China working age population falls

BEIJING: China's working-age population declined for the first time in recent decades in 2012, the government said on Friday, detailing the extent of a demographic time bomb experts say is one of Beijing's biggest challenges.

China introduced its controversial one-child policy in the late 1970s to control population growth, but its people are now ageing, moving to the cities, and increasingly male, government statistics showed.

The world's biggest national population rose by 6.7 million in 2012 to 1.354 billion people, excluding Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, the National Bureau of Statistics said.

Almost 118 boys were born for every 100 girls.

The working-age population -- defined as those from 15 to 59 -- fell by 3.45 million to 937 million, adding to concerns about how the country will provide for the elderly, with 194 million people now 60 or over.

It was the first absolute drop in the working-age segment in "a considerable period of time", said National Bureau of Statistics director Ma Jiantang, adding that he expected it to "fall steadily at least through 2030".

China's wealth gap and population imbalances are major concerns for the ruling Communist Party, which places huge importance on preserving social stability to avoid any potential challenge to its grip on power.

An estimated 180,000 protests break out across China every year, many of them sparked by a wide range of social issues, including wage disputes and rural workers being denied residents' rights in cities.

But the government faces a "major dilemma" over how it confronts the problem of a rapidly ageing population, said analysts.

"For older generations, life is going to be very painful," Sun Wenguang, a retired academic from Shandong University in Jinan, told AFP.

"The cost of 24-hour care in Beijing is probably 7,000 RMB a month, and how will this be funded? The average manual worker in China earns about 2,000 RMB a month (US$300), of course they don't want to share their money out."

Liang Zhongtang, a researcher at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, said the government was reluctant to confront the population imbalance because of the sensitivity of the family planning policy.

"Actually the structural decline of the country's labour resources started long ago," he told AFP.

Most of the labour force was aged between 20 and 45, he said, with the proportion of older workers within that range increasing rapidly. "This means it is very hard for them to change their jobs or find a new employer", decreasing labour flexibility.

The problems of ageing and labour shortages were "severe" in the countryside, he said, but added: "Even though rural areas' social and economic problems are serious, they do not make onto the radar of mainstream (policy makers).

"They just ignore the problems plaguing this social stratum."

As late as 1982, the proportion of the population aged 60 or over in China was just five per cent, but it now stands at 14.3 per cent.

China's urban population rose to 712 million in 2012, up 21 million and adding to the strains on public services, while the rural population fell 14 million to 642 million.

Average per capita income was 26,959 yuan (US$4,296) in the cities, compared to 7,917 yuan in the countryside, the statistics said.

- AFP/xq

Read More..

Lie, spin, repeat: Armstrong admits drug use 'too late'

Lance Armstrong over the years

Lance Armstrong over the years

Lance Armstrong over the years

Lance Armstrong over the years

Lance Armstrong over the years

Lance Armstrong over the years

Lance Armstrong over the years

Lance Armstrong over the years

Lance Armstrong over the years

Lance Armstrong over the years

Lance Armstrong over the years

Lance Armstrong over the years

Lance Armstrong over the years

Lance Armstrong over the years

Lance Armstrong over the years

Lance Armstrong over the years

Lance Armstrong over the years

Lance Armstrong over the years

Lance Armstrong over the years

Lance Armstrong over the years

Lance Armstrong over the years

Lance Armstrong over the years

Lance Armstrong over the years

Lance Armstrong over the years

Lance Armstrong over the years

Lance Armstrong over the years

Lance Armstrong over the years

<<

<

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

>

>>

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• NEW: Critics say Armstrong's confession is not the whole truth


• "I was a bully," he says about retaliating against people who accused him of doping


• Armstrong says he regrets fighting the USADA, when the agency claimed he had doped


• "I will spend the rest of my life ... trying to earn back trust and apologize," Armstrong says

Share your thoughts on the downfall of Lance Armstrong at CNN iReport, Facebook or Twitter.

(CNN) -- After years of tenacious spin that he was innocent, Lance Armstrong has backpedaled in a confessional interview with Oprah Winfrey.

He admitted unequivocally to using performance enhancing drugs in his seven Tour de France wins.

But his critics say he is still spinning the story.

Armstrong has, in the past, persistently and angrily denied the allegations -- even under oath.

And he has persecuted former close associates who went public against him. "We sued so many people," Armstrong told Winfrey -- people who were telling the truth.

12 telling quotes over the years from Armstrong

Did he use the blood enhancing hormone EPO? Testosterone? Cortisone? Human growth hormone? Illegal blood transfusions and other blood doping?

Armstrong answered "yes" on all counts in the first installment of a two-part interview that aired Thursday night. Part two airs Friday on Winfrey's OWN channel and online.

The disgraced cyclist, who has been stripped of his Tour de France titles and an Olympic bronze medal, blamed no one but himself for his doping decisions, careful not to implicate others.

Armstrong: I was "a bully"

Armstrong described himself as "deeply flawed" and "arrogant," and spoke often of how so much was his "fault."

"I was a bully," he told Winfrey of how he treated others who might expose him.

But Armstrong was not telling the whole story, author David Coyle, who wrote a book about doping and the Tour de France, told CNN's Anderson Cooper Thursday night.

"A partial confession is sort of the pattern here," he said. "Maybe this is Armstrong's partial, and more will come out later."

iReport: Tell us your take on the first part of the interview

The cyclist denied pushing teammates to dope, an assertion Coyle countered.

"Tyler Hamilton gets a phone call: be on a plane tomorrow. We're flying to Valencia to do a blood transfusion. That's what happens," Coyle said.

Armstrong told Winfrey that doping was widespread at the time and just as much "part of the job" as water bottles and tire pumps. This attitude prompted Winfrey to ask again if he really didn't coerce other teammates to dope.

Bill Strickland, an editor for Bicycling Magazine, praised Armstrong for the confessions he did make.

"I think it's clear what we're seeing here is someone learning to tell the truth," he said.

Both men described the interview as a "therapy session."

Appearing tense but sometimes cathartic, Armstrong told Winfrey it was a happy day for him to be there with her.

He described his years of denial as "one big lie that I repeated a lot of times." He had races to win and a fairy tale image to keep up.

Armstrong reminisced on his storied past of being a hero who overcame cancer winning the Tour repeatedly, having a happy marriage, children. "It's just this mythic, perfect story, and it isn't true," he said.

It was impossible to live up to it, he said, and it fell apart.

Bleacher Report: Twitter erupts Thursday night

The lies and aggressive pursuit of those debunking them was about controlling the narrative. "If I didn't like what somebody said...I tried to control that and said that's a lie; they're liars," Armstrong said. It's a tactic he has followed his entire life, he said.

"Now the story is so bad and so toxic, and a lot of it is true," Armstrong said.

The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, which tests Olympic athletes for performance enhancing drugs, praised the interview as a "small step in the right direction."

But it seemed to share Coyle's skepticism about whether Armstrong was exposing the whole truth.

"If he is sincere in his desire to correct his past mistakes, he will testify under oath about the full extent of his doping activities," said USADA CEO Travis Tygart.

Years of success and defiance, then a rapid fall

The scandal has tarred the cancer charity Livestrong that he founded and blown his endorsement deals.

Those who suffered for speaking out now feel vindicated.

They include Betsy Andreu, wife of fellow cyclist Frankie Andreu, who said she overheard Armstrong acknowledge to a doctor treating him for cancer in 1996 that he had used performance-enhancing drugs.

"This was a guy who used to be my friend, who decimated me," Andreu told CNN's Anderson Cooper on Thursday night. "He could have come clean. He owed it to me. He owes it to the sport that he destroyed."

The former athletic icon conceded he'd let down many fans "who believed in me and supported me."

"I will spend the rest of my life ... trying to earn back trust and apologize to people."

After winning various legs of the Tour de France, Armstrong's sporting career ground to a halt in 1996, when he was diagnosed with cancer. He was 25.

He told Winfrey that he then developed a "ruthless and relentless" attitude that helped him survive. But he carried it with him into his sports career, "and that's bad," he said.

He returned to the cycling world, however. His breakthrough came in 1999, and he didn't stop as he reeled off seven straight wins in his sport's most prestigious race. Allegations of doping began during this time, as did Armstrong's vehement defiance.

He left the sport after his last win, in 2005, only to return to the tour in 2009.

Armstrong still insists he was clean when he finished third that year, but that comeback led to his downfall.

"We wouldn't be sitting here if I didn't come back," he told Winfrey.

In 2011, Armstrong retired once more from cycling. But his fight to maintain his clean reputation continued. Federal prosecutors launched a criminal investigation, but it was dropped in February.

In April, the USADA notified Armstrong of an investigation into new doping charges. In response, the cyclist accused the organization of trying to "dredge up discredited" allegations and filed a lawsuit in federal court trying to halt the case.

The USADA found "overwhelming" evidence that Armstrong was involved in "the most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program."

Armstrong objected to the claim to Winfrey, saying that although it was "professional," it did not compare to doping programs in former communist East Germany.

Armstrong told Winfrey that the unraveling of his career is the second time in his life that he could not control his life's narrative -- the last time was when he had cancer.

Livestrong: Tell the truth about doping

CNN's Carol Cratty, Joseph Netto and George Howell contributed to this report.

Read More..

Navy ship gets stuck on coral reef in Philippines

MANILA, Philippines Most of the sailors on a U.S. Navy minesweeper that struck a coral reef in the Philippines left the ship Friday for safety reasons after initial efforts to free the vessel failed, the Navy said.

The ship ran aground Thursday while in transit through the Tubbataha National Marine Park, a coral sanctuary in the Sulu Sea, 400 miles southwest of Manila. There were no injuries or oil leaks, and Philippine authorities were trying to evaluate damage to the protected coral reef, designated by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.

The U.S. Navy's 7th Fleet said 72 of the 79 crew of the USS Guardian were transferred to a military support vessel by small boat. A small team of personnel will remain aboard and attempt to free the ship with minimal environmental impact, the statement said. The remaining seven sailors, including the commanding and the executive officer, will also be transferred if conditions become unsafe.

Philippine officials said the weather was choppy Friday with strong winds and rough seas.

The World Wide Fund for Nature Philippines said that according to an initial visual inspection, the 74-yard-long, 1,300-ton Guardian damaged at least 10 yards of the reef. Aerial photographs provided by the Philippine military showed the ship's bow sitting atop corals in shallow turquoise waters. The stern was floating in the deep blue waters. The Navy said the cause of the grounding, which took place around 2 a.m. Thursday, was under investigation.

Angelique Songco, head of the government's Protected Area Management Board, said it was unclear how much of the reef was damaged. She said the government imposes a fine of about $300 per square yard of damaged coral.

In 2005, the environmental group Greenpeace was fined almost $7,000 after its flagship struck a reef in the same area.

Songco said that park rangers were not allowed to board the ship for inspection and were told to contact the U.S. Embassy in Manila. Their radio calls to the ship were ignored, she said. The U.S. Navy statement said that "the government of the Philippines was promptly informed of the incident and is being updated regularly."

Philippine military spokesman Maj. Oliver Banaria said the U.S. Navy did not request assistance from the Philippines.

U.S. Navy ships have stepped up visits to Philippine ports for refueling, rest and recreation, plus joint military exercises as a result of a redeployment of U.S. forces in the Asia-Pacific region.

The Philippines, a U.S. defense treaty ally, has been entangled in a territorial dispute with China in the South China Sea.

Read More..

Armstrong Admits to Doping, 'One Big Lie'

Lance Armstrong, formerly cycling's most decorated champion and considered one of America's greatest athletes, confessed to cheating for at least a decade, admitting on Thursday that he owed all seven of his Tour de France titles and the millions of dollars in endorsements that followed to his use of illicit performance-enhancing drugs.

After years of denying that he had taken banned drugs and received oxygen-boosting blood transfusions, and attacking his teammates and competitors who attempted to expose him, Armstrong came clean with Oprah Winfrey in an exclusive interview, admitting to using banned substances for years.

"I view this situation as one big lie that I repeated a lot of times," he said. "I know the truth. The truth isn't what was out there. The truth isn't what I said.

"I'm a flawed character, as I well know," Armstrong added. "All the fault and all the blame here falls on me."

In October, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency issued a report in which 11 former Armstrong teammates exposed the system with which they and Armstrong received drugs with the knowledge of their coaches and help of team physicians.

George Burns/Courtesy of Harpo Studios, Inc./AP Photo

Lance Armstrong Admits Using Performance-Enhancing Drugs Watch Video

Lance Armstrong's Oprah Confession: The Consequences Watch Video

The U.S. Postal Service Cycling Team "ran the most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program that sport has ever seen," USADA said in its report.

As a result of USADA's findings, Armstrong was stripped of his Tour de France titles. Soon, longtime sponsors including Nike began to abandon him, too.

READ MORE: Did Doping Cause Armstrong's Cancer?

Armstrong said he was driven to cheat by a "ruthless desire to win."

He told Winfrey that his competition "cocktail" consisted of EPO, blood transfusions and testosterone, and that he had previously used cortisone. He would not, however, give Winfrey the details of when, where and with whom he doped during seven winning Tours de France between 1999 and 2005.

He said he stopped doping following his 2005 Tour de France victory and did not use banned substances when he placed third in 2009 and entered the tour again in 2010.

"It was a mythic perfect story and it wasn't true," Armstrong said of his fairytale story of overcoming testicular cancer to become the most celebrated cyclist in history.

READ MORE: 10 Scandalous Public Confessions

PHOTOS: Olympic Doping Scandals: Past and Present

PHOTOS: Tour de France 2012

Armstrong would not name other members of his team who doped, but admitted that as the team's captain he set an example. He admitted he was "a bully" but said there "there was a never a directive" from him that his teammates had to use banned substances.

"At the time it did not feel wrong?" Winfrey asked.

"No," Armstrong said. "Scary."

"Did you feel bad about it?" she asked again.

"No," he said.

Armstrong said he thought taking the drugs was similar to filling his tires with air and bottle with water. He never thought of his actions as cheating, but "leveling the playing field" in a sport rife with doping.

Read More..

Battle of the bottle: How to curb overindulgers

* Required fields

* First name

* Last name

* Country

* Email address

* Password
Password must contain only letters and numbers, and be at least 8 characters

* Confirm password

Read More..

Floods swamp Indonesia capital, 19,000 homeless

JAKARTA: Floods which have made more than 19,000 people homeless and killed three brought parts of the Indonesian capital to a standstill Thursday, with even the president forced to roll up his trousers.

The waist-deep muddy waters paralysed much of the centre of Jakarta, home to 20 million people and already notorious for its chaotic traffic.

Drivers were stuck in snaking queues for hours in the morning and cyclists pushed bikes with only the handlebars and seats visible.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was pictured in the grounds of the presidential palace with his trousers rolled up to the knee, brown water lapping his calves and threatening to flood the shrubbery.

"Jakarta is flooded: hopefully there won't be too many victims," he told photographers, ordering military, police and disaster officials to ensure safety.

The monsoon floods had driven more than 19,000 people from their homes, according to Jakarta governor Joko Widodo.

National disaster management agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said the death toll rose to three when a 35-year old man was electrocuted on Thursday. A two-year old boy was swept away and a 46-year-old man was electrocuted earlier this week.

The waters started to recede in the afternoon but floods remained in some areas including the central business district, where luxury hotels and the French, German and British embassies were surrounded.

Motorists trying to avoid the deluge drove along pavements and central reservations, or headed the wrong way down one-way streets. In some areas children punted rafts along roads which looked more like canals.

"Jakarta today is a huge swimming pool. Everyone's playing in the rain, walking in the water and laughing. The downside is, I have no idea how to get home, I might have to walk back three hours," 32-year-old administrative officer Yohanna, who uses a single name, told AFP.

Authorities raised the flood alert to its highest level early Thursday, said disaster agency spokesman Nugroho, describing the city as "besieged".

"The situation could get worse in the coming days as the rain shows little sign of abating," he told AFP.

But as rescuers rushed to evacuate residents, welfare ministry spokesman Tito Setiawan said the situation was under control.

"We have sent out trucks and rafts to move victims whose homes were inundated to temporary shelters. We will also provide food, water and humanitarian aid," he said.

Indonesia is regularly afflicted by deadly floods and landslides during its wet season, which lasts around half the year, and many in the capital live beside rivers which periodically overflow.

- AFP/fa

Read More..

Gun bills may be a long shot

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Obama's proposed assault weapon ban isn't likely to survive the House, analyst says


• Vulnerable Democrats may not support legislation in the Senate, either


• But supporters say December's killings in Connecticut changed the equation

(CNN) -- Despite supporters' hopes that this time it's different, President Barack Obama's new call for restricting some semi-automatic rifles and high-capacity magazines will face deeply entrenched resistance in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives and could be a long shot even in the Democratic-led Senate.

Any gun legislation sent to the House "is going to have to pass with most Democrats and a few Republicans," said Nathan Gonzales, deputy editor of the Rothenberg Political Report. "This would be an even more high-profile bill."

And Obama's call for Congress to reinstate the federal ban on military-style rifles that expired in 2004 "is a further reach than some of the other proposals that are being tossed around," Gonzales said.

"There is no way that it is going to pass with a majority of Republican support," he said. "That is just the reality of the situation. It is going to take virtually all the Democrats, and all the Democrats won't vote for that."

Obama and Vice President Joe Biden laid out a package of measures aimed at reducing gun violence Wednesday, just over a month after the December massacre at a Connecticut elementary school. The killings of 26 people there followed a July rampage in a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, that left 12 dead and the August attack on a Sikh temple in Wisconsin that killed another six.

"The world has changed, and it's demanding action," said Biden, who led a White House task force on gun violence after the Connecticut slayings.

But before the announcement, local officials in at least three states vowed to resist any new gun controls. And Second Amendment fans have poured out their vituperation online, some floridly warning of a power grab by the Obama administration.

Texas state Rep. Steve Toth told CNN on Wednesday that he'll introduce legislation that would make it illegal to enforce a federal gun ban.

"We're going to do everything we can to call people back to the belief and the understanding that we're a constitutional republic and that our rights do not come from Congress," he said. "Our rights come from God and are enumerated in the Constitution."

And in a video that spread virally across the Internet, the head of a Tennessee gun training and accessory company warned "all you patriots" to "get ready to fight" if the Obama administration took steps to restrict firearms.

"I am not letting my country be ruled by a dictator. I'm not letting anybody take my guns. If it goes one inch further, I'm gonna start killing people," Tactical Response CEO James Yeager vowed. In a later video, in which he's accompanied by his attorney, Yeager apologized "for letting my anger get the better of me" and cautioned viewers, "It's not time for any type of violent action."

Opinion: NRA's paranoid fantasy

Obama on Wednesday signed 23 orders that don't require congressional approval that he said would stiffen background checks on gun buyers and expand safety programs in schools. And he called on Congress to restrict ammunition magazines to no more than 10 rounds and to require a background check for anyone buying a gun, whether at a store or in a private sale or gun show.

The steps that require legislative action are likely to bump up against the often-visceral opposition of lawmakers from conservative districts -- and some of their more outspoken constituents.

Most Republicans in the House of Representatives have top rankings from the National Rifle Association, the powerful gun-rights lobby, which quickly criticized the White House plans.

But it's not just Republicans: Many Democrats, particularly in the conservative South and rural West, are vocal gun-rights supporters as well.

"Guns have been one of the key issues that more moderate Democrats have used to express their independence from the Democratic Party, and this gun talk is putting a strain on that independence," Gonzales said. Though they might be willing to support proposals such as a ban on large-capacity magazines, they're unlikely to vote to ban "an actual gun," he said.

"You can just see the ads -- 'They are taking guns away' -- where with these other items it is different," Gonzales said.

Even in the Senate, where Democrats control the chamber, Democratic leadership sources told CNN that passing any new legislation will be extremely difficult. More than a dozen vulnerable Democrats from conservative states will likely resist much of what the president is pushing, the sources said.

Those sources say they have no intention of putting their members in politically vulnerable position on a gun measure unless they are sure it can reach the president's desk. That means not only getting enough red-state Democrats on board, but getting enough Republicans to break a possible GOP filibuster.

But Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, D-New York, said the tide appears to have shifted in favor of gun control after the Connecticut killings.

A CNN/Time magazine/ORC International poll released Wednesday found 55% of Americans generally favor stricter gun control laws, with 56% saying that it's currently too easy to buy guns in this country -- but only 39% say that stricter gun controls would reduce gun violence all by themselves.

McCarthy said Senate approval "might even give some members of Congress the spine to do the right thing."

"You know, the NRA is not in line with an awful lot of their members, and that is something we're counting on to go forward," said McCarthy, whose husband was among the six killed when a deranged gunman opened fire on a Long Island commuter train in 1993

December's killings have "gone to the heart of every mother, father, grandparent thinking about their children, grandchildren. We have to do something," she added.

CNN's Dan Merica contributed to this report.

Read More..

Manti Te'o says he's the victim of "girlfriend" hoax

Updated 11:20 p.m. ET

SOUTH BEND, Ind. Notre Dame said a story that star Manti Te'o's girlfriend had died of leukemia — a loss he said inspired him all season and helped him lead the Irish to the BCS title game — turned out to be a hoax apparently perpetrated against the linebacker.

13 Photos

Manti Te'o

Notre Dame Fighting Irish Athletic Director Jack Swarbrick held a press conference late Wednesday about the apparent hoax Wednesday after Deadspin.com said it could find no record that Lennay Kekua ever existed.

"This was a very elaborate, very sophisticated hoax perpetrated for reasons we can't fully understand," Swarbrick said.

CBS News and its morning program, "CBS This Morning," were among the many news outlets that reported on the "hoax" girlfriend's death. "CBS This Morning" will have an update on the report Thursday.

The Notre Dame athletic director insisted "several things" led him to believe Te'o did not create the girlfriend himself after the university's investigation into the situation, led by a private investigative firm.

"Manti was the victim of that hoax. He has to carry that with him for a while. In many ways, Manti was the perfect mark because he's the guy who was so willing to believe in others," Swarbrick said. "The pain was real. The grieving was real. The affection was real."

By Te'o's own account, she was an "online" girlfriend.

"This is incredibly embarrassing to talk about, but over an extended period of time, I developed an emotional relationship with a woman I met online. We maintained what I thought to be an authentic relationship by communicating frequently online and on the phone, and I grew to care deeply about her," he said in statement.

"To realize that I was the victim of what was apparently someone's sick joke and constant lies was, and is, painful and humiliating."

"In retrospect, I obviously should have been much more cautious. If anything good comes of this, I hope it is that others will be far more guarded when they engage with people online than I was."

The linebacker's father, Brian Te'o, said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press in early October that he and his wife had never met Kekua, saying they were hoping to meet her at the Wake Forest game in November. The father said he believed the relationship was just beginning to get serious when she died.

Notre Dame Fighting Irish Athletic Director Jack Swarbrick at a press conference on Jan. 16, 2013.

/

CBS News

Swarbrick likened the situation to the 2010 movie "Catfish," in which "young filmmakers document their colleague's budding online friendship" with an allegedly young woman that turns out also to be a hoax.

The university said its coaches were informed by Te'o and his parents on Dec. 26 that Te'o had been the victim of what appeared to be a hoax.

Someone using a fictitious name "apparently ingratiated herself with Manti and then conspired with others to lead him to believe she had tragically died of leukemia," the school said.

Swarbrick said the investigation revealed "several" perpetrators, although the exact number is unclear. He said the university became convinced of the hoax based on "the joy they were taking...referring to what they accomplished and what they had done."

Te'o talked freely about the relationship after her supposed death and how much she meant to him.

In a story that appeared in the South Bend Tribune on Oct. 12, Manti's father, Brian, recounted a story about how his son and Kekua met after Notre Dame had played at Stanford in 2009. Brian Te'o also told the newspaper that Kekua had visited Hawaii and the met with his son. Brian Te'o told the AP in an interview in October that he and his wife had never met Manti's girlfriend but they had hoped to at the Wake Forest game in November. The father said he believed the relationship was just beginning to get serious when she died.

The Tribune released a statement saying: "At the Tribune, we are as stunned by these revelations as everyone else. Indeed, this season we reported the story of this fake girlfriend and her death as details were given to us by Te'o, members of his family and his coaches at Notre Dame."

The week before Notre Dame played Michigan State on Sept. 15, coach Brian Kelly told reporters when asked that Te'o's grandmother and a friend had died. Te'o didn't miss the game. He said Kekua had told him not to miss a game if she died. Te'o turned in one of his best performances of the season in the 20-3 victory in East Lansing, and his playing through heartache became a prominent theme during the Irish's undefeated regular season.

"My family and my girlfriend's family have received so much love and support from the Notre Dame family," he said after that game. "Michigan State fans showed some love. And it goes to show that people understand that football is just a game, and it's a game that we play, and we have fun doing it. But at the end of the day, what matters is the people who are around you, and family. I appreciate all the love and support that everybody's given my family and my girlfriend's family."

Manti Te'o #5 of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish reacts after beating the Michigan State Spartans 20-3 at Spartan Stadium Stadium on September 15, 2012, in East Lansing, Michigan.

/

Gregory Shamus/Getty Images

20 Photos

2013 BCS National Championship

Te'o went on the become a Heisman Trophy finalist, finishing second in the voting, and leading Notre Dame to its first appearance in the BCS championship.

He was asked again about his girlfriend on Jan. 3 prior to the BCS title game, saying: "This team is very special to me, and the guys on it have always been there for me, through the good times and the bad times. I rarely have a quiet time to myself because I always have somebody calling me, asking, `Do you want to go to the movies?' Coach is always calling me asking me, `Are you OK? Do you need anything?'"

Te'o and the Irish lost the title game to Alabama, 42-14 on Jan. 7. He has graduated and was set to begin preparing for the NFL combine and draft at the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla., this week.

Four days ago Te'o posted on his Twitter account: "Can't wait to start training with the guys! Workin to be the best! The grind continues! (hash)Future"

Te'o's statement also said: "It further pains me that the grief I felt and the sympathies expressed to me at the time of my grandmother's death in September were in any way deepened by what I believed to be another significant loss in my life.

"I am enormously grateful for the support of my family, friends and Notre Dame fans throughout this year. To think that I shared with them my happiness about my relationship and details that I thought to be true about her just makes me sick. I hope that people can understand how trying and confusing this whole experience has been.

"Fortunately, I have many wonderful things in my life, and I'm looking forward to putting this painful experience behind me as I focus on preparing for the NFL Draft."

Read More..

Notre Dame: Football Star Was 'Catfished' in Hoax

Notre Dame's athletic director and the star of its near-championship football team said the widely-reported death of the star's girlfriend from leukemia during the 2012 football season was apparently a hoax, and the player said he was duped by it as well.

Manti Te'o, who led the Fighting Irish to the BCS championship game this year and finished second for the Heisman Trophy, said in a statement today that he fell in love with a girl online last year who turned out not to be real.

The university's athletic director, Jack Swarbrick, said it has been investigating the "cruel hoax" since Te'o approached officials in late December to say he believed he had been tricked.

Private investigators hired by the university subsequently monitored online chatter by the alleged perpetrators, Swarbrick said, adding that he was shocked by the "casual cruelty" it revealed.

"They enjoyed the joke," Swarbrick said, comparing the ruse to the popular film "Catfish," in which filmmakers revealed a person at the other end of an online relationship was not who they said they were.

"While we still don't know all of the dimensions of this ... there are certain things that I feel confident we do know," Swarbrick said. "The first is that this was a very elaborate, very sophisticated hoax, perpetrated for reasons we don't understand."

Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images

Notre Dame's Athletic Director Discusses Manti Te'o Girlfriend Hoax Watch Video

Notre Dame Football Star Victim of 'Girlfriend Hoax' Watch Video

Eddie Lacy, Barrett Jones Discuss 'Bama Win Watch Video

Te'o said during the season that his girlfriend, Lennay Kekua, died of leukemia in September on the same day Te'o's grandmother died, triggering an outpouring of support for Te'o at Notre Dame and in the media.

"While my grandma passed away and you take, you know, the love of my life [Kekua]. The last thing she said to me was, 'I love you,'" Te'o said at the time, noting that he had talked to Kekua on the phone and by text message until her death.

Now, responding to a story first reported by the sports website Deadspin, Te'o has acknowledged that Kekua never existed. The website reported today that there were no records of a woman named Lennay Kekua anywhere.

Te'o denied that he was in on the hoax.

"This is incredibly embarrassing to talk about, but over an extended period of time, I developed an emotional relationship with a woman I met online," Te'o said in a statement released this afternoon. "We maintained what I thought to be an authentic relationship by communicating frequently online and on the phone, and I grew to care deeply about her."

Swarbrick said he expected Te'o to give his version of events at a public event soon, perhaps Thursday, and that he believed Te'o's representatives were planning to disclose the truth next week until today's story broke.

Deadspin reported that the image attached to Kekua's social media profiles, through which the pair interacted, was of another woman who has said she did not even know Te'o or know that her picture was being used. The website reported that it traced the profiles to a California man who is an acquaintance of Te'o and of the woman whose photo was stolen.

"To realize that I was the victim of what was apparently someone's sick joke and constant lies was, and is, painful and humiliating," Te'o said.

Read More..

NASA rover ready to drill into Martian rock

Victoria Jaggard, physical sciences news editor

(Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS)

NASA's Curiosity rover is about to tap the rocky veins of Mars, which might yield clues to the Red Planet's watery past.

Exploring a region not far from where it landed on 6 August, the Curiosity rover has found rocks shot through with veins of light-coloured minerals. Chemical analysis from one of the rover's remote-sensing cameras shows that the veins are hydrated calcium sulphates, possibly gypsum. They probably formed when water flowed through fractures in the bedrock and left dissolved material behind behind.

The find takes NASA's mantra "follow the water" to a whole new level.

"The exciting thing about precipitated minerals is that we know something dissolved rock somewhere else on the planet and ions got transported along by a fluid," said project scientist John Grotzinger during a teleconference yesterday. Studying the mineral-laced rocks can give clues to where the water came from and to environmental conditions when the veins formed.

The team will use the rover's drill for the first time on a veined outcrop named John Klein, an homage to a former project worker who died in 2011. The drill can bite about 5 centimetres into Martian rock, collect pulverised samples and deliver material to other onboard instruments for analysis.

"What we are hoping to do is get a sense of the mineralogy - how many aqueous mineral phases are present, the isotope ratios, and even a chance to look for organics," Grotzinger said.

Although initially thought too soft to preserve fossils, previous work showed that gypsum on Earth can hold traces of ancient carbon-based life.

Elsewhere at the site - a shallow depression dubbed Yellowknife Bay - the rover has spotted rocks studded with rounded features called spherules, which also tell of fluids at work.

"We are feeling confident these are sedimentary concretions [rocks formed as sediments washed from afar become cemented together]," Grotzinger said. "Put that together with the veins, and basically these rocks were saturated with water."

Another outcrop at the site shows a texture called cross-bedding, which resembles stacked layers of rock. These features on Earth are associated with water pushing small dunes of sediments along a stream bed. "There's a real trend that's emerging here on our tour," Grotzinger said.

The team won't be ready to drill for a few weeks yet, as they continue to take samples with other instruments and then drive the rover to the John Klein outcrop.

"It takes a fairly extended period of time because drilling is the most significant engineering thing we've done since landing," said rover project manager Richard Cook. Team members have also been examining and recording the great diversity of rock types at Yellowknife Bay, some of which may also become targets for drilling.

"It's safe to say scientists have been led into the candy store," Cook said. "I'm really excited about the next few weeks."

Read More..