Israel moves to further seal off Jerusalem from West Bank

Israeli officials today approved plans for 2,612 new homes to be built on Givat HaMatos, or Airplane Hill, which is set to become the first new Jerusalem neighborhood to be built outside Israel's internationally recognized borders since 1996.
The placement profoundly concerns Palestinians and advocates of a two-state solution. They say that it and other building projects under way would make drawing the borders of a future Palestinian state unworkable by fragmenting Palestinian areas, and thus could deal a devastating blow to the two-state solution.
“I believe that Givat HaMatos is a deal-breaker,” says Daniel Seidemann, an Israeli attorney and founder of Terrestrial Jerusalem, which tracks developments that could jeopardize a two-state solution. “How many times can you cut a worm in half and the worm starts wiggling?”
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Some 549 new homes in Givat HaMatos for Arab residents were also approved yesterday, but went largely unnoticed amid a series of Israeli moves to expand building in East Jerusalem and the highly controversial area of E1, which would create an Israeli bubble deep into the West Bank. Critics of Givat HaMatos have called it a mini-E1.
The US State Department yesterday used unusually strong language to criticize what it characterized as a “continuing pattern of provocative action” that jeopardizes a two-state solution.
Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs takes issue with that criticism. “Jerusalem is our capital and we feel like it’s not particularly controversial or provocative at all for us to build in it – we’ve been here for 3,000 years now,” says Paul Hirschson, deputy spokesperson for the ministry. “It’s not only a geographical area, it’s an idea. It’s our idea, and we put it on the map.”
DRIVING A WEDGE
In the 1967 war with its Arab neighbors, Israel captured East Jerusalem and the Old City, and expanded the borders of the city to include strategic high ground. As a result, the size of the city more than tripled virtually overnight. Israel annexed the whole area, proclaiming a united Jerusalem as its eternal and undivided capital. But the international community never recognized that annexation beyond the pre-1967 border, also known as the Green Line due to the color of magic marker that was used to draw the map, and considers the expanded portions of the city to be occupied land.
While much of East Jerusalem remains predominantly Arab, the Jewish presence there has expanded to roughly 200,000. Jewish neighborhoods have been established in areas that drive a wedge between Arab areas of East Jerusalem and the West Bank, in what some say is a calculating political game akin to tick-tack-toe. The cumulative effect, say Palestinians and their supporters, is that it is becoming increasing impractical to establish a viable, contiguous Palestinian state with a capital in East Jerusalem.
Under the Clinton Parameters, laid out by President Clinton in 2000 and widely accepted as the guidelines for drawing the borders of a future Palestinian state, Arab areas would be assigned to Palestine and Jewish areas would be assigned to Israel.
But Mr. Seidemann says that the establishment of Givat HaMatos would make it impossible to implement the Clinton Parameters, because it would cut off the Arab neighborhood of Beit Safafa from the West Bank. Mr. Hirschson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs disputes this, and takes issue with the “racial” perspective on building in Jerusalem, saying at the end of the day, Israel is building for Israeli residents – Jewish and Arab.
Givat HaMatos would also put the final link in a largely Jewish “buffer” between Bethlehem and Jerusalem. And it would connect Har Homa, the last neighborhood to be established outside the 1967 lines, with Jerusalem – creating a southern bubble similar to the eastern bubble of E1 and the adjacent Maale Adumim area, though on a smaller scale.
“We are witnessing today a very crucial moment … a moment of irreversibility,” Mustafa Barghouti, a former Palestinian presidential candidate and democracy activist, told journalists at a dinner yesterday. “If people expect that Palestinians will accept living in a system of Bantustans, a system of apartheid … then they are mistaken.”
A CHILL WIND IN BETHLEHEM
While the uptick in building plans has hit all Palestinians hard, they have put a particular damper on Christmas festivities in Bethlehem this year, squeezing the beleaguered Christian community and their Muslim neighbors both economically and politically.
“I’m not a Christian man, but to me, Christianity is a very important part of why Palestine is a holy land,” says senior Palestinian official Nabil Shaath, standing on a grassy knoll of Givat HaMatos with the Mar Elias monastery behind him. “This is at the heart of a part of Palestine in which Christian Palestinians have a real presence. That is being threatened.”
Traditionally the Christmas procession to Bethlehem begins at the Mar Elias monastery, but today it is separated from Bethlehem by the concrete wall erected by Israel after a wave of Palestinian suicide bombings beginning in 2000.
Today, Palestinians are confined to 13 percent of the Bethlehem District, with wide swaths of land taken up by Israeli homes and related infrastructure, such as roads for West Bank settlers.
Building is continuing apace in Har Homa. Israel plans to extend its separation barrier through the nearby Christian town of Beit Jala, renowned for its olive oil. The plans, which would cut off 58 families from their olive groves, are pending an Israeli supreme court decision in February.
In addition, there is talk of reestablishing an Israeli military outpost in neighboring Beit Sahur, a stronghold of nonviolent resistance and the birthplace of the International Solidarity Movement during the first intifada.
“For us it’s very scary, it’s reminiscent of what happened in Jabal Abu Ghomoneih [Har Homa],” says activist and professor Mazin Qumsiyeh. “Bethlehem has become like a ghetto.”
A local Catholic priest finds hope only in appealing to a higher authority.
“Only God can help us … only God can change the mind of everybody to give us our rights,” says Ibrahim Shomali.

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Newtown shooting cranks up Canada's gun-control debate

Though the massacre in Newtown, Conn., last week has drawn sympathy from all over the world, it has a particular resonance in Canada.
The shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School that left 26 victims dead, including 20 children, comes just a week after the 23rd anniversary of Canada's own "Montreal Massacre," which reshaped the country's gun laws. Moreover, it occurred even as Canadians recently renewed calls for stricter controls on firearms access here amid ongoing efforts by the Conservative government to ease firearms laws.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper offered his condolences to the Newtown victims' families while calling the shootings “senseless.” But critics here accuse Mr. Harper's government of practically standing alone among Western nations in rolling back gun-control protections in recent years – most noticeably by scrapping the "long-gun" registry, which logged all of the country's rifles and shotguns, in 2011.
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“It has been a useful issue for the Conservative government over the last few years; the registry for a long time was a symbol of government waste,” says Blair Brown, an associate professor of history at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax and the author of “Arming and Disarming: A History of Gun Control in Canada.”
There are an estimated 8 million legally owned guns in Canada, representing about 18 percent of Canadian households. Canada's gun laws are more strict than those of the US. Canadian federal law requires that all restricted and prohibited weapons – including all handguns – be registered with the government. Canada also requires licenses to buy, own, and use firearms.
Canada's strict gun regime, including the now repealed long-gun registry, was introduced by the Liberal government in the mid-1990s, in large part prompted by the Montreal Massacre, in which, on Dec. 6, 1989, Marc Lepine shot and killed 14 women at the Montreal's École Polytechnique before killing himself.
Montreal was also the setting for another school shooting in 2006, at Dawson College, where one student was killed and 19 were wounded before the killer turned his guns on himself. And Toronto has increasingly been the setting in recent years of messy gun battles and shootings in crowded public places, often with guns that have either been smuggled in from the US or stolen from registered gun owners.
HAS GUN-LAW RELAXATION GONE TOO FAR...
Canadian gun-control advocates argue that still more restrictions are needed. They point out that the type of hunting rifle used by Lepine in Montreal is sold by Canadian Tire, an iconic Canadian chain of hardware stores – much as critics of America’s gun culture note that the Bushmaster semi-automatic rifle, used in the Sandy Hook shootings, is readily sold by chains like Wal-Mart.
And Heidi Rathjen, who witnessed the Montreal Massacre in 1989 and is now part of a group of survivors and family members of the tragedy who advocate for stricter gun controls, says that rifles, shotguns, and many assault-style weapons remain easily accessible in Canada.
To Ms. Rathjen, the Harper government has done more to erode gun laws than simply scrap the long-gun registry: “They’ve weakened provisions around licensing. While it remains true that you need a license to purchase a gun, a seller no longer has to check the validity of your permit.”
“The fact that there’s been terrible shootings and gun-related deaths has never made a difference. They’ve been very uncompromising in their position, they’ve done everything they could to please the gun lobby, and they plan to do more,” adds Rathjen.
Still, the government has shown signs that there are limits to how far it'll go. Earlier this month, on the anniversary of the Montreal Massacre, the prime minister distanced himself from several recommendations of the government-appointed Canadian Firearms Advisory Committee – a group comprised almost entirely of gun enthusiasts and advocates – when it was reported that the committee recommended eliminating all together the most restrictive “prohibited” category of firearms – which includes automatic assault rifles.
“The government has absolutely no intention of weakening that category of protection,” Harper was quoted as saying in the Toronto Star.
Another conservative recommendation that would see gun licensing go from five-years to a 10-year renewal term – which opposition critics pointed out would provide less opportunity to do background and mental health checks of registered gun owners – was later dropped. And mental health and gun ownership have gained renewed traction as details of the Sandy Hook killer come out.
... OR NOT FAR ENOUGH?
But to Canada’s gun lobby, the existing licensing and registration regime is restrictive enough. According to Blair Hagen, with Canada’s National Firearms Association, if the government recognized the right of citizens to bear arms, it would make any debate about their safe use and ownership a lot easier.
“All of the emphasis has been put on controlling and limiting the access to the firearms, and in some ways I can understand that,” says Mr. Hagen. “But the effects and failures of that system have to be accounted for now. How can you stop a determined person from getting access to these things? Seems to me if they’re determined, no law is going to stop them.”
Like their southern counterparts, the US National Rifle Association, the NFA is reluctant to talk about gun control in light of the Newtown tragedy. “Is this the time to talk about those things, after a massive tragedy like this? I don’t think so. I think it’s got to be done a lot more rationally, and done with a purpose rather than a reaction,” says Hagen.
But Rathjen questions whether the NFA and others opposed to gun control will ever commit to such a discussion willingly. She points out that Harper took a hard line on an assault-weapons ban – but only after the CFAC’s recommendations came to light after gun-control advocates pressed the matter, and in the midst of Canada marking the anniversary of its saddest chapter of gun violence.
“I don’t know if this makes any difference to them – the human tragedy of the Sandy Hook shootings – because they’ve ignored the evidence, they’ve ignored the opinions of experts that say that the long-gun registry is essential, that say that it saves lives, that it helps reduce gun-related crime,” she says.

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Palestinians begin returning to Yarmouk refugee camp in Syria

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Refugees have started returning to the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp in Syria after fighting between rebels and government-allied forces sent them fleeing, but the status of the Palestinian refugees, along with hundreds of thousands of others displaced by the Syrian conflict, remains a top concern for observers outside the country.
The Associated Press reports that, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, "hundreds of people have returned" to Yarmouk after fighting between rebels and forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad drove out as many as two-thirds of the camp's 150,000 residents by United Nations estimates.
The battle at Yarmouk, located in southern Damascus, began Dec. 14, as pro-Assad Palestinian fighters attacked anti-Assad Palestinian rebels based in the camp. Al Jazeera English reported yesterday that although Syrian troops did not participate in the fighting within the camp, they provided support to the pro-Assad fighters, cutting off the camp from the outside and launching air strikes into the camp, which reportedly killed at least eight people on Dec. 16.
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Al Jazeera noted that pro-Assad newspaper Al-Watan reported earlier this week that the government was preparing for a major assault on Yarmouk.
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AP adds that while fighting has eased, some rebels still remain in the camp. Damascus-based Palestinian official Khaled Abdul-Majid told the AP that Cairo-based Palestinian leaders are negotiating the rebels' exit. Palestinian refugees in Syria have been divided over which side to ally themselves with in the ongoing civil war.
Hundreds of thousands of refugees have been affected by the conflict. Some 1 million people are expected to have fled Syria by mid-2013, and another 2 million have already been displaced within the country, reports BBC. The UN has issued an appeal for $1.5 billion for relief efforts in Syria.
The UN has registered more than half a million refugees so far, with between 2,000 and 3,000 arriving every day in countries neighboring Syria.
"Unless these funds come quickly, we will not be able to fully respond to the life-saving needs of civilians who flee Syria every hour of the day – many in a truly desperate condition," Panos Moumtzis of the UNHCR said.
"We are constantly shocked by the horrific stories refugees tell us," he added. "Their lives are in turmoil. They have lost their homes and family members. By the time they reach the borders, they are exhausted, traumatised and with little or no resources to rely on.
UN officials said they would need to provide food, shelter, medicines and even schools for them over the next year.
Syria is home to nearly half a million Palestinian refugees living in 12 camps around the country, including Yarmouk, according to the AP. Al Arabiya reports that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas yesterday called on the UN to help the Palestinian refugees displaced by the fighting in Syria to return to Gaza and the West Bank.

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Notre Dame's Te'o eyes Heisman after Maxwell win

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. (AP) — Manti Te'o is one of the most important leaders for undefeated Notre Dame, having played in a ton of big games for the Fighting Irish.
Even so, he had a tough time processing this victory.
The senior linebacker was "at a loss for words" after capturing the Maxwell Award as the nation's most outstanding player, one of three honors he received at the 22nd Home Depot College Football Awards show Thursday night at Disney World.
"The last time I ever dreamt of winning that award was on a video game," he said. "So to win it is a mind-blowing experience."
Te'o now has won six major awards since the end of Notre Dame's regular season, also taking home the Bednarik Award for top defensive player and Walter Camp Foundation player of the year award on Thursday. He became the first defensive player to win the Maxwell Award since 1980, ending a string of nine straight quarterbacks.
Next up is the Heisman Trophy ceremony on Saturday night, with Te'o and Texas A&M quarterback Johnny Manziel considered the favorites. Then Te'o will try to help the Fighting Irish dethrone defending champion Alabama in the BCS national championship game.
Wearing a black beaded lei representing his native Hawaii, Te'o said coming back to play football following the deaths of his grandmother and girlfriend just four days apart this season makes everything he's achieved since then more worthwhile.
"I never thought that me coming back for my senior year would be the best situation for me with the tragedy," Te'o said. "It's a testament that the Lord answered my prayers and that I had 80-plus brothers there with me, sacrificing for me."
Te'o finished the regular season with 103 tackles and seven interceptions.
Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly, who was presented with the Coach of the Year award after leading the Irish to their first 12-0 regular season since 1988, said Te'o is an example of the family culture he's tried to build in his three seasons in South Bend.
"Everybody knows you don't do it with one guy," Kelly said. "Collectively, everybody just bought in. ... We still got one (game) left. We want to finish it off the right way."
While Te'o and Notre Dame certainly had a big night, so did Texas A&M. Manziel won the Davey O'Brien National Quarterback Award and junior offensive lineman Luke Joeckel took home the Outland Trophy for the nation's best interior lineman.
Other players honored Thursday were Southern California's Marqise Lee (Biletnikoff Award for top receiver), Tulane's Cairo Santos (Lou Groza Award for top kicker), Louisiana Tech's Ryan Allen (Ray Guy Award for top punter), Mississippi State's Johnthan Banks (Jim Thorpe Award for top defensive back), and Wisconsin's Montee Ball (Doak Walker Award for top running back).
Manziel acknowledged he will be nervous Saturday knowing he has a chance to win college football's most hallowed individual honor. Kansas State quarterback Collin Klein is the third finalist for the Heisman Trophy.
Three sophomores have won the Heisman, including Tim Tebow in 2007, Sam Bradford in 2008 and Mark Ingram in 2009. The best a first-year player has ever done is second.
"I had high expectations, but I never would have expected this for myself," said Manziel, a redshirt freshman. "I'll be with two of the best players in the country, all eyes are on you. It's the biggest award in college football. I think you're gonna have a few butterflies."
Joeckel said even he has been amazed at watching "Johnny Football" and his exploits this season.
"It's hard to protect for someone when nobody knows where he is," Joeckel said. "He's a fun guy to block for."
Texas A&M coach Kevin Sumlin said that type of level-headed poise is what has defined his quarterback all season.
"The way he plays, no moment has been too big for him," Sumlin said.
In one of the non-competition awards presented Thursday, Texas long snapper Nate Boyer was honored with the Disney Spirit Award, given annually to the most inspirational figure or team.
Boyer, a 32-year-old sophomore, earned a Bronze Star for his service with the U.S. Army Special Forces Unit and has also provided assistance to autistic children and Darfur refugees.
Former Notre Dame coach Ara Parseghian was honored with the Contribution to College Football Award for his works off the field.
Kelly said the former coach is every bit as revered as he was in his prime leading the Irish.
"He walks with a limp, but let me tell you, he could still coach today. And he can tell me things about my football team." Kelly said.

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Vikings lead NFL with 5 players from Notre Dame

EDEN PRAIRIE, Minn. (AP) — Notre Dame is one of the few college football teams that truly can boast a national following.
Why, there's even an alumni chapter in the Minnesota Vikings locker room.
"It's really fun to be able to talk trash to everybody," said center John Sullivan, who has a leprechaun tattoo on his left shoulder.
Sullivan is one of five ex-Notre Dame players on the Vikings, the most of any NFL team. There are currently 26 former Fighting Irish on active rosters around the league, and the next-closest team is Indianapolis with three, according to STATS LLC.
So not only do Notre Dame alumni make up nearly 10 percent of Minnesota's roster but the Vikings have almost 20 percent of the NFL's, well, Irish heritage. After drafting Sullivan in the sixth round in 2008, they took tight end Kyle Rudolph in the second round in 2011. This year, they selected safety Harrison Smith in the first round and safety Robert Blanton in the fifth round. They also signed tight end John Carlson, a second-round pick by Seattle in 2008, as a free agent.
With the Fighting Irish undefeated and set to play Alabama for the BCS championship on Jan. 7, there's no doubt which school colors have been the brightest around the Vikings this season. Bragging rights were clear after Notre Dame beat Stanford (running back Toby Gerhart), Oklahoma (running back Adrian Peterson and right tackle Phil Loadholt) and of course rival USC (left tackle Matt Kalil, defensive end Everson Griffen and tight end Rhett Ellison).
"We're always coming in here after their games saying, 'We told you so.' So far it's been a good year," Smith said.
They've even roughed out a plan to fly to Miami for the big game, as long as a potential practice — should the Vikings make the playoffs — doesn't interfere.
Regular season games are typically tough to watch, with Saturday afternoon travel on weeks with road games or meetings in the hotel at night. But Blanton and Smith tried to watch together when the Vikings were on the road and Notre Dame had a prime-time kickoff. Sullivan chartered a flight with Rudolph and Loadholt to watch the game at Oklahoma on Oct. 27, a weekend the Vikings had off.
"Afterward, Phil came up to us and said, 'You guys just physically dominated the game,'" Rudolph recalled. "It's been a long time since Notre Dame's gone on the road to a top-10 team and just dominated the game."
That's true. None of these five teammates lost fewer than three times in any season they were at Notre Dame. Some years, they didn't even play in a bowl game.
Jealousy of the current team isn't part of their mindset, though.
"Pretty proud of those guys," Blanton said.
Just as proud of the traditionally strict academic standards, as they all noted, as the success on the field.
"They follow the rules there. It's one of those places where you don't get away with stuff. They expect you to go to class. They make sure everyone graduates," said Carlson, who met his wife, Danielle, at Notre Dame.
The Vikings didn't exactly make a conscious effort to create such a high concentration of former Fighting Irish.
"I think it was more coincidence because we're always going to stack our draft board according to a player's ability, and our rating system is building on upside and potential," general manager Rick Spielman said. "I don't know that we've honed in, just because they go to a Notre Dame or a USC or an Ohio State or something like that."
The Vikings, though, have shaped their roster philosophy around a stated desire for tough, smart, passionate players, attributes that Notre Dame products often possess, even during some of the down years they've had in the last decade.
"Clearly there's something about that school that our front office and the people making our personnel decisions like, but at the same time it really comes down to a case by case basis," Sullivan said. "You can find great people from a whole lot of schools. I think we've got a lot of great people here. That can come from the whole spectrum of college football."
Only the Notre Dame guys will be able to cheer for their team in the national championship game next month, however. The Vikings don't have any Alabama players on the roster now.
"We have to make sure that while we're on top," Rudolph said, "we let everyone else know."

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Te'o and Manziel hit Manhattan with Heisman hopes

NEW YORK (AP) — Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te'o was looking forward to a break after a five-city-in-five-days tour, during which he has become the most decorated player in college football.
"I'm just trying to get a workout in and get some sleep," he said Friday about his plans for the night.
Texas A&M quarterback Johnny Manziel seemed to have more energy when he arrived at a midtown Manhattan hotel with his fellow Heisman Trophy finalist. In fairness, Johnny Football's week hasn't been nearly as hectic, though this trip to New York city is different from the first time he visited with his family when he was young.
"It's just taking it up a whole 'nother level, but happy to be here," he said.
Manziel and Te'o spent about 30 minutes getting grilled by dozens of reporters in a cramped conference room, posed for some pictures with the big bronze statue that they are hoping to win and were quickly whisked away for more interviews and photo opportunities.
Manziel, Te'o or Collin Klein, the other finalists who couldn't make it to town Friday, each has a chance to be a Heisman first Saturday night.
Manziel is trying to be the first freshman to win the award. Te'o would be the first winner to play only defense. Klein would be Kansas State's first Heisman winner.
Manziel and Te'o were on the same flight from Orlando, Fla., where several college football awards were handed out last night. The 6-foot-1, 200-pound quarterback was just happy the 255-pound linebacker didn't try to record another sack when they met.
"He's a big guy," Manziel said, flashing a big smile from under his white Texas A&M baseball cap. "I thought he might stuff me in locker and beat me up a little bit."
The two hadn't had much time for sightseeing yet, but they did walk around Times Square some, saying hello to a few fans. They probably weren't too difficult to spot in their team issued warm-up gear.
"We've just been talking about goofy stuff. Playing video games. Playing Galaga. Just some things from back in the day. Messing around with each other," Manziel said. "Kind of seeing who is going to take more pictures. He's definitely taking that award right now."
Te'o is already going to need a huge trophy case to house his haul from this week. He has won six major awards, including the Maxwell as national player of the year. He'll try to become Notre Dame's eighth Heisman winner and first since Tim Brown in 1987.
"I can only imagine how I would feel if I win the Heisman," he said.
Charles Woodson of Michigan in 1997 is the closest thing to a true defensive player winning the Heisman. Woodson was a dominant cornerback, but he also returned punts and played a little receiver. That helped burnish his Heisman credentials.
Te'o is all linebacker. He leads the top-ranked Fighting Irish with 103 tackles and seven interceptions.
Klein was the front-runner for the Heisman for a good chunk of the season, but he played his worst game late in the season — in a loss at Baylor — and the momentum Manziel gained by leading Texas A&M to victory at Alabama has been tough to stop.
Manziel's numbers are hard to deny. He set a Southeastern Conference record with 4,600 total yards, throwing for more than 3,000 and rushing for more than 1,000.
Klein, by comparison, averages about 100 fewer total yards per game (383-281) than Manziel.
A freshman has never won the Heisman. Oklahoma running back Adrian Peterson came closest in 2004, finishing second by Southern California's Matt Leinart.
Manziel is a redshirt freshman, meaning he attended Texas A&M and practiced with the team but did not play last year. Still, he'd be the most inexperienced college player to win the sport's most prestigious award.
"It's surreal for me to sit here and think about that this early in my career," he said. "With what me and my teammates have gone through, with how they've played and how they've helped me to get to this point, it's just a testament to how good they are and how good they've been this year.
"Without them I wouldn't be here and that's the real story to all this."

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Manziel is first freshman Heisman Trophy winner

NEW YORK (AP) — Johnny Football just got himself a way cooler nickname: Johnny Heisman.
Texas A&M quarterback Johnny Manziel became the first freshman to win the Heisman Trophy, taking college football's top individual prize Saturday night after a record-breaking debut.
Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te'o finished a distant second and Kansas State quarterback Collin Klein was third in the voting. In a Heisman race with two nontraditional candidates, Manziel broke through the class barrier and kept Te'o from becoming the first purely defensive player to win the award.
Manziel drew 474 first-place votes and 2,029 points from the panel of media members and former winners.
"I have been dreaming about this since I was a kid, running around the backyard pretending I was Doug Flutie, throwing Hail Marys to my dad," he said after hugging his parents and kid sister.
Manziel seemed incredibly calm after his name was announced, hardly resembling the guy who dashes around the football field on Saturday. He simply bowed his head, and later gave the trophy a quick kiss.
"I wish my whole team could be up here with me," he said with a wide smile.
Te'o had 321 first-place votes and 1,706 points and Klein received 60 firsts and 894 points.
Just a few days after turning 20, Manziel proved times have truly changed in college football, and that experience can be really overrated.
For years, seniors dominated the award named after John Heisman, the pioneering Georgia Tech coach from the early 1900s. In the 1980s, juniors started becoming common winners. Tim Tebow became the first sophomore to win it in 2007, and two more won it in the next two seasons.
Adrian Peterson had come closest as a freshman, finishing second to Southern California quarterback Matt Leinart in 2004. But it took 78 years for a newbie to take home the big bronze statue. Johnny Football really can do it all.
Peterson was a true freshman for Oklahoma. As a redshirt freshmen, Manziel attended school and practiced with the team last year, but did not play in any games.
He's the second player from Texas A&M to win the Heisman, joining John David Crow from 1957, and did so without the slightest hint of preseason hype. Manziel didn't even win the starting job until two weeks before the season.
Who needs hype when you can fill-up a highlight reel the way Manziel can?
With daring runs and elusive improvisation, Manziel broke 2010 Heisman winner Cam Netwon's Southeastern Conference record with 4,600 total yards, led the Aggies to a 10-2 in their first season in the SEC and orchestrated an upset at then-No. 1 Alabama in November that stamped him as legit.
He has thrown for 3,419 yards and 24 touchdowns and run for 1,181 yards and 19 more scores to become the first freshman, first SEC player and fifth player overall to throw for 3,000 yards and run for 1,000 in a season.
Manziel has one more game this season, when the No. 10 Aggies play Oklahoma in the Cotton Bowl on Jan. 4.
The resume alone fails to capture the Johnny Football phenomena. At 6-foot-1 and 200 pounds, Manziel is master of the unexpected, darting here and there, turning plays seemingly doomed to failure into touchdowns.
Take, for example, what he did in the first quarter against the Crimson Tide. Manziel took a shotgun snap, stepped up in the pocket as if he was about to take off on another made scramble and ran into the back a lineman. On impact, Manziel bobbled the ball, caught it with his back to the line of scrimmage, turned, rolled the opposite direction and fired a touchdown pass — throwing across his body — to a wide-open receiver.
He might as well have been back in Kerrville, Texas, where he became a hill country star in high school.
Manziel thought he was going to be the next Derek Jeter — hence the No. 2 he wears. Instead he became the biggest star football star in College Station since Crow won the Heisman.
His road to stardom was anything but a clear path.
Manziel competed with two other quarterbacks to replace Ryan Tannehill as the starter this season, the Aggies' first in the SEC and first under coach Kevin Sumlin.
Manziel came out of spring practice as the backup, and went to work with a private quarterback coach in the summer to better his chances of winning the job in the preseason.
It worked, but still nobody was hailing Manziel is the next big thing.
Then he started playing and the numbers started piling up.
He had 557 total yards against Arkansas, 576 vs. Louisiana Tech and 440 against Mississippi State.
He also had some struggles against Florida in the season opener and in a home loss to LSU. The question was: Could Johnny Football do his thing against a top-notch opponent?
The answer came in Tuscaloosa, Ala., on Nov. 10. Going into the matchup against the Crimson Tide, Manziel said he and his teammates heard a lot of doubters.
"You can't do this and you can't do that," he recalled Saturday at the podium
Manziel passed for 253 yards, ran for 92 and the Aggies beat the Tide 29-24. Klein had been the front-runner for most of the season, but Manziel surged after beating 'Bama.
Still, Manziel was still something of a mystery man. Sumlin's rules prohibit freshmen from being available to the media. Johnny Football was off-limits, but not exactly silent.
Manziel gave glimpses of himself on social media — including some memorable pictures of him dressed up as Scooby-Doo for Halloween with some scantily clad young women.
Before he became a celebrity, Manziel got himself into some serious trouble. In June, he was arrested in College Station after police said he was involved in a fight and produced a fake ID. He was charged with disorderly conduct and two other misdemeanors.
After the season, Texas A&M took the reins off Manziel and made him available for interviews, allowing Johnny Football to tell his own story.
Though in the end, his play said it all.

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Manziel is first freshman to win Heisman Trophy

NEW YORK (AP) — He's Johnny Best in Football now — and a freshman, at that.
Texas A&M quarterback Johnny Manziel became the first newcomer to win the Heisman Trophy, taking college football's top individual prize Saturday night after a record-breaking debut.
Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te'o finished a distant second in the voting and Kansas State quarterback Collin Klein was third. In a Heisman race with two nontraditional candidates, Manziel broke through the class ceiling and kept Te'o from becoming the first purely defensive player to win the award.
"That barrier's broken now," Manziel said. "It's starting to become more of a trend that freshmen are coming in early and that they are ready to play. And they are really just taking the world by storm."
None more than the guy they call Johnny Football.
Manziel drew 474 first-place votes and 2,029 points from the panel of media members and former winners. Te'o had 321 first-place votes and 1,706 points and Klein received 60 firsts and 894 points.
"I have been dreaming about this since I was a kid, running around the backyard pretending I was Doug Flutie, throwing Hail Marys to my dad," he said after hugging his parents and kid sister.
Flutie was one of many Heisman winners standing behind Manziel as he gave his speech on stage at the Best Buy Theater in Times Square.
"I always wanted to be in a fraternity," Manziel said later. "Now I get to be in the most prestigious one in the entire world."
Manziel was so nervous waiting for the winner to be announced, he wondered if the television cameras could see his heart pounding beneath his navy blue pinstripe suit. But he seemed incredibly calm after, hardly resembling the guy who dashes around the football field on Saturday. He simply bowed his head, and later gave the trophy a quick kiss.
"It's such an honor to represent Texas A&M, and my teammates here tonight. I wish they could be on the stage with me," he said with a wide smile, concluding his speech like any good Aggie: "Gig' em."
Just a few days after turning 20, Manziel proved times have truly changed in college football, and that experience can be really overrated.
For years, seniors dominated the award named after John Heisman, the pioneering Georgia Tech coach from the early 1900s. In the 1980s, juniors started becoming common winners. Tim Tebow became the first sophomore to win it in 2007, and two more won it in the next two seasons.
Adrian Peterson had come closest as a freshman, finishing second to Southern California quarterback Matt Leinart in 2004. But it took 78 years for a newbie to take home the big bronze statue.
"It doesn't matter anymore," he said.
Peterson was a true freshman for Oklahoma. As a redshirt freshmen, Manziel attended school and practiced with the team last year, but did not play in any games.
He's the second player from Texas A&M to win the Heisman, joining John David Crow from 1957, and did so without the slightest hint of preseason hype. Manziel didn't even win the starting job until two weeks before the season.
Who needs hype when you can fill-up a highlight reel the way Manziel can?
With daring runs and elusive improvisation, Manziel broke 2010 Heisman winner Cam Newton's Southeastern Conference record with 4,600 total yards, led the Aggies to a 10-2 in their first season in the SEC and orchestrated an upset at then-No. 1 Alabama in November that stamped him as legit.
He has thrown for 3,419 yards and 24 touchdowns and run for 1,181 yards and 19 more scores to become the first freshman, first SEC player and fifth player overall to throw for 3,000 yards and run for 1,000 in a season.
"You can put his numbers up against anybody who has ever played the game," Texas A&M coach Kevin Sumlin said.
Manziel has one more game this season, when the No. 10 Aggies play Oklahoma in the Cotton Bowl on Jan. 4.
As for the Heisman, Manziel said he'd like to keep it right next to his bed.
"But I'm in college. A lot of people come through the house. We live in a college neighborhood. It might not be a good idea. If I can get a case that's indestructible, locked and looks pretty good, we'll see where I keep it," he said.
The resume alone fails to capture the Johnny Football phenomena. At 6-foot-1 and 200 pounds, Manziel is master of the unexpected, darting here and there, turning plays seemingly doomed to failure into touchdowns.
Take, for example, what he did in the first quarter against the Crimson Tide. Manziel took a shotgun snap, stepped up in the pocket as if he was about to take off on another made scramble and ran into the back a lineman. On impact, Manziel bobbled the ball, caught it with his back to the line of scrimmage, turned, rolled the opposite direction and fired a touchdown pass — throwing across his body — to a wide-open receiver.
He might as well have been back in Kerrville, Texas, where he became a hill country star in high school.
His road to college stardom was anything but a clear path.
Manziel competed with two other quarterbacks to replace Ryan Tannehill as the starter this season, the Aggies' first in the SEC and first under Sumlin.
Manziel came out of spring practice as the backup, but became the starter in August.
Still, nobody was hailing him is the next big thing. Did Sumlin think he had a Heisman winner on his hands?
"No," he said emphatically, adding, "Not this year."
Then Manziel started playing and the numbers started piling up.
He also had some struggles against Florida in the season opener and in a home loss to LSU. The question was: Could he do his thing against a top-notch opponent?
The answer came in Tuscaloosa, Ala., on Nov. 10. Going into the matchup against the Crimson Tide, Manziel said he and his teammates heard a lot of doubters.
"You can't do this and you can't do that," he recalled Saturday at the podium
Manziel passed for 253 yards, ran for 92 and the Aggies beat the Tide 29-24. Klein had been the front-runner for most of the season, but Manziel surged after beating 'Bama.
Still, Manziel was still something of a mystery man. Sumlin's rules prohibit freshmen from being available to the media. Manziel was off-limits, but not exactly silent.
Manziel gave glimpses of himself on social media — including some memorable pictures of him dressed up as Scooby-Doo for Halloween with some scantily clad young women.
Before he became a celebrity, Manziel got himself into some serious trouble. In June, he was arrested in College Station after police said he was involved in a fight and produced a fake ID. He was charged with disorderly conduct and two other misdemeanors.
After the season, Texas A&M took the reins off Manziel and made him available for interviews, allowing him to tell his own tale.
Though in the end, his play said it all.

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Alicia Keys dethrones Rihanna from Billboard top spot

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - American R&B singer Alicia Keys scored her fifth No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 album chart on Wednesday with "Girl on Fire," unseating reigning chart queen Rihanna.

Keys' fifth studio album sold 159,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan, which was the lowest opening week of sales for any of the soulful singer's career.

Keys, 31, held off country-pop starlet Taylor Swift's "Red" and Rod Stewart's "Merry Christmas, Baby" for the top spot.

British boy band One Direction's "Take Me Home" and country-rock singer Phillip Phillips' "The World from the Side of the Moon" were fourth and fifth on the chart respectively. Rihanna's "Unapologetic" slid to sixth in its second week on the chart.

Keys' only album not to debut atop the Billboard chart was 2009's "The Element of Freedom," which sold 417,000 copies in its first week but was thwarted from the top spot by British talent-show sensation Susan Boyle's "I Dreamed a Dream."

First-week sales of "Girl on Fire" were in line with industry expectations of 145,000 to 170,000 units sold, Billboard said.

Album sales tumbled the week after the holiday shopping season kicked off, falling 23 percent overall. Only 13 albums picked up more sales in the top 100 this week, not counting chart debuts and re-entries.

The 7.52 million albums sold last week was a decline of 7 percent from the same week last year. In 2012, some 275.3 million albums have been sold so far, marking a 4 percent decline compared with the same point in 2011, according to Nielsen.

Black Eyed Peas mastermind will.i.am's single "Scream & Shout" featuring Britney Spears knocked Korean viral dance hit "Gangnam Style" by PSY out of the top spot in digital songs.

"Scream & Shout," which was released on November 21, leaped from No. 66 to the top spot with 169,000 downloads.

The electronic pop-dance song was buoyed by the music video's premiere on the U.S. television singing show "The X Factor," which stars Spears as a judge, and as the feature music of an TV advertising campaign for headphones starring will.i.am.

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"The Message" deemed greatest hip hop song ever

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The 1982 hit "The Message" by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five was named the greatest hip hop song of all time on Wednesday, in the first such list by Rolling Stone magazine to celebrate the young but influential music genre.

"The Message," which tops a list of 50 influential hip hop songs, was the first track "to tell, with hip hop's rhythmic and vocal force, the truth about modern inner-city life in America," Rolling Stone said.

Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, a hip hop collective from the south Bronx in New York, was formed in 1978 and became one of the pioneers of the hip hop genre.

The full list spanned songs ranging from Sugarhill Gang's 1979 hit "Rapper's Delight," which came in at No. 2, to Kanye West's 2004 hit "Jesus Walks," which landed at No. 32.

"It's a list that would have been a lot harder to do ten or 15 years ago because hip hop is so young," Nathan Brackett, deputy managing editor of Rolling Stone, told Reuters.

"We've reached the point now where hip hop acts are getting into the (Rock and Roll) Hall Of Fame... it just felt like the right time to give this the real Rolling Stone treatment."

Rolling Stone's top 10 featured mostly hip hop veterans, such as Run-D.M.C.'s 1983 track "Sucker M.C.'s," Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg's 1992 hit "Nuthin' But A 'G' Thang," Public Enemy's 1990 song "Fight The Power" and Notorious B.I.G's 1994 hit "Juicy."

Other influential artists in the top 50 songs included Beastie Boys, who came in at No. 19 with "Paul Revere," and recordings by Jay-Z, Eminem, Missy Elliot, Outkast, Lauryn Hill, LL Cool J, Nas and the late rapper 2Pac.

The list of 50 songs was compiled by a 33-panel of members comprising Rolling Stone editors and hip hop experts. They included musician Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson of The Roots, who Brackett described as "an incredible encyclopedia" of both old and new hip hop knowledge.

Brackett noted that some songs considered to be one-hit wonders, such as Audio Two's 1988 hit "Top Billin'," made the final selection.

"The references in those songs become the building blocks of all these other songs down the road ... they become touchstones, really part of the meat of hip hop songs going forward," Brackett said.

The full list will be released online at RollingStone.com and in the pop culture magazine on newsstands on December7. The issue will feature four different covers of Eminem, Jay-Z, Notorious B.I.G. and 2Pac.

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