Santorum on defensive as race turns to La. Santorum on defensive as race turns to La. ADVERTISING WEST MONROE, La. — Facing heightened pressure to revive his presidential bid, Rick Santorum was forced to explain another apparent misstep as he
Santorum on defensive as race turns to La.
WEST MONROE, La. — Facing heightened pressure to revive his presidential bid, Rick Santorum was forced to explain another apparent misstep as he courted Louisiana voters Friday, the eve of a critical contest in a Republican nomination battle that increasingly favors Mitt Romney.
Santorum said he would support the eventual GOP nominee — if it isn’t him — despite what he insists are similarities between front-runner Romney and President Barack Obama that make them indistinguishable on some issues. He caused an intraparty uproar earlier in the week after suggesting he’d prefer a second term for Obama over a Romney presidency.
“I’ve said repeatedly and will continue to say, I’ll vote for whoever the Republican nominee is and I will work for him,” Santorum said as he walked back his original comments less than 24 hours before Louisiana polls were set to open. “Barack Obama is a disaster, but we can’t have someone who agrees with him on some of the biggest issues of the day.”
The situation underscored Santorum’s challenges ahead of a Louisiana contest he’s favored to win. Santorum has had success in the South, having won last week’s contests in Alabama and Mississippi. Regardless of the outcome Saturday, however, Romney will have collected more delegates than his opponents combined as the race then turns to more favorable territory in the coming weeks.
Facebook addresses more privacy concerns
NEW YORK — Facebook has taken steps in recent days to address more worries about privacy, warning employers not to ask prospective employees for their passwords and trying to clarify its user “rights and responsibilities” policies.
But the latter effort backfired when tens of thousands of users, mostly in Germany, misunderstood the clarifications and blasted the company, even though nothing substantive had changed. Their discontent showed that, no matter what Facebook does, privacy concerns are still the biggest threat to users’ trust and to its growth.
“There is such an incredible level of scrutiny now about anything any company does about privacy,” said Jules Polonetsky, director of the Future of Privacy Forum, an industry-backed think tank in Washington. “We are treating every single thing that touches privacy as a five-alarm fire. The risk of all these five-alarm level outbursts is that people will become inured about privacy and miss real privacy issues because of crying wolf when nothing is actually going on.”
Users’ willingness to share information is a key part of Facebook’s business. The site makes the bulk of its money from ads that target users based on their personal information. Last year, the company earned a profit of $668 million and booked $3.7 billion of revenue, and it’s preparing for an initial public offering later this spring that could be valued at as much as $100 billion.
Tucson Safeway covers Elle magazine cover
PHOENIX — A pregnant Jessica Simpson on the cover of Elle magazine was apparently too much for some customers of a Tucson Safeway store, where a worker covered it with cardboard.
The April edition features the photo of the singer/actress/fashion designer with one hand over her breast and another wrapped around her nude belly.
The Arizona Daily Star reported the manager of the store received multiple complaints, prompting a worker to cover the image with cardboard.
“The sign was up for a short time and removed,” Teena Massingill, director of corporate public affairs for Safeway Inc., told The Associated Press. “This was one store employee’s response to some customer complaints. This was by no means a company-wide directive.”
Elle Magazine released a statement Friday to the AP.
By wire sources
