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........But his greatest presidential stumbling block may be right under his nose. At home, Newt's second wife, Marianne Ginther Gingrich, tells me she doesn't see herself in the First Lady's job. "Watching Hillary has just been a horrible experience," commiserates Marianne. "Hillary sticking her neck out is not working." What happens if Newt runs?, I ask. "He can't do it without me," she replies. "I told him if I'm not in agreement, fine, it's easy" --she giggles at her naughtiness. "I just go on the air the next day, and I undermine everything...I don't want him to be president and...

The animal had been preying on domestic goats, residents and authorities said. A mountain lion that took a heavy toll on the animals in an Oak Glen petting zoo was killed on Christmas night when it returned to a sheep carcass to feed. The 7-year-old female lion had been raiding the petting zoo at Riley’s at Los Rios Rancho apple orchards. In all, 13 goats and sheep died, said Devon Riley, who owns the business in the mountains east of Yucaipa. When the goats and sheep started to disappear in late November, California Department of Fish and Game officials investigated...

I live in far NE Harris County, Texas.Got a question for all the hunters and outdoormen here.Yesterday morning I noticed about a 60 pound hog had been hit and killed down my road.I stopped to take a closer look and noticed the pig had been eaten on, from the belly, through the rib cage, the sternom and ribs chewed back several inches, all the way to the throat. Rigor had not set in yet so it was quite fresh, yesterday evening the hog was still there in the same shape it was in(except now bloated and full of flies) the...

Ford Motor Co. is preparing to wind down the Mercury line, created in 1939 by Edsel Ford, after sales plunged 74 percent since 2000, said two people familiar with the plan. The automaker’s top executives are preparing a proposal to kill Mercury to be presented to directors in July, said the people, who asked not to be indentified revealing internal discussions. Mercury, losing two of four models next year, will be starved of products and promotion, the people said. Chief Executive Officer Alan Mulally emphasized the automaker’s namesake brand as he revived the only major U.S. automaker to avoid bankruptcy....

Mercury could soon be the latest Detroit car brand to disappear. Ford Motor Co. is assessing the future of Mercury, although a final decision on whether to kill the brand hasn't yet been made, a person familiar with the company's deliberations said Thursday. The person asked not to be named because the process is ongoing. During a trip to Washington to meet with lawmakers, Ford CEO Alan Mulally declined to discuss Mercury, saying the company has nothing new to announce. He added that Ford is continually reviewing all its brands. Several Lincoln-Mercury dealers contacted Thursday evening said they hadn't heard...

Analysts say there are too many brands chasing too few buyers Mercury has come to that big garage in the sky, and there's a convoy behind it of what could be more disappearing brands. After 71 years, the Mercury brand will vanish from the market with little more than a whimper, by the end of the year. The brainchild of automotive pioneer Edsel Ford, Mercury had become little more than an afterthought on the automotive sales charts in recent years, a costly and irrelevant distraction that company officials, after years of debate, finally decided to do away with. The move...

Ford Motor Co., after selling its European brands, said it will discontinue its 71-year-old Mercury brand by the end of the year and expand its Lincoln lineup with a new small car. Ford’s board voted today to cease production of all four of Mercury’s models in the fourth quarter, Mark Fields, the automaker’s president of the Americas, told reporters. Ford will send letters to 1,712 Mercury dealers this week offering them buyouts and giving some the chance to merge the Lincoln half of their franchise with Ford showrooms, he said.

The last Ford Crown Victoria rolled off a Canadian assembly line Thursday, marking the end of the big, heavy Ford cars that have been popular with taxi fleets and police departments for decades. Since 1979, almost 10 million Crown Victoria, Mercury Grand Marquis and Lincoln Town Cars — so-called Panther Platform vehicles — have been sold. Demand for better fuel economy and performance has choked off sales over the years. The Crown Victoria and Town Car get just 24 miles per gallon on the highway, a figure matched by some large three-row SUVs today. … The Crown Victoria and its...

An 18-month-old boy attacked by a cougar in Pacific Rim National Park Monday was in serious condition in B.C. Children's Hospital Tuesday. Julien Sylvester's mother, Sarah Hagar, was at the hospital in Vancouver with her injured son. "The patient is in serious condition, which means he is being monitored closely," ... The family had packed up and was leaving the beach. Julien was walking three metres in front of his grandfather and an unidentified adult when the cougar leaped on the boy from a forest at the edge of the beach, Armstrong said. The cougar was momentarily daunted by Julien's...

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LAKE GEORGE -- State wildlife biologists have confirmed that a wild mountain lion passed through Warren County last winter before it was hit and killed by a car in Connecticut earlier this year. The big cat was hit by a car in Milford, Conn., on June 11. A series of DNA analyses have linked it to mountain lion fur left behind with cat paw prints in the back yard of a Lake George home last December, said Lori Severino, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Environmental Conservation. Officials believe it was native to South Dakota, and said it was...

FULL TITLE: Law teacher, 33, videotaped herself raping 16-year-old male student in motel, say police A High School teacher has been charged with rape after allegedly filming herself having sex with an underage student. Tara Driscoll, 33, of Bayshore, Long Island, was arrested after police obtained a copy of the video film showing her performing sex acts on the 16-year-old boy. Police said the boy, a student at Campus Magnet High School in Cambria Heights, Queens, confessed to having sex with Driscoll after being confronted by his mother. Investigators said Driscoll, who teaches law and government, picked up the underage...

An acquaintance of mine probably wasn't surprised to hear about the cougar that wandered northern Wisconsin from January through May in 2010, disappeared, and then died June 11 after getting SUV'd on a Connecticut highway. Talk about missing your exit and ending up in the wrong town. My acquaintance can relate. Years ago, he became tired while driving on I-90/I-94, so his wife took the helm near Mauston. Before dozing off, he reminded her to take I-90 to La Crosse when the highways forked in 25 miles. No problem, she said. When he awoke, they were pulling off to gas...

The Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection said today that results of genetic tests show that the mountain lion killed in Milford in June made its way to the state from the Black Hills region of South Dakota and is an animal whose movements were actually tracked and recorded as it made its way through Minnesota and Wisconsin. Genetic tests also show that it is likely that the mountain lion killed when it was hit by a car June 11 on the Wilbur Cross Parkway in Milford was the same one that had been seen earlier that month in...

BOSTON (Reuters) – A mountain lion was killed just 70 miles from New York City early on Saturday morning, and officials were trying to determine if it was the same big cat spotted a week ago roaming the posh suburb of Greenwich, Connecticut. The 140-pound mountain lion was hit by a small SUV on a highway in Milford, Connecticut, early Saturday morning, and died from its injuries. The driver was unhurt, officials said. With no native mountain lion population in the state, "it's possible and even likely" it is the same enormous cat with a long tail spotted last weekend...

Conservation Experts: This Size Cat Hasn't Been Seen Here In 100 Years. There has been a wild animal alert issued in the northern suburbs. A mountain lion, yes, a mountain lion, is on the loose. ... We’re not looking for your Aunt Mildred’s kitty here, either. This is a big cat, a 160-pound predator that hunts and eats things. ... Ironically the Eastern mountain lion was officially declared extinct only a few months ago — in March.

UPDATE 9:20 a.m. - Charlene Wilkinson just wanted to read the news, not be the news when she picked up the Independent Record off her porch Wednesday morning. Then she got a call from the Helena Police dispatcher shortly after 7 a.m., telling her to stay inside and move away from the windows because a mountain lion was curled up on her front porch, precisely where she had picked up her newspaper just moments earlier. "They told me not to even look out the window because I could startle it and it could go through the window," Wilkinson said, recalling...

EAST LYME, Conn -- East Lyme Middle School is without its band and music teacher. Police said they charged 25-year-old Amy Schneider on Friday with three counts of second-degree sexual assault.

SPOKANE, Wash. - A Wenatchee hunter has a right to be proud for his photo showing a pride of mountain lions on the Douglas County ranch where he has permission to hunt. The black and white trail-cam image, which shows eight cougars in one spot, has gone viral in Northwest websites and e-mail lists since he first released it to acquaintances on Christmas Day. PHOTO • Wildlife enthusiasts were in awe of the scene, which few people will see in their lifetimes. • Alarmists were ready to take up arms against the lion onslaught on the Central Washington deer population....

It's impossible to mistake the big cat in the grainy black and white pictures — not with that distinct patch of white hair at its mouth, the muscled jaw line, bulging shoulders and sleek profile. Call it a cougar, puma or panther. The question is: What's it doing in Chesterfield? The Missouri Department of Conservation isn't quite sure, but most likely the mountain lion was just passing through in search of territory or a mate. The pictures taken Jan. 12 from a stationary wildlife camera mark the first confirmed sighting in St. Louis County since 1994, and the 13th in...

A Plant City High School teacher has resigned after acknowledging she bought a "morning after pill" for a student and had inappropriate Facebook conversations with the student's boyfriend. Ginger Parks, a 17-year teaching veteran, resigned her job Sept. 22, less than a week after she was confronted with the allegations. She faced firing if she didn't quit, Hillsborough County School District records show. Parks, who taught English, also was the school's cheerleading coach. She at first denied any misconduct, the district reported, but changed her story when district investigator Andrew J. Rouleau told Parks he had 40 pages of printouts...

Small dog vs. big cat: US farmer shoots mountain lion after terrier trees animal By The Associated Press (CP) COLMAN, S.D. — A 150-pound (68-kilogram) mountain lion was no match for a squirrel-chasing terrier. Jack the Jack Russell weighs only 17 pounds (8 kilograms), and yet he managed to trap the cougar up a tree on Tuesday on a farm in the north-central state of South Dakota. Jack's owner, Chad Strenge, told The Argus Leader that the dog "trees cats all the time," and that the plucky terrier probably "figured it was just a cat." Professor Jonathan Jenks, who tracks...

She's best known for that scene in Basic Instinct - and it appears that Sharon Stone still lives by the maxim if you've got it, flaunt it, on the set of a recent movie. The star stripped down to a tiny bikini in low-budget comedy Five Bucks A Day, directed by Calendar Girls and Made In Dagenham British film maker Nigel Cole. In fact, the budget seems to have been so low that the props department couldn't afford to loan Sharon a handbag.

On August 19, 1996, 36-year-old Cindy Parolin and three of her children were riding horses in the Similkameen backcountry, 30 miles northwest of Princeton, British Columbia. Like their mother, 6-year-old Steven, 11-year-old Melissa and 13-year-old David felt a mixture of wonder and excitement as they traveled through the vast wilderness. The four were headed to a cabin to join Parolin's husband and other son for a camping vacation. As the family rode along, the horses grew increasingly nervous. The cause became starkly clear when a cougar suddenly launched itself from the undergrowth at Steven. The animal missed its mark, landing...

JUNEAU COUNTY, Wis. (WTAQ) - The state DNR says it could not confirm that a den of young cougars has settled in west central Wisconsin. That’s after a mountain lion seriously injured a horse on Monday in the Wonewoc area of Juneau County. Officials said it was apparently the same cougar that killed 2 sheep and a cow in the Wonewoc area last month. The DNR’s Keith Warnke said volunteers and officials from his agency and the USDA all tried track the animal on Monday, but rainfall made the task impossible. After the May attack, Warnke said crews were hoping...

Salazar's 5-year-old son was attacked and severely mauled by a cougar that tried to drag the boy off a well-used hiking trail and into the woods in the Sandia Mountains outside of Albuquerque. The story was so frightening that it made national news. "People would say that it was just an accident. That it was extremely rare, just a rare accident." ...Convinced that three attacks in three months didn't qualify as rare... In 2006 and 2007, there were nine reported ... In 2008, there were 40 reported encounters before the attack on her son in May. This led her into...

A 42-year-old woman accusing of having sex with a 14-year-old boy in Bath and then bragging about it at work gave up her right to a preliminary hearing Tuesday and her case will head to Northampton County Court. The boasting by Theresa E. Kasznicki not only led to her getting fired from her job at an insurance company, but to a police investigation that landed her in Northampton County Prison, according to court records. Her attorney Tuesday waived the hearing before District Judge John Capobianco under the condition that a plea agreement is in place in court.

My friend Sarah looked me in the eye with an intensity I have rarely seen in the many years I have known her. Then she confessed: 'I have a secret. I am in love with a 17-year-old vampire called Edward Cullen. I think about him . . . dream about him. I have his photo on my desk, and his picture is my computer screensaver.' Worryingly, not only did I immediately know who she was talking about, but I heard myself declaring (several octaves higher than my normal speaking voice): 'I know! How amazing was it when he growled at...

Cougars beware — having a boy toy husband increases a woman’s chances of an early death, according to a German study reported Thursday by the Daily Mail. And the younger her spouse is, the harder it is on a woman's health, researchers found. However, the trend is reversed when an older man opts for a younger woman. The more youthful his wife, the longer the husband is expected to live.

Brooks Perlin is 37 years old and has been dating Katie for three years. Katie is 52.

It started with a casual lunch. Roger Briggs was in mourning, widowed after 63 years of marriage. Helen Smith, who is legally blind, needed someone to help escort her from her home, a houseboat docked at the Beaufort Marina, to her favorite bar, Hemmingway's Bistro in downtown Beaufort. Staff at the local hangout thought the two just might be a good fit, so they arranged for a lunch date. The rest just fell into place, said Smith, age 91. Briggs, 90, popped the question last month and family and friends from the Bistro prepared for a Valentine's Day wedding. "It...

Well, she's telling you. Her timing is, well, curious. In the last week, CBS News laid off at least 90 people. Today, video taken during her Harper's Bazaar cover shoot surfaces. In it, the $15 million-a-year "CBS Evening News" anchor is dolled up, posing with her best "glamourpuss" face, and answering questions about genetics ("I've been very fortunate, all the girls in my family have pretty good legs, I guess," she says) and when she feels sexiest ("I always feel sexiest when I'm in a little black dress with a really great pair of shoes. High heels of course.") It's...

GERMANTOWN, Md. - A coach's assistant at a Montgomery County School is at the center of a sex scandal. The female volunteer helped out with the basketball team at Seneca Valley High School in Germantown.

WELLINGTON — Air New Zealand has drawn the ire of a rape prevention group over a competition aimed at "cougars" -- middle-aged women who prefer younger men. The airline is offering 60 tickets for next month's Wellington Sevens rugby tournament to older women "who prefer their meat rare". The competition invites packs of up to four "cougars" to send in their photographs to the airline to gain a chance of winning the tickets. An accompanying YouTube video parodying wildlife documentaries says cougars are known for living off sparse vegetation during the day and large slabs of meat at night. It...

MINNEAPOLIS, Jan. 12 (UPI) -- There have been several recent cougar sightings in suburban Minneapolis and police say one may have occurred within the limits of Minnesota's largest city. City police Sgt. Jesse Garcia told the Star Tribune Norm Mosher's report that he saw a big cat crossing a road in the city's northeast neighborhood Monday morning "appears to be one of the first times that one has come into the city limits." Mosher, 56, of Elk River said at first he thought it was a dog. But then he noticed its gait and its fat tail. The animal was...

A Canadian man has been mauled to death by a 295-kilogram tiger after winning a lengthy legal battle for the right to keep exotic pets... Norman Buwalda, 66, was found dead in the tiger's pen on his property in rural Ontario ... "He had gone in to feed the tiger and possibly had been attacked," Mr Carlson said, indicating there were no witnesses. Mr Buwalda had also kept two lions and a cougar, police said. In 2004, a tiger attack on a 10-year-old boy visiting the property sparked a ban on keeping wild animals as pets.

Full version parody of Simon and Garfunkel's famous tune. Based on recent events in Northern Ireland

A political scandal riveting Northern Ireland has a certain cinematic feel: an affair by 58-year-old woman named Mrs. Robinson with a 19-year-old male lover. Five separate Facebook groups with hundreds of followers have sprung up, lampooning the affair and comparing it to the 1967 film, "The Graduate." But there is a serious side to the story of Iris Robinson, who also happens to be a member of Parliament and the wife of Peter Robinson — Northern Ireland's government leader. The BBC reported that Iris Robinson allegedly solicited 50,000 pounds ($80,000) from businessmen so her young lover could open a restaurant...

‘I am a believer now,’ Atoka man says about mountain lions being in Oklahoma This mountain lion was captured on Ryan Ritter’s trail camera near Atoka in southeastern Oklahoma. Ryan Ritter of Atoka couldn’t believe what he was seeing on New Year’s Day when he looked at the photos from his new trail camera. Not only were there pictures of numerous deer and turkey, but the trail camera also had captured five photos of a mountain lion on two consecutive mornings. "I was very shocked to see that on my camera,” said Ritter, who admits he always has been skeptical...

A family dog saved his eleven-year-old owner Saturday when he stepped between the boy and an advancing cougar, say RCMP. The boy, a resident of Boston Bar, was gathering firewood in his backyard when he noticed the predatory cat advancing across the yard. As the cougar charged, the boy's pet, a golden retriever, intercepted the attack. The family called police as the dog and cat battled beneath the back porch of the home, until a Boston Bar RCMP officer arrived and shot the cougar in the rear end — which, said Sgt. Peter Thiessen in a release, "was the only...

ALTA, Wyo. » Frito the llama defied his name and didn't get eaten. Lou Centrella seemed sure that was Frito's fate after a mountain lion killed another of his llamas on Sunday. Frito was nowhere to be found after the attack on the other llama, named Grayson. On Monday, the cougar returned to the Centrellas' yard in western Wyoming to feed on the llama it had killed. Concerned the big cat may have acquired a taste for llama, Centrella shot it.....

GYPSUM — Tara Haymond woke up at 2 a.m. Sunday to the sound of Bubba, her 150-pound Great Pyrenees dog, crying. "I thought I better tell him to be quiet so he wouldn't bother the neighbor," she said. She opened the sliding door next to the bed and discovered a mountain lion on top of Bubba. "There is nothing in anybody that would prepare them to find that," she said. The 47-year-old grabbed a shotgun but couldn't find ammunition, so she started hitting the cougar with the gun. Read more: http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_14086839#ixzz0b6IjvlNx

State wildlife experts believe the cougar caught on tape in Champlin earlier this month is the same big cat that left tracks in the snow in Stillwater. Video of a cougar was recorded by a police squad car dash board camera Dec. 7. Two days later a cat was spotted in Vadnais Heights. December 11, cougar tracks were found in Sunrise Park in Stillwater. DNR officials believe all three sightings were of the same cat. Dan Stark with the DNR said, "I think it's likely it's the same cat. I don't expect to see more than one cougar in the...

IT'S time to address a gender imbalance. I'm talking about Cougars. As in, it's all good and well to have a "fun" moniker for mature single women but what about their male counterpart What should we call these guys? The ones like Two And A Half Men’s Charlie Sheen who’s onscreen exploits seem a pale imitation of his real life shag-nanegans. Or one-time owner of the Sydney Swans, Dr Geoffrey Edelsten, whose recent wedding was not only significant as a spectacle of wealth but also as a literal bridging of generations. According to The Urban Dictionary, the male version of...

Cruise ships are increasingly catering to holidaymakers' particular interests - whether it's art and culture or a particular hobby. And sexual attraction is no exception as what is thought to be the world's first 'Cougar Cruise' has proven a sell-out in the U.S. Aimed at older women who prefer to date younger men, the fully-booked International Cougar Cruise set sail from San Diego in California on December 4.

With an age gap of 23 years they said it would never last. But today artist Sam Taylor-Wood, 42, announced she is to marry her 19-year-old toyboy Aaron Johnson. The couple met when she cast the relatively unknown teenager as John Lennon in her debut feature film Nowhere Boy, which premiered in London last night. A spokesman for the couple confirmed their wedding plans this afternoon and said they were 'very happy'.

DAYTON — A woman accused of celebrating her 55th birthday by having sex with a 12-year-old boy pleaded guilty to one count of gross sexual imposition of a person under age 13 on Friday, Oct. 23. Gloria J. Murphy, of 5440 Rawlings Drive, appeared before Montgomery County Common Pleas Judge Mary Katherine Huffman, who set sentencing for Dec. 2. The charge is a third-degree felony, punishable by up to five years in prison. Gloria J. Murphy, who uses a walker and an oxygen tube, appeared frail.

A paw print discovered in Wheaton could be that of a cougar, wildlife experts said today — a day after another expert doubted that it was. Wheaton police said today that evidence technicians successfully lifted a paw print from a creek bed after a resident reported seeing a large, black or dark-colored cat there. The castings were taken to Brookfield Zoo, where several experts examined the castings and photographs of the paw prints. Results of the examination, however, were inconclusive, police said. The mammal curator ruled out the print being from a canine or fox, but said it was consistent...

A five-year-old Rossland boy has been hospitalized, treated and released after a cougar attack in Stevens Country, Wa., yesterday Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW), issued a press release saying the child was attacked and injured while hiking with his family on the Abercrombie Mountain Trail, along Silver Creek in the Colville National Forest east of Northport. “His parents, of Rossland, British Columbia, reported a cougar suddenly jumped out of a brushy area onto the boy, who was near his mother on the trail,” said the release. “The mother reportedly fought off the cougar and the parents took the...

SEATTLE (AP) -- A cougar that apparently had lived in Seattle for more than two weeks and forced the city's largest park to close was captured early Sunday and returned to the wild, state wildlife officials said.