Mark Messier set the standard for guaranteeing victories with his Game 6 prediction against the Devils in 1994. Since then, promises by athletes have meant little.

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Stanley Cup Playoffs: Eastern Conference Finals: Mark Messier’s Vow Set the Bar for Sports Guarantees

A west Belfast care home provider is to be de-registered, following concerns about the standard of care.

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Care home provider de-registered

Nearly half of people aged over 50 will have to work and save for 11 years beyond state pension age to keep their standard of living, a report says.

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‘Work an extra 11 years’ warning

BOGOTA, Colombia — Quite suddenly, whether intentional or not, Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner became the standard-bearer of populist nationalism in Latin America when her country seized a Spanish oil company last week. Read full article > >

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Radical left at crossroads in Latin America

Ratings agency Standard & Poor’s reaffirms its AAA credit rating for the UK, saying it believes the economy is “wealthy, open and diversified”.

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S&P reaffirms UK top-notch rating

THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION appears to have found an elegant way out of its contraceptive problem — or, perhaps more to the point, to the political problem created by its approach to contraceptive coverage. As we wrote after the previous policy was announced last month, increased access to contraception is important; requiring contraception as part of the standard health insurance package, without deductibles or co-payments, makes sense. But given the strong objections of the Catholic Church to contraception, it also makes sense to exempt religious employers from having to spend their own money on a service that violates their moral views. The administration recognized the need for such a carve-out, but it erred in drawing it too narrowly, to cover churches but not Catholic hospitals, charities and other such religiously affiliated institutions. Read full article > >

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Editorial Board: President Obama’s win-win reversal on contraception

The late Arizona Republican senator Barry Goldwater , aptly dubbed “Mr. Conservative” probably understands better than anyone exactly what Newt Gingrich is now going through . As with the Republican establishment onslaught encountered by Gingrich in his run for the Republican nomination, Goldwater in 1964 also ran smack into a GOP establishment as desperate then, as it is now, to stop a conservative they couldn’t control from becoming the standard bearer. Read full article > >

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Colby King: Gingrich and Goldwater, establishment targets

The credit ratings agency Standard & Poor’s (S&P) downgrades the EU bailout fund, the EFSF, to AA+ from AAA.

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S&P downgrades EU’s bailout fund

French PM Francois Fillon defends his government’s economic policies following the decision by Standard and Poor’s to downgrade the country’s credit rating.

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France downplays rating downgrade

French PM Francois Fillon defends his government’s economic policies following the decision by Standard and Poor’s to downgrade the country’s credit rating.

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France downplays rating downgrade

The EU’s top economic official hits out at a decision by Standard and Poor’s to downgrade the credit ratings of nine eurozone countries.

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EU criticises ratings downgrade

The ratings agency Standard & Poor’s also cut Portugal’s credit to junk status, lowered Italy’s rating and downgraded several other countries caught in the euro crisis.

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Debt Ratings Cut for 9 Countries Amid Euro Woes

WASHINGTON — U.S. home prices fell in most major cities for the second straight month, further evidence that the housing recovery will be bumpy and weigh on the broader economy in 2012. The Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller index released Tuesday showed prices dropped in October from September in 19 of the 20 cities tracked. Read full article > >

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Private survey shows home prices fell in 19 of 20 cities tracked, second straight monthly drop

Ron Paul rides in the back of a campaign van that’s rolling toward the New Hampshire seacoast for a town hall meeting. He’s fastidious in a dark-blue suit. He’s not the standard presidential candidate — he lacks the factory-built appearance of Mitt Romney or Rick Perry. He’s thin, bony, a bantam rooster. He’s 76 — the only one in the race who was born during the Great Depression. Read full article > >

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Ron Paul: The Alternative Candidate is a force to be reckoned with

If rumors were dollars, the arcane world of particle physics would have enough cash to solve the Euro crisis. For weeks, statements circulating on physics blogs have hinted at the discovery of an elusive particle essential to our understanding of how the universe works. Called the Higgs boson, this particle — if spotted — would all but complete the fundamental theory of particle physics, known as the Standard Model. Confirmation of the Higgs would solve the mystery of why matter has the property that physicists call mass — the resistance to being shoved around. Read full article > >

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Scientists close in on linchpin of physics, the ‘God particle’