Klum ranks 'AGT' judges from 'goofy' to Stern

TV

Ree Hines TODAY contributor

13 hours ago

As one of the new judges on "America's Got Talent," Heidi Klum has been extra busy this season. In addition to reviewing the talent on stage, she's also been assessing the talents of her fellow panelists.

How do they rank? Klum revealed her thoughts on Howie Mandel, Mel B and Howard Stern during a Monday morning visit to TODAY.

As for Mandel, she considers him the lovable, laughable "goofy" one of the bunch, and that's had an unexpected impact on how she evaluates some of the contestants.

"The stuff that comes out of his mouth, he just makes me laugh all the time," she said. "There's a lot of comedians also that try out on 'America's Got Talent,' so I'm always judging them next to him. ? I'm like, 'You're not as good as Howie Mandel.'"

Klum describes her fellow newbie judge Mel B as "strict but fair." And Stern? Well, he's living up to his name.

"But he's also right in what he says," she insisted. "I do like him a lot. He's very much a lamb behind the scenes but when the red light is on and they're recording, then he gets quite stern."

Since joining the show, Klum's found herself being a bit tough too -- even with the youngest contestants.

"A kid comes on to the stage, and I'm always rooting them," she explained. "I always hope that they're going to be good, especially when they sing and they're off. I'm like, 'Oh no! Now it's going to be my turn, and I'm going to have to tell the kids truth.' I feel like I have to though. I'm a judge, and I can't say, 'You sounded amazing,' if they didn't."

See what Klum -- and the rest of the panel -- has to say when the next episode of "America's Got Talent" airs Tuesday night at 8 p.m. on NBC.

Source: http://www.today.com/entertainment/heidi-klum-ranks-americas-got-talent-judges-goofy-stern-6C10346274

W S B H c mitt romney mark zuckerberg

Multitasking updated in iOS 7 with new card-style interface

iOS 7 is bringing with is webOS style cards for multitasking instead of the current switcher we've had since the debut of multitasking in iOS 4.

Instead of the usual double tapping of the Home button followed by holding down on app icons in order to clear them out of the system tray, you'll now be able to swipe cards upwards in order to get rid of them.

We've all been asking for better multitasking support for a while now and this should make it much easier to manage and get kill apps faster and more efficiently. Apple also claims the new implementation of multitasking for all apps won't kill battery life any more than the old implementation.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/1BWXzYFAyuU/story01.htm

secret service prostitution 4 20 george zimmerman sheree whitfield weather dallas pat summitt real housewives of atlanta

American Hero         

William Carlos Williams

Courtesy of the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library/Yale University/Wikimedia Commons

What might an American hero-poem be? Longfellow invented literary folk-narratives, Whitman invented himself. Later poets as different as John Ashbery and Elizabeth Bishop have elevated ordinary American language and life by incorporating sly, almost covert allusions and quotations from the historical, European voices of (for example) Andrew Marvell, William Wordsworth, Charles Baudelaire: a way of finding the heroic element in the ways and echoing accents of culture itself.

An early poem by William Carlos Williams gives us a heroic life more familiar and more modern than Longfellow's ?Paul Revere? or ?Hiawatha,? more pragmatic and driven than Whitman. The story he tells is the ordinary and remarkable American immigrant story.

One thing I like about this poem is the way it is hard to follow. I recognize not only the immigration story, but the confusing, disorderly, partial nature of that story as well. Williams' account of his grandmother's life involves not only the quirks of displacement, but a messy cloud of marriages and separations, custody struggles and dislocations, betrayals and persistence, all compounding one another. That is, this poem's story, and its abrupt, condensed manner of telling the story, resembles most of the American family stories I know, and the way I have heard them. Specifically, personally, the poem reminds me of the difficulty I had, as a child, following the knotted, fragmentary narratives of my grandparents and their parents, siblings, mates, children.

Like most family trees, the one that includes the life of Emily Dickinson Wellcome has more interruptions, twists, and enigmas than clear symmetries. Williams' almost impatient tone, sharp and recklessly quick, is part of his tribute to that woman, the poem's hero. Hers is a story of meaning and intention that persist through the turmoil of her odyssey.

In a nontraditional way, Williams accomplishes some traditional purposes of poetry: to recount a hero's deeds and to celebrate the ancestors. The genealogy is a tangle, far from plain?and the American expression of the poem's final two syllables is, gloriously, as plain as can be.

In another prolonged journey, this is the final installment of Slate's weekly poems, begun with the first issue, in 1996. Seventeen years as poetry editor: a long and pleasurable run. Links to Classic Poem discussions, and eventually some new ones, will appear on my personal website, www.robertpinskypoet.com. And I will be writing for the magazine from time to time. My heartfelt thanks to Slate's founding editor, Michael Kinsley, and his successors?and to the many Slate poetry readers, especially those who have appeared in The Fray and Comments section.

Click the arrow on the audio player to?hear Robert Pinsky read??Dedication for a Plot of Ground.? You can also download the recording.

?Dedication for a Plot of Ground?

This plot of ground
facing the waters of this inlet
is dedicated to the living presence of
Emily Dickinson Wellcome
who was born in England; married;
lost her husband and with
her five year old son
sailed for New York in a two-master;
was driven to the Azores;
ran adrift on Fire Island shoal,
met her second husband
in a Brooklyn boarding house,
went with him to Puerto Rico
bore three more children, lost
her second husband, lived hard
for eight years in St. Thomas,
Puerto Rico, San Domingo, followed
the eldest son to New York,
lost her daughter, lost her ?baby,?
seized the two boys of
the oldest son by the second marriage
mothered them?they being
motherless? fought for them
against the other grandmother
and the aunts, brought them here
summer after summer, defended
herself here against thieves,
storms, sun, fire,
against flies, against girls
that came smelling about, against
drought, against weeds, storm-tides,
neighbors, weasels that stole her chickens,
against the weakness of her own hands,
against the growing strength of
the boys, against wind, against
the stones, against trespassers,
against rents, against her own mind.

She grubbed this earth with her own hands,
domineered over this grass plot,
blackguarded her oldest son
into buying it, lived here fifteen years,
attained a final loneliness and?

If you can bring nothing to this place
but your carcass, keep out.

Source: http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/classic_poems/2013/06/william_carlos_williams_dedication_for_a_plot_of_ground_robert_pinsky_on.html

hbo Buckwild Steve Alford Phil Spector Phil Ramone louisville Kevin Ware Injury Video

China is outsourcing carbon: Key findings on regional, global impact of trade on environment

June 10, 2013 ? In the wake of concerns over climate change and other emergent environmental issues, both individuals and governments are examining the impact of consumer and producer behavior and policies. In two new studies, three researchers from the University of Maryland's Department of Geographical Sciences publish groundbreaking findings on the environmental impact of globalization, production and trade on both regional and international scales.

Professor Klaus Hubacek and researchers Yang Yu and Kuishuang Feng's "Tele-connecting local consumption to global land use" appeared in Global Environmental Change and is available now online. Hubacek and Feng, with co-authors from leading institutions worldwide, published "Outsourcing CO₂ within China" in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"Tele-connecting local consumption to global land use"

As local consumption is increasingly met by global supply chains, often involving great geographical distances, the impact of consumer behavior on the environment is becoming increasingly apparent. Hubacek, Yu and Feng's research concretely connects local consumption to global land use through tracking global commodity and value chains via international trade flows. Specifically, they have zeroed in on land use attributed to "unusual" sectors, including services, machinery and equipment, and construction.

Their findings show how developed countries, such as the United States, consume a large amount of goods and services from both domestic and international markets, and thus impose pressure on their domestic land resources and displace land in other countries, creating an impact on how land is used, and consuming land that could potentially be used in more environmentally friendly ways. For example, 33 percent of total U.S. land use for consumption purposes is displaced from other countries, which is actually at the lower end of the global spectrum: the ratio becomes much larger for the EU (more than 50 percent) and Japan (92 percent).

The researchers have also illustrated the vast gap between consumption habits of rich and relatively poor countries. Their research shows that rich countries tend to displace land by consuming non-agricultural products, such as services, clothing and household appliances, which account for more than 50 percent of their total land displacement. For developing economies, such as African countries, the share of land use for non-agricultural products is much lower, with an average of seven percent.

"In addition, the emerging economies and population giants, China and India, are likely to further increase their appetite for land from other countries, such as Africa, Russia and Latin America, to satisfy their own land needs driven by their fast economic growth and the needs and lifestyles of their growing populations," Hubacek said. "Obviously, there are significant global consequences when these types of demands exceed the supply of land. We are all competing for the same resources. Land can be used to produce factories for fashion items or food for people or important ecosystems for non-human species."

Hubacek said the very countries that are putting the most strain on the global stage and on developing countries must emerge as leaders to address this problem. He believes that the U.S., as well as the EU, Japan, China and India, should play a key role in reducing these environmental impacts through an international framework.

Yu, Feng and Hubacek hope their findings and recommended next steps can be applied to other timely environmental problems, and allow them to link local environmental degradation to specific groups of consumers within a country.

"Outsourcing CO₂ within China"

Going beyond recent studies demonstrating that the high standard of living enjoyed by people in the richest countries often comes at the expense of CO₂ emissions produced with technologies of low efficiency in less affluent, developing countries, Hubacek, Feng and their coauthors have now shown that this dynamic can exist within a single country's borders. Focusing on China, the world's largest CO₂ emitter, the authors illustrate that rich regions consuming and exporting high-value goods and services depend upon production of low-cost and emission-intensive goods and services from poorer regions, creating an environmental burden on those poorer regions.

Tracking CO₂ emissions embodied in products traded among Chinese provinces and internationally, the researchers found that 57 percent of China's emissions are related to goods that are consumed outside of the province where they are produced. For instance, up to 80 percent of the emissions related to goods consumed in the highly developed coastal provinces are imported from less developed provinces in central and western China where many low value added but high carbon-intensive goods are produced.

"The carbon intensity of imports to the affluent coastal provinces is much greater than that of their exports -- in some cases by a factor of four, because many of these imports originate in western provinces where the technologies are highly inefficient, the economic structure is energy intensive and heavily dependent on coal," Hubacek said. "The more ambitious CO₂ mitigation targets set for the coastal provinces may lead to additional outsourcing and carbon leakage if such provinces respond by importing even more products from less developed provinces where climate policy is less demanding."

The researchers warn that without policy attention to this sort of interprovincial carbon leakage, the less developed provinces will struggle to meet their emissions intensity targets while the more developed provinces might achieve their own targets by further outsourcing. Consumption-based accounting of emissions can thus inform effective and equitable climate policy within China.

"The same effect occurs on a global scale, as richer countries outsource polluting industries and manufacturing to developing countries -- including China -- where costs are lower and regulations may be more lax," says Feng, "we must reduce CO₂ emissions, not just outsource them."

"Developed regions and countries need to take some responsibility, providing technology support or investment to promote cleaner, greener technology in less-developed regions. Current attempts to tackle climate change may simply encourage richer countries to outsource their emissions to poorer regions of the world, placing an unfair and unmanageable burden on those regions," he says.

Hubacek hopes the research can be used to inform consumers, as well as policy makers, about the carbon consequences of their choices.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_science/~3/8U2bj2gpvXM/130610152131.htm

Amanda Bynes Topless reese witherspoon joakim noah Of Monsters and Men boxing news mint julep silk

Toronto mayor's other 'crack' scandal: dividing urban-suburban residents

While Toronto Mayor Rob Ford has been under fire for a video allegedly showing him smoking crack, critics say his most offensive behavior has been his polarization of the city.

By Lygia Navarro,?Contributor / June 9, 2013

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford answers questions at a news conference in Toronto last month. Mr. Ford has transfixed North Americans since published accounts surfaced of a video that apparently shows him puffing from a glass crack pipe.

Michelle Siu/The Canadian Press/AP

Enlarge

The streets of Toronto in early summer are a postcard vision of the world?s expectation of Canada: Friendly, sun-hungry Canadians lounge in the city?s plentiful parks, and stroll on the preternaturally clean sidewalks.

Skip to next paragraph

' + google_ads[0].line2 + '
' + google_ads[0].line3 + '

'; } else if (google_ads.length > 1) { ad_unit += ''; } } document.getElementById("ad_unit").innerHTML += ad_unit; google_adnum += google_ads.length; return; } var google_adnum = 0; google_ad_client = "pub-6743622525202572"; google_ad_output = 'js'; google_max_num_ads = '1'; google_feedback = "on"; google_ad_type = "text"; // google_adtest = "on"; google_image_size = '230x105'; google_skip = '0'; // -->

Subscribe Today to the Monitor

Click Here for your FREE 30 DAYS of
The Christian Science Monitor
Weekly Digital Edition

Yet the biggest news in Canada?s largest city veers dramatically from the boring-but-polite Canuck stereotype that Torontonians suffer from abroad. Last month, news broke that the conservative mayor, Rob Ford, was caught on video making homophobic and racist comments ? and smoking crack cocaine.

The uproar is far from the first that Mr. Ford has provoked. Other major incidents include racist and sexist remarks, calls to police by family members reporting threats from Ford, his own expletive-filled 911 call when a journalist tried to interview him at home, reading and talking on his cell phone while driving, being kicked out of a military gala and a Maple Leafs game for drunken behavior, and allegedly groping a colleague, among other highlights.

Yet, for his opponents, Ford?s most offensive behavior has been his polarization of the city, pitting the more conservative suburbs ? full of Ford?s loyal supporters, who call themselves "Ford Nation" ? against the more liberal downtown.

Urban-suburban divide

While American cities have had their Buddy Ciancis and Marion Barrys, the mayor of Toronto holds a unique level of responsibility: running Canada's sixth largest government and North America's fourth largest city, a dynamic, diverse metropolis where more high-rises are being built than anywhere else in the Western hemisphere.

The city?s suburb-downtown family feud began before Ford?s political entrance, when his father was a conservative Ontario parliamentarian.

In 1998, then-head of Ontario Mike Harris forced what analysts have called a ?shotgun wedding,? merging Toronto with five adjoining suburbs, which resulted in hikes in taxes and public transit fares as the city became responsible for providing services to a drastically larger geographic area.

Although residents, the Toronto mayor, and leaders of four of the five suburbs protested loudly, the "amalgamation" passed, granting conservatives a larger percentage of parliament seats ? and the likelihood that the new gerrymandered version of Toronto would elect conservative suburban mayors.

That is just what happened in 2010 when Ford came to power by playing on the urban-suburban divide. During his mayoral campaign, Ford railed against taxes and ?the gravy train? of public spending, a popular sentiment among suburbanites whose time spent downtown was often limited to commuting by car to work and cheering at hockey or baseball games.

Driving debate

And Ford has remained markedly anti-urban in office, which impacts daily life for millions. Despite leading a cosmopolitan city that imagines itself in a European mold, Toronto lags in walkability and quality of life for urbanites.

In particular, Ford has adamantly opposed public transportation funding, even though Toronto?s system is so outdated and underfunded that the average round trip commute is 98 minutes per day ? and this in a city almost half the size of New York City, where the average commute is two-thirds as long. The gridlock caused by competing cars and streetcars costs the city $6 billion in productivity each year, according to the Toronto Region Board of Trade.

And all but the bravest Torontonians can forget about biking to work: The city has the nation?s highest rate of cyclist collisions. Only a small handful of streets have bike lanes ? not including a major thoroughfare where Ford applauded the removal of a bike lane last year ? and police often pass by taxis and cars parked in the middle of those lanes.

This spring, Ford rallied against a proposed city hall bike station with showers, and while a city councillor, he said that if bikers were killed on the road, ?it?s their own fault.?

?For 25 years,? according to University of Toronto civil engineering professor Eric Miller, ?we haven?t been building much in the way of new transit infrastructure in the city of Toronto. So we face a huge infrastructure deficit. That was the context in which Rob Ford arrived on the scene. He doesn?t believe that roads are for transit. Roads are for cars. They?re not for people. They?re not for bicycles. He has turned transit into a wedge issue with the electorate.?

Ford Nation

Yet despite the boorish behavior and accompanying uproars, Ford?s loyal support base has held firm. After an initial post-election honeymoon phase and subsequent slides, Ford?s overall approval ratings have wavered little since September 2011.

In particular, compared to the descent in voter support downtown, suburban belief in Ford has stayed steady. His followers range from Somali and Italian immigrants who cite his support of their communities while a city councilor, to former opponents who approve of his hands-on approach to solving municipal problems, to Torontonians happy with Ford?s mayoral push against liberalism and in favor of lower taxes and smaller government.

Ford Nation is also a cult of Ford?s personality. Facebook supporters hail his chutzpah as much as his policies: ?Anyone else would have ?caved? under the pressure of those wild villains, Mr. Mayor! You have great strength,? wrote one commenter, with another adding, ?If [R]ob wasn't in charge the city would just keep picking our pocket.?

As the battle over the tarnishing of Toronto?s polite image and its urban future continues, the praise for Ford does as well: ?Ford is the light!? and ?Long live Rob Ford, greatest mayor ever!!!?

Crack video

And when it comes to the alleged video of Ford smoking crack, Toronto residents are split, right down the lines Ford himself drew.

The video came to light last month, after a local drug dealer shopped the cellphone video to news outlets, including American website Gawker, which raised $200,000 on Kickstarter to buy the video. Since then, however, the drug dealer has gone underground, along with the video. On Thursday, reports surfaced that four days after the initial crack video news, an armed man invaded the house where the video may have been filmed, beating two inhabitants, one of whom was a high school classmate of Ford's.

The resulting climate in Toronto is circus-like. Ontario?s premier has researched whether the province can intervene, anonymous city hall sources claim Ford does have a drug problem and knew the exact address of the video?s location, several mayoral staffers have resigned or been fired, and the Globe and Mail published allegations that Ford?s city councilor brother, Doug, dealt hashish in the 1980s. For his part, Ford denies smoking crack or that the video even exists.

According to a poll last week by two local TV stations, more than half of Torontonians believe the crack video ?exists and is real.? Go downtown, and that number jumps to nearly two-thirds.?

But for now, despite protests from city leaders and citizens, Ford insists he is not going anywhere. And critics say Toronto would suffer as a result.

?We won?t have effective leadership in Canada?s biggest and most diverse city," Ryerson University business ethics professor Chris Macdonald told the CBC last week. "What we?re not going to see is the kind of vision that?s going to keep building us into a world-class city.?

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/Ku0y303xwXc/Toronto-mayor-s-other-crack-scandal-dividing-urban-suburban-residents

once upon a time once upon a time RG3 Monsters University nfl playoff schedule Rex Ryan tattoo Alaska earthquake

U.N. says Mali still precarious, future peacekeepers need equipment

By Louis Charbonneau and Michelle Nichols

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Armed groups in Mali continue to pose a serious security threat to the entire region while African troops forming the core of a U.N. peacekeeping mission deploying next month are not yet properly equipped, the U.N. chief said in a new report.

France launched a massive military campaign in January which broke al Qaeda-linked Islamist fighters' control over the northern two-thirds of Mali and allowed the Tuaregs to regain control of their traditional fiefdom of Kidal.

But U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a report to the Security Council on Saturday that despite the gains made by French troops, Malian security forces and an African force known as AFISMA, the situation continues to be precarious.

"The situation on the ground remains ... fluid, with sporadic clashes between armed groups and continued asymmetric attacks across the three regions of the north," Ban said in the report, obtained by Reuters.

"Furthermore the advance of the MDSF (Malian defense and security forces) northwards towards Kidal and the fatal clashes with MNLA (separatist Tuareg) elements on 5 June have exacerbated tensions and increased the volatility of the situation in the region," it said.

To reduce those renewed tensions, Mali's government and Tuareg separatists began talks on Saturday that both sides said they hoped would lead to a ceasefire ahead of national elections next month and pave the way for a permanent peace deal.

The talks in the capital of neighboring Burkina Faso, due to conclude on Monday, follow the first fighting in months between Mali's army and the MNLA rebels this week as government forces advanced toward the Tuaregs' last stronghold of Kidal in the remote northeast.

Once the U.N. peacekeeping force, to be known as MINUSMA, is deployed, France will continue to handle counterterrorism and peace enforcement operations as needed in Mali, while the U.N. blue helmets will handle traditional peacekeeping duties of policing and trying to ensure new violence does not erupt.

In April, the U.N. Security Council unanimously approved a mandate for the 12,600-strong MINUSMA peacekeeping force from July 1. The force will be supported by French troops if needed to combat Islamist extremist threats.

Deployment of the force will be subject to a council review of security in Mali in late June.

HELICOPTERS NEEDED

Ban said the African troops expected to be moved under U.N. command next month must still be brought up to U.N. standards in terms of their equipment and ability to sustain themselves in the landlocked West African country.

"Deployed AFISMA units have been given a grace period of four months to reach the required United Nations standards," the report said. "Critical gaps remain for attack and utility helicopters as well as for information units."

He said the U.N. force could face serious risks on the ground.

"While the operational capabilities of the armed groups have been reduced, attacks in recent months in Mali and the sub-region have shown that they retain the capability to pose a significant threat," Ban said.

"The Malian (security forces) and AFISMA have been targeted. United Nations troops and other United Nations personnel may well face a similar risk."

Ban also said the situation in Mali posed risks to neighboring countries because of the "danger of armed elements moving to neighboring countries to carry out terrorist attacks and engage in criminal activities."

There are other problems. Ban said the United Nations has received allegations of serious human rights violations in northern Mali by both the Malian troops and armed groups, including summary executions, arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances, and destruction and looting of private property.

"The human rights situation in Mali remains of grave concern," the report said.

It said there had also been grave violations against children, including recruitment and use of children as soldiers, sexual violence, killings, maiming and attacks on schools and hospitals.

The report said reports of retaliatory violence by Malian troops against members of the Tuareg and Arab communities have decreased.

"However, in Timbuktu, the risk to these communities remained significant in light of persistent perceptions of their association with armed extremist groups," it said.

"Most members of the Arab and Tuareg communities in the Timbuktu regions have not returned, fearing retaliation by the MDSF (Malian security forces) and the local population."

(This story refiles to fix a typographical error in the headline)

(Editing by Eric Walsh)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/u-n-mali-still-precarious-future-peacekeepers-equipment-041239991.html

shark tank john wall gordon hayward gas prices rising stars challenge star trek 2 kathy ireland

AP sources: US close to OK on arming Syrian rebels

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Moved by the Assad regime's rapid advance, the Obama administration could decide this week to approve lethal aid for the beleaguered Syrian rebels and will weigh the merits of a less likely move to send in U.S. airpower to enforce a no-fly zone over the civil war-wracked nation, officials said Sunday.

White House meetings are planned over the coming days, as Syrian President Bashar Assad's government forces is apparently poised for an attack on the key city of Homs, which could cut off Syria's armed opposition from the south of the country. As many as 5,000 Hezbollah fighters are now in Syria, officials believe, helping the regime press on with its campaign after capturing the town of Qusair near the Lebanese border last week.

Opposition leaders have warned Washington that their rebellion could face devastating and irreversible losses without greater support, and the warnings are prompting the United States to consider drastic action.

Secretary of State John Kerry postponed a planned trip Monday to Israel and three other Mideast countries to participate in White House discussions, said officials who weren't authorized to speak publicly on the matter and demanded anonymity.

While nothing has been concretely decided, U.S. officials said President Barack Obama was leaning closer toward signing off on sending weapons to vetted, moderate rebel units. The U.S. has spoken of possibly arming the opposition in recent months but has been hesitant because it doesn't want to al-Qaida-linked and other extremists fighting alongside the anti-Assad militias to end up with the weapons.

Obama already has ruled out any intervention that would require U.S. military boots on the ground. Other options such as deploying American air power to ground the regime's jets, gunships and other aerial assets are now being more seriously debated, the officials said, while cautioning that a no-fly zone or any other action involving U.S. military deployments in Syria were far less likely right now.

The president also has declared chemical weapons use by the Assad regime a "red line" for more forceful U.S. action. American allies including France and Britain have say they've determined with near certitude that Syrian forces have used low levels of sarin in several attacks, but the administration is still studying the evidence. The U.S. officials said responses that will be mulled over in this week's meetings concern the deteriorating situation on the ground in Syria, independent of final confirmation of possible chemical weapons use.

Any intervention could have wide-reaching ramifications for the United States and the region. It would bring the U.S. closer to a conflict that has killed almost 80,000 people since Assad cracked down on protesters inspired by the Arab Spring in March 2011 and sparked a war that has since been increasingly defined by sectarian clashes between the Sunni-led rebellion and Assad's Alawite-dominated regime.

And it would essentially pit the United States alongside regional allies Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar in a proxy war against Iran, which is providing much of the materiel to the Syrian government's counterinsurgency and, through Hezbollah, more and more of the manpower.

Syria's precarious position in the heart of the Middle East makes the conflict extremely unpredictable. Lebanon, across the western border, suffered its own brutal civil war in the 1970s and the 1980s and is already experiencing increased interethnic tensions. Iraq, to Syria's east, is mired in worsening violence. And Israel to the southwest has seen shots fired across the contested Golan Heights and has been forced to strike what it claimed were advanced weapons convoys heading to Hezbollah, with whom it went to war with in 2006.

Iran could wreak havoc in the region through its support of Shiite militant groups, and U.S. officials fear Iran may seek to retaliate for any stepped-up American involvement by targeting Israel or U.S. interests in the region. It's also unclear what American action would mean for relations with Russia, which has provided Assad with military and diplomatic support even as it claims that it working with the United States to try to organize a Syrian peace conference.

At the same time, it's unclear how Washington could fundamentally change the trajectory of a conflict that has increasingly tilted toward Assad in recent months without providing weapons to the opposition forces or getting involved itself.

The administration has been studying for months how to rebalance Syria's war so that moderate, pro-democracy rebels defeat the regime or make life so difficult for Assad and his supporters that the government decides it must join a peace process that entails a transition away from the Assad family's four-decade dictatorship.

But Assad's military successes appear to have rendered peace efforts largely meaningless in the short term. While Kerry and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov have been trying to rally support for the planned conference in Geneva ? first envisioned for May and since postponed until July at the earliest ? even America's allies in the Syrian opposition leadership have questioned the wisdom of sitting down for talks while they are ceding territory all over the country to Assad's forces.

Beyond weapons support for the rebels, administration officials harbor deep reservations about other options.

They note that a no-fly zone, championed by hawks in Congress such as Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., would require the U.S. to first neutralize Syrian air defense systems that have been reinforced with Russian technology and are far stronger than those that Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi had before the U.S. and its Arab and European allies helped rebels overthrow him in 2011. And unlike with Libya, Washington has no clear international mandate for authorizing any strikes inside Syria, a point the Obama administration officials has harped on since late 2011 to explain its reticence about more forceful action.

Homs has one of the biggest Alawite communities in Syria and is widely seen as pro-Assad. The rebels control the city center, however, with regime forces besieging them on the outskirts.

Many towns north of Homs also are rebel-controlled, while to the south Hezbollah-backed government forces have been clearing rebels from villages and towns. Fierce fighting there over the past three weeks has killed dozens of rebels, troops and Hezbollah fighters and wounded hundreds.

Seizing control of Homs would clear a path for the regime from Damascus to the Mediterranean coast, and firm up its grip on much of the country.

___

AP White House Correspondent Julie Pace contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ap-sources-us-close-ok-arming-syrian-rebels-225528415.html

nba trades ign Xbox 720 HTC One NICOLAUS COPERNICUS Las Vegas shooting Jerry Buss