Washington told the club he used cocaine and offered to resign as soon as he was randomly selected for a drug test by MLB. Club president Nolan Ryan, general manager Jon Daniels and other officials decided not to accept the offer after they were convinced that Washington had used cocaine just once.

“I apologize for a huge mistake I made,” Washington said in a prepared statement at a news conference Wednesday. “I’m not here to make excuses. I’m not here for sympathy. That would be asking too much. I’m truly sorry for my careless, dangerous and, frankly, stupid behavior last year.”

Washington immediately entered into the MLB’s drug program, which included testing three times a week. He completed that program a few weeks ago, but said he will ask the league to continue to test him in the future.

“I was in total shock. Then I was mad,” Ryan said of his initial reaction to Washington’s positive test during a chat Wednesday with ESPNDallas.com. “Then I was very disappointed. I went through an array of emotions.”

The horseshoe-shaped glass walkway stands at a 3,600 feet (1,100 m) height above the floor of the canyon, a height exceeding those of the world’s tallest skyscrapers. The Skywalk is not directly above the main canyon, Granite Gorge, which contains the Colorado River. Instead it extends over a side canyon and affords a view into the main canyon. USGS topographic maps show the elevation at the Skywalk’s location as 4,770 ft (1,450 m) and the elevation of the Colorado River in the base of the canyon as 1,160 ft (350 m), and they show that the height of the exactly vertical drop directly under the skywalk is between 500 ft (150 m) and 800 ft (240 m).

Commissioned and owned by the Hualapai Indian tribe, it was unveiled March 20, 2007, and opened to the general public on March 28, 2007. It is accessed via the Grand Canyon West Airport terminal or a 120 mile (190 km) drive from Las Vegas, which includes a 10 mile stretch of dirt road which is currently under development.

The Commercial Appeal said that Mr. Chilton, who lived in New Orleans, had recently been complaining of health problems, and was taken on Wednesday by paramedics to an emergency room in New Orleans where he was pronounced dead. His death was confirmed to the Commercial Appeal by Jody Stephens, his longtime band mate in Big Star. The group was scheduled to perform on Saturday at the South by Southwest Festival in Austin.

Mr. Chilton, who grew up in Memphis, was just 16 years old when the Box Tops, in which he sang and played guitar, had a No. 1 hit with “The Letter” in 1967. When that group broke up in 1970, Mr. Chilton formed Big Star with Mr. Stephens, a drummer, and the musicians Chris Bell and Andy Hummel. The band’s first album, “#1 Record,” in 1972, did not come close to fulfilling the commercial promise of its title, nor did the followup releases “Radio City” and “Third/Sister Lovers.” But their music – gentle and introspective songs like “The Ballad of El Goodo” and “September Gurls,” and exuberant anthems like “In the Street” – had a profound impact on generations of pop and indie acts that followed.

Perhaps the surest measure of the tug that Mr. Chilton exerted on subsequent artists can be found in the lyrics of the Replacements – another malleable rock act that moved more hearts than retail units – who sang in their song “Alex Chilton”: “Children by the million / Sing for Alex Chilton / When he comes ’round / They sing, ‘I’m in love / What’s that song? / I’m in love with that song.’”

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Google Trends knows anything – and it usually does – a lot of you are currently looking for a walkthrough to new PlayStation 3 release, God of War III. So here it is!

Yes, despite the fact that the game came out today, some dude’s already uploaded a complete video walkthrough for the Sony epic. Respect, that man! And also, take a damn shower.

Parts 1 to 6 can be found here, while parts 6 to 36 are over here.

On February 16, 2010, President Barack Obama announced loan guarantees for two new reactors at Georgia Power’s Vogtle NPP. The reactors are “just the first of what we hope will be many new nuclear projects,” said Carol Browner, director of the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy.

Mark Z. Jacobson, professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University, has said: “If our nation wants to reduce global warming, air pollution and energy instability, we should invest only in the best energy options. Nuclear energy isn’t one of them”.

Here are the list of reactor names.

Arkansas Nuclear
Monticello
Beaver Valley
Nine Mile Point
Braidwood
North Anna
Browns Ferry
Oconee
Brunswick
Oyster Creek
Byron
Palisades
Callaway
Palo Verde
Calvert Cliffs
Peach Bottom
Catawba
Perry
Clinton
Pilgrim
Columbia
Point Beach
Comanche Peak
Prairie Island
Cooper Station
Quad Cities
Crystal River
River Bend
Davis-Besse
Robert E Ginna
Diablo Canyon
Salem
Donald C. Cook
San Onofre
Dresden
Seabrook
Duane Arnold
St. Lucie
Enrico Fermi
Sequoyah
Joseph Farley
Shearon Harris
Fitzpatrick
South Texas Project
Fort Calhoun
Virgil C. Summer
Grand Gulf
Surry
H. B. Robinson
Susquehanna
Edwin Hatch
Three Mile Island
Hope Creek
Turkey Point
Indian Point
Vermont Yankee
Kewaunee
Vogtle
LaSalle County
Waterford
Limerick
Watts Bar
McGuire
Watts Bar
Millstone
Wolf Creek

Check out there locations here.

The decision came as state lawmakers considered legislation that would ban public release of graphic photos of crime victims. First Amendment lawyers say the legislation could have a chilling effect on open records requests.

DeKalb Superior Court Judge Daniel Coursey issued a temporary order restraining the Georgia Bureau of Investigation from releasing “any and all photographs, visual images or depictions of Meredith Emerson which show Emerson in an unclothed or dismembered state.

Emerson’s family sought the order after learning of the request for copies of crime scene photos of the 24-year-old, attorney Lindsay Haigh said. Emerson’s admitted killer, Gary Michael Hilton, received a life sentence in exchange for leading investigators to her body in the north Georgia mountains on January 7, 2008, six days after Emerson disappeared.

House Bill 1322 would prevent the release of photographs of the bodies of crime victims that are “nude, bruised, bloodied or in a broken state with open wounds, a state of dismemberment or decapitation,” said Chambers.

“We have to walk the line between open record laws and the constitutional provisions that allow women to be able to be photographed nude or in pornography when they knowingly and willingly offer their bodies for dissemination,” she said.

“Meredith isn’t in a position to give that kind of permission to have her exploited in that kind of venue,” Chambers said. “We’re not only protecting future victims of crime, we’re protecting the integrity of what happened to Meredith.”

The bill allows credentialed journalists, lawyers and law enforcement to view such photographs at the Georgia Bureau of Investigation’s headquarters, Chambers said, but not make copies of them.

Hustler did not respond to a request for comment on the judge’s ruling except to say that it is exploring its legal options.

“Hustler is aware of the GBI’s refusal to honor its reporter’s request for copies of the Emerson crime scenes photos, which were to be used in a news story about this crime. Hustler and Mr. Flynt disagree with the GBI’s position, and are currently exploring all legal options available to them should the decision be made to go forward with the story,” the company said in an e-mail.

Members of the state Legislature were quick to condemn the request.

“I think that the request is sickening, disgusting, vile and I think it’s very, very hurtful for this family,” House Speaker David Ralston said in a Monday press conference.

Current statute prevents the release of autopsy photos without the permission of next of kin, but a “gray area” in the law left open the question of whether crime scene photos could be released, Ralston said.

“I am a big proponent of open government. This goes against the grain for me. But in this case, when you have these kind of photographs that depict victims of crime where there may have been sexual assault or mutilation of the body, I just think it goes beyond the pale,” he said. “We’re going to narrow it to those situations so we don’t have this kind of situation again where we pause and wonder is this something we have to release or not.”

“Meredith was a daughter, a friend and a mentor to many. She lived life to its fullest and was taken from us deliberately and maliciously,” her family said on www.righttohikeinc.com, the charity Web site established in Emerson’s memory.

“Her family and friends live everyday with this tragedy and to know that the possibility of any images, other than those that portray the beautiful, young woman we knew, could be disclosed to the public or may be published would bring further stress and unnecessarily added grief over what is already too much sadness to bear.”

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation promptly denied Hustler’s request, agency spokesman John Bankhead said.

“There’s no public interest served by these photographs being publicly displayed,” he said. “The negative impact on surviving friends and family would be horrific. They had to go through this with the death so to have to go through it again with the pictures ending up on Internet would be incredible.”

First Amendment lawyers are watching the outcome of this lawsuit and the bill.

“The photos are awful, but it’s also awful to see pictures of people in wars, soldiers fighting or the victims of wars,” said New York attorney Martin Garbus. “I don’t think there should be any kind of censorship because of awfulness.”

Garbus surmised that privacy laws could be applied in this instance but cautioned that even such laws could be considered limitation of free speech.

“I don’t think you can make it into a narrow context. If you look at a picture of a Sudanese kid starving to death, or people dying in Haiti, those are invasions of privacy. Pictures of people alive in tortuous situations in some other country are just as bad as pictures of disfigured corpses in the United States.”

According to the Contra Costa Times, Beck is expected to be arraigned on Wednesday with 4 counts of unlawful sex with a person who is 16 years of age or under, and 1 count of oral copulation with a person who is 16 year of age or under.

Amy Victoria Beck has been booked with a suspicion of lewd and lascivious acts with a 14 or 15 year old child. The bail of Beck has been set at $400,000, according to Burbank police Sgt. Robert Quesada as he spoke to KCAL.

Quesada told police after interviewing the teenage boy , “She said she had sexual relations with one of her students and confirmed that the acts did occur.” The sexual acts admittedly occurred between March and September of 2009.

Authorities said the case shows how terror groups are looking to recruit Americans to carry out their goals.

A federal indictment charges that Colleen R. LaRose, who called herself JihadJane online, agreed to kill a Swedish citizen on orders from the unnamed terrorists and traveled to Europe to carry out the killing. It doesn’t say whether the Swede was killed, but LaRose was not charged with murder.

A U.S. Department of Justice spokesman wouldn’t confirm the case is related to a group of people arrested in Ireland earlier Tuesday on suspicion of plotting against a Swedish cartoonist who depicted the Prophet Muhammad with the body of a dog.

But a U.S. official speaking on condition of anonymity said LaRose had targeted the Swedish cartoonist and had online discussions about her plans with at least one of the suspects apprehended in Ireland. The official wasn’t authorized to discuss details of the investigation.

LaRose is a convert to Islam who actively recruited others, including at least one unidentified American, and her online messages expressed impatience to take action, the official said.

U.S. Attorney Michael Levy said the indictment doesn’t link LaRose, a U.S. citizen who moved to Europe in August 2009, to any organized terror groups.

LaRose, 46, lived in Montgomery County, Pa., before moving to Europe, authorities said. She called herself JihadJane in a YouTube video in which she said she was “desperate to do something somehow to help” ease the suffering of Muslims, the indictment said. According to the 11-page document, she agreed to obtain residency in a European country and marry one of the terrorists to enable him to live there.

“Today’s indictment, which alleges that a woman from suburban America agreed to carry out murder overseas and to provide material support to terrorists, underscores the evolving nature of the threat we face,” said David Kris, assistant attorney general for national security.

LaRose also agreed to provide her co-conspirators in Asia and Europe financial and passport help, the indictment charged.

LaRose has been in federal custody since her Oct. 15 arrest in Philadelphia, authorities said. She had an initial court appearance the next day but didn’t enter a plea.

Her federal public defender Mark T. Wilson declined to comment Tuesday.

___

Associated Press Writer Devlin Barrett contributed to this report from Washington.

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This announcement comes at the time when the situation supposedly still is “fluid” and the Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force still hasn’t issued its final report on zoning uses of these waters.

That’s a disappointment, but not really a surprise for fishing industry insiders who have negotiated for months with officials at the Council on Environmental Quality and bureaucrats on the task force. These angling advocates have come to suspect that public input into the process was a charade from the beginning.

“Now we see NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) and the administration planning the future of recreational fishing access in America based on a similar agenda of these same groups and other Big Green anti-use organizations, through an Executive Order by the President. The current U.S. direction with fishing is a direct parallel to what happened in Canada with hunting: The negative economic impacts on hard working American families and small businesses are being ignored.

“In spite of what we hear daily in the press about the President’s concern for jobs and the economy and contrary to what he stated in the June order creating this process, we have seen no evidence from NOAA or the task force that recreational fishing and related jobs are receiving any priority.”

Consequently, unless anglers speak up and convince their Congressional representatives to stop this bureaucratic freight train, it appears that the task force will issue a final report for “marine spatial planning” by late March, with President Barack Obama then issuing an Executive Order to implement its recommendations — whatever they may be.

Led by NOAA’s Jane Lubchenco, the task force has shown no overt dislike of recreational angling, but its indifference to the economic, social and biological value of the sport has been deafening.

Additionally, Lubchenco and others in the administration have close ties to environmental groups who would like nothing better than to ban recreational angling. And evidence suggests that these organizations have been the engine behind the task force since before Obama issued a memo creating it last June.

As ESPN previously reported, WWF, Greenpeace, Defenders of Wildlife, Pew Environment Group and others produced a document entitled “Transition Green” shortly after Obama was elected in 2008. What has happened since suggests that the task force has been in lockstep with that position paper.

Then in late summer, just after he created the task force, these groups produced “Recommendations for the Adoption and Implementation of an Oceans, Coasts, and Great Lakes National Policy.” This document makes repeated references to “overfishing,” but doesn’t once reference recreational angling, its importance, and its benefits, both to participants and the resource.

Additionally, some of these same organizations have revealed their anti-fishing bias by playing fast and loose with “facts,” in attempts to ban tackle containing lead in the United States and Canada.

That same tunnel vision, in which recreational angling and commercial fishing are indiscriminately lumped together as harmful to the resource, has persisted with the task force, despite protests by the angling industry.

As more evidence of collusion, the green groups began clamoring for an Executive Order to implement the task force’s recommendations even before the public comment period ended in February. Fishing advocates had no idea that this was coming.

Perhaps not so coincidentally, the New York Times reported on Feb. 12 that “President Obama and his team are preparing an array of actions using his executive power to advance energy, environmental, fiscal and other domestic policy priorities.”

Morlock fears that “what we’re seeing coming at us is an attempted dismantling of the science-based fish and wildlife model that has served us so well. There’s no basis in science for the agendas of these groups who are trying to push the public out of being able to fish and recreate.

“Conflicts (user) are overstated and problems are manufactured. It’s all just an excuse to put us off the water.”

In the wake of the task force’s framework document, the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation (CSF) and its partners in the U.S. Recreational Fishing & Boating Coalition against voiced their concerns to the administration.

“Some of the potential policy implications of this interim framework have the potential to be a real threat to recreational anglers who not only contribute billions of dollars to the economy and millions of dollars in tax revenues to support fisheries conservation, but who are also the backbone of the American fish and wildlife conservation ethic,” said CSF President Jeff Crane.

Morlock, a member of the CSF board, added, “There are over one million jobs in America supported coast to coast by recreational fishing. The task force has not included any accountability requirements in their reports for evaluating or mitigating how the new policies they are drafting will impact the fishing industry or related economies.

“Given that the scope of this process appears to include a new set of policies for all coastal and inland waters of the United States, the omission of economic considerations is inexcusable.”

This is not the only access issue threatening the public’s right to fish, but it definitely is the most serious, according to Chris Horton, national conservation director for BASS.

“With what’s being created, the same principles could apply inland as apply to the oceans,” he said. “Under the guise of ‘marine spatial planning’ entire watersheds could be shut down, even 2,000 miles up a river drainage from the ocean.

“Every angler needs to be aware because if it’s not happening in your backyard today or tomorrow, it will be eventually.

“We have one of the largest voting blocks in the country and we need to use it. We must not sit idly by.”