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• Drew Brees is the AP's Male Athlete of the Year Dec 17, 2010 11:16 PM
  
  • NEW ORLEANS - Drew Brees has New Orleans swinging, singing and trumpeting their Saints like never before.
  • Brees is a big reason New Orleanians can smile and boast.
  • Not only did the reigning Super Bowl MVP turn around the Saints' football fortunes and bring the city its first NFL championship in February, he's become a civic leader as his adoptive hometown recovers from a time of turmoil and suffering.

  • Venezuela congress grants Chavez decree powers Dec 17, 2010 10:02 PM
    
    • CARACAS, Venezuela - Venezuelan lawmakers granted President Hugo Chavez broad powers Friday to enact laws by decree, undermining the clout of a new congress that takes office next month with a bigger opposition bloc.
    • The National Assembly approved the special powers for 18 months.
    • A new congress goes into session Jan. 5 with an opposition contingent large enough to hinder approval of some types of major laws.

    • SKorea to hold firing drills despite NKorea threat Dec 17, 2010 09:57 PM
      
      • SEOUL, South Korea - South Korea says it will go ahead with artillery drills on a border island shelled by North Korea last month, despite Pyongyang's threat to retaliate.
      • The one-day, live-fire drills are to be held on Yeonpyeong Island near the tense sea border with North Korea.
      • North Korea has warned that if the South goes ahead anyway, it will strike back even harder than in the Nov. 23 attack that killed four people.

      • Randy Quaid's wife misses Calif. court hearing Dec 17, 2010 09:25 PM
        
        • SANTA BARBARA, Calif. - It's another missed court date, another arrest warrant for Randy Quaid's wife, Evi.
        • The 47-year-old failed to appear for a probation hearing Thursday in Santa Barbara and faces a new $100,000 arrest warrant, Deputy District Attorney Anthony Davis said.
        • At the hearing, Evi Quaid's attorney, Robert Sanger, withdrew from the case.

        • Bones found on island might be Amelia Earhart's Dec 17, 2010 09:25 PM
          
          • NORMAN, Okla. - The three bone fragments turned up on a deserted South Pacific island that lay along the course Amelia Earhart was following when she vanished.
          • Now scientists at the University of Oklahoma hope to extract DNA from the tiny bone chips in tests that could prove Earhart died as a castaway after failing in her 1937 quest to become the first woman to fly around the world.
          • "There's no guarantee," said Ric Gillespie, director of the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery, a group of aviation enthusiasts in Delaware that found the pieces of bone this year while on an expedition to Nikumaroro Island, about 1,800 miles south of Hawaii.

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