Stirring

Jimmy Clausen is best known these days as the Carolina Panthers' third-string quarterback -- in other words, we haven't heard much about him lately. Until recently, when the former Notre Dame quarterback tweeted a photo of a T-shirt touting the upcoming BCS championship game between the Fighting Irish and Alabama as "Catholics vs. Cousins. " It's a play on the classic Notre Dame vs. Miami matchup in 1988, dubbed "Catholics vs. Convicts. " In this case, the "cousins" would be the Crimson Tide because apparently everyone in Alabama is related.

BEIRUT - The United States faced a growing backlash Wednesday for its decision to blacklist a Syrian rebel faction because of alleged terrorist ties amid reports that the Syrian military had fired Scud missiles at insurgents. The use of Scuds, a Soviet-designed ballistic weapon, would represent a major government escalation against insurgents trying to close in on the remaining loyalist strongholds in the capital, Damascus, and elsewhere. According to one U.S. official, Syrian forces in recent days have fired half a dozen Scud missiles from near Damascus into rebel-held areas of northern Syria.

PALO ALTO -- What a great week, capped off by an entertaining and scintillating finish to a football game. It's good to have a life. The week begins last Saturday with UCLA hoodwinking Stanford into thinking the Bruins are pushovers followed by a news conference designed to identify the yahoos out there who think this is really important stuff we're doing. Thanks for participating, Kirk Herbstreit. Then it was off to see James Bond in "Skyfall," this one even better than "From Russia With Love," which had been the all-timer.

June Manning has multiple forms of arthritis, and at 84, just mopping the floor is a challenge. So she said the idea of moving out of her spacious, well-kept trailer home is giving her nightmares. After a six-year battle with a local developer, Manning and her neighbors at Santa Monica's Village Trailer Park must prepare for eviction. "I'm so stressed out," she said softly. "I'm scared, because I have no place to go. " Manning is one of several park residents who are elderly, have health problems or both.

Sitting here in Best Picture Limbo, thumbing through the year-old magazines (Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively? No way that works!) and waiting for the bell to ring on the remaining Oscar candidates - "Zero Dark Thirty," "Django Unchained," "Les Miserables," the "Hobbit" movie - we can at least report on one sure-fire contender that's arriving in theaters ... not next month but tomorrow. Consider the movie's pedigree: Its acting ensemble features two Oscar winners and two other actors who have been nominated seven times through the years.

As a longtime football analyst on Fox, Terry Bradshaw has said many things that make no sense. But a comment he made Sunday while describing a touchdown run by the Miami Dolphins' Reggie Bush has many people both scratching their heads and fuming in anger. Bradshaw was talking over a clip of a back-and-forth run by the African American running back when he called out to cohort Jimmie Johnson, "Look at this, Jimmie! Like he was chasing that bucket of chicken that wind was blowing the other day. " Not only was the statement nonsensical, but it also seemed to employ a negative racial stereotype.

Horse racing is in need of a new star, and she emerged Saturday, wearing a bright yellow one on the front of her silks. Rosie Napravnik, a red-haired 24-year-old from New Jersey, is poised to make a strong challenge as the Kentucky Derby's first winning female jockey after directing Shanghai Bobby to a stirring Breeders' Cup Juvenile victory at Santa Anita. She is the second winning female jockey in Breeders' Cup history. Julie Krone rode Halfbridled to a 2003 Juvenile Fillies victory.

Joshua Solomon kept his Boy Scouts uniform in his closet for 30 years, a cotton and nylon reminder of the sexual abuse he said he endured - but never reported - as a 12-year-old in Berkeley's Troop 22. "I've been refusing to let this piece of history die," he said. Last week, he took the uniform out of the closet. His memories of Scouting - and everything the uniform represents - flooded back with the public release of hundreds of previously confidential files on suspected molesters kept by the youth organization.

NEW DELHI - Politics, an official's controversial comments about rape, and an upcoming election. This may sound like a senatorial race in Missouri, but it's all part of a scandal that's unfolded in India over the last week. The anger, introspection and frustration among women's groups and social critics, however, have echoed American reaction to recent suggestions by Rep. Todd Akin (R-Mo.) that women's bodies are able to prevent pregnancy in the event of "legitimate rape. " The issue hit the headlines here when a 16-year-old girl committed suicide in the northern state of Haryana this month after being raped.

ATHENS - With a new batch of budget cuts looming, Greek officials have made it clear that they must target the state's nearly 1-million-strong army of civil servants, shaving salaries, benefits and bonuses for the third time in three years. "We're doomed," says social worker Dmitra, 44, who asked that her last name not be printed for fear of reprisals. "Whoever said we were privileged and protected?" And yet, many Greeks emphatically contend that government workers are protected.