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LOS ANGELES – Sony thinks its new Michael Jackson documentary could be a contender for best picture.
Spokesman Steve Elzer said Thursday that the studio will submit “Michael Jackson’s This Is It” for Academy Awards consideration this year.
It missed the deadline to be considered for a 2009 documentary Oscar, but the film about the late King of Pop’s preparations for a series of comeback concerts will be eligible in several other categories at the Academy Awards, including sound, film editing, director and best picture.
“This Is It” opened worldwide Wednesday and has already earned $20.1 million at the box office, along with praise from critics and fans who say it restores Jackson’s reputation as a world-class entertainer.
Director Kenny Ortega, a longtime Jackson collaborator who was overseeing his concert comeback, crafted the nearly two-hour film from more than 100 hours of footage recorded during rehearsals for the London shows, which were to have begun in July. Jackson died June 25 at age 50.
“What we did here was focus on telling a good story and creating a film for the fans really enabling them to understand what Michael Jackson had dreamed for them,” Ortega said Wednesday.
He added it was his hope “the audience for this film will grow and that as many people come to see it as possible because I think that it’s a wonderful story about a brilliant man. … Awards, Oscars, that’s all great wishful thinking.”
It may be more than wishful, said Steven Gaydos, executive editor of the Hollywood trade paper Variety and a self-described cynic. With the Academy Awards best-picture slate expanded to 10 films this year rather than the traditional five, “This Is It” could find itself among the contenders, he said.
To qualify, the film must complete a seven-day run in Los Angeles County and filmmakers would need to “submit the proper paperwork,” said Leslie Unger, spokeswoman for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which puts on the Oscars.
Sony, which paid $60 million for the global film rights, plans to keep “This Is It” in theaters for just over two weeks. Elzer said the studio will submit it for consideration for best picture “and other appropriate categories.” He wouldn’t specify which ones.
Entering it in the Oscar race this year means “This Is It” cannot be considered in the documentary category next year.
The movie includes plenty of music, but none of it is eligible for Oscar consideration because it wasn’t created specifically for the film.
Ortega, a veteran director, producer and choreographer who counts TV’s “High School Musical” among his credits, could also find himself in contention for a best-director nod, Gaydos said.
“He did a masterful job putting this whole thing together,” he said. “It was so powerful and interesting, so creative and well-done, I think he should be considered… Kenny just won over all these critics like me with Michael Jackson that anything interesting could go on with this guy.”
The film can’t be considered for a Golden Globe. The Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which puts on the annual ceremony, doesn’t permit feature documentaries to enter, said spokesman Michael Russell.
Ortega said an Oscar nod would be a fitting recognition of Jackson’s last work.
“He deserves one,” he said. “Come on people.”

By DAVID ESPO, AP Special Correspondent David Espo, Ap Special Correspondent – 1 hr 9 mins ago
WASHINGTON – Cheered by President Barack Obama, House Democrats rolled out landmark legislation Thursday to extend health care to tens of millions who lack coverage, impose sweeping new restrictions on the insurance industry and create a government-run option to compete with private insurers.
But even as party leaders pointed toward a vote next week, there were fresh questions that went to the heart of their ambitious drive to remake the nation’s health care system.
Congressional budget experts predicted the controversial government insurance option would probably cost consumers somewhat more than private coverage. At the same time, rank-and-file conservative Democrats sought additional information about the bill’s overall impact on federal health care spending.
There was no official estimate on the total cost of the legislation, which ran to 1,990 pages. The Congressional Budget Office said the cost of additional coverage alone was slightly more than $1 trillion over a decade. But that omitted other items, including billions for disease prevention programs.
Yet another $230 billion or more in higher fees for doctors treating Medicare patients, included in an earlier version of the bill, was stripped out and will be voted on separately.
The measure “covers 96 percent of all Americans, and it puts affordable coverage in reach for millions of uninsured and underinsured families, lowering health care costs for all of us,” boasted Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., at a ceremony attended by dozens of Democratic lawmakers. She spoke on the steps of the Capitol, not far from where Obama issued his inaugural summons for Congress to act more than nine months ago.
Pelosi said the legislation would reduce federal deficits over the next decade by $104 billion, and congressional budget experts said it would probably reduce them even further over the following 10 years.
While saying they expected a vote next week, Democratic leaders were careful not to claim they had yet rounded up enough votes to pass the legislation. Still, the day’s events capped months of struggle and marked a major advance in their drive — and Obama’s — to accomplish an overhaul of the health care system that has eluded presidents for a half-century.
Across the Capitol, the Democratic-controlled Senate is expected to begin debate within two weeks on a bill crafted by Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. It, too, envisions a government-run insurance option, although states could opt out, unlike in the bill the House will vote on. That portion of the Senate version appears likely to be weakened even further, as moderates press for a standby system that would not go into effect until it was clear individual states were experiencing a lack of competition among private companies.
Obama called the House legislation “another critical milestone in the effort to reform our health care system.”
Republican reaction was as swift as it was negative. “It will raise the cost of Americans’ health insurance premiums; it will kill jobs with tax hikes and new mandates, and it will cut seniors’ Medicare benefits,” said the party’s leader in the House, Rep. John Boehner of Ohio. He carried a copy of the 1,990-page measure into a news conference to underscore his claim it represented a government takeover of the health care system.
Republicans have already signaled their determination to make the health care debate a key issue in next year’s congressional elections, when all 435 House seats will be on the ballot.
But their ability to block passage in the current House is nonexistent as long as Pelosi and her leadership can forge a consensus among the Democratic rank and file. The party holds 256 seats in the House, where 218 makes a majority.
Broad in scope, the House Democrats’ bill attempts to build on the current system of employer-provided health care. It would require big companies to cover their employees and include federal subsidies to help small companies provide insurance for theirs, as well. Most individuals would be required to carry insurance, and much of the money in the legislation is dedicated to subsidies for those at lower incomes to help them afford coverage.
For those at even lower incomes, the bill provides for an expansion of Medicaid, the state-federal health program for the poor. Adults up to 150 percent of the poverty level — individuals making up to $16,245 and a family of four up to $33,075 — would be covered, a provision estimated to add 15 million to Medicaid.
One of the bill’s major features is a new national insurance market, in which private companies could sell policies that meet federally mandated benefit levels, the government would offer competing coverage and consumers could shop for the policy that best met their needs.
In a bow to moderates, Democrats decided doctors, hospitals and other providers would be allowed to negotiate rates with the Health and Human Services Department for services provided in the government insurance option.
Liberals had favored a system in which fees would be dictated by the government, an approach that would have been less costly than what was settled on, and also would have moved closer to a purely government-run health care system than some Democrats favor.
The Congressional Budget Office said the result would be fees comparable to those doctors receive from private insurers. But for consumers, government-backed plans “would typically have premiums that are somewhat higher than the average premiums for private plans” sold in competition. As a result, it said enrollment would be only about 6 million.
Conservative Democrats known as Blue Dogs reacted to the overall CBO analysis by asking whether the bill would reduce the long-term rate of growth in federal spending. They noted the agency had said last summer that an earlier version would fail to do so, and they said they wanted updated answers “in order to make an informed decision.”
Thursday’s bill includes an array of new restrictions on the private insurance industry, in addition to forcing insurers to compete with the federal government for business.
Firms would be banned from denying coverage on the basis of pre-existing medical conditions and limited in their ability to charge higher premiums on the basis of age.
They would be required to spend 85 percent of their income from premiums on coverage, effectively limiting their ability to advertise or pay bonuses. Additionally, the industry would be stripped of immunity from antitrust regulations covering price fixing, bid rigging and market allocation. And in a late addition to the bill, 30-year-old restrictions on the Federal Trade Commission’s ability to look into the insurance industry would be erased.
In response, the industry’s top lobbyist, Karen Ignagni, issued a statement containing a somewhat milder version of criticism than recently unleashed against the Senate’s version of the legislation. “We are concerned” the House bill will violate assurances that individuals would be able to keep their insurance if they like it, she said. She said it would be responsible for “increasing health care costs for families and employers across the country and significantly disrupting the quality coverage on which millions of Americans rely today.”
Ignagni added that the presence of a government-run insurance plan “would bankrupt hospitals, dismantle employer coverage, exacerbate cost-shifting from Medicare and Medicaid and ultimately increase the federal deficit.”
While Democrats touted new benefits for seniors, the bill relies on more than $400 billion in cuts from projected Medicare spending over the next decade. Much of the money would come from the part of the program in which private companies offer coverage to seniors.
The bill’s other major new source of revenue is from a proposed income tax surcharge of 5.4 percent on wealthy earners, individuals making at least $500,000 a year and couples $1 million or more.
The legislation includes other taxes, such as a 2.5 percent excise tax on the makers of medical devices, expected to raise $20 billion over a decade.

A teenage folk singer was attacked and killed by two coyotes in a national park in eastern Canada.

Taylor Mitchell, 19, was attacked while she was hiking alone in Cape Breton Highlands Park, Nova Scotia, when she was attacked by two of the animals on Tuesday. She died of her wounds on Wednesday.

Nearby walkers heard her screams and alerted park rangers, who arrived on the scene and shot one of the animals. The other has yet to be found.

A police spokesperson said the two coyotes were “extremely aggressive” when rangers arrived on the scene.

“Coyotes are normally afraid of humans. This is a very irregular occurrence,” Bridgit Leger, a spokeswoman for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, told Reuters news agency.

Mitchell was airlifted to hospital in Halifax but died there. Paul Maynard of Emergency Health Services said she had been admitted with multiple bite wounds on her body.

“Words can’t begin to express the sadness and tragedy of losing such a sweet, compassionate, vibrant, and phenomenally talented young woman,” Lisa Weitz, Mitchell’s manager, said. “She just turned 19 two months ago, and was so excited about the future.”

Mitchell’s debut album ‘For Your Consideration’ had been recorded earlier this year and the artist had been on a tour of eastern Canada when the attack occurred.

“She was so young and talented — her big dreams were a perfect match with her big, kind heart,” said Michael Johnston, the album’s producer.

Biologists said attacks by coyotes — also known as prairie wolves — were extremely rare because the animals were usually very wary of humans. The area of the park where the attack happened has now been blocked of as officials try to find out what caused the attack.

KABUL – Gunmen with automatic weapons and suicide vests stormed a guest house used by U.N. staff in the heart of the Afghan capital early Wednesday, killing 10 people — including six U.N. staff — officials said. A Taliban spokesman claimed responsibility, saying it was meant as an assault on the upcoming presidential election.
Later, a rocket slammed into the grounds of the luxury Serena Hotel, which is favored by many foreigners. The device failed to explode but filled the lobby with smoke, forcing guests and employees to flee to the basement, according to an Afghan witness who asked that his name not be used for security reasons.
U.N. spokesman Adrian Edwards said six U.N. staff were killed and nine other U.N. employees were injured in the guest house assault, which began at dawn in the Shar-e-Naw area of the city. Guests scurried from the building during the assault, and flames shot out from the roof and smoke billowed out and over the city.
Afghan police official Abdul Ghafar Sayedzada said 10 people in all were killed, including all three attackers, and that police had taken control of the building. The bodies of the attackers were taken out of the house and sent for autopsies, said Gul Mohammad, an officer at the scene.
Edwards said officials were trying to account for several other U.N. workers who were staying at the guest house. He did not know their nationalities but said they were non-Afghans.
“This has clearly been a very serious incident for us,” Edwards said. “We’ve not had an incident like this in the past.”
A security guard, Noor Allah, said he saw a woman screaming for help in English from a second story window and watched as terrified guests leapt from windows.
Police used wooden ladders to get over the walls of the compound to search and rescue survivors. One officer was seen carrying an injured German man on his back.
On a street outside, the body of a man in blue pajamas lay on the back of a green police truck. Another body lay on the street, its feet sticking out from under a red and yellow blanket.
Security forces blocked off nearby streets and climbed to the top of surrounding buildings to secure the area. Afghan army forces stood guard behind machine guns mounted on the top of camouflage Humvees.
Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for the attack on the guest house and the Serena in a telephone call to The Associated Press, saying three militants with suicide vests, grenades and machine guns carried out the assault.
He said three days ago the Taliban issued a statement threatening anyone working on the Nov. 7 runoff election between President Hamid Karzai and Abdullah Abdullah.
“This is our first attack,” he said.
Afghans vote Nov. 7 in a second round election after U.N.-backed auditors threw out nearly a third of Karzai’s votes from the Aug. 20 ballot, determining widespread fraud. That pushed Karzai’s totals below the 50 percent threshold needed for a first round victory in the 36-candidate field.
The Taliban warned Afghans to stay away from the polls or risk attacks. Dozens of people were killed in Taliban attacks during the August balloting, helping drive down turnout.
Inside the compound, an AP reporter saw two U.N. vehicles riddled with bullet holes. The walls of the three-story house were blackened from the fire and its windowpanes were shattered. The fire appeared to be out, but firefighters were still on the top floor.
The guest house appeared to be relatively new, ornately designed with balconies and decorative detailing on railings and doors.
Mir Ahmed Formoly, 64, who lives near the house, said he heard the commotion and went outside where he saw muzzle flashes in the early morning light.
“I was so scared,” he said. I went back inside the house.”
He said gunfire and explosions lasted about two hours, punctuated by shouts and screams.
Mohammad Ayub, a shopkeeper who lives a few doors down from the attacked house, said he heard gunfire shortly before dawn. He assumed at first that it was an attack on a house belonging to relatives of President Karzai nearby, then saw that it was a different building.
“It was early morning, but I didn’t have a watch on to know when. It was dark. Shooting started around this private guest house. I heard some shouts coming from inside the house,” Ayub said.
“I heard boom! boom! several times. The fighting went on inside for about 10 or 15 minutes before the police came,” he said.
The guesthouse attack was the third major one in the capital in recent weeks.
On Oct. 8, a suicide car bomber detonated his vehicle outside the Indian Embassy, killing 17 people — mostly civilians — and wounding at least 76 more. The Afghan Foreign Ministry hinted at Pakistani involvement — a charge Pakistan denied.
On Sept. 17, a suicide car bomber killed six Italian soldiers and 10 Afghan civilians on one of Kabul’s main roadways.

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FRESNO, Calif. – Last month two men and their teenage sons tackled one of the world’s most unforgiving summertime hikes: the Grand Canyon’s parched and searing Royal Arch Loop. Along with bedrolls and freeze-dried food, the inexperienced backpackers carried a personal locator beacon — just in case.
In the span of three days, the group pushed the panic button three times, mobilizing helicopters for dangerous, lifesaving rescues inside the steep canyon walls.
What was that emergency? The water they had found to quench their thirst “tasted salty.”
If they had not been toting the device that works like Onstar for hikers, “we would have never attempted this hike,” one of them said after the third rescue crew forced them to board their chopper. It’s a growing problem facing the men and women who risk their lives when they believe others are in danger of losing theirs.
Technology has made calling for help instantaneous even in the most remote places. Because would-be adventurers can send GPS coordinates to rescuers with the touch of a button, some are exploring terrain they do not have the experience, knowledge or endurance to tackle.
Rescue officials are deciding whether to start keeping statistics on the problem, but the incidents have become so frequent that the head of California’s Search and Rescue operation has a name for the devices: Yuppie 911.
“Now you can go into the back country and take a risk you might not normally have taken,” says Matt Scharper, who coordinates a rescue every day in a state with wilderness so rugged even crashed planes can take decades to find. “With the Yuppie 911, you send a message to a satellite and the government pulls your butt out of something you shouldn’t have been in in the first place.”
From the Sierra to the Cascades, Rockies and beyond, hikers are arming themselves with increasingly affordable technology intended to get them out of life-threatening situations.
While daring rescues are one result, very often the beacons go off unintentionally when the button is pushed in someone’s backpack, or they are activated unnecessarily, as in the case of a woman who was frightened by a thunderstorm.
“There’s controversy over these devices in the first place because it removes the self sufficiency that’s required in the back country,” Scharper says. “But we are a society of services, and every service you need you can get by calling.”
The sheriff’s office in San Bernardino County, the largest in the nation and home to part of the unforgiving Death Valley, hopes to reduce false alarms. So it is studying under what circumstances hikers activate the devices.
“In the past, people who got in trouble self-rescued; they got on their hands and knees and crawled out,” says John Amrhein, the county’s emergency coordinator. “We saw the increase in non-emergencies with cell phones: people called saying ‘I’m cold and damp. Come get me out.’ These take it to another level.”
Personal locator beacons, which send distress signals to government satellites, became available in the early 1980s, but at a price exceeding $1,200. They have been legal for the public to use since 2003, and in the last year the price has fallen to less than $100 for devices that send alerts to a company, which then calls local law enforcement.
When rescue beacons tempt inexperienced hikers to attempt trails beyond their abilities, that can translate into unnecessary expense and a risk of lives.
Last year, the beacon for a hiker on the Pacific Crest Trail triggered accidentally in his backpack, sending helicopters scrambling. Recently, a couple from New Bruswick, British Columbia activated their beacon when they climbed a steep trail and could not get back down. A helicopter lowered them 200 feet to secure footing.
In September, a hiker from Placer County was panning for gold in New York Canyon when he became dehydrated and used his rescue beacon to call for help.
With darkness setting in on the same day, Mono County sheriff’s deputies asked the National Guard for a high-altitude helicopter and a hoist for a treacherous rescue of two beacon-equipped hikers stranded at Convict Lake. The next day they hiked out on foot.
When eight climbers ran into trouble last winter during a summit attempt of Mt. Hood in Oregon, they called for help after becoming stranded on a glacier in a snowstorm.
“The question is, would they have decided to go on the trip knowing the weather was going bad if they had not been able to take the beacons,” asks Rocky Henderson of Portland Mountain Rescue. “We are now entering the Twilight Zone of someone else’s intentions.”
The Grand Canyon’s Royal Arch loop, the National Park Service warns, “has a million ways to get into serious trouble” for those lacking skill and good judgment. One evening the fathers-and-sons team activated their beacon when they ran out of water.
Rescuers, who did not know the nature of the call, could not launch the helicopter until morning. When the rescuers arrived, the group had found a stream and declined help.
That night, they activated the emergency beacon again. This time the Arizona Department of Public Safety helicopter, which has night vision capabilities, launched into emergency mode.
When rescuers found them, the hikers were worried they might become dehydrated because the water they found tasted salty. They declined an evacuation, and the crew left water.
The following morning the group called for help again. This time, according to a park service report, rescuers took them out and cited the leader for “creating a hazardous condition” for the rescue teams.

When Halloween comes kids get excited, very excited. So why not use that excitement to enhance their learning at school? Halloween provides a wonderful opportunity to motivate kids in the classroom.

Halloween activities and Halloween games can be used in different subjects and will get kids performing enthusiastically in math, spelling, writing and reading.

Listed below are a few suggestions for using Halloween as a stimulus at school.

Halloween Math
Predicting Pumpkin Measurements
Introduce a few pumpkins to the classroom and you can get kids, estimating and comparing mass, circumferences, diameters and heights. Use three – five pumpkins and label each with a letter.

Have children record their estimated mass, circumference, diameter and height for each. Children can also record the order of the pumpkins from lightest to heaviest and from smallest circumference to largest. The same can be done for diameter and height. Then have the students measure and record these things. Children can then compare their estimates with the actual measures.

Halloween Counting
Play the old favorite counting game Buzz replacing the word "Buzz" with a Halloween word. Use "Boo" or "Scary" instead. Children count around a circle but replace the number 7, every multiple of 7 and every number containing a digit 7 with the word "Boo". If a child says the number instead of saying "Boo" they are out. This is a challenging game and it requires concentration and a knowledge of multiples. Trying playing it with other digits instead of 7, e.g. 5 or 9.

Halloween Problems and Brain Teasers
Number problems can also be made much more interesting by using Halloween themed characters and situations. Here are a few to try.

Zelda the witch has all of her cats and all of her owls in the house. She has 9 animals in the house and they have 30 legs altogether. How many cats and how many owls does she have?

Frankenstein has 15 shirts in his wardrobe. They are all black or blue. He has 7 more black shirts than blue ones. How many blue shirts does he have?

Dracula, Frankenstein, Mummy, Gilda and Zelda are all having a Halloween party. Each of them has given an invitation to all of the others. How many invitations have been given out?

Halloween Word Activities and Spelling Activities
Letting children play with words is a great way to develop spelling skills and reading skills. Try these games to develop and extend children’s spelling skills.

Black Cat
Kids will want to play this game over and over again even though it is really just a version of a spelling bee. You can use Halloween themed words or use words that the children are learning to spell. Children stand in a circle. The teacher gives a word for the children to spell and nominates the person to start. Children give one letter at a time going in a clockwise direction. The child who is after the person who says the last letter says ‘Black Cat’. The next child is out and sits down. If a child says a wrong letter, he is out and sits down also. Then the next person gives the correct letter. When the word is completed, the teacher gives the next word and play continues around the circle. The last child standing is the winner. This one is really worth trying as it moves quite quickly and kids really love to play.

Halloween Hangman
Hangman is a popular spelling game that tends to be particularly appropriate for Halloween. Use Halloween themed words or for a more interesting version try using a whole sentence. Simply make up a Halloween sentence, e.g. Ghosts, mummies, witches and zombies chased the frightened children all over the haunted house. Draw the dashes for each letter or each word, leaving spaces between the words. Then you are ready to start. Just fill in all instances of each letter that the children give. A great writing activity is to get the children to write interesting sentences that can be used for the Hangman sentence.

Halloween Sentence Jumble
After children have written their own Halloween sentences as suggested above. Play Sentence Jumble by writing the sentences in a long string with no breaks between the words. This creates an interesting puzzle for children to decipher. They have to rewrite the sentence putting in the breaks. A more advanced version of this is to run the words together and then break the letters up into groups of three, four or five letters. This makes an even more difficult word puzzle. Here is one for you to try.

aho wlin gsou ndca mefr omth eolds pook yho use

Jumbled Letters
Another simple Halloween word puzzle is to jumble the letters of Halloween words and have children compete to see who can unjumble them to find all of the words first.

There are many, many different ways to incorporate Halloween into your school program. Hope the ideas above help to make Halloween more fun for your students. Happy Halloween!

BAGHDAD – A pair of suicide car bombings Sunday devastated the heart of Iraq’s capital, killing at least 147 people in the country’s deadliest attack in more than two years. The bombs targeted two government buildings and called into question Iraq’s ability to protect its people as U.S. forces withdraw.
The bombings show that insurgents still have the ability to launch horrific attacks even as violence has dropped dramatically in Iraq. Many fear such attacks will only increase as Iraq prepares for crucial January elections.
The dead included 35 employees at the Ministry of Justice and at least 25 staff members of the Baghdad Provincial Council, said police and medical officials speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media. At least 721 people were wounded, including three American contractors.
The street where the blasts occurred had just been reopened to vehicle traffic six months ago. Shortly after, blast walls were repositioned to allow traffic closer to the government buildings. Such changes were touted by Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki as a sign that safety was returning to the city.
The Iraqi leader walked among the mangled and blackened cars, which lay in front of blast walls that had been decorated with peaceful street scenes of Iraq. At the Justice Ministry, windows and walls on both sides of the street were blown away, and blood pooled with water from burst pipes.
Al-Maliki has staked his political reputation and re-election bid on his ability to bring peace to the country and pledged to punish those responsible, who he said wanted to “spread chaos in the country, undermine the political process and prevent the holding of parliamentary elections.” But the Sunday attacks seemed designed to paint the Iraqi leader as incapable of providing security to the beleaguered city, undermining much of his political support.
The attacks occurred just hours before Iraq’s top leadership was scheduled to meet with heads of political parties in order to reach a compromise on election guidelines needed to hold the January vote.
President Barack Obama, who earlier this week reaffirmed the U.S.’s commitment to withdrawing its troops from the country, called al-Maliki to offer his condolences.
“These bombings serve no purpose other than the murder of innocent men, women and children, and they only reveal the hateful and destructive agenda of those who would deny the Iraqi people the future that they deserve,” Obama said.
The fact that the vehicles were able to get into an area home to numerous government institutions — just hundreds of yards from the heavily fortified Green Zone where the U.S. Embassy and the prime minister’s office are located — sparked demands that those in charge of the city’s security be held accountable.
“Those responsible for security and intelligence should be checked and interrogated,” said Sunni Iraqi lawmaker Wathab Shakir. “Why should innocent people be killed?”
The initial investigation suggested the vehicles, each loaded down with more than 1,500 pounds of explosives, might have passed through some security checkpoints before hitting their destination, said Maj. Gen. Qassim al-Mousawi, a spokesman for the city’s operations command center.
There have been no claims of responsibility so far, but massive car bombs have been the hallmark of the Sunni insurgents seeking to overthrow the country’s Shiite-dominated government. Iraq has accused members of the outlawed Baath Party living in neighboring Syria of being behind another series of deadly bombings in August that also targeted government buildings. Al-Maliki blamed the attacks on Baathist and Al-Qaida.
Black smoke billowed from the frantic scene, as emergency service vehicles sped to the area. Many of the wounded were loaded into the back of trucks and into civilian cars because there were too many for ambulances to carry.
“The walls collapsed and we had to run out,” said Yasmeen Afdhal, 24, an employee of the Baghdad provincial administration, which runs the city. “There are many wounded, and I saw them being taken away. They were pulling victims out of the rubble, and rushing them to ambulances.”
The provincial council is the city government, which oversees a broad range of city services such as garbage collection, electricity, distribution of fuel for generators and school maintenance.
U.S. troops were also called in at the request of the Iraqi government to help secure the area, deal with any explosive material and offer forensics personnel to assist in the investigation, said a military spokesman, Maj. Dave Shoupe.
The coordinated bombings were the deadliest since a series of massive truck bombs in northern Iraq killed nearly 500 villagers from the minority Yazidi sect in August 2007. In Baghdad itself, it was the worst attack since a series of suicide bombings against Shiite neighborhoods in April 2007 killed 183.
Three American security contractors working for the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad were injured in the blasts, said Philip Frayne, an embassy spokesman. Frayne could not immediately provide details about who the contractors were escorting, which company they worked for or the nature of their injuries.
The explosions were just a few hundred yards from Iraq’s Foreign Ministry, which is still rebuilding after massive bombings there in August. The bombings were a devastating blow for a country that has seen a dramatic drop in violence since the height of the sectarian fighting in 2006 and 2007.
On the streets of Baghdad, many Iraqis were angry at what they described as a lapse in security and wary about what will happen when U.S. forces leave.
“Everyday, we hear statements from different government officials that our forces are ready to control the situation on the ground when the U.S. forces withdraw,” Zahid Hussain Najim said. “But day after day it has been found that these officials are either liars or have no idea about what’s going on outside their offices.”

Everyone loves party games. When you have a thematic party, the games you offer can actually be quite straightforward to plan. Look at some old standards and put a thematic spin on them! Here are some ideas for your next Halloween party :

Pin the Spider on the internet ? All that you need is a gigantic piece of clear plastic, a black permanent marker, some rubber cement and a paper spider of some kind. Draw a web on the clear plastic. Put some rubber cement on the back of the paper spider and have the guest attempt to ?stick it? Online. Even if they don?t and hit the wall instead, it is great fun.

Hot Pumpkin ? Grab one of those mini pumpkins from your local grocery store. It will make the ideal prop for playing ?Hot Pumpkin?, and Halloween difference of ?Hot Potato? Play some spooky Halloween music and when it stops, whoever has that pumpkin is out for that round. Play till there is just one left and you have got your winner!

What?s In The Coffin? ? Played exactly like the tray party game. Several items are put on a tray and you have got to remember as many of the items as you can. Place items related to Halloween, like a pumpkin or jack-o-lantern, candy corn, bouncy balls that have an eyeball designs, black pussy stickers, and spooks made out of suckers and tissues inside a ?coffin? ( shoebox ). Show it to the guest for half a minute to a minute. Then give them paper and pencil and have them write down as many items as they can remember. ( folks can help babies. ) Whoever guesses the most items wins the coffin full of goodies.

How Many Candy Corn Are In The Jar? ? Purchase a glass jar. This jar can be as little or big as you want. Now, buy enough candy corn to fill the jar. Count how many candies go in till the jar is full. Now the guests can guess just how many are in there. The closest guess wins the jar! ( You can do this with any kind of candy, suckers, or chocolate bars. )

Musical Chairs ? To make it follow the Halloween theme, decorate the chairs with skeletons and spider webs. Use Halloween music to play.

These are just a few of the thematic party games you might create to go together with your Halloween bash! Think of your favorite game and make a holiday twist.