South Korean commandos operating thousands of kilometres from home have carried out a daring raid, rescuing the crew of a freighter hijacked by heavily-armed Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean. After a cabin-to-cabin gun battle the special forces team killed eight of Air Yeezy the pirates and captured five of them. South Korea's president has praised his commandos, saying it is a sign that his country will not tolerate anything that threatens the lives of its people - a warning intended to be heard all the way to Pyongyang. They struck before the first light of dawn, with a team of navy commandos scaling the sides of the chemical freighter covered from the air by sharp shooters in a helicopter. They had warned the Somalis to surrender but the pirates, armed with AK-47 assault rifles, heavy machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades had refused. South Korean Lieutenant General Lee Seong-ho says fighting from cabin-to-cabin, the South Korean special forces overwhelmed the pirates in minutes. "We have captured five pirates alive and killed eight. Unfortunately one of our commandos was injured, but not critically," he said. "We have rescued all 21 crew memberslongchamp bags of the freighter. It was a perfect military operation." The South Korean freighter had been hijacked a week ago after the leaving Sri Lanka for the United Arab Emirates. The pirates had ordered the captain to make for the Somali coast, but skipper Suk Hae-kyun had stalled for time manoeuvring his ship, in what is being described as a serpentine manner. The South Korean navy decided it was time to strike when they got word that the pirates' mothership was leaving a Somali port to rendezvous with the freighter. The only casualty among the crew was Suk Hae-kyun, the skipper, who was shot in the stomach by the pirates during the raid. But his condition is said not to be life threatening. With morale in his military in the doldrums after a North Korean torpedo attack last year saw one of his warships to the bottom, South Korean president Lee Myung-bak finally had something to smile about. "I ordered this hostage rescue yesterday," he said. "The most important things for us are the lives and safety of our people. I will never tolerate any action which threatens that." And that can be read not only as a warning to Somali pirates, but also to the regime over the border in North Korea. The South Korean commandos carried out a clinical rescue mission in a lawless expanse of ocean where pirates still hold 29 ships and about 700 hostages and you can Coach Bags Online now add two more vessels captured just hours after this raid. The five captured pirates could now be on their way to South Korea for trial, but they are luckier than some. In another rescue operation, Russian marines freed 23 crew onboard a tanker. The pirates were later found dead adrift in a small boat on the Indian Ocean.

The staff of the Securities and Exchange Commission will recommend Friday that the agency adopt tougher rules for how stockbrokers sell investments to clients, Fox Business has learned. If eventually adopted by the commission, longchamp bags the regulations could make it easier for clients to sue their brokers when an investment goes bad. But critics say new rules could lead to higher investing costs, fewer products and a flood of unnecessary litigation. According to financial industry and investor advocacy sources, the staff will recommend that brokers be required to put a client's interest first, under a stronger "standard of care" in many sales of investments. The higher standard is commonly known as "fiduciary duty,” under which a financial advisor acts as a “fiduciary” -- a trusted custodian working foremost on the client’s behalf. It would cover more than 600,000 broker-dealers and millions of their customers. The recommendations will come in a staff study ordered by Congress as part of the new Dodd-Frank financial regulation reform legislation. The measure also allows the agency to launch a rulemaking on the issue at its discretion. With potentially billions of dollars of commissions and fees at stake, the provision has triggered an all-out war among Wall Street firms, longchamp le pliage sale investor advocates, separately-regulated investment advisors and even insurance brokers who may also peddle investments. In 2009, in the wake of the financial crisis, Wall Street preemptively endorsed tougher sales rules for stockbrokers—the battle is over how tough. Raising broker sales standards has been a top priority for SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro. According to the SEC’s website, the commission has already penciled in time in Spring to consider propose rules on the issue “as may be appropriate." One consumer advocate involved in the discussions, Barbara Roper of the Consumer Federation of America, said the recommendations in the study have ''the potential to dramatically alter both the way in which investment advice is delivered and the way in which investment advisers are overseen by regulators." The rules would not cover all broker sales of stocks, bonds and other investments. The Dodd-Frank legislation specifically limits any new rules to "personalized investment advice" that stockbrokers give clients, such as to buy a stock recommended by a firm's research department. Now when a broker does that, under SEC regulations, the broker only has to make sure that the investment is "suitable" for the client -- a standard that is open to widespread legal interpretation and has been attacked by investor advocates as too weak to protect customers. Higher standards of duty would not protect an investor who calls a broker and gives him a buy order on a stock that the client has researched independently or is purchasing on a “hot tip” from a buddy – that would not constitute "personal investment advice" from a broker. In effect, the recommendations from the SEC staff would impose a similar standard of care now required for 275,000 separate professional investment advisors whom the SEC regulates as fiduciaries. They usually charge a fee based on the assets they manage for a client, while stockbrokers often are paid by commission. The SEC issued a related study on investment advisors on Wednesday. Sources say that in the staff recommendations on the study coming Friday, wording will be critical to any later SEC rulemaking---especially the staff’s description and definition of the stronger standard. Supporters of tough standards worry the study could lay the groundwork for loopholes that would allow brokers to avoid new responsibilities. Wall Street officials are equally nervous. “ ‘Personalized investment advice’…I want them to define that,” longchamp bags online said one official close to the process. Another source close to the process said SEC staff members are expecting considerable scrutiny of their work and have labored to avoid loopholes, though they acknowledge the fine print in final rules will have to be resolved by the agency’s five commissioners after months of hearings, public comment and additional analysis.

On the list of Aaron Rodgers' accomplishments in three seasons as the Green Bay Packers' starting quarterback, one stands out as being something that really didn't seem possible when he first took over as the starter. He made Brett Favre an afterthought in Green Bay. Going into Sunday's NFC championship game against the Bears in Chicago, Coach Store Online Rodgers is the undisputed face of the Packers, and his success in the playoffs is winning over almost anyone who still had doubts about his place among the NFL's elite quarterbacks. "I think he's definitely the quarterback we all hoped he would become," coach Mike McCarthy said. "He was a young talented quarterback, had a very bright future, and now we're in year three of his development and he's definitely developed into a special player. He does it the right way. He'll break them down physically, mentally. He's in a great rhythm right now." He certainly made a believer out of veteran Packers wide receiver Donald Driver. "I love him," Driver said. "I don't know if you can put words to it but he's playing like one of the best quarterbacks in the game, if not the best." Rodgers might not have made the Pro Bowl this season, but there's no shortage of praise coming his way after a dominant performance in last Saturday's playoff rout of Atlanta. Rodgers has been particularly sharp since he sustained his second concussion of the season and sat out the Packers' Dec. 19 loss at New England. Bears linebacker Lance Briggs said he isn't bothered by all the national attention on Rodgers. "No, that's all it is, it's a sign of respect for what the Packers and Aaron Rodgers have been able to do," Briggs said. "They have been doing a lot of that this whole year. Credit is due." Rodgers appreciates the praise from fellow players, fans and pundits, but doesn't think he deserves it — not yet. "We have to put some more hardware around here," Rodgers said. It once seemed as if Rodgers would never escape comparisons with Favre. But with No. 4 now retired — perhaps even for good this time — Rodgers finally is free. Well, mostly. Favre interjected himself into the national conversation about the Bears-Packers rivalry this week, telling ESPN in an e-mail that Rodgers is "the best" quarterback remaining in the playoffs and paying compliments to the Packers' receivers and defense. "I think they will win it all! I hope they do, if you are wondering," Favre said in his e-mail to the network. Some fans snickered throughout Wisconsin. No, they really weren't wondering. When asked about Favre's comment, Rodgers' response was upbeat but brief."Any time I'm getting a comment like that from somebody who's had a ton of success in the NFL, it's quite an honor," air yeezy Rodgers said. And that's about the most Rodgers and the Packers have said about their former quarterback in recent weeks. With the Packers still scrambling to make the playoffs in December, somebody asked Rodgers whether his apprenticeship under Favre helped or hurt his career. "I'll be honest with you, man, I've answered that question a gazillion times," Rodgers said then. "So I don't really want to go back into that. Especially not this week." And after the Packers beat the Vikings at the Metrodome in November, McCarthy was asked whether his team might finally be rid of the Favre-driven circus. "I'm rid of it; you need to get rid of it," McCarthy said at the time. Rodgers hit the toughest stretch of his season a few weeks after that Vikings game, sustaining his second concussion of the season against Detroit and sitting out against New England. Rodgers said he was proud of the way backup Matt Flynn played against the Patriots, but missed playing himself. "When you go from being a backup for three years to the starter, you just relish those opportunities," Rodgers said. "And when it gets kind of taken away from you, it's just really tough to not be able to get back in the game." Rodgers has been hotter than ever since returning, leading the Packers to back-to-back wins to make the playoffs. His standout play has continued in the postseason. "Aaron is a very consistent player and it probably stems from his personality,"Gucci bags sale McCarthy said. "He is clearly one of the most consistent quarterbacks that I have had the opportunity to work with. He is the same person every day. He doesn't swing with the highs and lows of how the season is going or how our practice is going, and I think it really carries over to the playing field."

Now in Tucson's University Hospital, Kelly is closely monitoring his wife's recovery, tackling every detail with the same focus he brings to his job as a space shuttle commander. Coach Store Online In the first days after the attack, he slept in the hospital and only recently has begun to stay in a hotel across the street. Although the couple owns a condo two miles away from the hospital, Kelly prefers to be as close as possible to his wife's bedside, where he tells her he loves her and reads out loud some of the thousands of supportive letters and e-mails that have flooded in since the attack. So far, doctors say, Giffords' recovery has been nothing short of miraculous. She was removed from a ventilator Saturday and her condition was upgraded Monday to serious from critical. Doctors have inserted a tracheotomy tube in her throat to help her breathe and put a feeding tube in her stomach. While his wife has yet to speak or hint at how much she understands, Kelly has witnessed Giffords following instructions, like a command to hold up two fingers. Kelly Mourned After Hearing False Reports of Wife's Death The hopeful emotions were a world away from what was going through his mind a week and half ago when Kelly was in Houston and got a phone call from one of his wife's staffers, telling him his "Gabby" had been shot. He had spoken to his wife 30 minutes before. "I picked up the phone and she says, 'I don't know how to tell you about this, but I just received a call ... and Gabby's been shot,'" Kelly told Sawyer. "I said, 'Well, that's, you know, that's not possible. Are you sure?'" With no other information, Kelly ended the conversation and hung up his cell phone. He had to look at the phone's call history to make sure he hadn't imagined the news. air yeezy He told his children -- Giffords' stepdaughters -- and then called Giffords' parents and his own. Then, there was one thought in his head. "[I] quickly had to figure out how I'm going to get there very, you know, very fast," Kelly said. On board a friend's private plane rushing him and his family to his wife's side, Kelly was desperate for updates from the ground. He watched live television reports which erroneously declared that Giffords had lost her life, mourning the loss for 20 crushing minutes. "The kids ... Claudia and Claire start crying. My mother, you know ... I think she almost screamed. And I just, you know, walked into the bathroom, and you know, broke down," Kelly, an astronaut, told ABC's Diane Sawyer in an exclusive interview. "To hear that she died is just, it's devastating for me." For Kelly, it was the worst moment in a nightmarish day. Calling from the plane, Kelly learned the truth from people who were with Giffords at the hospital -- that his wife had not died, but she was fighting for her life. Kelly 'Angry' Over Shooting By the time Kelly arrived in Tucson's University Hospital, the initial shock had worn off and another emotion had set in -- anger. "I was really angry for two to three days. Very, very angry," Kelly said. "The first call I received after I arrived at the hospital was President Obama, and I expressed to him ... how angry I was." "Whom did you blame?" Sawyer asked. "Initially, I was upset because she'd, you know, received death threats before," Kelly said, adding that he felt it was "just part of what we've been dealing with for the last year." He said they had talked "dozens of times" about how "risky" Giffords' job was. "She says,Gucci bags sale you know, 'Someday I'm really worried that somebody's going to come up to me at one of these events with a gun,'" Kelly said. Sawyer asked, "Do you still think the climate in this country had anything to do with it?" "I don't. It certainly didn't cause this," Kelly said. "It didn't cause Jared Loughner to, you know, to plan this attack. ... I think you have somebody that's really, really disturbed, possibly schizophrenic."

A committee of Hewlett Packard directors will investigate former CEO Mark Hurd's departure from the company amid sexual harassment allegations last year, Cheap Jordans according to a recent court filing. The inquiry comes in the course of shareholder litigation involving the company. The investigation will be conducted by independent directors who joined HP's board after Hurd's departure, assisted by outside lawyers, the January 14 court filing shows. Hurd left HP last August amid sexual harassment accusations,Coach Bags though the board found no evidence to back them up. An internal investigation turned up inaccurate expense reports, and HP said Hurd's actions displayed a lack of judgment. Hurd now works as a co-president at Oracle. A representative for Hurd did not immediately comment on Wednesday and an HP spokeswoman declined to comment. The committee will examine the decision to approve a separation agreement between HP and Hurd, and will report to the board, the filing indicated. Shareholder plaintiffs estimated that the separation agreement was worth about $40 million in cash, longchamp outlet stock and options, which they called "corporate waste." Hurd's separation agreement was later pared back under a settlement between HP and Hurd over his hiring at Oracle. The case in U.S. District Court, Northern District of California is In Re HP Derivative Litigation, 10-03608.

British comedian Ricky Gervais is the new darling of political conservatives thanks to the fusillade of insults he directed at the aghast celebrities attending the weekend's Golden Globe Awards. Delighted at the sight of Gervais belittling Hollywood elitists who they maintain do likewise to them regularly, Coach Bags the right-wing blogosphere lit up with positive reviews, even while more traditional media was critical of Sunday's telecast. Had Gervais "been as relentless in ripping apart Sarah Palin, her young children, Jesus Christ or George W. Bush, longchamp outlet today the comedian would be celebrated as 'edgy' and 'courageous'," noted John Nolte, editor of the Andrew Breitbart website Big Hollywood. Instead, the Washington Post said Gervais "crashed" and the New York Times said he was "merciless" and in "bad form." Philip Berk, president of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA), the event's organizer, said some of the things Gervais said "were totally unacceptable." Nolte, though, likened Gervais' jabs at various actors and the HFPA as a much-needed "sucker punch" leveled against elite bullies who do likewise to middle America on a routine basis. At Pajamas Media, a conservative and libertarian news organization, CEO Roger Simon wrote that Gervais "has been roundly attacked for being rude to practically everyone, including the HFPA, whose event it was. Problem is: he was right, particularly about the HFPA." The U.K's right-leaning Daily Mail weighed in via a lengthy, positive analysis of Gervais' performance that was headlined: "Bravo, Ricky Gervais! A risque' attack on self-loving Tinseltown." "The flock didn't know what to do because it had never encountered such risky mockery," author Quentin Letts wrote, praising Gervais for his rebellious performance. "Hollywood and its power brokers hate a rebel. It is a place of groupthink and almost terminal political correctness." On Sunday night Gervais earned himself a cult following around the world,Coach Handbags Letts opined, as "the man who went to Hollywood and told them what a bunch of self-regarding boobies they are."

Announcing a push to scrap onerous regulations on business,Cheap Nike Shoes President Barack Obama is not only trying to patch a strained relationship with corporate leaders but also displaying a new strategy to bypass a hostile Congress and protect his political interests. Obama signed an executive order Tuesday that aims to weed out rules that administration officials admitted could be burdensome for companies struggling to recover from the deep recession. The executive order pre-empts House Republican lawmakers who had planned to make a regulatory overhaul their next major priority after an attempt to repeal Obama's health care law. By invoking his executive authority, Obama showed that he no longer sees Congress as the main arena for advancing his agenda, as he did when Democrats controlled both the House and Senate. Obama took the unusual step of trumpeting his order through an op-ed piece written for The Wall Street Journal. The forum seemed designed to get the full attention of two crucial constituencies who have abandoned Obama: business leaders and independent voters. Obama's action fits a pattern that has emerged since the midterm elections, when Republicans won control of the House and picked up seats in the Senate. He has used all the tools of office to mollify business leaders disenchanted with his presidency. Over the past two months he has extended the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and appointed William Daley, a former banking executive, as his chief of staff. The president is also set next month to address the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, an old nemesis and the nation's most powerful business lobby. "This order requires that federal agencies ensure that regulations protect our safety,longchamp sale health and environment while promoting economic growth," Obama wrote. "And it orders a government-wide review of the rules already on the books to remove outdated regulations that stifle job creation and make our economy less competitive." Regulations are a favorite target of business. Chamber executives have complained that the Obama administration unleashed a "regulatory tsunami" that is the biggest challenge to job creation and U.S. competitiveness abroad. "We cannot allow this nation to move from a government of the people to a government of the regulators," Chamber President Thomas Donohue said last week. One part of the order requires federal agencies to write regulations with a view toward boosting the economy and creating jobs. Another calls upon agencies to go back and pore over existing regulations to make sure they are up to date. An open question is whether Obama's new policy might roll back regulations aimed at curbing the greenhouse gases that scientists say contribute to global warming. Obama's environmental regulators are attempting to regulate greenhouse gases on their own, but business lobbyists have balked at the attempt. One former Obama administration official, who asked not to be named, said in an interview, "If this signals a more restrictive posture at the agencies, greenhouse gas regulation could be affected." But an official with the Environmental Protection Agency countered that "EPA is confident that our recent and upcoming steps to address (greenhouse gas) emissions under the Clean Air Act comfortably pass muster under the sensible standards the president has laid out." It seems doubtful Obama will win back business in the near term. Many business leaders remain bothered by aggressive rhetoric from the White House over the past two years about Wall Street's behavior. They also dislike the system enacted by Obama to police banks and prevent another collapse of the financial system. Yet old foes also credit Obama for his latest moves. Donohue released a statement calling Obama's announcement "a positive first step." "It has been a long time coming for small business owners to hear this from this administration, and we will be watching closely to see if today's directive leads to real regulatory reform," said Dan Danner, head of the National Federation of Independent Business, which represents small businesses. As with his other post-midterm steps toward the political center, Obama is getting an earful from his liberal base. Progressive groups argue that the BP oil spill, the financial collapse of 2008, mine explosions and product recalls point to the hazards of too little regulation. What's more, demanding that agencies spend time reviewing old regulations distracts them from the important work of protecting the public, some argued. Inside the White House, aides aren't worried that liberals will bolt. They believe that when the 2012 election rolls around, the left will line up behind Obama, but they know the president also must reconnect with independent voters. "He's doing this now because it's part of this new White House staff's detente with business," said Rena Steinzor, president of the Center for Progressive Reform, a think tank. "He's looking ahead to 2012. He has to hope that no more disasters happen." For months, even before the midterm elections, White House aides have said that Obama would press his agenda in the second half of his term through direct executive action, sidestepping Congress. Unhappy with marathon fights in Congress, White House advisers were looking for better ways to showcase Obama as a leader and get the focus off the messy partisan clashes on Capitol Hill. Obama's executive order is an example of the new strategy in action. Obama could have made the executive order even stronger, experts said. Executive orders are a means by which presidents act unilaterally,Air Max 2011 without congressional approval. The orders don't carry the full weight of legislation because they can be changed by future presidents. They can also be legally challenged if they infringe on the powers of other branches of government. Jerry Ellig, a former Federal Trade Commission official, said Obama could have tried to expand the regulatory reviews to independent federal agencies, such as the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which are among more than a dozen agencies not covered by the order. Many of the independent agencies exempted from the order are writing the hundreds of new rules required by the Wall Street reform law, legislation that the Chamber and other business groups have criticized as heavy handed. The president also could have set up an independent panel to review an agency's regulations rather than leave it up to the agency itself. "Putting agencies in charge of retrospective analysis of their own regulations is going to make it pretty unlikely they're going to decide to eliminate anything," said Ellig, who is a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. In releasing his order now, Obama appears to have outmaneuvered the Republicans. Had the president waited, the GOP-controlled House might have led the effort to overhaul regulations. This way, Obama keeps the focus on White House action and scoops up credit from business interests. But some business leaders said the real test will be whether Obama follows through and scraps some regulations. "Any time that the White House or any administration talks about reducing regulatory burden on small business, it's a good thing," Gucci handbags said Susan Eckerly, senior vice president of federal public policy for the National Federation of Independent Business. "Let's see if they repeal a couple of regulations, if they slow down some of the activity at EPA or OSHA," she said. "If they start doing that, then they're truly serious."

The Oakland Raiders have promoted offensive coordinator Hue Jackson to become the team's sixth head coach since 2003.longchamp outlet The team announced the hiring Monday. Jackson was widely considered the leading contender to get the job as soon as the Raiders announced Jan. 4 that they were not picking up an option to keep coach Tom Cable. This is Jackson's first head coaching job at any level. Jackson was hired a year ago to take over the play-calling duties from Cable and oversaw a transformation on offense. Oakland more than doubled its scoring total from the previous season. That increased scoring helped the Raiders win eight games and avoid an eighth straight losing season. Terms of the Jackson deal weren't immediately available. In the past,air max the Raiders signed first-time coaches to two-year contracts with two-year team options included. Yet "moderate" is still an unsavory label in some Republican quarters. Upton, for example, had to emphasize his conservative views on health care and other issues before he won the Energy gavel. The return of Bass and his ilk hasn't just affected the House GOP's ideological balance - it also has regional significance. The 2006 and 2008 elections took a devastating toll on Republicans from the Northeast. From the Mason-Dixon line to Maine, GOP lawmakers - some of them moderate, most of them from swing districts - took a drubbing. By the start of the 111th Congress, not a single Republican held any of New England's 22 House districts, and the GOP occupied just three of New York's 29 seats.Coach Outlet Online Democrats also held a 12 to 7 advantage in Pennsylvania.

U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords could leave her Tucson hospital within weeks or even days as she continues to recover from the shooting here nine days ago, longchamp sale her doctors said Monday. Her family has begun to search for a rehabilitation center for the congresswoman to continue her treatment, doctors said. "The family is looking at all their resources. They have the whole country available," G. Michael Lemole Jr., Ms. Giffords's neurosurgeon, said at a news conference Monday. Meanwhile, federal officials are bracing for a possible legal battle to stop Ms. Giffords's accused shooter, Jared Loughner, from being tried outside of Arizona. Federal officials said Monday that they would fight to keep his trial in the state. Mr. Loughner is being held in a federal detention facility near Phoenix after being charged in the Jan. 8 rampage at a Tucson supermarket that left six dead and 14 injured, including Ms. Giffords. Doctors said the plans now underway for what is expected to be a long rehabilitation process amount to another testament to how rapidly and well Ms. Giffords is healing from a gunshot wound to the head. Doctors have called her survival and recovery miraculous. On Monday, Ms. Giffords was recovering from surgery over the weekend to repair her right eye socket, which was damaged in the shooting. The bullet entered the left side of Ms. Giffords's brain, creating pressure that pushed bone fragments into her right eye, doctors said. Surgeons they repaired the right socket with titanium metal mesh. That eye remains swollen as it heals, they said. Ms. Giffords's left eye, apparently undamaged in the attack, "is doing great," said Lynn Polonski, an eye surgeon who operated on her right eye. Doctors had performed emergency surgery earlier in the week to relieve pressure on the eye, but didn't want to do the complete surgery for fear of putting too much stress on Ms. Giffords. Dr. Polonski said it is unclear how much vision Ms. Giffords has now, or will have. "We think her perception is there. The optic nerves look good," Dr. Polonski said in an interview after the conference. "We have to wait until she can tell us." Doctors said the level of her cognitive abilities remains unclear, Air Max 2011 but over the past week she has responded to more complex commands and can track movement with at least one eye, they said. Ms. Giffords's husband, astronaut Mark Kelly, told her doctors that she has smiled at him, suggesting a higher level of awareness. Dr. Lemole said some moves Ms. Giffords has made, like rubbing her husband's neck, "imply she is recognizing him" and suggest "all those higher cognitive levels of function are somewhat preserved." But her doctors also warned that inferring too much from such actions is highly speculative at this early stage. Ms. Giffords was unhooked from a ventilator this weekend and upgraded to serious from critical condition. Doctors removed the breathing tube from her mouth and throat and replaced it with a tube directly into her windpipe. Ms. Giffords is not able to vocalize with the tube in place, doctors said. Doctors can replace the tube in her windpipe with another tube that would allow her to speak when and if she attempts to mouth words, they said. So far, however, she has made no attempt to speak or to communicate in writing. Ms. Giffords remains in the intensive care unit of Tucson's University Medical Center. Two other shooting victims remain hospitalized and in good condition, doctors said. Federal and local investigators, meanwhile, spent the weekend preparing their case for an expected indictment of Mr. Loughner, who has been charged with two counts of murder, two counts of attempted murder and a count of attempted assassination of a member of Congress. Once an indictment comes in the next few weeks, federal officials said, one of the first pre-trial fights expected would be over where to try Mr. Loughner. Defense attorneys will likely seek to move the trial out of Tucson and Arizona, given the notoriety of the case and concerns over whether Mr. Loughner can receive a fair trial. Mark Fleming, an attorney for Mr. Loughner, declined to comment. Such motions aren't routinely granted. But in other similar highly publicized cases, notably the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, federal judges have agreed to move trial venues. On Monday, Justice Department spokesman Matthew Miller said that federal prosecutors "intend to oppose any motions to move the trial. The trial belongs in Arizona." All federal judges in Arizona have been recused from the case because the district's chief judge John Roll was among those Mr. Loughner is accused of killing. A San Diego-based federal judge, Larry Burns, has been appointed to oversee the case for now. If Judge Burns remains as the judge on the case, one likely option could be to move the case to his district. But no such decision is imminent, according to U.S. officials. In Tucson, residents are trying to resume regular life. Hordes of reporters that had invaded the city had thinned by Monday. The Safeway supermarket where the shooting occurred, which is just north of the city, re-opened over the weekend with permission from investigators. On Saturday Sabrina Lara, 8 years old, came with her grandmother and gently laid down a bouquet festooned with a glittery red heart. They said a prayer for U.S. District Judge John Roll and 9-year-old Christina Green, who were both killed. Dawn Gallagher, Gucci handbags who has worked at the store since it opened in 1992 and was there the day of the shooting, said she perspired and felt nauseous Saturday morning as she approached the parking lot. But she felt better once she saw her co-workers and hugged them. Safeway employees were thrust by fate into the role of first-aid providers who applied pressure to wounds and tended to victims before first responders arrived. "We just did the best that we could," said store manager Marian Huber on Saturday.

The NFL's first ejection for fighting came in a Bears-Packers game. No surprise there. Coach Handbags That was 87 years ago, just three years after they first met, back when just about everyone played "caveman football." So while the league's oldest rivalry may no longer be its nastiest — that title belongs to Ravens-Steelers now — next Sunday's NFC championship should remind us that this one still might be the least evolved. In the intervening years, a parade of skilled offensive players named Payton, Sayers and Ditka on the Chicago side, Starr, Hornung and Favre in Green Bay, lasted long enough to make their mark on the series. But a succession of coaches, beginning with franchise founders George Halas and Curly Lambeau, never forgot their Midwestern towns were buffeted by some of the worst that winter had to offer. So they rarely got caught without monsters named Butkus and Urlacher, Nitschke and Matthews on the other side of the ball, ensuring the games never got too pretty. Gucci The Bears and Packers have played 181 times previously, with Chicago holding a 92-83-6 edge. Between them, they've won 21 NFL titles and sent four dozen players to the Hall of Fame. Incredibly, they met only once before in the postseason, in cozy Wrigley Field in December, 1941, a week after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. I'm still learning some of the stories and I'm already five years in," cornerback Danieal Manning said after Chicago clubbed Seattle 35-24 to seal the home game against Green Bay. Manning was one of the few players even willing to acknowledge that he'd invested some time learning the lore. Not so Julius Peppers, the Pro Bowl end who was lured to Chicago this offseason with a $91 million deal to shore up the Bears' defense. "At the end of the day, it's not going to come down to how many Hall of Famers, or whatever, played in the past," Peppers said. "It's going to be about the guys in this locker room and the one across the way." No kidding. Players used to go out of their way to deliver messages in the series, but they no longer fight over livelihoods; they all make plenty of money win or lose, playoff bonus or not. They also swap congratulatory text messages, training tips and even restaurant and nightclub reviews. The nastiness rarely spills over into public anymore. Yet scratch any middle-aged Bears fan — even this week, when they should be celebrating — and what you'll hear is a decades-old complaint about how Walter Payton once got run over by the Green Bay defense even though he was 15 yards out of bounds. Or how quarterback Jim McMahon was body-slammed to the turf by Charles Martin a good three seconds after the whistle, separating his shoulder and costing the Bears — "at least three" — more Super Bowls. Then drive the 184 miles north from Soldier Field to Lambeau Field and you'll think you've arrived at an alternate universe. All the stories about overzealous chases and late hits sound familiar, but this time the villains are always dressed in orange and blue. Chicago coach Lovie Smith grew up in Texas, so none of those grudges seem quite so personal. But he went out of his way to keep faith with the fans. He made a point of targeting Green Bay almost from the day he arrived seven years ago. Earlier this month, with both a playoff spot and first-round bye already locked up, but a chance to knock the Packers out of the postseason, Smith played his starters until the bitter end of a 10-3 loss to Green Bay. After the Packers beat Atlanta to book their spot in next Sunday's game, cornerback Charles Woodson said it didn't matter whether the Bears intended to knock out Green Bay. Cheap Nike Shoes "I just look at it that it was a rivalry game. They wanted to beat the Packers and we wanted to beat the Bears," he said. "I don't know if they wanted to get us out of there so they didn't have to play us or not."