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Madrid, 28 dic (EFE).- Tras conocerse el desglose de las cantidades anuales que perciben el rey y el príncipe, don Juan Carlos se sitúa a la cabeza de la lista de los sueldos de los representantes de las instituciones del Estado.

Las percepciones en bruto más importantes aprobadas en los presupuestos generales del Estado para 2011 son las siguientes:

- Rey: 140.519 euros, a los que se añaden 152.233 correspondientes a gastos de representación, hasta un total de 292.752 euros

- Presidente del Tribunal Supremo: 130.152 euros

- Presidente del Tribunal Constitucional: 129.271 euros

- Vicepresidente del Tribunal Constitucional: 121.865 euros

- Defensor del Pueblo: 115.376

- Presidente y consejeros del Tribunal de Cuentas: 112.578 euros

- Vocales del Consejo General del Poder Judicial: 112.249 euros

- Magistrados del Tribunal Constitucional: 110.520

- Secretario del Consejo General del Poder Judicial: 109.662 euros

- Presidente del Congreso: 107.832,20 más 46.590,46 para gastos de representación y 38.199,98 para gastos de libre disposición. Una asignación algo inferior tiene el presidente del Senado

- Adjuntos al Defensor del Pueblo: 107.572 euros

- Presidente del Consejo Económico y Social: 85.004

- Presidente del Gobierno: 78.185 euros

- Presidente del Consejo de Estado: 77.808

- Vicepresidente del Gobierno: 73.486 euros

- Secretarios de Estado: 71.000 euros

- Príncipe: 70.259 euros a los que se añaden 76.117 correspondientes a gastos de representación, hasta un total de 146.376

- Ministros: 68.981 euros. EFE

Barcelona, 28 dic (EFE).- Los sindicatos de los Mossos d'Esquadra, Bomberos, funcionarios de prisiones y agentes rurales han convocado para mañana una manifestación unitaria para decir "basta" a los recortes y denunciar que el gobierno catalán quiere desmantelar el modelo de seguridad pública de Cataluña.

De forma excepcionalmente unitaria, los sindicatos de los cuerpos especiales de la Generalitat han convocado para mañana en Barcelona la manifestación de protesta, bajo el lema "Con la seguridad pública no se juega", en pleno epicentro de la crisis con el gobierno catalán por el impago de la paga de Navidad.

En una rueda de prensa conjunta, el portavoz de SAP-UGT en los Mossos d'Esquadra, Valentí Anadón, ha explicado que la protesta de mañana no es sólo para reclamar sus derechos retributivos, sino para lanzar un grito de alerta a la sociedad, para que sepa, ha señalado, que el gobierno catalán está tratando de desmantelar el servicio público de seguridad.

Por este motivo, ni aunque hoy o mañana cobren el 80% de la paga de Navidad -por la que ya les han retenido el IRPF-, los sindicatos mantendrán la manifestación, en una convocatoria que ven como el inicio de un conjunto de movilizaciones generalizadas para denunciar lo que consideran una ofensiva gubernamental contra la calidad de los servicios públicos.

En nombre de los sindicatos de los cuerpos de seguridad pública de Cataluña, Anadón ha garantizado que los agentes seguirán trabajando con la misma profesionalidad de siempre, aunque a partir de ahora dejarán patente el déficit en la seguridad que los recortes han provocado en sus condiciones de trabajo y en el servicio final que recibe el ciudadano.

"Ya se ha acabado. Los Mossos estamos en lucha y decimos basta", ha exclamado Anadón, con el asentimiento de los portavoces del resto de sindicatos de mossos, bomberos, agentes rurales y funcionarios de prisiones, que han exigido no tener que soportar el mayor peso del sacrificio por la crisis.

Por su parte, el responsable de UGT de Prisiones, Xavier Martínez, ha lamentado las condiciones en las que tienen que trabajar sus compañeros y ha puesto como ejemplo que en la cárcel Modelo de Barcelona hay un funcionario por cada 150 internos.

Además, ha denunciado que Servicios Penitenciarios y los jueces de vigilancia penitenciaria conceden ahora más casos de libertad condicional a presos para aligerar la acumulación de internos en las cárceles, en virtud, según su versión, de un acuerdo tácito.

No obstante, fuentes de la conselleria de Justicia consultadas por Efe han afirmado que no es cierto que exista este acuerdo tácito, si bien han admitido que trabajan en una circular, que aún no se ha aprobado, para tratar de aumentar el porcentaje de presos a los que se concede la libertad condicional -siempre que cumplan los requisitos- para equipararse al nivel de otros países europeos.

Según datos del departamento de Justicia, hasta el mes de noviembre de 2011 ha habido un total de 702 casos acumulados de presos de cárceles catalanas que han obtenido la libertad condicional, frente a los 669 que había hasta noviembre de 2010 (año que acabó con 731 casos de libertad condicional).

Martínez también ha señalado que en cada cárcel catalana se producen entre 4 y 5 incidentes graves al día y ha advertido que hay una ruptura entre las cúpulas de los centros penitenciarios, que apoya según su versión a los funcionarios en su lucha para lograr mejoras, y el departamento de Justicia.

Por su parte, el portavoz de CCOO en los Bomberos, Leandre Gallardet, ha denunciado que las viudas de los cinco agentes fallecidos en el incendio de Horta de Sant Joan (Tarragona) cobrarán una pensión "raquítica" mientras que los expresidentes de la Generalitat disfrutan de pensiones vitalicias.

Además, ha señalado que cuando los bomberos lleguen tarde a apagar un incendio por la falta de medios, a quien se le caerá la cara de vergüenza ante los ciudadanos será a los agentes, porque los políticos "se esconderán".

SARASOTA, Florida, EE.UU. (AP) — La tortuga marina llamada Johnny ha viajado más que mucha gente; pero el viaje que la llevó del Golfo de México a Europa y de regreso no ha terminado.

La rara tortuga golfina, de 30,84 kilogramos (68 libras), fue liberada el martes por la mañana en el golfo cerca de Sarasota. Aproximadamente 300 personas estuvieron en la playa para despedir a Johnny mientras se adentraba en las aguas de Cayo Lido Key.

La criatura en peligro de extinción fue hallada varada en una playa en Holanda en el 2008, a miles de kilómetros de su hábitat marino usual. Expertos marinos piensan que la tortuga —que normalmente nada, se alimenta y reproduce en y alrededor del Golfo de México— fue atrapada por la poderosa Corriente del Golfo y llevada a Europa.

"Sólo tuvo la mala fortuna de entrar en la corriente y dejarse llevar por el flujo", dijo Tony Tucker, gerente del Programa de Conservación e Investigación de la Tortuga Marina del Laboratorio Marino Mote en Sarasota.

Pero los expertos no se rindieron con la tortuga, la cual fue encontrada en el 2008 fría y desorientada.

Rescatistas en Holanda la llamaron Johnny —aunque su sexo no está claro— y se aseguraron de que recibiera buena atención en el zoológico de Rotterdam. Luego Johnny fue enviada a un acuario en Portugal, el Oceanario de Lisboa, y posteriormente recibió rehabilitación en Zoomarine, otro sitio en Portugal.

Aproximadamente tres años después, la Comisión de Pesca y Vida Silvestre de Florida envió a Johnny por avión a Miami y luego en camión a Sarasota. Allí, se le colocó un sistema de rastreo satelital que permitirá a los científicos monitorear sus próximos viajes.

Las tortugas golfinas están entre las tortugas marinas más pequeñas, alcanzando únicamente 45,36 kg (100 libras) de peso. Hacen sus nidos en playas de México y pasan la mayor parte de sus vidas a lo largo de la costa mexicana y estadounidense del Golfo, aunque también han sido encontradas en la costa estadounidense del Atlántico.

Según la comisión de vida silvestre de Florida, es la tortuga marina en mayor peligro de extinción.

____

En internet:

Para monitorear el progreso de Johnny: http://www.seaturtle.org/tracking/index.shtml?tag_id=113650

MOSCOW – The sinking of a floating oil rig that left more than 50 crew dead or missing is intensifying fears that Russian companies searching for oil in remote areas are unprepared for emergencies — and could cause a disastrous spill in the pristine waters of the Arctic.
Only four months ago, Russian energy giant Gazprom sent Russia's first oil platform to the environmentally sensitive region, and industry experts and environmentalists warned it is unfit for the harsh conditions and is too far from rescue crews to be reached quickly in case of an accident. They are demanding Russia put Arctic oil projects on hold.
Russia is the world's largest oil producer, but it extracts most of its oil onshore, with no more than 2 percent of its production coming from mature offshore fields in the warm Black and Caspian seas and relatively new fields just off Sakhalin Island in the far east.
As Russia's core oil fields in Eastern Siberia are depleted, companies are looking north. The government hopes that up to 80 million tons of oil will be produced annually in the Arctic by 2030.
Russia is trying to assert jurisdiction over parts of the Arctic, which is believed to hold up to a quarter of the Earth's undiscovered oil and gas. By speeding up the Arctic oil project, the government is strengthening its bid.
The Kolskaya floating oil rig that capsized and sank in the Sea of Okhotsk on Dec. 18 had done exploratory drilling for Gazprom Neft Shelf, a subsidiary of Gazprom. It was being towed back to an eastern Russian port in a fierce storm when a strong wave broke some of its equipment and portholes, and it capsized in the choppy water.
Gazprom is now pioneering the oil development of Russia's sector of the Arctic and was the first Russian company to dispatch a drilling rig to the Pechora Sea in northwest Russia.
Russian oil companies have never operated in weather conditions as harsh as those found in the ice-bound Arctic, where ice ridges are meters (yards) deep and storms are frequent. The Kolskaya accident has reinforced fears that they are unprepared to meet the challenges.
"This tragedy has once again reminded us of how high the risks of offshore accidents are," said Alexei Knizhnikov, an oil and gas policy officer with the World Wildlife Fund.
WWF, Greenpeace and five regional Russian environmental organizations signed a petition on Thursday calling for a parliamentary investigation and urging the government to suspend the oil projects for now.
The petition accuses government agencies of failing to enforce environmental and safety regulations and says that current laws are inadequate for dealing with the magnitude of risk in the Arctic.
Environmentalists first raised their concerns when Gazprom announced in August that it was sending its platform to the Arctic for exploratory drilling in the Pechora oil field, which holds some 6.6 million tons of oil.
The platform's underwater section was built in Russia in the 1990s, while its upper part comes from a platform built in Scotland in 1982 and decommissioned from the North Sea in 2002.
Gazprom insists the Prirazlomnaya platform, billed as the first to be ice resistant, is safe and contains no old equipment except for its frame.
"We've done our best to implement the latest technology and regulations to prevent any accidents," Vladimir Vovk, chief of Gazprom's department for the management of equipment and technologies in developing marine fields, said at a news conference in September.
Environmentalists question both the state of the equipment and the platform's design. Because the Prirazlomnaya is situated hundreds of kilometers (miles) offshore, it is designed to store huge quantities of oil until tankers can arrive to collect it. The platform's storage tanks can hold up to 120,000 tons (840,000 barrels).
Unlike the Kolskaya, which was carrying no oil when it sank, the Arctic platform could potentially cause a disastrous spill if it capsized in icy, rough seas.
The distance from shore would also complicate any rescue or cleanup mission. The nearest port of any size is in Murmansk, some 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) away.

Even in warmer, more hospitable waters, accidents at oil platforms have been disastrous.

A giant oil slick was approaching the coast of Nigeria on Friday after what Royal Dutch Shell said was a spill during the transfer of oil from its floating platform in the offshore field to a waiting tanker. The spill came less than a week after Shell received approval from the U.S. government to drill exploratory wells off Alaska's northwest coast, in the Chukchi Sea near Russian waters.

In the Gulf of Mexico, the 2010 explosion of the BP-operated Deepwater Horizon rig killed 11 workers and led to more than 200 million gallons (4.8 million barrels) of oil spewing from a well deep beneath the sea.

Russia's parliament gave preliminary approval in September to a bill intended to tighten regulations on oil companies working in the Arctic.

Yekaterina Khmelyova, an environment law officer at the WWF, said the bill does not do enough to hold the oil companies publicly accountable or to guarantee a full assessment of the environmental risks. She said environmentalists and the business community are working on a new draft that among other things would provide for the creation of clean-up funds.

Oil industry experts also have expressed doubts about Gazprom's expertise in offshore drilling in the Arctic as well as the platform's design.

They have questioned the economic justifications for the project. The oil in the Pechora field is of low quality and the project will be loss-making without tax breaks, said Valery Nesterov, a senior analyst with the Moscow-based investment bank Troika Dialog. For state-controlled Gazprom, the Arctic project appears to be more of strategic importance than about any immediate economic benefits, he said.

"This is clearly a strategic task that the company is executing," Nesterov said. "It looks like Russia is not going to give up that strategy since the interests of ship yards, machinery producers and, possibly, the military are involved."

Four years ago, Russia staked its claim to supremacy in the Arctic by planting a titanium flag on the ocean floor and arguing that an underwater ridge connected the country directly to the North Pole. The United States does not recognize the Russian assertion and has its own claims, along with Denmark, Norway and Canada.

Russia, Canada and Denmark are planning to their respective file claims to the ridge to the United Nations.

In past years, Russian ship yards and machinery producers have been able to stay afloat largely thanks to large orders coming from state-owned plants and government-sponsored projects. A large-scale oil and gas development of the Arctic is likely to give a welcome boost to both industries.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A direct-mail solicitation for Ron Paul's political and investment newsletters two decades ago warned of a "coming race war in our big cities" and of a "federal-homosexual cover-up" to play down the impact of AIDS.

The eight-page letter, which appears to carry Paul's signature at the end, also warns that the U.S. government's redesign of currency to include different colors - a move aimed at thwarting counterfeiters - actually was part of a plot to allow the government to track Americans using the "new money."

The letter urges readers to subscribe to Paul's newsletters so that he could "tell you how you can save yourself and your family" from an overbearing government.

The letter's details emerge at a time when Paul, now a contender for the Republican nomination for president, is under fire over reports that his newsletters contained racist, anti-homosexual and anti-Israel rants.

Reports of the newsletters' contents have Paul's campaign scrambling to deny that he wrote the inflammatory articles.

Among other things, the articles called the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. a "world-class philanderer," criticized the U.S. holiday bearing King's name as "Hate Whitey Day," and said that AIDS sufferers "enjoy the attention and pity that comes with being sick."

As Paul made a campaign stop in Manchester, Iowa, on Thursday, his Iowa chairman, Drew Ivers, repeated Paul's assertions that he did not write the articles that resurfaced this week in a report in the Weekly Standard magazine.

Paul has said that he is not sure who wrote the articles that were published under his name. He has said the articles do not reflect his views, and noted that his public stances - supporting gays in the military for example - have run counter to the incendiary statements in the newsletters.

In an interview with CNN's Gloria Borger on Wednesday, Paul said of the newsletter's articles: "I didn't write them. I didn't read them at the time and I disavow them."

When Borger continued to pursue the subject, Paul removed his microphone and walked out of the interview.

"It is ridiculous to imply that Ron Paul is a bigot, racist, or unethical," Ivers said.

However, Ivers said, Paul does not deny or retract material that Paul has written under his own signature, such as the letter promoting Paul's newsletters.

When asked whether that meant Paul believed there was a government conspiracy to cover up the impact of AIDS, Ivers said, "I don't think he embraces that."

Paul's newsletters "showed good factual information and investment information," Ivers said. "It was a public service, helping people understand and equip them to avoid an unsound monetary policy."

"EXTRAORDINARY SOURCES"

The letter promoting Paul's newsletters was written about 1993. It was during a period in which Paul - who left Congress in 1985 after serving about eight years - returned to Washington after a decade's absence.

(For a PDF of the solicitation letter see http://link.reuters.com/vud75s)

The letter was provided to Reuters by James Kirchick, a contributing editor for The New Republic magazine. He says he found the letter in archives of political literature maintained by the University of Kansas and the Wisconsin Historical Society.


Early in the 2008 presidential campaign - in which Paul was a candidate - Kirchick published an article in The New Republic in which he described Paul as "not the plain-speaking antiwar activist his supporters believe they are backing - but rather a member in good standing of some of the oldest and ugliest traditions in American politics."


The letter promoting Paul's newsletters claims that Paul - through what he describes as a network of "extraordinary sources" in Congress, the White House, the Treasury and Justice departments, the Federal Reserve and the Internal Revenue Service - had acquired unique insider information that would his subscribers to "neutralize" the plans of "powerbrokers."


Paul's letter went on to describe various plots and schemes that he had "unmasked," including a "plot for world government, world money and world central banking." He also claimed to have exposed a plan by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to "suspend the Constitution" in a falsely declared national emergency.


Despite being "told not to talk," Paul wrote that his newsletters also "laid bare" the "Israeli lobby, which plays Congress like a cheap harmonica," and a "federal-homosexual cover-up on AIDS."


Paul claimed that his "training as a physician" helped him "see through" this alleged cover-up.


Paul also suggested that a planned U.S. currency with new notes designed to curb counterfeiting and money laundering would result in the distribution of "totalitarian bills" that "were tinted pink and blue and brown, and blighted with holograms, diffraction gratings, metal and plastic threads and chemical alarms."


Paul said the money was designed to allow authorities to "keep track of American cash and American citizens."


He urged the letter's readers to send in $99, which would buy subscriptions to his monthly political and investment newsletters, a copy of his book "Surviving the New Money," an investment manual and access to the "unlisted phone number of my Financial Hotline for fast breaking news."


(Additional reporting by Samuel P. Jacobs in Manchester, Iowa; Editing by David Lindsey and Eric Walsh)

MANILA (Reuters) – The Philippines disaster agency said Friday more than 1,000 people were missing from a storm and flash floods last week, sharply raising the number of victims unaccounted for as the true extent of the disaster became known.

Typhoon Washi and the flash floods it caused on the southern island of Mindanao are known to have killed 1,080 people, the national disaster agency said.

The agency said Thursday dozens of people were missing but Friday it revised that figure to more than 1,000, saying more complete data had come in and people were reporting the disappearance of relatives.

Most of the casualties were in the cities of Cagayan de Oro and Iligan, where hundreds of thousands of people were displaced. Many of them are sheltering in schools, churches, gymnasiums and an army base.

Benito Ramos, head of the national disaster agency, said authorities had expanded the search in light of the new tally of missing and because some bodies had been found on shores nearly 100 km (60 miles) from the disaster area.

"We've deployed helicopters to help navy ships scour the seas further away," Ramos told reporters.

The number of missing was put at 1,079, he said.

The disaster had caused damage of 1 billion pesos ($22.92 million) to highways, bridges, schools and other infrastructure, the agency said.

The agriculture department estimated 310.2 million pesos worth of crops, including 703 metric tons of unmilled rice and 7,751 metric tons of corn were destroyed.

Ramos said the situation for survivors was slowly getting back to normal though the displaced needed sustained help.

Two navy ships and aircraft from the main island of Luzon had been deployed to help in the search and relief operations, he said.

"We're not taking any Christmas break," Ramos said.

Some families have moved home and are trying to pick up their pieces of their lives.

"We only need something on top of our heads this Christmas," villager Teresita Bragas told a television station, as she and some neighbors tried to rebuild amid mounds of logs and debris in their coastal village.

Aid agencies have appealed for $28.6 million aid to ease overcrowding at shelter areas.

($1 = 43.6350 pesos)

(Reporting By Manuel Mogato; Editing by Robert Birsel)

LOS ANGELES – Southern California quarterback Matt Barkley believed he was prepared to play in the NFL and the draft prognosticators agreed with him.
He had skillfully guided the program through two years of NCAA sanctions, put up big numbers to add his name to the list of great Trojans quarterbacks.
Barkley just wasn't ready to leave. He still had some unfinished business at USC.
Setting off a round of cheers at USC's Heritage Hall, Barkley announced Thursday that he's returning for his senior season, putting off the NFL for a chance to lead the Trojans from under the cloud of NCAA sanctions to a BCS bowl.
"I am staying so I can finish what I started," Barkley said.
At 6-foot-2, 220 pounds and with a game that matured over three years at Troy, Barkley was projected as a high first-round pick in the NFL draft, an enticement that had lured his predecessor, Mark Sanchez, after his junior season.
Instead of following Sanchez's footsteps, Barkley took the route of former USC quarterback Matt Leinart and Stanford's Andrew Luck.
Leinart returned to USC after winning the Heisman Trophy and a national championship, and led the Trojans to the 2005 BCS title game, where they lost to Texas. Luck came back this season after being the Heisman runner-up last year and took the Cardinal to the Fiesta Bowl while finishing second to Baylor's Robert Griffin III in this year's Heisman voting.
Like those two, Barkley felt as though he still had goals he wanted to accomplish after leading the Trojans to a 10-2 record and a No. 5 ranking in The Associated Press poll.
Barkley let USC coach Lane Kiffin know about his decision with a Christmas ornament that had a picture of the two together during this season's game against Colorado on one side and the words "One More Year" on the back. His announcement Thursday in front of about 200 people, including his family and Kiffin, set off a wave of applause and a quick burst from USC's band as a pair of cheerleaders danced along.
"That's not an easy decision," Kiffin said. "Not many people would do what Matt has done."
Barkley is the latest in a heralded lineup of USC quarterbacks that includes Carson Palmer, Leinart and Sanchez.
He had an uneven first season with the Trojans, making some questionable decisions that led to 14 interceptions. Still, Barkley threw for over 2,700 yards and 15 touchdowns to become the only freshman semifinalist for the Davey O'Brien Award as the nation's best quarterback.
Barkley developed into a mature leader by his sophomore season, again throwing for over 2,700 yards, with 26 TDs, a completion rate of 62 percent and 12 interceptions. He also handled questions about USC's sanctions with poise, never shying away from talking about the program's difficulties.
As a junior, he developed into one of the country's best quarterbacks, throwing for 3,528 yards and 39 touchdowns with only seven interceptions on a team that was one of the best in the country the last half of the season. The Trojans won seven of their final eight games, though they had to endure a second straight bowl-less season thanks to postseason sanctions that end next season.
USC left tackle Matt Kalil declared for the NFL draft last week, but on Wednesday safety T.J. McDonald said he was returning for his senior year. Now with Barkley, the Trojans are loaded and likely one of the front-runners to win next year's national title.
Barkley also will enter next season as the leading contender for the Heisman Trophy — much the way Luck did when he made a similar decision after the 2010 season — and can firm up his place as one of the best quarterbacks in the history of a program filled with great ones.
"I think looking at the team that we have there is that chance," Barkley said of playing in a BCS game next season. "We're on the rise and like I said in my (opening) statements, I feel like there is unfinished business."

____

John Marshall reported from Phoenix.

WASHINGTON – Consumers spent at a lackluster rate in November as their incomes barely grew, suggesting that U.S. households may struggle to sustain their spending into 2012.
The Commerce Department says consumer spending rose just 0.1 percent in November, matching the modest October increase. Incomes also rose 0.1 percent. That was the weakest showing since a 0.1 percent decline in August.
Both the spending and income gains fell below expectations. Economists have said that solid increases in spending could boost economic growth in the final three months of what has been a disappointing year.
While the economy remains vulnerable to threats, particularly a recession in Europe, the job market has improved, lifting hopes for next year.
The government said this week that applications for unemployment benefits fell by 4,000 last week to 364,000. It was the third straight weekly drop. And it pushed applications to the lowest level since April 2008, in the midst of the Great Recession.
The holiday shopping season is ending up better than expected. As a result, many economists are revising up their growth forecasts.
Analysts at JPMorgan think the economy is growing at an annual rate of 3.5 percent in the current October-December quarter. That would be up from 1.8 percent growth in the July-September quarter and would be the best quarterly gain since the spring of 2010.
Economists still expect that growth to be driven by an improvement in consumer spending, which accounts for 70 percent of economic activity. Spending rose at a 1.7 percent rate in the third quarter, more than double the second-quarter gain. JPMorgan analysts expect consumer spending to grow at a 3 percent pace in the current quarter.
Even with the spurt of activity at the end of the year, economists think growth for all of 2011 will be a lackluster 1.7 percent.
They had much higher expectations when the year began. But then a spike in gasoline prices held back consumer spending for other items. And the earthquake in Japan disrupted supply chains for auto and electronic parts, dampening factory production in the United States.
Many analysts do not expect growth in 2012 to be significantly better than in 2011. JPMorgan economists predict the economy will expand 1.9 percent in 2012, only slightly better than this year.

Weather Underground Forecast for Friday, December 23, 2011.
Wet weather will move into the Northeast on Friday, as a low pressure system moves northward from the Southeast. The system that brought heavy rain, severe thunderstorms, and strong winds to the Lower Mississippi River Valley on Thursday will continue moving northeastward and into the Northeast. This system will produce a front that extends down the East Coast. Warmer temperatures to the south will support rain showers across the Mid-Atlantic states, while rain showers will turn to snow showers in the far Northeast and New England states. Higher elevations of the Northern and Central Appalachians will also see snow showers. This extremely fast moving system will move off the East Coast by mid-day, pulling scattered rain and snow showers eastward into the Atlantic Ocean.
Behind this system, high pressure continues building in the Plains and stretches eastward over the Mississippi River Valley into the Eastern US. This will push cols and dry air in from Canada, allowing for sunny and cool conditions to persist across the Central US.
In the West, a low pressure system over the Rocky Mountains weakens as it continues dipping southward and further into the Southeast. Expect a few more inches of snow across higher elevations of New Mexico, with light rain at lower levels. The rest of the Western half of the nation remains sunny and cool as high pressure dominates. Temperatures in the Lower 48 states Thursday have ranged from a morning low of -20 degrees at West Yellowstone, Mont. to a high of 84 degrees at Fort Myers, Fla.

Atlanta – In Sheriff Joe Arpaio's Maricopa County, his critics say, the otherwise innocent tableau of Spanish speakers hanging out in front of a convenience store is probable cause for a police officer to approach and ask for identification.
So, apparently, is cruising down the street, according to a suit filed in federal court in Phoenix. The suit’s Hispanic plaintiffs contend that Sheriff Arpaio is ignoring constitutional probable cause standards by targeting Latinos with traffic stops, during which they are asked about their immigration status.
On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Murray Snow heard arguments in the case, with the options of allowing the suit to go to trial, throwing the suit out, or declaring that Arpaio uses racial profiling in the enforcement of immigration laws. The judge is considering whether the acknowledged shredding of documents by the Sheriff’s Department would enable a judge or jury to infer that deputies targeted Latinos.
Four reasons why illegal immigration across the US-Mexico border has dropped
But the suit is just one of a growing mass of legal challenges confronting the maverick sheriff. Last week, the U.S. Department of Justice cited Arpaio for racially profiling Latinos through the Sheriff Department’s frequent “sweeps” of Hispanic neighborhoods in suburban Phoenix.
The death this week of a Hispanic inmate at a Maricopa County jailhouse following a scuffle with Arpaio's deputies is adding to the sheriff's troubles.
The Maricopa County lawsuit and others were bolstered by the Justice Department allegations of racial profiling. One concrete outcome this week of those allegations: 90 of Arpaio's deputies had to turn in federal badges that allowed them to carry out immigration work, including checking suspects' immigration status.
Both the DOJ report and the lawsuit heard Thursday focus on Arpaio's use of large-scale neighborhood “sweeps” where 1,500 people, mostly Hispanics, have been arrested in the last three years alone, with illegal immigrants accounting for 57 percent of those arrested. The DOJ's report, based on a three-year investigation, accused Arpaio's department of using military-style patrols to confront people based on “racially charged” citizen complaints about Latinos participating in what some call a ubiquitous "storefront culture."
The DOJ investigation identified other problems with Arpaio's definition of probable cause, noting that the Sheriff's Department has allegedly tried to silence critics by arresting them without cause. Moreover, the report said Latinos are up to 9 times more likely to be stopped than whites, with many of them arrested without “good cause.”
But legal experts say the allegations against Arpaio's department are hardly slam dunks. For one, state and federal courts tend to give police officers the benefit of the doubt when they're involved in street arrests. Moreover, Supreme Court precedents require very specific, provable allegations to determine constitutional overreach on the parts of police officers on the beat.
"In essence, you've got three Mexican-American men hanging out on the street, and the question is whether that's probable cause for police to believe something is up?" says Norm Pattis, a criminal defense lawyer in Connecticut. "The police officers are going to say, 'We observed three men in a known narcotics area, we suspected foul play, and we went to talk to them.' "
Moreover, many Americans, including presidential candidates like Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann, consider Arpaio a “hero” for doing the job critics claim US immigration authorities won't do. Others see the DOJ allegations against Arpaio as a politicized attack from the Justice Department, intended to bolster President Obama's relationship with Hispanic voters.
Arpaio “takes great pains to make sure that he doesn't discriminate against people based on race,” Rep. Steve King (R) of Iowa, vice-chairman of the House Immigration subcommittee, said this week. “It's not a profiling operation going on that I can see.”
Besides Thursday’s court hearing in Phoenix, another federal judge will hear the DOJ's case against Arpaio unless he decides by Jan. 4 to work out a settlement on the racial profiling charges. A federal grand jury has also been investigating whether Arpaio and his deputies abuse their power.
Four reasons why illegal immigration across the US-Mexico border has dropped
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NEW YORK – When New York undercover officers and informants were infiltrating a mosque in Queens in 2006, they failed to notice the increasingly radical sentiments of a young man who prayed there. Police also kept tabs on a Muslim student group at Queens College, but missed a member's growing anti-Americanism.
Those two men, Najibullah Zazi at the mosque and Adis Medunjanin at the school, would go on to be accused of plotting a subway bombing that officials have called the most serious terrorist threat to the United States since Sept. 11, 2001.
Ever since The Associated Press began revealing New York Police Department spying programs on mosques, student groups, Muslim businesses and communities, those activities have been stoutly defended by police and supporters as having foiled a list of planned attacks.
Recently, for instance, when three members of Congress suggested an inquiry into those programs, Republican Rep. Peter King of New York rallied to the NYPD's defense.
"Under Commissioner Ray Kelly's leadership, at least 14 attacks by Islamic terrorists have been prevented by the NYPD," King said.
But a closer review of the cases reveals a more complicated story.
The list cited by King includes plans that may never have existed as well as plots the NYPD had little or no hand in disrupting. According to a review of public documents, materials obtained by the AP and interviews with dozens of city and federal officials, the most controversial NYPD spying programs produced mixed results. The officials interviewed spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk publicly.
There indeed have been successes, such as the 2004 plot uncovered by the NYPD to bomb the Herald Square subway station in Manhattan.
And there have been failures, like Zazi and Medunjanin, who were exactly the kind of people police intended to spot when they developed the spying programs.
And there were other efforts that compiled data on innocent people but produced no meaningful results at all.
Kelly has spent hundreds of millions of dollars transforming the department into one of the nation's most aggressive domestic intelligence agencies. In a city that still hurts from 9/11 and still sees a hole in the ground near where the World Trade Center stood, people have had little interest in questioning whether that effort has been effective. City lawmakers, for instance, learned about many of the department's secretive programs from the AP.
For New Yorkers, the result is that fear of another terrorist attack is used to justify spying on entire neighborhoods. And the absence of another attack is held up as evidence that it works.
___
Some of the NYPD intelligence programs were born out of fear and desperation. After 9/11, police reached for whatever might work.
One idea was to use informants to trawl local mosques and monitor imams to watch for signs of radicalization. Though the NYPD denies the term exists, several former officials said the informants were known as "mosque crawlers." They would listen in mosques and report back to their handlers.
It was the CIA that first developed that idea overseas and came up with the name. The NYPD program was a version of that effort, according to former CIA officials who were familiar with it. Like many interviewed about the NYPD, they insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss intelligence programs.
Former senior CIA officials said the mosque crawlers were ineffective.
In New York, however, the program persisted. With help from the mosque crawlers and secret NYPD squads, documents show, police intelligence analysts scrutinized every mosque in and around the city and infiltrated dozens. The monitoring of imams included even those who worked closely with police and preached against violence.

These days, however, fewer imams are under investigation, an official said.

The NYPD has pledged to do all it can to prevent terrorism. So when a new intelligence program is conceived, several current and former officials said, there is little discussion of its prospects for success.

NYPD intelligence chief David Cohen, a former top CIA official, was asked about that in September 2005 during a deposition in a lawsuit over the department's policy of randomly searching the bags of subway riders. Civil rights lawyers asked how police knew whether a program deterred terrorism.

"If it works against them, then it works for us," Cohen replied. "That is deterrent to one degree or other."

Cohen was asked, How do you know it works? Is there some police methodology?

"I never bothered to look," Cohen said. "It doesn't exist, as far as I could tell."

At times, police officials themselves have raised concerns about intelligence-gathering programs. In about 2008, for instance, police began monitoring everyone in the city who legally changed names. Anyone who might be a Muslim convert or appeared to be Americanizing his or her name was investigated and personal information was put into police databases.

Current and former officials say it produced no results. Police still receive the list of names of people who change their names, court officials said. But one official said the program is on hold while its effectiveness is evaluated.

Kelly has said the NYPD does not trawl neighborhoods and instead only pursues leads. But those leads can be ambiguous, officials say, and can be used to justify widespread surveillance programs.

For example, the NYPD began the "Moroccan Initiative," a secret program that chronicled Moroccan neighborhoods, after suicide bombings killed 45 people in the Moroccan city of Casablanca in 2003, and after Moroccan terrorists were linked to the 2005 train bombing in Madrid. New York police put people, including U.S. citizens, under surveillance and catalogued where they ate, worked and prayed.

"What we were doing is following leads," Kelly told City Council members during an October hearing when asked about that program. "The Moroccan issue that was mentioned had to do with a specific investigation."

But officials involved in the program said there was no specific threat to New York from Moroccans. The Moroccan Initiative thwarted no plots and led to no arrests, officials said.

___

Much of the information in the Moroccan Initiative was gathered by a secretive squad known as the Demographics Unit. Using plainclothes officers known as "rakers," the squad infiltrated local businesses and community organizations looking for trouble or "hot spots." Their daily reports helped create searchable databases of life in New York's Muslim neighborhoods.

One NYPD official said that unit identified a Brooklyn bookstore as a hot spot. That led police to open an investigation and send in an informant and undercover detective, ultimately leading to the arrests of two men in the Herald Square case.

The work of that secret unit, the official said, helped the NYPD arrest a Pakistani immigrant named Shahawar Matin Siraj and foiled an attack.

For years, police have said publicly that the Herald Square case began with a tip but have not elaborated. Siraj's lawyer, Martin Stolar, said prosecutors provided no documents related to the Demographics Unit at trial.

Siraj was convicted and sentenced to 30 years in federal prison in 2007. But defense attorneys, and even some inside the NYPD intelligence unit, said police had coaxed the men into making incriminating statements and there was no proof Siraj ever obtained explosives.

The case is arguably the NYPD's greatest counterterrorism success. But there are others.

The NYPD played an important role in the case against Carlos Amonte and Mohammed Alessa, two New Jersey men who pleaded guilty to charges they tried to leave the country in 2010 to join the al-Qaida-linked terrorist group al-Shabaab. The FBI long had been aware of the two men but had been unable to win their trust with an informant or undercover agent, federal officials said. The NYPD, with its deep roster of Muslim officers, provided the undercover officer who ultimately succeeded in winning their confidence.

When the NYPD's effectiveness is questioned, the department's most ardent supporters frequently point to a long list of terrorist plots said to have targeted New York since 9/11. The list often is described as plots thwarted by the NYPD.

"One can't argue with results," said Peter Vallone, the New York city councilman who heads the Public Safety Committee. "The results of this gargantuan effort have been that at least 13 planned attacks on New York City have been prevented."

In reality, however, the NYPD played little or no role in preventing many of those attacks.

Some, like a cyanide plot against the subway system, were discovered among evidence obtained overseas but were never set into motion. Others, like the 2006 plot to blow up U.S.-bound airliners using liquid explosives, were thwarted by U.S. and international authorities, and plans never got off the ground.

And some, like the 2008 subway plot, went unnoticed by the NYPD despite the money and manpower devoted to monitoring Muslim communities, according to the NYPD files obtained by the AP. The files along with interviews show the NYPD was monitoring Zazi's mosque, and also the Muslim student organization Medunjanin attended. Zazi and Medunjanin were friends and had been praying together regularly since 9th grade. As the years passed, Zazi grew increasingly upset about civilians killed by the U.S. military in Afghanistan; Medunjanin was outraged by the way Muslims were treated at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, and he promoted jihad at the mosque and after basketball games with friends, according to court documents. He said his friends didn't have the "balls" to do anything.

The plot was discovered after U.S. intelligence intercepted an email revealing that Zazi was trying to make a bomb.

Those programs, meanwhile, have widened the chasm between the police and the city's Muslims, a community the Obama administration says is a crucial partner in the effort to prevent another terrorist attack. Fed up with a decade of being under scrutiny, some Muslim groups now urge against going directly to police when someone hears radical, anti-American talk.

They reason that the person is probably a police informant.

___

Each morning at the NYPD, Cohen meets his senior officers to discuss the latest intelligence before he briefs Kelly. There is no bigger target for terrorists than New York, the nation's largest city and the heart of the financial and media world. Cohen repeatedly reminds his officers that, on any given day, they might be the only thing standing in the way of disaster. It's a mentality that officials say underscores the seriousness of the threat and the NYPD's commitment to the effort.

Several current and former officials point to that pressure to explain why programs rarely get scrapped, even when there are doubts about their effectiveness. Nobody wants to be the one to abandon a program, only to witness a successful attack that it might have prevented.

At the federal level, intelligence programs are reviewed by Congress, inspectors general and other watchdogs. The NYPD faces no such scrutiny from the City Council or city auditors. Federal officials, too, have been reluctant to question the effectiveness of the NYPD, despite spending more than $1.6 billion in federal money on the department since 9/11.

After House Democrats circulated a letter signed by 34 members of Congress recently asking for a federal review of the NYPD's intelligence programs, King, the New York Republican, accused them of smearing the police department.

The Justice Department under Eric Holder repeatedly has sidestepped questions about what it thinks about the NYPD programs revealed by the AP. Some Democrats in Congress have asked prosecutors to investigate. Since August, the department has said only that it is reviewing those requests.

During the Bush administration, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and senior Justice Department officials received a briefing in New York about the NYPD's capabilities, according to a former federal official who attended.

Gonzales left convinced, the official said, that the federal government could not replicate those programs. The NYPD had more manpower and operated under different rules than the federal government, the Justice Department concluded. And the mayor had accepted the political risk that came with the programs.

It was a policy briefing only, the former official said, meaning the federal government did not review the NYPD programs to determine whether they were lawful.

The NYPD's terrorist cases include ones the federal government has declined to prosecute. Last year, a grand jury declined to indict Ahmed Ferhani and Mohamed Mamdouh on the most serious charge initially brought against them, a high-level terror conspiracy count that carried the potential for life in prison without parole. They were indicted on lesser state terrorism and hate crime charges, including one punishable by up to 32 years behind bars.

Last month, NYPD detectives arrested Jose Pimentel on terrorism-related charges. A state grand jury has yet to indict him on those charges. Federal and city law enforcement officials who reviewed the case told the AP there were concerns that Pimentel lacked the mental capacity to act on his own. The NYPD informant's drug use in the case also created serious issues, the officials said.

FBI Director Robert Mueller has tried to mute criticisms of the NYPD. On a visit to the Newark, N.J., FBI office a few years ago, current and former officials recall, agents asked Mueller how the NYPD was allowed to operate undercover in the state, with no FBI coordination. Mueller replied that it was a reality the bureau would have to live with, the officials said.

There will always be some debate over the effectiveness of intelligence-gathering programs, particularly ones that butt up against civil liberties. Nearly a decade after the last terrorist suspect was waterboarded in a secret CIA prison in 2003, for instance, politicians and experts still debate whether the tactic gleaned valuable information and whether it could have been obtained without such harsh methods.

During the Bush administration, officials repeatedly pointed to the years without a successful terrorist attack to justify the most contentious programs from the war on terrorism. Vice President Dick Cheney used the years without an attack to defend the secret National Security Agency wiretapping program. Gonzales credited the USA Patriot Act and military actions abroad. And President George W. Bush said the years without an attack validated his polices.

"While there's room for honest and healthy debate about the decisions I've made — and there's plenty of debate," Bush said in the final days of his presidency, "there can be no debate about the results in keeping America safe."

When questioned about its own programs, the NYPD has made the same arguments.

During the 2005 deposition over the subway searches, lawyers pressed Cohen to explain how the NYPD could be so sure its programs really worked.

"They haven't attacked us," he said.

___

Contact the Washington investigative team at DCInvestigations(at)ap.org

Follow Apuzzo, Goldman and Sullivan at http://twitter.com/mattapuzzo and http://twitter.com/goldmandc and http://twitter.com/esullivanap

Will New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez be the next vice president?

“Don’t know her, but on paper I think she looks very impressive,” veteran GOP strategist Mike Murphy, a one-time aide to former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, told The Daily Caller.

A conservative former prosecutor, Martinez is the most popular of the new Republican governors elected last fall, with an approval rating at or above 50 percent in a traditionally liberal state.

“What makes Martinez’s numbers so noteworthy is that she’s doing it as a Republican in a state that voted for Barack Obama by 15 points in 2008 and appears ready to do so again next year,” wrote Public Policy Polling, a Democratic-leaning firm, on Wednesday. “In addition to universal support from Republicans, an unusually high 32 percent of Democrats give her good marks and independents approve of her by a 48/38 margin as well.”

“[Florida Sen.] Marco Rubio (40 percent approval in Florida) and [Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (45 percentВ approval in Virginia) get most of the VP buzz, but Martinez has much more impressive numbers in her home state,” the report continued.

In addition to her popularity, Martinez is also the first Hispanic woman of either party to be elected governor of a state. Come next November, the Latino vote will be heavily contested as the White House seeks to win over enough Hispanics to compensate for President Obama’s low approval ratings among white voters and as the GOP looks to make inroads with America’s fastest growing minority group.

Martinez has said she has no interest in being the Republican vice presidential candidate in 2012, and an aide to the governor told TheDC that her position wouldn’t change. But, as in the case with Rubio and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, anything short of a Sherman-esque refusal is unlikely to dampen speculation among her fans.

Adam Brickley, a conservative blogger widely credited with first floating the idea of nominating then-Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin for the vice presidential spot in 2008, told TheDC that putting Martinez on the ticket would be “a good idea.”

“She’s certainly one of the more viable options,” Brickley told TheDC. “A lot of Hispanic people have been bandied about as options, and she would certainly be on the short list considering she’s popular, effective and conservative. She’s got everything she needs, so she’s somebody I’d consider.”

While New Mexico only has five electoral votes, it’s an important swing state. President George W. Bush lost the state by a razor-thin margin in 2000 — the closest election in modern times — but won it in 2004.

Should Martinez join the Republican ticket next year, chances are she won’t be the only New Mexican running for executive office. Former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson is expected to declare his candidacy for the Libertarian nomination next week, and is currently polling at 23 percent support in the state against Romney and Obama.

Follow Will on Twitter

Read more stories from The Daily Caller
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Martinez-mentum: Popular New Mexico governor could be on VP shortlist

MIAMI – Deborah Labrada was giddy as she stood in line at Miami-Dade International Airport, waiting to fly to the town of Guantanamo, Cuba.
It is the place she visits roughly once a year to see her grandfather, aunts and uncles and cousins. She still considers it a second home, even though she has lived nearly all her 17 years in South Florida.
"The first thing I'm going to do when I get there is cry, and then give everyone hugs," she said Monday, as she leaned against her cart of bags secured in the festive, neon green airport plastic wrap. The duffel bags — cheaper to ship through than heavier, traditional luggage — bulged with food, over the counter medicine, toys and other necessities hard to obtain in Cuba's struggling economy.
Labrada was among thousands of Cuban-Americans flying to the island this week to celebrate the new year. These types of annual pilgrimages would have been sharply curtailed if two South Florida, GOP Cuban-American congressmen had succeeded in returning to the Bush-era limit of once every three years. The measure backed by U.S. Reps. Mario Diaz-Balart and David Rivera was tucked into the congressional spending bill, but Republican leaders jettisoned it last week as part of a last minute compromise.
Labrada said Monday she didn't appreciate the effort to restore the old restriction.
"I think it was very disappointing, because the least we can do is help our own families," she said. "We should go and take advantage of the opportunity to bring them things and help any way we can."
President Barack Obama allowed unlimited family visits by Cuban-Americans shortly after taking office and removed the $1,200 annual cap on remittances. Exact numbers are difficult to come by, but the Cuban government said earlier this year it expected about 500,000 U.S. visitors annually, the vast majority of them Cuban-Americans. Cuban officials did not immediately respond to requests for corresponding statistics from past years, but they have previously said there were nearly 300,000 visits from Cubans living outside the island in 2009. It was not immediately clear whether that included repeat travelers.
Many Cuban-Americans, like Labrada have already been traveling to Cuba for years. They just had to go through special church trips or through a third country to get around the three year ban.
Of nearly a dozen families interviewed at the Miami Airport, all but two said they'd last visited the island in the last year or two.
"I don't think it should be any different for us than it is for anyone else going to visit family in any other country," Labrada said.
Except it is different.
Most Cubans who come to the U.S. are able to immigrate here as a result of U.S. policy that views them as victims of political oppression. And as Diaz-Balart is quick to note, not everyone can travel. While average Cubans may be able to visit family off the island, their visa requests can easily be denied. The Cuban government has refused to allow blogger and internationally renowned activist Yoani Sanchez to travel to the U.S. and Europe to accept human rights awards.
But Professor Andy Gomez of the University of Miami's Institute for Cuba and Cuban-American Studies says the flood of travelers isn't likely to stop any time soon, and he says trying to stem the flow makes no sense.
"I was at the Miami airport last week, and there were flights on the hour," he said. "Stopping it? Impossible. It is the people-to-people contact we want and need, and it is already happening."
Most of the flights to Cuba still originate from South Florida, with nearly 300,000 people departing to the island just from Miami International Airport in 2010. Numbers for 2011 were not yet available. But they also now leave from places such as Tampa, Fla.; Oakland, Calif.; Los Angeles, New York City, Atlanta and Puerto Rico.
Flights to Cuba from the Tampa International Airport began in early September after a 50-year hiatus, and local officials are banking on it as a new source of revenue. Airport officials said about 45,000 passengers will travel the route in 2012.
Manny Martinez, a 21-year-old Tampa resident, was standing at the back of the long line four hours before Tuesday's flight. He said he's spending two weeks on the island and staying with family. Like Labrada, he said Cuba still feels like home, even though he's lived in the U.S. for 11 years.
When asked to name the first thing he would do once he arrived, he laughed.

"Party," he said. "Just go out with my old friends and have fun."

Not everyone goes just to see family.

Gomez said his maintenance man just returned from a trip to Cuba to visit his dentist because he has no health care insurance in the U.S. and can't afford the visit here. Meanwhile, media reports are on the rise in South Florida about Cuban-Americans involved in Medicare fraud fleeing to the island.

Back at the Miami airport, Isabel Baez, 39, teared up as she talked about visiting her family in Santiago de Cuba. Yet, she said she knows of people who also go as "mules," taking much needed provisions for others on the island who are not relatives, sometimes even for resale.

"But most of those people still go to see their family," she said. "They bring the packages as a way to get a free ticket."

___

Associated Press writer Tamara Lush contributed to this report from Tampa, Fla.

We interrupt this seamy, scandal-plagued, cash-grab-of-a-college-football season for the following public-service message:
Matt Barkley is staying in school.
The announcement Thursday that Barkley will return to Southern California for his senior season isn't really a tale about great sacrifice. He knows NFL-ready quarterback prospects almost always hold their value and he'll likely get his millions soon enough.
It isn't even the most uplifting story in the game this week. That would be Eric LeGrand's appearance on the cover of Sports Illustrated commemorating the best sports moment of 2011, when he led his Rutgers teammates onto the field in a wheelchair for a home game in late October, little more than a year after he was paralyzed playing against Army.
Barkley's decision isn't the newsiest development this week, either, That would be the wrist slap the NCAA gave Ohio State, whose clueless president and shameless athletic director whined that the school had punished itself enough after learning that former coach Jim Tressel lied and cheated his way through the entire 2010 season.
But Barkley's story might be the most surprising, considering how rarely loyalty takes hold across the college football landscape, including the very spot on which he was standing.
Not quite two years ago, Pete Carroll, the coach who recruited Barkley, left for Seattle and the NFL rather than stick around and face the harsh penalties the NCAA was about to levy on Southern California for a host of violations on his watch. The coach Barkley played for the past two seasons, Lane Kiffin, didn't exactly cover himself in glory, either, for the way he departed Tennessee — abruptly — to take Carroll's place.
Barkley and his teammates bore the brunt of the postseason bans and all that upheaval and decided to come back anyway.
"I am staying so I can finish what I started," Barkley said to cheers inside USC's Heritage Hall.
More than a few pro scouts shook their heads at that moment, though, recalling how Matt Leinart made the same call to a similar round of cheers a handful of years earlier.
"It's another year with my pals, no matter how it turns out," Leinart said a few days after his decision. "But I'll tell you what: I didn't want to look back 10 or 20 years down the road and find out I passed on the chance to be a part of something really special."
He was coming off USC's back-to-back national championships and a Heisman Trophy-winning season. He didn't duplicate either achievement in the one that followed and his draft stock tumbled when Texas quarterback Vince Young, who outplayed Leinart in a thrilling Bowl Championship Series finale, declared himself eligible for the same 2006 draft. Leinart, a lock for the top spot a year earlier, tumbled to No. 10 and wound up costing himself millions.
If there's any consolation for Barkley in that example, it's that Leinart, despite proving himself a barely adequate backup in the pros, still made millions. Plus, like Leinart, Barkley will be returning to a Trojans squad with a very realistic chance to win a national championship next season and a strong enough supporting cast — on offense, anyway — to get him a Heisman Trophy.
USC finished 10-2 and climbed all the way to No. 5 before shutting things down for the season. While Barkley loses his best protector on the offensive line — left tackle Matt Kalil already declared for the NFL draft, where he could go as high as No. 2 — the quarterback will reunite with receivers Marqise Lee and Robert Woods, a tandem that might be the nation's best.
We won't know how things turn out, of course, for a while. But it's hardly the bad business decision those NFL scouts panned it as, if only because Stanford's Andrew Luck made the same one at the end of last season and cemented his place at the top of next spring's NFL draft.
And the quartet of quarterbacks who did the same dating back to Peyton Manning in 1997 — Leinart, Tim Tebow (2009) and Jake Locker (2010) — all were gone by the end of the first round the following year.
But minimizing the risk that Barkley is taking shouldn't stop us from marveling at the loyalty he showed to a school and a sport that always rewards coaches and administrators handsomely, but not always the kids who make it all possible.
The lessons the sport has been teaching the past few years — from fleeing coaches to shady conference realignment schemes to university presidents only too willing to look the other way — is that it's every man for himself. By returning to USC for one more year, Barkley signaled he was still about something else.

Bravo.

"That's not an easy decision," said Kiffin, who won't get a better present this Christmas. "Not many people would do what Matt has done."

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Jim Litke is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at jlitke(at)ap.org. Follow him at http://Twitter.com/JimLitke.