New Tricks for Old Malls

Sobered by store closings and the rise of online shopping, owners of U.S. shopping centers are filling space and drawing visitors by turning to unusual tenants like gun ranges and go-cart tracks.

Mall giant Simon Property Group Inc. opened an aquarium in July at its Grapevine Mills mall near Dallas. Real-estate brokerage Jones Lang LaSalle Inc. put a fencing academy in a former Old Navy store in Florida's Tallahassee Mall, and a community theater on the lower level of a former Boscov's store in Harrisburg, Pa.

Aqua Tots Holdings LLC, a business that teaches youngsters to swim, has expanded to 14 locations in Arizona, Texas and Georgia and has 10 more on the way, nearly all in former retail shops. Jumpstreet, an indoor trampoline facility, is buying or leasing former grocery stores, filling them wall-to-wall with trampolines and charging patrons for hourly access.
Perhaps the most unusual use of a former big-box store is William James's Arms Room gun shop and shooting range, which opened last year in a former Circuit City store south of Houston. Mr. James spent nearly $5 million to buy the 20,000-square-foot space and convert it into a shooting range, a price he considered a bargain compared with building from scratch. The Arms Room offers handgun training courses in addition to traditional shooting practice, all in a popular shopping center anchored by Target Corp. and Home Depot Inc. stores.

"It was sort of providential," Mr. James said in his Arms Room office, surrounded by antique swords and modern firearms. "I never dreamed of a place like this."

Rising retail vacancies, and loosening rent demands from landlords at struggling shopping centers, are creating opportunity for tenants previously housed in community centers, industrial parks and home basements.

"In the past, we've typically been in industrial parks because of the [low] cost per square foot," said Howard Picker, founder of Speed Raceway, which is preparing to open indoor go-cart tracks next year in former big-box stores in Colorado, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. But retail landlords "are coming down on price and more willing to work with tenants like us," he said.

The proliferation of "nonretail" tenants comes as traditional stores cede ground in U.S. shopping centers because of constrained consumer spending and decades of retail overbuilding in the U.S.

Real-estate research company CoStar Group Inc. examined a sample of roughly 830 million square feet of retail space—6.8% of the U.S. total—and found that entertainment-themed tenants like movie theaters and laser-tag complexes expanded their collective square footage in U.S. shopping centers by 2.25% since 2009 while service-themed tenants like schools and health clubs grew at a 3.65% clip. Conversely, retailers and restaurants in that period each reduced their collective square footage by nearly 1%.

Landlords are embracing unusual tenants as a way to continue drawing visitors to their shopping centers, even if those patrons aren't necessarily coming to shop. A little extra traffic generated by a gym or a trampoline center is better than an empty storefront that draws no one, they say.

"They're good users, and they pay good rent," says David Henry, chief executive of Kimco Realty Corp., which owns stakes in 946 shopping centers world-wide. "In many cases, they are complementary" to the retailers in a given center, he said.

Nontraditional tenants, in many cases, though, don't pay as high a rent as major chains would pay. What's more, nonretail tenants often don't pay percentage rents, a form of bonus rent that retailers pay from a small percentage of their sales when they exceed a certain threshold.

Even top performing mall companies—like Simon, which reported a 19% rise in earnings Tuesday—are looking at restaurants, entertainment and other nonretail uses as a hedge against the drain from online shopping. Glimcher Realty Trust purposefully filled 25% of its upscale Scottsdale Quarter mall near Phoenix with restaurants such as Stingray Sushi and services like Drybar, a salon that specializes in blow drying women's hair. "She can't go out to lunch and have a salad and a glass of wine with her girlfriends online," Glimcher Chairman and CEO Michael Glimcher said, referring to the mall industry's coveted female shoppers.

Struggling shopping centers, like the Tallahassee and Harrisburg malls, meanwhile, are signing nonretail tenants because no one else is lining up for the space. But adding a tenant with limited potential to bring shoppers to the rest of the center—like classrooms or a church—often isn't popular with existing tenants. The move can be seen as giving up on the center as a retail venue.

The Arms Room gun range near Houston had a mixed reception. Mr. James's attorneys advised him to seek written statements from Target and Home Depot declaring that they didn't object to his business opening in their shopping center. Home Depot agreed, but Target declined, Mr. James said. (Target declined to comment). Later, representatives of PetSmart Inc. thanked him for boosting the center's customer traffic, he said.

There are no immediate plans for additional Arm Room locations.

Jin Dong, the manager of a Mattress Giant store that shares a wall with the Arms Room, is one of the gun range's happy neighbors. "People do come in here with guns, and that's kind of weird. But they have brought a lot of traffic. It's way better than nothing," he said. "I'll tell you one thing, I don't have to worry about getting robbed, that's for sure."

Federal deportation review of illegal immigration cases brings mix of hope, confusion

Inside the yellow house on Genesee Street, Clara Ibarra can hear the sound of grinding teeth from several rooms away — grating and grating, like rocks crushed against rocks.

It's her son, Alejandro Brito. He is 24 now, but his body, gnarled by quadriplegia cerebral palsy, is not much bigger than when she carried him across a desert to illegally enter the U.S. 12 years ago to seek better medical care.

Grinding his molars inside the Waukegan home, he can see she's worried as she walks into his tiny bedroom, and so, apparently, is he. Because Brito can no longer speak and is barely able to move, repeatedly rubbing his worn-down teeth together is among the few ways he can show he's aware.

It's a few days before the family learns whether Brito's stepfather, Mario De la Rosa, will be deported to Mexico or win a federal reprieve, which is being sought by several hundred thousand other people in the country illegally.

If De la Rosa, 51, the family's main breadwinner, is ordered to leave the country, Ibarra, their teenage daughter and Brito, all also in the U.S. illegally, plan to return with him to a remote section of Guerrero, Mexico. There, the regular medical care that Brito requires is unlikely to be available.

"If we have to go, he would last one month, or two months," Ibarra says, before adjusting Brito's pillow near a crucifix on the wall and stacked cartons of the protein milk that is fed to him through an intravenous tube. "One has to be realistic."

People with such stories have clamored for attention in the nation's immigration courts since the Obama administration announced in August that a federal task force would review about 300,000 deportation cases. Those that don't involve hardened criminals or other habitual lawbreakers may be dismissed, leaving the immigrants in legal limbo but removing the threat of immediate deportation.

That monumental task has yet to begin, though Homeland Security officials and immigration attorneys say that such "prosecutorial discretion" has already been exercised in some cases, mostly related to people brought into the U.S. illegally as children.

Deportations reached a record-high 396,906 during the last 12 months, and a mixture of hope, desperation and confusion over the planned federal review swirls through communities with large immigrant populations, such as Waukegan.

With false rumors circulating about amnesty, immigration attorneys say they've been flooded with requests for assistance and are even approached by people who are not currently involved in deportation proceedings.

"People feel like this is something that they can apply for, that this is something new that was created in the law," said Mony Ruiz-Velasco, director of legal services at the Chicago-based National Immigrant Justice Center. "We explain to people that this is not a new remedy under immigration law. This is just something that the government can choose to do at their own discretion."

The sense of urgency has made illegal immigrants susceptible to fraud, authorities say.

Last week, the Illinois attorney general's office filed a civil lawsuit against Waukegan activist Margaret Carrasco for allegedly misrepresenting herself as an immigration attorney. Among those who sought her help was De la Rosa, who said he gave Carrasco $200 to assist him in his deportation case but got nothing in return.

Carrasco denies the allegations against her. De la Rosa is now represented by the justice center.

Federal immigration officials say they're working to clear the confusion over the deportation review policy. In deciding which cases get a pass, officials will consider factors that include a person's criminal history, length of time in the U.S. and health, as well as whether the person has repeatedly violated immigration laws. Those who win a reprieve will still not be allowed to work in the U.S. and may be deported at a later date, officials said.

Critics dismiss the effort as politically motivated.

"My sense is that this is part of the White House's effort to try to calm down the open borders groups who said they were going to suppress Hispanic votes" during the 2012 elections, said Roy Beck, director of the Virginia-based NumbersUSA organization, which wants reduced immigration.

Many cases, like De la Rosa's, are complicated. He landed most recently on the government's radar in February, after Waukegan police pulled him over for a faulty headlight.

De la Rosa has sneaked into the U.S. more than once. He left the country voluntary in 2003 to put an end to an illegal immigration case that included charges he used a fake ID. But he journeyed across the border again three months later.
That history works against him in his current efforts to avoid deportation, as does the fact that he's not Brito's natural father and isn't married to Ibarra — though they have been together for two decades and consider themselves husband and wife.

De la Rosa first came to the U.S. from Mexico in 1997, seven years after he and Ibarra became a couple and, with Brito's father gone, he agreed to take on that role for her disabled son. The two have a daughter together, Izamar, 18.
The couple said doctors in Mexico were unable to diagnose Brito. When he began to convulse in epileptic seizures, the doctors predicted the boy would soon die.

"We had to do something," De la Rosa said. "With the money I was making over there, there wasn't enough to live on, or to buy his medicine."

De la Rosa eventually settled in Waukegan, sending money home when he found work at a factory that made gaming equipment.

Brito was losing his ability to swallow food and walk by the time he turned 9. In 1999, Ibarra decided to take Brito, then 12, and Izamar, then 5, to join De la Rosa in Waukegan and seek better medical care.

She carried her malnourished son for seven hours across the Sonoran desert, supporting his weight with a borrowed shawl tied around her shoulder. The boy's feet knocked into her legs that dark night, she said, threatening to trip her as she held Izamar's hand and trudged toward Arizona.

"In those situations, one has to keep walking or you'll get left behind," Ibarra said, adding that she didn't tell smugglers about Brito's condition for fear of being rejected as unfit for the journey.

With improved medical care, Brito's condition has stabilized. For a year, his medical bills were covered by state Medicaid, they said. Now, they pay for doctor visits, his protein milk, diapers and intravenous tubes with money that Ibarra makes selling tamales and other treats on weekends.

Since De la Rosa rejoined his family in 2003, their life has settled into uneventful routine. Ibarra stays home with Brito while her husband works a few hours at a nearby grocery store, making enough to cover the rent and other expenses with help from relatives living in the house.

"All of us here work, but are home early," De la Rosa said. "By 7 or 8 (p.m.) the doors are shut and everyone is inside."

An icy rain fell last February when De la Rosa came home to find Ibarra too exhausted to make dinner. He volunteered to make a quick run for tacos.

On his way back, a Waukegan police officer noticed the bad headlight on his car and pulled him over, right in front of the house. A background check showed an arrest warrant for the fake ID charge. De la Rosa was taken to jail, leaving the uneaten tacos cooling in the passenger's seat.

According to Ibarra, the police officer told her he was going to take her husband and leave the car. "I said: 'Take the car and leave my husband!'" she recalls.

The removal proceedings have cast a shadow on the family's home. Days typically begin at 5:30 a.m., with De la Rosa recharging the beeping, bulky monitoring bracelet fastened to his ankle by immigration authorities in lieu of jail.

Their daughter, who has put off plans to attend nursing school while the case is pending, gets up to work at a medical supplies company.

When everyone is gone, Ibarra uses her silent son as a sounding board for all her worries.

"He thinks and knows," she said. "There are times when I've told him: `I'm going to die, son. I can't bear it anymore.' And he moves his head to say 'No.'"

As she spoke about him, Brito stared intently at his mother with wide, dark eyes, delivering a silent rebuke only she understood.

"Don't be angry, son," she said soothingly. "He's mad because too many people are here."

On the morning of De la Rosa's court hearing this month, Ibarra sat praying inside a tiny U.S. Department of Justice courtroom tucked on the 17th floor of a downtown Chicago skyscraper. This was to be the day when their fate would be determined.

A previous petition for clemency unrelated to the review of cases planned by the Obama administration had been denied. In court, Ruiz-Velasco, the justice center's attorney, made the case again while De la Rosa sat next to her.

The immigration judge, facing his share of a backlog of immigration cases that nationally reached nearly 286,000 in July, expressed exasperation over having to see this one again. He asked a federal attorney whether the government still planned to pursue deportation.

"Have you made a decision yet?" Judge Robert Vinikoor said. "Why should I keep this case on my calendar?"

The attorney, after conferring privately with Ruiz-Velasco, asked that the case be postponed until July. A Homeland Security official said such continuances have been more frequent in anticipation of the administration's official review.

While his case wasn't dropped, the delay allowed De la Rosa to breathe a little easier.

"I feel like I'm walking on air," he said, enjoying his limbo status a few days later, still rubbing the ankle where his monitoring bracelet had been removed.

In the next room, Brito lay in his upright bed, his hand rubbing the back of his head while he watched a TV with the volume turned all the way down.

'The Walking Dead' premiere gets season 2 off to a solid start

Fans are undoubtedly excited for the start of The Walking Dead season 2, but there also many questions handing over this season, in light of showrunner Frank Darabont being fired from the series. Darabont was the driving force behind the show, and a major reason why season one of The Walking Dead was a hit. While it remains to be seen how the show will fare without Darabont influencing future episodes, fans of the acclaimed director can rest comfortably in the knowledge that he crafted the first part of season 2.
So, is The Walking Dead season 2 premiere episode, “What Lies Ahead” a satisfying return to the bleak world of Robert Kirkman’s acclaimed comic book?

Short answer: This episode showed Darabont and the cast at their best.

When last we left the survivors of The Walking Dead, they had fled the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, after a discouraged scientist and a few dispirited survivors chose to end their lives, rather than face the zombie apocalypse. As season 2 opens, the survivors are still on the run and hoping to find salvation. But where does salvation reside in hell – and how does a world of savagery, brutality and death change a person? These are the hard questions that face Rick Grimes and his companions in season 2.
Review (Spoilers)

“What Lies Ahead” is easily the best episode of The Walking Dead since the pilot episode (which was also crafted by Darabont), and it demonstrated the incredible potential this show has. In one episode we got terror, suspense, mystery, gore, drama, shock, and even some elation. Best of all, every minute of the premiere qualified as genuinely compelling TV.

Darabont’s experience as a director elevates this show to a level most TV programs can’t hope to match. The “zombie herd” sequence on the highway – which was shot on a real Atlanta highway with 150 zombie extras over 4 days – is something that not only reaches the upper echelons of quality TV programming – it’s also in the upper echelons of quality movie moments. (I’m certain that I wasn’t the only one who felt like they were watching a movie during that highway scene.)

After such a fantastic beginning you would think there would be nowhere to go but down – but Darabont and the cast definitely retain a good amount of the energy they initially muster for the remainder of the episode. The search for the missing girl, Sophia, was not as cinematic as the highway sequence (and definitely adhered to a more episodic TV structure), but that’s OK, since it was still pretty good TV. That feeling of dread and despair was always present, and made you tense at the thought that Sophia could indeed meet an unhappy end – leaving her mother and the rest of survivors’ fragile morale shattered by the tragedy.

In the midst of that high tension, there were some great dramatic moments between the various characters, which sowed promising seeds for the arcs the survivors will be on this season. Some characters (Andrea, Shane) are more interesting than others (T-Dog, Dale), but the great thing about a show like this is that characters can (and will) die at any moment, so it’s easy to keep the cast trimmed and still give the audience a shock or two when someone bites it (no pun).
Virtually every scene in the premiere was relevant, and expanded both the characters and the themes of season 2, so it’s hard to pick a favorite. Some of the more undercooked characters from season 1 had great moments to shine – Daryl (Norman Reedus) in that nauseating dissection scene, or Lori (Sarah Wayne Callies) finally showing spunk by defending Rick’s honor – and on the whole the episode balanced the time spent with each character well, so that no one felt left out or irrelevant. A drastic improvement on one of the major issues with season 1.

Admittedly, the scene with Rick (Andrew Lincoln) in the church was a little bit over-dramatic (the whole church scene was, really), but it still laid out an interesting arc for Rick this season, as he struggles to keep it together and lead his people, even though this horrible existence eats away at his morale – and morality – the same as it does any other man. Now that Rick and the survivors are over their initial confusion and panic about the world they’re living in, it’ll be interesting to see what kind of person each of them becomes, as they’re forced to make hard choices (how long do you search for a missing child in zombie land?) and face hard realities (death, loss, etc…).

Last but not least – what an ending! Just when you thought there might be a glimmer of hope (Rick, Shane and Carl encountering that gorgeous buck and having a happy bonding moment) – hope turns into horror in the span of a gunshot. There are not many shows that will go so far as to depict a child getting shot – but hey, this is The Walking Dead we’re talking about. Expect the unexpected.

Whatever budget Frank Darabont was asking for – whatever creative decisions he was making – it’s clear from this episode that AMC should’ve catered to the man. Mad Men may be the critical darling (which gets it the biggest investment from the network) – but TV like this Walking Dead season 2 premiere has the potential to attract the masses, and ergo, the advertisers. Hopefully the ratings will tell that same tale.

Kofi Outlaw blogs at Screen Rant.

Libyan revolutionaries tighten hold in Sirte

SIRTE, Libya – Libya's revolutionaries on Thursday mopped up pockets of resistance and continued to consolidate control over what was the last significant stronghold of forces loyal to former dictator Moammar Gadhafi.
Fighters inside Sirte fired assault rifles at posters of the man who was once their leader. At one intersection, they torched a billboard bearing a huge poster of Gadhafi in Bedouin garb.

Sirte is Gadhafi's birthplace, and he had rewarded what was once a sleepy fishing village richly, building hotels, villas and ornate conference centers here. Now it lies in ruins after weeks of fighting.

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      PHOTOS: Libya: Battle for Sirte and Bani Walid

Libya's transitional government said that once Sirte is secure, it can move toward the next phase of establishing a democratic government.

"After we free Sirte … we will form a transitional government, and the youth and women will have a role in that," said Libya's new leader, Mustafa Abdul-Jalil.

Gadhafi loyalists remain in Bani Walid, a town southeast of Tripoli. Securing Sirte was a more significant problem for revolutionary forces, because the city lies on the coastal road between the capital, Tripoli, and the east of the country, where the rebellion first took hold.

Forces loyal to Libya's new leaders, the National Transitional Council, have besieged Sirte for nearly a month. Last week, they began a major offensive on Sirte. The fighters pushed in on five separate fronts.

Fighters in hundreds of pickups gathered on the main highway, blasting away with heavy guns before seizing residential neighborhoods on the outskirts of the coastal city.

By Wednesday, Sirte was overrun as transitional government fighters stormed through the streets, taking out snipers and blasting buildings with anti-aircraft guns.

The main boulevard had been flooded by Gadhafi loyalists to prevent their opponents from getting access to parts of the city, but the fighters waded through the dirty water and advanced to a small area within a neighborhood called District 2 where the last of the Gadhafi loyalists were holding out.

The streets of Sirte are filled with burned-out cars. Green flags, signaling loyalty to Gadhafi, still flew on many buildings. Wherever they could, the revolutionary forces took the flags down and set them on fire.

Shops and homes were ransacked as revolutionary fighters went from house to house shooting the locks off doors. One pair of fighters made off with a new 50-inch plasma-screen television wedged in the backseat of their mud-covered pickup. Others made off with cars and bicycles, joy-riding through the streets.

Fighters daubed buildings with graffiti, writing the names of their units in paint on bullet-scarred walls.

There were still some civilians in the city. In one home in the Zizi Bahria district, more than 30 Sudanese men, women and children were hiding in a series of rooms in the basement. They pleaded to be evacuated out of the city.

One man emerged from a villa on the sea front asking for gas for his car so he could drive out of the city.

"We are families here," said Mohammed Ahmed, 42.

He said that he had come to Sirte two months ago and hadn't left his home for more than two weeks.

The fighters used a pickup to tow his car out of the city, taking him and his family to safety.

A key bloc of GOP voters agrees only on disliking Mitt Romney

There is a key bloc of Republican voters whose ambivalence has turned the GOP nomination contest into an erratic mix of roller-coaster ride and dating game. They flirted with Donald Trump and then embraced Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) before jumping on and off the Rick Perry bandwagon. At different times they yearned for Govs. Mitch Daniels of Indiana and Chris Christie of New Jersey and, always, some have cast a longing eye in the direction of former Alaska governor Sarah Palin.

The one point on which they have been most consistent, however, is their resistance to the candidate who has been making his case the longest: former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney.
The anti-Romney activists, many of whom identify with the tea party movement, say they are hesitant about Romney because they simply do not trust his conservative credentials, recalling his past support of abortion rights and a health-care mandate.

But it is these activists and voters like them who could eventually decide who gets the nomination. Do they coalesce around a single alternative, such as Perry, or do they continue to divide their support among all of the other hopefuls?

Or do they swallow their misgivings and begin to give Romney another look based on the argument that he is their best chance to beat President Obama in 2012?

Many Republican donors and establishment figures have flocked to the former Massachusetts governor in the days since Christie said he would not run, arguing that Romney is the strongest and most electable GOP candidate.

In interviews over the past several days, key anti-establishment party activists say they are reevaluating the Republican field now that Christie and Palin have said they aren’t running, and will watch closely in the next three months to see who emerges to take on Romney, who they acknowledge is now the front-runner for the Republican nomination.

“There’s no Christie, there’s no Palin, there’s no speculation,” said Ryan Rhodes, head of the Iowa Tea Party. “So everything starts over.”

Romney, like most of the Republican candidates, has largely embraced positions held by party activists: committing to repeal the health-care law signed last year by Obama; calling for reduced federal spending, but no tax increases, to balance the budget; and opposing same-sex marriage and abortion.

But his record in Massachusetts, particularly a universal-health-care law he crafted, leaves many conservatives unwilling to trust him. Despite what Republicans describe as an almost flawless campaign operation, he does not exceed 30 percent of the vote in most national polls or more than 25 percent in Iowa despite having run for president for essentially the past five years.

But he’s still ahead. Rhodes, who attacked Romney as a “liberal,” says he is sticking for now with Bachmann. But the Minnesota lawmaker’s declining fortunes illustrate how many Republicans have ironclad beliefs about conservative policy but very mutable feelings about their candidates.

Washington Post-ABC News national polls show that among the nearly one-third of Republicans and GOP-leaning independents who describe themselves as “very conservative,” Bachmann’s support dropped from 26 percent in July to 7 percent in a survey this month. Perry plunged from 45 percent last month to 18 percent in October after a series of lackluster debate performances and controversial remarks on immigration.

Iraq, siding with Iran, sends essential aid to Syria’s Assad

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Iraq, siding with Iran, sends essential aid to Syria’s Assad

View Photo Gallery —  Tens of thousands of people are taking part in the uprising against Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

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By Joby Warrick, Sunday, October 9, 7:36 AM

More than six months after the start of the Syrian uprising, Iraq is offering key moral and financial support to the country’s embattled president, undermining a central U.S. policy objective and raising fresh concerns that Iraq is drifting further into the orbit of an American arch rival — Iran.

Iraq’s stance has dealt an embarrassing setback to the Obama administration, which has sought to enlist Muslim allies in its campaign to isolate Syrian autocrat Bashar al-Assad. While other Arab states have downgraded ties with Assad, Iraq has moved in the opposite direction, hosting official visits by Syrians, signing pacts to expand business ties and offering political support.
After Iraq sent conflicting signals about its support for Assad last month, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki spoke firmly against regime change in Syria in an interview broadcast on Iraqi television Sept. 30. “We believe that Syria will be able to overcome its crisis through reforms,” Maliki said, rejecting U.S. calls for the Syrian leader to step down. His words echoed those of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who weeks earlier proposed that Syrians should “implement the necessary reforms by themselves.”

On other issues as well, the Maliki government in recent months has hewed closer to Iran’s stance — Iraq, for example, has supported Iran’s right to nuclear technology and advocated U.N. membership for Palestinians — as the U.S. military races to complete its troop withdrawal over the coming months.

Few policy objectives are more important to Iran than preserving the pro-Tehran regime in Syria, longtime Middle East observers say.

“This is Iran’s influence, because preserving the Assad regime is very much in Iran’s national interest,” said David Pollock, a former adviser on Middle East policy for the State Department during the George W. Bush administration. “Iran needs Iraq’s help trying to save their ally in Damascus.”

U.S. officials acknowledged disappointment with Iraq over its dealings with Assad, while noting that other Middle East countries also have been reluctant to abandon Assad at a time when the outcome of the uprising remains uncertain.

“The Iraqis should be more helpful, absolutely,” said a senior administration official involved in Middle East diplomacy.

Some of the proposed financial deals with Syria, however, “turn out to be a lot of talk,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to candidly discuss sensitive issues.

U.S. intelligence officials predict that Syria’s uprising will eventually topple Assad, most likely after the mounting cost of sanctions causes the business elite to turn against him. But the timeline for change is far from clear.

The Obama administration hailed a decision in August by three Persian Gulf Arab states — Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain — to recall their ambassadors to Damascus to protest Assad’s violent suppression of anti-government demonstrators. And Turkey — like Iraq, a major trading partner with Syria — has repeatedly denounced the crackdown and has established Syrian refu­gee camps and hosted meetings of opposition groups.

Sarah Palin won't run in 2012, but don't expect her to fade away

Ending months of speculation, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin announced Wednesday that she’s not running for president.
Ms. Palin, the Republican nominee for vice president in 2008, had fanned talk of a possible campaign by traveling the country on a high-profile bus tour and keeping her brand well-publicized via TV and social media. But all the while, she showed few signs of mounting the kind of organizational effort required for a serious campaign.

In a letter to supporters, datelined Wasilla, Alaska, she cited her family in opting out of the 2012 race.

RECOMMENDED: How well do you know Sarah Palin? A quiz.

“After much prayer and serious consideration, I have decided that I will not be seeking the 2012 GOP nomination for President of the United States,” she wrote in the letter, obtained by ABC News. “As always, my family comes first and obviously Todd and I put great consideration into family life before making this decision. When we serve, we devote ourselves to God, family and country. My decision maintains this order.”

Palin said she felt she could be more effective “in a decisive role to help elect other true public servants to office -- from the nation’s governors to congressional seats and the presidency.”

“We need to continue to actively and aggressively help those who will stop the ‘fundamental transformation’ of our nation and instead seek the restoration of our greatness, our goodness and our constitutional republic based on the rule of law,” she said.

Had Palin decided to enter the presidential race earlier in the cycle, she could have become a top-tier contender. Even then, she would have faced an uphill climb for the nomination. Her decision to quit the Alaska governorship in 2009, after only 2-1/2 years in office, had left a bad taste with some Republicans. Some GOP critics also felt she lacked depth in her knowledge of policy, outside a few core areas, such as energy.

Still, her charisma and firm stand for conservative values meant she had, and continues to have, a loyal following among Republican voters. But as time wore on, and the nomination race got under way, her stock fell – especially as other candidates with a similar profile, such as Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, entered.

When included in recent polls of GOP voters gauging the support for GOP presidential candidates, she was down to about 10 percent. Her withdrawal, plus that of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie on Tuesday, means the Republican field is almost certainly set.

Now that she’s firmly out of the 2012 race, she can play the same kind of role she had in 2010, issuing endorsements and trying to shape debate without the pressure of being a candidate herself. She can also continue her lucrative contract with Fox News, in addition to other paid appearances and writings.

In her letter Wednesday, she made clear that energy and taxes would remain key issues in her agenda.

“I will continue driving the discussion for freedom and free markets, including in the race for President where our candidates must embrace immediate action toward energy independence through domestic resource developments of conventional energy sources, along with renewables,” she wrote. “We must reduce tax burdens and onerous regulations that kill American industry, and our candidates must always push to minimize government to strengthen the economy and allow the private sector to create jobs.”

Goldschmidt's 5 RBI lead Arizona rout of Brewers

PHOENIX – They were in diapers when their manager hit that legendary World Series home run, limping around the bases, slowly pumping his arm, a moment that will be forever captured in baseball folklore.
Arizona Diamondbacks rookies Paul Goldschmidt and Josh Collmenter might never emulate the moment, but they sure made manager Kirk Gibson proud Tuesday night, refusing to let their season die with an 8-1 rout of the Milwaukee Brewers at Chase Field.

The Brewers still lead the National League Division Series 2-1, but the Diamondbacks have new life, revived energy and a genuine hope that they can pull off the comeback. No NL team has recovered from a 2-0 deficit in a best-of-five series since the 1984 San Diego Padres beat the Chicago Cubs.

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      BOX SCORE: Diamondbacks 8, Brewers 1 (Brewers lead 2-1)
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      MORE: Nyjer Morgan, aka Tony Plush, revel in postseason

"It's not over," said Gibson, who hit the 1988 World Series homer for the Los Angeles Dodgers. "Not even close."

Goldschmidt and Collmenter made sure of that in the greatest night of their professional careers.

Goldschmidt, who was in the minor leagues to start August and nearly remained there while the Diamondbacks tried to acquire a veteran first baseman, came to the plate with two outs and the bases loaded in the fifth inning. Brewers starter Shaun Marcum, who entered the game with the lowest NL road ERA (2.21), intentionally walked left-handed-hitting catcher Miguel Montero to get to Goldschmidt.

Oh, and how Goldschmidt made him pay the price. Goldschmidt, who had already homered off Cy Young winners Tim Lincecum and Cliff Lee this season, added Marcum to his résumé. He powered a 1-and-2, 87-mph fastball the opposite way, into the right-field seats. The sell-out crowd of 48,312 went berserk, rocking Chase Field as if it were 2001 all over again, the 10-year anniversary of the Diamondbacks' World Series championship.

"I wasn't surprised they walked him," Goldschmidt said. "Teams have done that plenty of times before. I was just hoping for a chance to come through.

"I knew I hit it good, and then I was begging for it to go out."

It was the first grand slam in Arizona postseason history, and Goldschmidt became the first rookie to hit a grand slam since Ricky Ledee of the 1999 New York Yankees. Goldschmidt's five RBI, with one in the first inning, tied a postseason franchise record.

"I decided to walk him," Brewers manager Ron Roenicke said, "because Montero scares me. If I knew he [Goldschmidt] was going to hit a homer, I wouldn't have walked him.

"Sometiems you make the right moves, and somethings they don't work out."

It certainly was plenty of support for Collmenter, whose dream is to play the Detroit Tigers in the World Series, the team he grew up rooting for while living in Homer, Mich., population 1,800.

Collmenter at least kept his part of the dream alive, limiting the vaunted Brewers lineup to two hits in seven innings. It was the third time the Brewers had seen Collmenter this season, and the nightmare never gets better. The only difference this time is they finally scored off Collmenter, their only run in 21 innings off him.

And now, after Gibson's brief pep talk Monday, the Diamondbacks have a chance to even the series Wednesday, sending it back to Milwaukee for Game 5 on Friday.

President Obama goes on the attack, to Democrats’ delight

There is a noticeably more aggressive, confrontational President Obama roaming the country these days, selling his jobs plan and attacking Republicans for standing in the way of progress by standing up only for the rich.
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President Obama goes on the attack, to Democrats’ delight

View Photo Gallery —  President Obama’s reelection campaign and DNC together raised $86 million in the second quarter of 2011. Outside of fundraising, the president is ramping up support for his reelection with his visits and talk about focusing on the economy.

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By David Nakamura and Paul Kane, Wednesday, October 5, 12:00 PM

There is a noticeably more aggressive, confrontational President Obama roaming the country these days, selling his jobs plan and attacking Republicans for standing in the way of progress by standing up only for the rich.

In Texas on Tuesday, the president went after a leading Republican by name: “Yesterday the Republican majority leader in Congress, Eric Cantor, said that right now he won’t even let this jobs bill have a vote in the House of Representatives,” Obama said. “I would like Mr. Cantor to come here to Dallas and explain what exactly in this jobs bill does he not believe in, what exactly he is opposed to. Does he not believe in rebuilding America’s roads and bridges? Does he not believe in tax breaks for small businesses or efforts to help our veterans?”

The emergence of this more pugnacious Obama has heartened Democrats, especially the most liberal ones, who spent the past few months dejected by what they saw as the president’s unwillingness to engage his opponents in political combat.

“We don’t see it as confrontation; we see it as leadership,” said Mary Kay Henry, president of the Service Employees International Union. “We see the president exerting strong leadership to make the case to the country that everything we had to listen to during the debt debate was wrong.”

The president’s problems, even within his own party, remain formidable; only 58 percent of Democrats in a new Washington Post-ABC News poll believe that he will be reelected. Many supporters remain skeptical of his tendency to seek compromise with Republicans, and recently he angered some black supporters by urging them to stop complaining.

Still, in recent weeks, Obama has begun to blunt some of the criticism among Democrats that he is not up for the fight.

“The guy is mad,” said Peter Fenn, a longtime Democratic strategist. “I’d be mad, too. We went four months on the debt-ceiling nonsense. What positive result came of that? Zip.”

The new attack strategy is rooted in the political reality that Obama is 13 months from Election Day and faces a tough road. The poll shows that 61 percent of Americans disapprove of the way he is handling the economy.

Indeed, the only good news for Obama relates to his jobs plan and his Republican opposition. An even higher percentage of poll respondents, about 76 percent, say they disapprove of the way Republicans in Congress are handling the economy. Given that dubious advantage, the president may have few options other than to attack.

Obama used a Labor Day speech in Detroit to launch his new offensive against the GOP opposition. With him on Air Force One that day was Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), who gave Obama the text of a rousing speech delivered by Harry S. Truman on Labor Day 1948, also in Detroit. Truman was another deeply unpopular Democratic president in the midst of an economic recession; he won another term in 1948 by attacking the Republicans, earning the nickname “Give ’Em Hell Harry.”

A month later, other parallels are emerging. Facing sharp criticism from Democrats who say he capitulated to Republicans during the summer’s acrimonious debt-ceiling negotiations, Obama has embarked on a nationwide barnstorming tour to promote his plan to create jobs and try to reverse his ebbing political fortunes.
Senior administration officials said the president will continue his jobs tour through year’s end in a calculated effort to force Republicans to negotiate or be painted as a party unwilling to address the economic crisis.

The president’s jobs plan is one remaining bright spot for him. A narrow majority in the poll supports the package. Nearly six in 10 say Obama’s plan would help improve the unemployment situation.
Obama has begun to frame the 2012 contest as a referendum on values. At a fundraiser in California late last month, he mocked Texas Gov. Rick Perry, a leading contender for the GOP nomination, whose state has been ravaged by drought and wildfires, for not believing in the science of climate change. And in a speech on Saturday, Obama blasted the Republican presidential candidates for failing to defend a gay American solider in Iraq who was booed while asking a question via video during a GOP debate.

“We don’t believe in a small America,” Obama told a crowd of 3,300 at the Human Rights Campaign dinner in Washington. “We don’t believe . . . it’s okay for a stage full of political leaders — one of whom could end up being the president of the United States — being silent when an American soldier is booed. . . . You want to be commander in chief? You can start by standing up for the men and women who wear the uniform.”

Obama drew a standing ovation that lasted longer than a minute, a remarkable turnaround for a president who himself was booed during a fundraiser in New York last spring when he said his views on same-sex marriage were still evolving.

“President Obama did an amazing job of thoroughly weaving together the narrative of his accomplishments and the pivotal implications of having another person in that Oval Office,” said Fred Sainz, a Human Rights Campaign spokesman.

The president also has drawn a values contrast with Republicans over how to pay for his jobs plan, which features a “Buffett rule” that would eliminate some tax loopholes for people earning more than $200,000 a year. Republicans have labeled Obama’s approach “class warfare,” a term the president has embraced — with a twist.

“You’re already hearing the Republicans in Congress dusting off the old talking points,” Obama told New York donors two weeks ago. “You know what? If asking a billionaire to pay the same rate as a plumber or a teacher makes me a warrior for the middle class, I wear that charge as a badge of honor.”

Neera Tanden, a former Obama administration official, said the president tried to position himself as the “adult in the room” during the debt fight, remaining above the partisan fray in hopes of striking a “grand bargain.” The strategy collapsed after House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) balked under pressure from the tea party and the White House agreed to cut spending by $900 billion without raising taxes.

“If you are the adult in the room as they move farther and farther right, you are not pulling back against them,” said Tanden, now the chief operating officer at the liberal Center for American Progress. “You have to come up with a strategy to meet the times. . . . The most important thing for the president now is to demonstrate leadership and vision. The stronger, feistier tone helps him do that.”

Darlene Ewing, chairman of the Dallas County Democratic Party, said that she was “royally [upset] when Obama caved” on the Bush tax cuts.

“I was really excited when he finally said, ‘Okay, that’s not the way it’s going to be,’ ” Ewing said this week. “I understand if you don’t want to add to the divisiveness. But it’s like mud-wrestling with a snake — you’re not going to win.”