Pro News

(AP) Sheriff’s officers said a 19-year-old man snatched a Starbucks customers laptop after being told he could not use it to check his Facebook account. According to officers, the man then grabbed the customer’s laptop and ran out of the coffee shop, located in an outlet mall.

Two people in the parking lot tackled the man and held him there until a mall security guard arrived.

The victim got his laptop back and the man was charged Saturday with robbery by sudden snatching, a felony.

Earth’s natural resources have been exhausted by mankind and battle rages between the soldiers of four leading Corporations.

In an unprecedented move American Express is paying certain card holders 300 dollars to close their accounts. They have evaluated risk and are trying to shore up any acccounts that would get maxed out and not pay their company. While closing or opening credit cards can hurt your credit score by ten points or so, this may be the smart move for some customers desperate for quick cash who should close their cards anyway.

Brian Mandeville who played football at Northeastern has worked through all kinds of adversity to get where he is today. In 2005 he underwent surgery for a brain tumor and has also had to fight through multiple knee injuries. He was one of the prime targets in the NFL draft at the tight end position.

Unfortunately he got injured during the NFL draft combine workout. He now is dealing with a heart valve problem detected by doctors at the NFL scouting combine in Indianapolis on Friday.

His former coach at Northeastern thinks he can pull through and has the determination to make a comeback. “I wasn’t able to watch the combine (on Saturday), but I text messaged him and he texted me back when he was on his way to California to get a second opinion. But he understands what’s going on. He just wants to find out what it all means and go from there.”

It must be tough to get so close to accomplishing your dreams being so close to getting drafted in the NFL, then finding out you may have heart problems. Hopefully nothing is wrong and he will have a successful career in the NFL.

(AP) Tom Renney was fired as coach of the New York Rangers on Monday in an attempt to save a season that has spiraled out of control.

The Rangers opened the season with a 10-2-1 record, but 10 losses in the last 12 games has knocked the team out of contention for the Atlantic Division title and placed it in danger of missing the playoffs completely.

In recent home games, fans had chanted for Renney to be fired.

General manager Glen Sather didn’t immediately name a replacement.

Renney, a former coach of the Vancouver Canucks, was 164-121-42 with the Rangers in four plus seasons and ranks fourth on the team’s career wins and games coached lists.

Assistant coach Perry Pearn was also fired, but fellow assistant Mike Pelino was retained along with goalie coach Benoit Allaire, the Rangers said.

Fiery former Tampa Bay Lightning coach John Tortorella, who once served as a Rangers assistant, could emerge as a candidate. His no-nonsense approach would be a stark contrast to the laid-back, player-friendly Renney.

Renney stated strongly Sunday that his team hadn’t quit and played hard despite its 3-2 overtime loss to Toronto that extended New York’s skid to 2-7-3. The Rangers face the Maple Leafs again in Toronto on Wednesday.

The Rangers (31-23-7) entered Monday in a fifth-place tie in the Eastern Conference, but only two points above ninth-place Carolina. The top eight teams make the playoffs.

Renney is the second Atlantic Division coach fired in the past week, following Pittsburgh’s dismissal of Michel Therrien last weekend. He is the sixth NHL coach let go this season, which includes all four coaches whose teams started the regular season in Europe.

Renney went 2-0 against former Lightning coach Barry Melrose in games in Prague. Therrien and the Penguins faced Craig Hartsburg and the Ottawa Senators in Stockholm.

After a two-season stint as the Rangers director of player personnel, Renney became an assistant coach under Sather for the 2003-04 season. Sather relinquished his coaching duties Feb. 25, 2004, and turned the team over to Renney on an interim basis.

Renney, who turns 54 on Sunday, went 5-15 to finish that season and took over on a full-time basis in July 2004, but had to wait for the yearlong NHL lockout to end before he could officially claim the job behind the bench.

In his first full season, Renney was a finalist for the Jack Adams award as coach of the year after the Rangers went 44-26-12 and reached the playoffs for the first time since 1997. They advanced to the second round each of the past two years.

Sather turned over the roster before this season, allowing veteran forwards and proven goal scorers Jaromir Jagr and Brendan Shanahan to leave via free agency along with the volatile Sean Avery.

Markus Naslund was brought in to pick up the slack, and he leads the offensively challenged Rangers with 18 goals. The biggest disappointment has been the signing of defenseman Wade Redden, who was given a six-year, $39 million deal, but now hears boos every time he touches the puck at home.

Renney also struggled to get the most out of centers Scott Gomez and Chris Drury, who signed as free agents in the summer of 2007 but never found consistent linemates to work with.

Rather than go into criticizing Christian Bale himself, there is someone else who deserves their fair share of blame for the controversy. After all, Christian Bale is merely an employee in a contract with a company in order to make a film that will hopefully make money for a film that is being produced. Ultimately in the short-term, the big brunt of damage may not be to Christian Bale who is already sitting pretty after numerous blockbuster hits. Rather, many critics of the outburst have come up with various quips to the incident, such as “Why do we need another Terminator?” etc.

The success of the film may have suffered a deep blow from the publicity. The incident did not become popularly known until months later, when the audiotape had been leaked. Film executives at Warner Brothers sent the tape to the insurance company that insured the film in case Bale bailed. This is where the trouble begins.

Rather than keep this incident to as few people as possible, Warner Brothers decided to get greedy and keep it as a potential blackmailing tool. With such an explosive and potentially damaging material, Warner Brothers clearly did not recognize that it should be destroyed at once and word of it suppressed for the sake of their film’s potential success. Christian Bale was in a contract regardless, and if he attempted to bail the film, which we see months later he still has not, Bale would be violating that contract. Not to mention, blackmail has been and always is a risky business. The worst possible result to Warner Brothers has emerged from this, instead turning the tables on themselves. Since it had not been leaked for months, we can assume that the leak most likely came from the insurance company that Warner Brothers sent the audiotape to for the express purpose of blackmailing the actor in the event he decided to leave the film early.

In all of this, the true villain does not seem to be Christian Bale, as upset as he may have gotten, no one got hurt, and it is nothing people have not seen in their own lives when a friend or relative explodes angrily. Instead, it was Warner Brothers who was conducting an almost definitely criminal attempt at blackmail against Christian Bale. Christian Bale might actually improve his image by filing such a suit against Warner Brothers, but timing would critical if Bale wishes to see the film succeed. Perhaps a year after release, Bale could file suit on multiple charges, first blackmail, but there is another possibility as well. Non-disclosure and confidentiality agreements are signed on most Hollywood sets, yet someone clearly violated this. Once again, it would most likely be Warner Brothers, if the insurance company was not party to the agreements, who violated that agreement in sending the material, which was then leaked most likely by an employee at that company.

In the end, Christian Bale has apologized for it quite sincerely, and can explain that he was kind of method acting in a scene in which his character John Connor was kind of crazy, and it may have rubbed off on his character. Bale and Shane were back on good terms the very same day of the incident. Bale also hopes that his one-time lapse in judgment does not haunt the movie, and hopes the hard work of all those members on the film is not harmed by the incident, but ultimately it may be Warner Brothers who will pay the price for this indiscretion.

For his role as the male lead in the Wrestler, Mickey Rourke won the Independent Spirit Award. He gives a funny and outstanding speech after winning the award. He has redeemed himself from his drug addiction and made a comeback into great film acting.

(AP) A New York City man who fought a parking ticket he got while dressed as Santa Claus and giving out toys says the city’s response is more ho-hum than ho-ho.

Chip Cafiero says he learned Friday he’d lost his attempt to contest the $115 ticket he got in Brooklyn on Nov. 28. A spokesman for the city Department of Finance, which handles such matters, wasn’t immediately able to access records on the case Sunday night.

The 60-year-old retired schoolteacher had a sport utility vehicle double-parked near him while he handed out holiday bounty from a horse-drawn carriage. The SUV was ticketed.

He told the Department of Finance the SUV was there to protect the carriage and children from traffic.

Cafiero says the city can take his money, but it won’t take away his Christmas spirit.

There are many reason why we should stop bailing out the banks and leave them to their dismal future. I will first say that banks create nothing, clear and simple, no products, not even a decent service. What kind of service is taking money from one person and handing it to another. That would never work in any barter system! When you were young you couldn’t offer to your neighbor to hold his money and lend it out to other people. Why should he want to do something as absurd as that?

Now you might say you can gain interest. Well not really. If you are making even 2.15% interest in savings at some of the better banks you still aren’t making a profit. Because even the government’s “reported” cost of living rate is at 3% increase a year currently. That is if you believe that number is accurate, because they leave out inflation and other daily products that go up, so the real rate is likely 6% a year or so. So if anything you are slightly under the cost of living each year with your saving account. And that rate given is 8 times the national average.

Now let’s look at loans. Do we really need loans? Loans are borrowing for something you can’t afford. Seems pretty illogical doesn’t it. “Well I want a house.” a person might say. I want a Dodge Viper, but does that mean I should take out a 80 grand loan for one? No. People have been borrowing way more than they can ever pay back and that is what got us in this mess in the first place. Buying 300 grand homes when they can really only afford a 150 grand mortgage. People buying cars that are way out of their range, just because that is the maximum loan the bank will lend them. These are some of the main problems that got us in this situation. It doesn’t mean the bankers weren’t wrong for issuing high risk loans, they are at fault as well.

So what would happen if all the banks went under? Okay, let’s say there are no more banks. For one thing all those workers and CEOs would have to get jobs where they actually make/provide a real service or product to the public. That is a positive. People would not owe anything on their mortgages or car loans. Who is going to collect, if there are no banks? Basically all debts are forgiven. Sure some people might be envious that they did not get million dollar homes or that they paid off their houses. However, if you want to cite a moral standpoint on the issue, this forgiveness is precisely what Christianity and Judaism demand. These are the religions of most in the banking industry, and they demand that after 7 years, debt must be forgiven, the reasoning being perpetual debt creates debt slavery. A slave is someone who has no hope of ownership, and indeed if you are too far in over your head with debt and no way out, you are indeed a slave to debt. There is no justification for any christian or jew, which make-up a vast majority in our country, to endorse usury as it is in violation of their religious beliefs. Humanity could recognize the immorality of usury thousands of years ago, and haven’t we come farther than that?

Without debt, we would have a nationwide paradise. No one would have debt, and if they want something they can purchase it with money that they actually have, not plastic or someone else’s money(loan). Even if lots of people have to rent apartments, that’s much better than being in a great depression, wouldn’t you say? The bank created cycles of expansion and retraction of credit are precisely what leads to recessions and depressions. Without them, and using gold and silver as the only currency as the constitution requires, the economy would be stabilized and only head upward through the creation of goods and services to increase the livelihood of the citizenry.

I’m just sick of all the fear and despair out there. With the media and people not being able to come up with a solution. The government can’t make a free market better, they can only nationalize banks and force labor. Those two things don’t create prospertiy or freedom, things that this country was founded on. We are a nation of problem solvers and innovative thinkers. Let’s stop dumping our problems on the government and find our own way out of this slump.

(AP) Police say one joyride in a light tank wasn’t enough for a drunken British soldier in Germany.

Police in Celle say the 18-year-old stole a small light tank early Friday and rumbled out of his base toward nearby Bergen — but drove off the road after 500 yards (meters).

Undaunted, he walked back to his base and commandeered a second tank. This time, he was spotted by a British military police patrol.

As the patrol tried to stop him, he lost control and drove into a tree. Military police then arrested him.

German police say a breathalyzer test showed an alcohol concentration of 0.1 percent. The blood alcohol limit in Germany is 0.05 percent.

Police declined to identify the soldier, and Britain’s military could not immediately be reached for comment.