Harris Poll

Football Jumps to No. 2 in AP, Coaches Polls; Awaits BCS

BATON ROUGE -- After winning its third SEC Championship since 2001, 21-14 over Tennessee, the LSU football team moved to No. 2 in the USA Today Coaches Poll and the Associated Press Top 25 released Sunday just after noon CT. Check back for the Harris Poll as well as the BCS Standings at 6:45 p.m.

LSU (11-2) received 11 first-place votes from both the writers and coaches, while No. 1 Ohio State received 46 from the coaches and 50 from the AP.

Though four other teams received AP first-place votes -- No. 3 Oklahoma, No. 4 Georgia, No. 5 Virginia Tech, No. 10 Hawai'i -- each received only one. Oklahoma also received a pair of first-place votes from the coaches and Hawai'i got one.

Should the Tigers move to the Top 2 of the BCS Standings, they would play in the BCS National Championship Game on Jan. 7, 2008. The BCS Standings are a compilation of the USA Today Coaches Poll, the Harris Interactive Poll and an average of six computer rankings.

LSU will gather at the Football Operations Center to watch the announcement on FOX at 6:45 p.m.

USA Today Top 25 Poll

The Top 25 teams in the USA Today college football coaches poll, with first-place votes in parentheses, records through Dec. 1, total points based on 25 points for a first-place vote through one point for a 25th-place vote, and previous ranking:

Record Pts Pvs
1. Ohio State (46) 11-1 1,469 3
2. LSU (11) 11-2 1,418 7
3. Oklahoma (2) 11-2 1,331 8
4. Georgia 10-2 1,277 4
5. Virginia Tech 11-2 1,242 t5
6. USC 10-2 1,227 9
7. Missouri 11-2 1,104 2
8. Kansas 11-1 1,099 t5
9. West Virginia 10-2 1,010 1
10. Hawaii (1) 12-0 994 10
11. Arizona State 10-2 900 13
12. Florida 9-3 890 11
13. Illinois 9-3 747 14
14. Boston College 10-3 617 12
15. Wisconsin 9-3 594 16
16. Clemson 9-3 567 17
17. Texas 9-3 498 18
18. Tennessee 9-4 480 15
19. Brigham Young 10-2 462 19
20. Virginia 9-3 332 t21
21. Auburn 8-4 289 t21
22. Boise State 10-2 246 23
23. Cincinnati 9-3 215 24
24. Arkansas 8-4 137 25
25. South Florida 9-3 115 NR

Others receiving votes: Texas Tech 52; Central Florida 51; Connecticut 23; Oregon State 23; Penn State 23; Michigan 22; Air Force 20; Oregon 9; Utah 6; Wake Forest 4; Houston 3; Michigan State 3; Tulsa 1.

The AP Top 25

The Top 25 teams in The Associated Press college football poll, with first-place votes in parentheses, records through Dec. 1, total points based on 25 points for a first-place vote through one point for a 25th-place vote, and previous ranking.

Record Pts Pvs
1. Ohio St. (50) 11-1 1,578 3
2. LSU (11) 11-2 1,519 5
3. Oklahoma (1) 11-2 1,423 9
4. Georgia (1) 10-2 1,421 4
5. Virginia Tech (1) 11-2 1,380 6
6. Southern Cal 10-2 1,346 8
7. Missouri 11-2 1,195 1
8. Kansas 11-1 1,164 7
9. Florida 9-3 1,071 10
10. Hawaii (1) 12-0 1,050 11
11. West Virginia 10-2 1,040 2
12. Arizona St. 10-2 939 13
13. Illinois 9-3 797 15
14. Boston College 10-3 668 12
15. Clemson 9-3 614 16
16. Tennessee 9-4 554 14
17. Texas 9-3 517 17
18. Wisconsin 9-3 447 19
19. BYU 10-2 439 21
20. Cincinnati 9-3 394 20
21. Virginia 9-3 344 22
22. Auburn 8-4 264 23
23. South Florida 9-3 246 25
24. Boise St. 10-2 221 24
25. Arkansas 8-4 173 NR

Others receiving votes: Texas Tech 137, UCF 35, Connecticut 31, Oregon 30, Oregon St. 30, Michigan 26, Air Force 17, Kentucky 13, Penn St. 1, Wake Forest 1.

BCS Selection Show

When dust settles, it will be Ohio State and LSU

12:08 AM CST on Sunday, December 2, 2007

Who likes complete and utter college football chaos?

Yep, that's what we've got this morning – BCS confusion and chaos.

No. 1 Missouri drowned in the San Antonio Riverwalk, and couches all over Morgantown were spared Saturday night when Pittsburgh, a 28 ½-point underdog, upset No. 2 West Virginia.

So now, who deserves to play in the national championship game? It figures that No. 3 Ohio State will move up when the final Bowl Championship Standings are released at 7 p.m. today. But the Big Ten champion Buckeyes can only guess who their opponent might be at this point.

Can you just imagine the crazy, confused look on the faces of those coaches and Harris poll voters? Surely they knew that the college football world is relying on them to figure it all out.

I know Georgia (10-2) and Kansas (11-1) were in the BCS top five last week, but they don't deserve to play in New Orleans. If you can't win your division and play for a conference title, you don't deserve to play in the national championship game.

Virginia Tech was sixth in the BCS standings last week. Good team. Excellent defense. The Hokies won the ACC title on Saturday, but there aren't many people bragging on the strength of that league.

Give me LSU (11-2).

The Tigers had a roller-coaster ride through Atlanta like no other on Saturday. Coach Les Miles started the day fending off what he called erroneous reports from ESPN about him leaving for Michigan.

He ended it by celebrating a Southeastern Conference title with a 21-14 win over Tennessee in the Georgia Dome.

"Well, I don't exactly know how votes will go, but we're the champions of the finest conference in America," Miles said. "We played Auburn, Alabama, Tennessee, Florida. I challenge any other team in America to go through this conference and come out unscathed."

Here's the thing about Miles' Tigers. Yes, LSU did lose against Kentucky and Arkansas. Both of those are respectable teams, but neither one is anywhere near the BCS discussion. The Wildcats and Razorbacks needed six overtimes combined to knock off the Tigers, though. Anything can happen in overtime.

LSU was seventh in the BCS computer rankings last week. The voters are going to have to do all the heavy lifting on LSU's behalf. It's incumbent on the voters to forget about their ballots last week and vote who they think truly deserves to be 1-2 and play for the national title.

Unfortunately for the Big 12, neither Missouri or Oklahoma is going to get in the BCS title mix.

Mizzou (11-2) can't be included after the way OU dominated the second half and ran away with the final score. OU (11-2) won't climb over LSU and USC into the No. 2 position, either.

Same goes for West Virginia. The Mountaineers (10-2) cannot lose to a big underdog such as the Panthers and then get into the national title game. Now, West Virginia will still be in a BCS bowl by virtue of winning the Big East title. But quarterback Pat White's dislocated thumb injury will be talked about in coal mines for years to come.

The rest of the BCS fallout will be relatively easy once the top two teams get decided. Oklahoma is going to the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl. Missouri and Kansas will battle it out for an at-large berth.

Don't forget about Hawaii. If the Warriors held on late Saturday and finished the regular season undefeated, June Jones' team will be in the BCS mix, too.

You can bet the happiest people on earth were Fox television executives. Now, we've all got a reason to tune into today's BCS selection show.

Then, we can start the argument all over again an hour later.

WHO WILL IT BE?

Ohio State (11-1) looks like a lock for the BCS national title game. Staff writer Brian Davis ranks the possible opponents for the Buckeyes:

1. LSU (11-2): Any team that wins the SEC title must be considered. Voters have to move the Tigers way up, though.

2. USC (10-2): The Pac-10 champion Trojans can beat anybody right now. USC's November dominance was no fluke.

3. Virginia Tech (11-2): The Hokies make a nice storyline, but the ACC simply isn't stronger than the SEC and Pac-10.

4. Kansas (11-1): The Jayhawks have a legitimate beef with an 11-1 record. But KU didn't even win its division.

5. Georgia (10-2): Georgia's in the same boat with Kansas. Winning your division must be a prerequisite.

PROJECTING THE BCS

Staff writer Brian Davis projects the five BCS games as things stand today.

Allstate BCS national championship: Ohio State vs. LSU

FedEx Orange: Virginia Tech vs. West Virginia

Tostitos Fiesta: Oklahoma vs. Arizona State

Allstate Sugar: Georgia vs. Kansas

Rose: USC vs. Hawaii

Miss World

Miss China on top of the world

1 day ago

SANYA, China (AFP) — Pre-contest favourite Miss China won the Miss World 2007 title in her own country late Saturday, much to the delight of the audience, in front of an estimated two billion viewers around the globe.

Twenty-three-year-old Zhang Zilin was crowned the winner in Sanya, China. Miss Angola came second and Miss Mexico third at the beauty pageant, held on the southern holiday island of Hainan, dubbed China's answer to Hawaii.

Viewers in 200 countries were expected to tune in to watch the show, which saw Miss China take the crown ahead of 105 of the world's most beautiful and talented women.

The audience in the 2,000-capacity Beauty Crown Theatre, specially built for when Sanya first hosted the event in 2003, roared in delight as Zhang was crowned the winner at the end of the two-hour-long contest, which was conducted mainly in English.

The secretary from Beijing was the pre-contest favourite with British bookmakers, along with Miss Dominican Republic.

At 182 centimetres (six feet), Zhang was also the tallest contestant.

"There are 1.3 billion people behind me," she said during the interview stage of the contest, referring to China's population.

"If I win I want to become a link between the Olympic Games (in Beijing next year) and the Miss World Organisation."

"I want to use the power and beauty of Miss World to support those in need," she said, speaking throughout in hesitant English, adding a few words in Chinese.

Zhang earlier told the contest her favourite pasttimes were the 100-metre hurdles and the high jump.

Fireworks exploded above the crown-shaped theatre, where visitors had paid up to 300 dollars for tickets, after the popular decision was made.

Miss Mexico had also been strongly fancied, while Miss Angola was an outsider.

"I want to tell you that I am a strong woman and also a dreamer girl and I don't accept failures in my life," Carolina Moran Gordillo, Miss Mexico, said earlier in the contest.

"This is my dream and I worked very very hard to get here," the 19-year-old student added.

Portuguese-born Miss Angola, Micaela Reis, 18, said she wanted to win the coveted crown so she could spread awareness about AIDS/HIV.

Contestants were rated on an array of disciplines including physical fitness, style, dress, personality and beauty.

The 106 were whittled down to 16, then five, with hotly tipped Miss Dominican Republic not making the final five despite strong support from the mainly Chinese crowd.

The 57th edition of the contest was being held on World AIDS Day as organisers wanted the annual showcase of gloss and glitz, seen by critics as a sexist throwback, to help increase awareness of the fight against HIV/AIDS.

To underline their commitment to AIDS awareness, organisers invited former South African president Nelson Mandela's eldest daughter Maki to serve on the panel of nine judges.

The Noble laureate's son Makgatho died of an AIDS-related illness in 2005, and the family has since been active in the global fight against HIV/AIDS.

As well as being held on World AIDS Day, Miss World 2007 came a week after Chinese state media reported hotels in Beijing have been ordered to stock condoms in every room in response to a spike in new HIV infections in the capital.

Home Equity

ANALYSIS-After Wells Fargo, home equity has further to fall

By Jonathan Stempel

NEW YORK, Nov 28 (Reuters) - If Wells Fargo & Co (WFC.N: Quote, Profile, Research), regarded as a prudent mortgage lender, must take a $1.4 billion charge for home equity loans that comprise a mere sliver of its total loan book, how much might rivals write off?

The Wells Fargo write-down, largely covering $11.9 billion of home equity loans the bank considers most at risk, shows how the U.S. housing crisis has bled well beyond subprime mortgages to home loans once regarded as relatively safe.

It raises the specter of more pain for other lenders with significant home equity exposure, particularly on loans meant to cover most or all of the homes' value.

"Higher LTV (loan-to-value) loans now carry a much higher risk profile," said Greg McBride, a financial analyst at Bankrate.com in North Palm Beach, Florida. "Borrowers are defaulting in big numbers, and because they had little of their own money invested, lenders are on the hook."

Financial companies have announced some $50 billion of mortgage-related write-downs after the housing decline caused a summer freeze in global credit markets.

Third-quarter loan losses at federally insured banks and thrifts more than doubled from a year earlier to $16.6 billion, a 20-year high, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp data released Wednesday showed. This pushed overall profits down 25 percent to $28.7 billion, the lowest since the fourth quarter of 2002.

SQUIRRELLY DEALS

Home equity loans are generally "second liens," meaning that providers get paid after borrowers pay their primary lenders.

The loans let people, typically with good credit histories, borrow against their homes, often to fund home repairs or to pay off higher-cost credit card debt. A typical rate on a $30,000 home equity loan is 8.39 percent, compared with 13.42 percent on a typical credit card, according to Bankrate.com.

Some loans are home equity lines of credit, which let people borrow up to specified limits. But in recent years, closed-end "piggyback" loans that let home buyers with first mortgages finance up to 100 percent of the homes' value gained popularity.

Easing credit conditions allowed home equity loan volume to triple in the decade ending 2005, when volume first topped $1 trillion, according to the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies. Many lenders are now cutting back. Wells Fargo this week significantly curbed its home equity business conducted through brokers.

"It's hard to gauge which lenders are most at risk, but pretty much any large lenders will have exposure because most made piggyback loans in the last three years," said Guy Cecala, publisher of the newsletter Inside Mortgage Finance.

"Many were squirrelly deals to let borrowers work their way around underwriting requirements," he said. "In a declining market, borrowers are realizing it was a bad idea to take out the second mortgages. They are also learning that as long as they keep paying on their first mortgages, they'll keep their homes."

Countrywide Financial Corp (CFC.N: Quote, Profile, Research) and Washington Mutual Inc (WM.N: Quote, Profile, Research), two big mortgage lenders, said they each had at least one-fourth of their loan books in home equity loans as of Sept. 30. Neither immediately returned calls seeking comment.

Lehman Brothers Inc analyst Jason Goldberg, meanwhile, said Bank of America Corp (BAC.N: Quote, Profile, Research), Fifth Third Bancorp (FITB.O: Quote, Profile, Research), First Horizon National Corp (FHN.N: Quote, Profile, Research), SunTrust Banks Inc (STI.N: Quote, Profile, Research) and TCF Financial Corp (TCB.N: Quote, Profile, Research) are among other banks with more than 10 percent of their loan portfolios in home equity.

"Lenders need to generate cash flow for investors, and yet are holding many risky loans they may have difficulty selling or would have to discount," said Robert Manning, a business professor at Rochester Institute of Technology.

"The real crisis may occur when middle-class borrowers start burning through other lines of credit, and their home values still haven't rebounded," he said. "That may occur as soon as a year from now." Manning wrote the book "Credit Card Nation: America's Dangerous Addiction to Credit."

BAD AS IT GETS

Late payments are already surging on home equity loans, several large lenders have said. At Countrywide, for example, the delinquency rate was 4.62 percent as of Sept. 30, up from 2.10 percent a year earlier. (Countrywide's subprime delinquency rate rose to 23.94 percent from 16.93 percent.)

Wells Fargo's $1.4 billion write-down is concentrated in $11.9 billion of particularly risky home equity loans -- 3 percent of its loan book -- largely made through mortgage brokers. It plans to liquidate this portfolio.

The bank said it has $71.5 billion of additional home equity loans it considers safer.

"I've been in the banking industry for over 30 years, and I've worked through three ... housing cycles," Chief Financial Officer Howard Atkins said at an FBR Capital Markets conference on Wednesday. "This is about as bad as it gets."

Washington Mutual ended September with $59.1 billion of home equity loans and lines of credit on its books, or 25 percent of its loans held. Chief Executive Kerry Killinger on Nov. 7 called the downturn "painful," saying it would last through 2008.

Countrywide had $32.7 billion of prime home equity loans held for investment on Sept. 30, or 39 percent of its portfolio. Chief Executive Angelo Mozilo on Oct. 26 said the lender has "a much better chance of success" than any mortgage rival

Bankrate.com's McBride said prospective home buyers will feel much of the fallout. "Lenders want borrowers to bring something to the closing table, other than a pen," he said. "They want borrowers to make down payments, so they have something at stake."

(Additional reporting by John Poirier in Washington; Editing by Gary Hill)

((jon.stempel@reuters.com; +1 646 223 6317; Reuters Messaging: jon.stempel.reuters.com@reuters.net)) Keywords: FINANCIAL HOMEEQUITY/ Keywords: FINANCIAL HOMEEQUITY/

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The 20th World Aids Day, and what's changed?

1:20PM Saturday December 01, 2007

Does the news that the United Nations overestimated the number of HIV infections mean the world has turned the tide on AIDS?

Not according to the most of the media coverage ahead of the 20th World Aids Day today.

The fact that the United Nations got it wrong about the number of people living with the virus is simply "a sampling error", writes Donald McNeil in the International Herald Tribune.

The UN and the World Health Organisation "have eaten a lot of crow" for the mistake of miscalculating the number of infected, comments Los Angeles Times.

But the good news is that the pandemic has peaked, the papers say, most likely in the late 1990s. But that doesn't mean the world can relax and get complacent about AIDS. Even if the estimate of 2.5 million new infections this year is 40 per cent lower than the estimate for 2006, that's "not a particularly happy plateau," McNeil quotes Dr. Robert Gallo, who discovered the AIDS virus.

It's hard to get excited when more than 2 million people - most of them in sub-Saharan Africa - are still dying from the disease each year and 15 per cent of the population in eight countries in the south of the African continent are infected, says the International Herald Tribune in its editorial.

Take Zimbabwe, for example. This year has seen a drop in HIV prevalence rates in the country, but AIDS is still one of the biggest challenges the country faces, according to Owen Mugurungi, who heads the government's HIV/AIDS and TB unit, quoted by Zimbabwe's Financial Gazette. In a country with so many economic and political challenges right now, such a statement is not to be taken lightly. And the grim statistics back it up - we're talking about at least 2500 AIDS-related deaths a week in Zimbabwe.

Elizabeth Taylor, writing in USA Today, highlights the fact that the problem of AIDS is still very much present in the United States as well, in particular amongst the country's black population. The rate of HIV/AIDS diagnosis, for instance, is 20 times higher for black women than their white counterparts.

The Chinese papers acknowledge the fact that the stigma surrounding AIDS is a crucial problem in tackling the disease, but there's some good news. The Shanghai Daily reports that, according to Health Minister Chen Zhu, more than 40 per cent of sex workers now use condoms. This compares to less than 15 per cent six years ago and Zhu attributes it to the success of awareness programmes about the disease.

In India, the awareness campaigners still have a long way to go, judging by some of the results of a global study conducted by the MAC AIDS Fund. Almost 60 per cent of those surveyed believed there was a cure for AIDS and over 40 per cent said they wouldn't want to live in the same house as a person infected with the virus, The Hindu reports.

And if you thought Western Europe didn't have to battle misconceptions like that, a survey commissioned by the British Red Cross shows otherwise. One in seven young British people aged between 14 and 25 say they wouldn't stay friends with an HIV-infected person. According to a survey quoted by Britain's Mirror , the number is almost as high as in South Africa. And that's a country where about 19 per cent of the population is HIV-positive.

These reports from around the world show there's still a lot of work to be done fighting the pandemic and the prejudice that accompanies it. The latest revised figures are indeed good news and, as the IHT's McNeil points out, this is at least the sign that AIDS will eventually behave "like other pestilences" and there will, in the end, be a solution to one of the most deadly diseases the world has seen.

But right now, in the words of the LA Times' editorial: "(Any) way you count them, the millions of needless deaths from this disease are too many, and too little is being committed to solve the problem."

- REUTERS

100 Top High Schools

US News and World Report Releases America's Best High Schools

Atlanta, GA 11/30/2007 09:05 PM GMT (FINDITT)

U.S. News and World Report released their annual America's Best High Schools list Friday. The list will be available on newsstands on December 3 with Thomas Jefferson High School in Fairfax, Va. topping the list.

The survey took into account over 18,000 high schools in 40 states. The top 100 were classified as Gold Medal with the remaining 405 deemed Silver Medal.

The following 10 states and the District of Columbia did not have sufficient data available for analysis: Alabama, Alaska, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming.

Florida had four high schools listed in the top 10, followed by California with three.

Followed by Thomas Jefferson were Pacific Collegiate Charter School in Santa Cruz, Calif.; International Baccalaureate Program in Bartow, Fla.; Oxford Academy in Cypress, Calif.; and Montpelier High School in Montpelier, Vt. to round out the top five.

For more education news, please check out http://news.finditt.com/NewsList.aspx?cat=15&wcat=18

Bernanke hints at further rate cut

Reduction may be needed to head off economic 'headwinds'

By Bill Barnhart |Tribune markets columnis

7:04 AM CST, November 30, 2007

Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke, in a speech Thursday night, said that "renewed turbulence in financial markets" since the Fed's last policy meeting at the end of October "has partially reversed the improvement" in the outlook for the economy "that occurred in September and October."

In brief remarks on the economy and Fed policy to the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce, he declined to take a side in the debate apparently under way among Fed policymakers about whether or not to cut interest rates at their next committee meeting, on Dec. 11. He indicated he remains open to either possibility.

Stock markets in Asia that were open for trading during Bernanke's speech extended their gains after his comments.