester, 39; 3. Weaver-Hartford, 35; 4. (tie) Ridgefield, Staples-Westport and Glastobury, 23; 7. (tie) McMahon-Norwalk and Southington, 22; 9. Xavier-Middletown, 21; 10. (tie) Bunnell-Stratford, Bloomfield, New Canaan, 20. Local finishers: 13. Fitch, 18; 17. (tie) Griswold and Bacon Academy, 13; 21. Old Saybrook, 11; 25. Norwich Free Academy, 10; 30. Ledyard, 9; 32. East Lyme, 8; 36. (tie) Woodstock Academy and Lyman Memorial, 6; 46. Plainfield, 4.
100 meters - 1. Connor McCarthy (Ridgefield), 10.58; 2. Kevin Downing (Platt), 10.7; 3. Kevin Smith (Lewis Mills), 10.79; 4. Bryan Bostic (Ansonia), 10.84; 5. Trevardo Williams (Bridgeport Central), 10.85; 6. Davis Craw (Masuk), 10.88.
200 - 1. Dominic Smith (Bloomfield), 21.51; 2. Kevin Downing (Platt), 21.68; 3. Daundre Barnaby (Weaver), 21.77; 4. Andre Lawrence (Hartford Public), 21.97; 5. Connor McCarthy (Ridgefield), 22.04; 6. Tony Pastore (Seymour), 22.14.
400 - 1. Daundre Barnaby (Weaver), 47.76; 2. Dominic Smith (Bloomfield), 48.78; 3. Austin Von Ohlsen (Ridgefield), 49.33; 4. Jacob DelValve (Manchester), 49.33; 5. Matt Marriott (Staples), 49.77; 6. Rachid Sofiane (Lyman Hall), 50.50.
800 - 1. Parker Bourdeau (Danbury), 1:50.86; 2. Alex Hula (Litchfield), 1:52.38; 3. Cas Loxsom (Wilbur Cross) 1:53.76; 4. David Krinjak (Manchester), 1:54.71; 5. Willie Ahern (Danbury), 1:54.66; 6. Mohammad Hrezi (Naugatuck), 1:56.49.
1,600 - 1. Willie Ahern (Danbury), 4:11.97; 2. Will Griffin (East Catholic), 4:16.99; 3. Peter Janovsky (Westhill), 4:17.12; 4. Mike Levene (Barlow), 4:17.94; 5. Robert Yamnicky (Shelton), 4:20.63; 6. Jason Cusack (Griswold), 4:21.59.
3,200 - 1. Donald Cabral (Glastonbury), 9:12.79; 2. Everett Hackett (Hall), 9:18.50; 3. Richard Klauber (Thomaston), 9:20.81; 4. Forrest Misenti (Xavier), 9:25.07; 5. Adam Trofa (Amity), 9:25.83; 6. Dan DeCreszenzo (New Milford), 9:28.79.
110 hurdles - 1. Jean-Louis Bertony (McMahon), 14.44; 2. Jeremy Ragsdale (Bunnell), 14.57; 3. Alex Coco (New Canaan), 14.71; 4. Everett Walcott (Weaver) 14.88; 5. Rodrigo Souza (Old Saybrook), 14.98; 6. Garred Grate (Hillhouse), 14.99.

theday.com

No surprise this week. Brooke White, who had been skirting elimination all month, was shown the door and then was nearly inconsolable as she sang herself off American Idol to Neil Diamond’s “I Am, I Said.” And speaking of skirting, Ryan Seacrest, Simon Cowell and Randy Jackson circled the wagons in defense of Paula Abdul, not specifically addressing her Tuesday-night gaffe but declaring that Paula is “part of our family” and that the rumors out there are not true. Earlier, Paula defended herself on Ryan’s radio program. Most rumors emerged from conspiracy-theory bloggers and tabloid media.
Who knows? Meanwhile, Jason Castro of Rockwall, along with David Archuleta, David Cook and Syesha Mercado, rock on for another week. If Jason makes it another week, American Idol will visit Rockwall.
Comments limited to 30 words or less are preferred. All comments may be edited for language and/or grammar.
(If you haven’t left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won’t appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)

neighborsgoblog.dallasnews.com

Your source for Philadelphia sports. Where Local Becomes National.
The Daily News’ Dan Gross reports that Sixers rookie forward Jason Smith was the basketball player that porn star, VH1 Celebrity Rehab flunkee and former California gubernatorial candidate Mary Carey was making out with at Butter, a New York nightspot.
Carey said she “wrapped her legs around (Smith) and made out with in front of clubgoers” Monday night.
Carey told Gross that Smith said he was a fan of her movies and referred to her as “a goddess” before they kissed.

daily.phanaticmag.com

The woman at the heart of the Spitzer scandal talks to Serge Kovaleski and Ian Urbina in New York.
SHE left a broken home in New Jersey at 17 and went to New York City to work the nightclubs as a rhythm-and-blues singer. Now, at 22, she is the unwitting, and as yet unseen, star of the seamy drama that is the downfall of Governor Eliot Spitzer.
“Kristen”, the high-priced prostitute described in a federal affidavit as having had a February 13 rendezvous with Mr Spitzer at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, has spent the past few days in her ninth-floor rental apartment in Manhattan’s Flatiron district. On Monday, she made a brief appearance in federal court as a witness in the case against four people charged with operating the prostitution ring Emperors’ Club VIP.
If a customer had the money, Emperors’ Club VIP had the women. For the right price, the New York escort service flew prostitutes to Beverly Hills and London, Miami and Paris. A trip to Europe could cost more than $US25,000 ($A27,000). An hour could run to $US5500.
The business had a colourful cast of characters: leggy models with names like Raquel, Chrissy and Maya; a booking agent who graduated from an elite New Jersey prep school; an owner with a background in financial consulting; and wealthy customers such as the governor of New York.

read_more

(financialwire.net via COMTEX) –WEC | news |PowerRating | PR Charts — February 5, 2008 (Financial Wire) Conference calls scheduled at 2 to 2:30 p.m. on Investrend Broadcast via partner BestCalls include Colonial Properties Trust (NYSE: CLP), Emerson Electric Co. (NYSE: EMR), Kimball International (NASDAQ: KBALB), Wisconsin Energy Corporation (NYSE: WEC), Alexander & Baldwin Inc. (NASDAQ: ALEX), IDEX Corporation (NYSE: IEX).
Conference calls are often impacted by market trends, geopolitical conditions, news coming from conferences and economic releases.
(By Philip Holmes) Stocks suffered on Monday as investors could not get the possibility of an ugly recession out of their heads. Financial stocks got the evil eye as UBS downgraded American Express, Capital One Financial and Discovery Financial Services into “sell” territory. Bond insurers Ambac Financial and MBIA Inc. lost another avenue of maintaining their own investment-grade ratings after several leading private equity firms sounded unlikely to participate in a possible bailout of the companies. There was also bad news from the manufacturing sector as the Street obsessed on disappointing December numbers on both vehicle sales and overall factory orders. Microsoft’s $44.6 billion bid for Yahoo came under attack from both rival Google and suspicious regulators in both the U.S. and Europe. Google CEO Eric Schmidt is said to be in talks with Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang, while antitrust teams on both sides of the Atlantic are taking notice of the potential combination. The deal that looked to be the feel good story of a bleak winter season may just go into turnaround. And what a season it has been thus far. BusinessWeek reports that the Street is off to its worst start in eighteen years, with the S&P 500 index off 6.1% in January. There’s nothing in the wind to favor a turnaround any time soon. Housing prices keep falling, as do manufacturing numbers. Investors look with dismay at the unfolding catastrophe at Ambac and MBIA, and see a near-term bailout as an essential part of stabilizing the financial sector. But, as we see from Monday’s news, even the once-daredevil private equity firms are backing off on participating in that action. BW also reported on America’s sputtering job creation engine. Since the end of 2001 the U.S. has added a mere seven million jobs. Compare that, as BW does, to the 24 million the world’s largest economy gained from the lowest point of the 1991 recession through the top of the cycle in early 2001. With credit maxed out and quality jobs scarce, it’s hard to find a happy place for the U.S. economy to run to in the near term. True, the global economy may look mighty in places, the months to come will surely test any theories that a sputtering U.S. can rely on unperturbed economies elsewhere for a lift. Is the rest of the world uncoupled? We’ll see.
The Investrend Earnings Calendar features Separcor (NASDAQ: SEPR), expected at $0.54 a year ago versus $0.85, Toyota Motor Corp. (NYSE: TM), expected at $2.21 versus $2.26, VF Corp. (NYSE: VFC), expected at $1.42 versus $1.24, Walt Disney. (NYSE: DIS), expected at $0.52 versus $0.49.
The Investrend Economics Calendar lists Weekly Chain Store Sales (8:55 a.m.), ISM Services Index for January (10 a.m.).
The Investrend Events Calendar showcases Banc of America Securities MBA CREF Multifamily Housing Client Event, Credit Suisse- 2008 Financial Services Forum, DLM at Goldman Sachs Consumer/Retail Leveraged Finance Conference, DNR, HAL, CHK, CXG, HERO, STG at Credit Suisse Group Energy Conf, GR, DCO, RTN, ATRO at Cowen and Company Aerospace/Defense Conference, MSFT, CHK, AMGN, SUN at American Legal Media (ALM) Legaltech-NY Conference, RHT, ACS, MSCC, MSPD, NETL, TTMI, ITRI, NSM, CSGC at Thomas Weisel Partners 2008 Technology Telecom Internet Conference, ZMH, CMED, brL, SGEN, ALKS, ALXA at Merrill Lynch 19th Global Pharmaceutical, Biotechnology & Medical Device Conference.
The Investrend Money Index is an indicator of the depth of market direction or indirection. While not always including the same stocks, the NYSE/NASDAQ 50 Most Actives indicate the direction in which the mass of money is flowing. Last session’s trading showed nine advancers versus 39 decliners and two unchanged. There were no significant advancers. Decliners followed Washington Mutual (NYSE: WM) down 12.19%, Wachovia Cp (NYSE: WB) down 8.33%, Wells Fargo & Co New (NYSE: WFC) down 6.72%.
Vote in the Investrend Poll Question of the Day at Investrend Information (http://www.investrendinformation.com).
Investrend Website of the Day: http://www.infobel.com/teldir/
Quote of the Day: “Character is what you are in the dark.” Dwight L. Moody
Today is: Weatherman’s Day.
Happy Birthday: Dwight L. Moody, Red Buttons, Adlai Stevenson, Hank Aaron, H.R. Giger, Al Kooper, Darrell Waltrip, Barbara Hershey, Jennifer Jason Leigh.
Today in History: Roger Williams immigrated to Boston in 1631. South Carolina became the first state to ratify the Articles of Confederation in 1778. The Oregon Spectator became the first newspaper on the Pacific coast of the United States in 1846. Phoenix, Arizona, was incorporated in 1881. King Leopold II of Belgium established the Congo in 1885 as a personal possession. Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, and D.W. Griffith launched United Artists in 1919. The Royal Greenwich Observatory began broadcasting in 1924 the hourly time signals known as the Greenwich Time Signal or the “BBC pips.” Charlie Chaplin released in 1936 the last movie of the silent film era, Modern Times. Alan Shepard and Edward Mitchell walk on the Moon for four hours in 1971. Morgan Stanley and Dean Witter investment banks announced a $10 billion merger in 1997.
[FirstAlert was created by Gayle Essary, founder of Investrend Communications, Inc., parent of Investrend Information (http://www.investrendinformation.com). The opinions expressed in FirstAlert do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Investrend.]
For up-to-the-minute news, features and links click on http://www.FinancialWire.net
FinancialWire is an independent, proprietary news service of Investrend Information, a division of Investrend Communications, Inc. It is not a press release service and receives no compensation from any company for its news or opinions. Other divisions of Investrend, however, provide shareholder empowerment platforms such as forums, independent research and webcasting. For more information or to receive the FirstAlert daily summary of news, commentary, research reports, webcasts, events and conference calls, click on http://www.investrend.com/contact.asp
For a free annual report on a company mentioned in the news, please click on http://investrend.ar.wilink.com/?level=279
To become an investor monitor of independent research for a company in which you are invested, go to the not-for-profit Shareholders Research Alliance, Inc. website by clicking on http://www.shareholdersresearch.com/
The FinancialWire NewsFeed is now available in multiple formats to your site or desktop, free. Click on: http://www.investrend.com/XmlFeeds?level=268
All analyst commentary provided on TradingMarkets.com is provided for educational purposes only. The analysts and employees or affiliates of TradingMarkets.com may hold positions in the stocks or industries discussed here.This information is NOT a recommendation or solicitation to buy or sell any securities.Your use of this and all information contained on TradingMarkets.com is governed by the Terms and Conditions of Use.Please click the link to view those terms. Follow this link to read our Editorial Policy.

tradingmarkets.com