Posted: 05 Mar 2010 10:02 AM PST

NEW YORK, March 5 /PRNewswire/ -- John Killian, executive vice president and chief financial officer for Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ), will speak at the Credit Suisse Global Media & Communications Convergence conference in Palm Beach, Fla., on Monday, March 8. His presentation will be webcast beginning at approximately 1:15 p.m. Eastern time. Access instructions will be available that day on Verizon's Investor Relations Web site, www.verizon.com/investor, and on the Verizon Wireless site, www.verizonwireless.com/investors.

VERIZON'S ONLINE NEWS CENTER: Verizon news releases, executive speeches and biographies, media contacts, high-quality video and images, and other information are available at Verizon's News Center on the World Wide Web at www.verizon.com/news. To receive news releases by e-mail, visit the News Center and register for customized automatic delivery of Verizon news releases.

SOURCE Verizon Communications

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The Ultimate Fighter 11’ cast biographies - YAHOO!

Posted: 02 Mar 2010 01:26 PM PST

Here is the cast of Season 11 of "The Ultimate Fighter: Liddell vs. Ortiz:"

RICH ATTONITO
Hometown: Deerfield Beach, Fla.
Affiliation: American Top Team
Record: 7-3
Age: 32
A 2001 graduate of Hofstra University, Rich Attonito wrestled several different weight classes as a member of the Pride wrestling team, including the 167- and 197-pound divisions. Attonito has been training with American Top Team since he moved to Florida in 2006. He is the strength and conditioning coach for UFC veteran Luigi Fioravanti.

SETH BACZYNSKI
Hometown: Canyon, Ariz.
Affiliation: Apex MMA
Record: 11-5
Age: 28
Baczynski is a training partner to TUF 8 champion Efrain Escudero and TUF 9 alum Santino DeFranco. He is a full-time water inspector for Liberty Water.

CHARLES BLANCHARD
Hometown: Coconut Creek, Fla.
Affiliation: American Top Team
Record: 7-2
Age: 24
A two-time all-state wrester in high school, Blanchard is a single father. He is a jiu-jitsu brown belt as well as a published poet.

JOSH BRYANT
Hometown: Tulsa, Okla.
Affiliation: Absolute Combat Alliance
Record: 10-0
Age: 29
A member of the Absolute Combat Alliance camp in Tulsa, Okla., Josh is the manager of Mazzio's Italian Eatery in Oklahoma.

CHRIS CAMOZZI
Hometown: Denver
Affiliation: Gumm MMA
Record: 11-3
Age: 22
Camozzi is a freestyle fighter who works as a bouncer in his spare time. Two of his three losses are to TUF alums Jesse Forbes (Season 3) and Jesse Taylor (Season 7).

BRENT COOPER
Hometown: Long Beach, Calif.
Affiliation: Team Oyama
Record: 5-1
Age: 31
Of Sioux Indian descent, Cooper is a pipe liner by day for Shell Oil, and a devastating striker by night, with four of his five wins coming via TKO.

JACEN FLYNN
Hometown: Meridian, Idaho
Affiliation: None
Record: 8-2
Age: 31
Jacen Flynn own wins over UFC veterans Denis Kang and Dean Lister. He is a social worker.

JAMES HAMMORTREE
Hometown: Ocala, Fla.
Affiliation: USA Martial Arts
Record: 4-0
Age: 23

Following one season at Weber International, where he starred on the football team as a linebacker and on special teams, Hammortree left the program in order to become a full-time fighter. He is a one-time high school wrestler and turned professional in 2009.

JOSEPH HENLE
Hometown: Thousand Oaks, Calif.
Affiliation: Big John McCarthy's MMA
Record: 3-0
Age: 26
Joseph Henle splits time training at Big John McCarthy's MMA and working as a substitute teacher and wrestling coach. Henle earned his MBA in financial planning from California Lutheran University in '06. He speaks fluent Japanese.

CHARLEY LYNCH
Hometown: Mound, Minn.
Affiliation: Northway MMA
Record: 6-0
Age: 25
The self-proclaimed baddest man in Minnesota, Charley Lynch owns a 6-0 professional record with zero of his bouts going to decision.

KRIS MCCRAY
Hometown: Dumfries, Va.
Affiliation: Chute Boxe
Record: 5-0
Age: 28
The son of a military father, Kris McCray was raised in Germany, where he excelled on the soccer pitch. In 1999, McCray moved permanently to the United States, where he has served parts of 8 years (6 active, 2 inactive) as a member of the Army Reserve. He has an Associate degree in Social Studies from Northern Virginia Community College.

COURT MCGEE
Hometown: Orem, Utah
Affiliation: Throwdown Elite Fight Team
Record: 9-1
Age: 24
A Brazilian jiu-jitsu artist, Court McGee beat Season 9 runner-up DaMarques Johnson in 2007 by submission. He's also 2-0 as a pro boxer.

CLAYTON MCKINNEY
Hometown: Orlando, Fla.
Affiliation: Jungle MMA
Record: 4-2
Age: 27
A teammate of Season 8 alum Tom Lawlor at Jungle MMA, McKinney is a Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt. He supplements his training by working security at a local bar.

KYLE NOKE
Hometown: Albuquerque, N.M.
Affiliation: Jackson's MMA
Record: 16-4-1
Age: 29
Noke, from Mooloolaba, Australia, is the former bodyguard of "Crocodile Hunter" Steve Irwin. Noke defeated Season 6 alum George Sotiropoulos in June 2005 and current cast mate Kyacey Uscola in September.

VICTOR O'DONNELL
Hometown: Milford, Ohio
Affiliation: Vision MMA
Record: 8-1
Age: 27
O'Donnell suffered his first professional loss in September against cast mate Costantinos Philippou. Before that, he had won eight in a row, seven of which were by submission.

NORMAN PARAISY
Hometown: Coconut Creek, Fla.
Affiliation: American Top Team
Record: 5-1
Age: 23
Norman Paraisy was born and raised Paris. The Brazilian jiu-jitsu artist left France in order to pursue MMA in the U.S. and is now a member of the American Top Team.

COSTANTINOS PHILIPPOU
Hometown: Merrick, N.Y.
Affiliation: Serra-Longo MMA
Record: 5-1
Age: 30
Costantinos Philippou is a former boxer with three professional and over 80 amateur fights on his record. He was born and raised in Greece.

GREG REBELLO
Hometown: Buzzards Bay, Mass.
Affiliation: Sityodtong USA
Record: 9-2
Age: 27
Rebello under the watchful eye of highly regarded coach Mark DellaGrotte. Currently in peak physical condition, Rebello at one time weighed in over 300 pounds before dedicating himself to fitness at 18.

NICK RING
Hometown: Calgary, Canada
Affiliation: B.D.P. Martial Arts
Record: 10-0
Age: 30

Ring returned to MMA in May following a three-year stint away from the sport after suffering a devastating knee injury. In that time, Ring boxed professionally and was 4-1 with three knockouts.

JORDAN SMITH
Hometown: Clearfield, Utah
Affiliation: Throwdown Elite Fight Team
Record: 10-0
Age: 24
A seventh grade teacher, Jordan Smith is a former professional boxer who trains with cast mate Court McGee at Throwdown Elite Fight Team.

BEN STARK
Hometown: Tamarac, Fla.
Affiliation: American Top Team
Record: 3-1
Age: 27
Born and raised a practitioner of the Orthodox Jewish religion until the age of 6, Ben Stark began training with American Top Team in Florida as a sophomore in college. When not at the gym, Stark likes to breed snakes.

LYLE STEFFENS
Hometown: Tucson, Ariz.
Affiliation: Apex MMA
Record: 5-2
Age: 26
Steffens is a firefighter and an EMT and trains with cast member Seth Baczynski.

BRAD TAVARES
Hometown: Las Vegas
Affiliation: Tapout Training Center
Record: 4-0
Age: 21
Tavares is the youngest of this season's cast members. Originally from Hilo, Hawaii, Tavares recently relocated to Las Vegas and trains full-time with Tapout.

WARREN THOMPSON
Hometown: Marietta, Ga.
Affiliations: Team Khunpon/Roberto Traven BJJ
Record: 5-0
Age: 23
Thompson, known as "The Kool-Aid Man," is a Muay Thai fighter and a volunteer firefighter.

KYACEY USCOLA
Hometown: Sacramento, Calif.
Affiliation: Team Alpha Male
Record: 18-15
Age: 28
Kyacey Uscola joins the cast with 33 professional MMA fights on his record. He trains with WEC star Urijah Faber.

CLEBURN WALKER
Hometown: Keller, Texas
Affiliation: Team Lutter
Record: 9-3
Age: 26
Cleburn Walker is a full-time fighter and an instructor at Team Lutter. He suffered a recent loss via submission to TUF Season 3 alum Jesse Forbes in June.

WOODY WEATHERBY
Hometown: Hudson, N.H.
Affiliations: Renzo Gracie Academy/Micky Ward's Boxing Gym & Xtreme MMA
Record: 7-3
Age: 27
A former Navy officer, Weatherby currently works full-time as a corrections officer for the Hillsborough County jail in Manchester, N.H.

JAMIE YAGER
Hometown: Los Angeles
Affiliation: Kings MMA
Record: 2-1
Age: 25
A standout varsity letterman in baseball and football, Yager was the 2001 Athlete of the Year at South Pasadena High School in California. He picked up training MMA as a hobby, and went straight from training to the professional ranks in February 2008 as part of BET's "Iron Ring" show.

Biographies courtesy Spike TV.

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Jim Huffman: A credible and serious challenger for a Senate seat - OregonLive.com

Posted: 06 Mar 2010 06:12 AM PST

By Elizabeth Hovde, Oregonian columnist

March 06, 2010, 6:12AM

One of the biggest problems with our nation's two-party system is that voters typically end up with only two choices come Election Day. And one of the biggest problems with a lack of term limits, even though I oppose them for most positions, is that it creates incumbents with such deeply rooted financial and political connections that voters can essentially end up with just one ballot choice: the incumbent. (Sacrificial lambs sent to slaughter by the opposition party don't count.)

A case in point is Oregon's Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden. Most would agree he hasn't had a strong challenge since joining the Senate in 1996 and only limited opposition since being elected to the U.S. House 30 years ago. But that just changed with Thursday's official announcement that Jim Huffman, a Lewis & Clark law professor and constitutional expert, is hoping to unseat Wyden in 2010.

Huffman is such a serious challenger that Democrats are doing all they can to tear him apart, creating an anti-Huffman Web site (meetjimhuffman.com) and criticizing everything from his bow tie to his retirement from being law school dean at Lewis & Clark. The aforementioned tie can still be seen on Huffman's biography page on the Lewis & Clark Web site but is MIA in newer photos on Huffman's campaign Web site, jobsfororegonians.com.

As for retiring his deanship, Huffman says he stepped down four years ago because he grew tired of the job after doing it 13 years, far longer than the average law school dean's tenure. He continues to teach at the school.

Huffman, 64, is fully aware that decades of prolific writing will offer his opponents plenty of fodder. He has written more than 150 academic articles and briefs, and dozens of guest columns for The Oregonian. "If people want to dig up things I have written and quote me out of context, they are going to have a field day," Huffman told me Wednesday. He hopes people considering his candidacy will read his opinions, articles and issue statements in full instead of relying on sound bites.

If they do, they'll find him a pretty reasonable, down-to-earth and successful guy who has lived a life fairly free of controversy. He's been at Lewis & Clark since 1973, votes reliably in Oregon elections, is married and has five children, two adults and three still at home. His eldest son, Kurt Huffman, is co-owner of Portland's popular and hip Ping restaurant. His grown daughter lives out of state, and Huffman described her as liberal. When she heard he was running, she asked him why he couldn't run as an independent. "I told her because you can't win as an independent," Huffman chuckled.

It makes sense why some liberal bloggers are attacking the bow tie. Getting into the issues with Huffman could prove problematic. Huffman is the kind of Republican that a lot of independent Oregonians will be attracted to: He has supported the legal rights of gays and opposes the death penalty, saying it isn't applied with enough reliability or accuracy to deserve support.

He says that the abortion issue has "corrupted American politics for way too long" and that it is so difficult because, unlike most individual rights cases, it pits the rights of two individuals -- the mother and the unborn -- against each other. If forced into one camp or the other, he says he would be characterized as pro-choice.

Huffman is a fiscal conservative and voted against Measures 66 and 67. He supported Sen. John McCain's bid for president. He says that he liked Sarah Palin's GOP convention speech but that she is not the right person to run the country, remarking that she has been "entertaining." He's reliably supportive of private property rights and feels that the populace is overtaxed. He thinks most of Congress' bailouts and proposed health care packages have been wrong for the country.

And, perhaps most important in 2010, he thinks Washington, D.C., needs fresh leadership and participation from people who aren't seeking a career in politics and who won't just follow a party line.

Bob Tiernan, chairman of the Oregon Republican Party, gets giddy when you ask him about Huffman. "He's the kind of guy we need in government, period, whether you are a Republican or a Democrat," Tiernan said Thursday. "I think Wyden is in real trouble. A lot of people don't even know Huffman yet and he's already polling somewhat competitively with Wyden.

"A lot of people are fed up with Washington," Tiernan added. "Huffman is the kind of candidate we all dream about."

Whether or not Oregonians find Huffman to be the dream candidate Tiernan does, it's clear his race for Senate will give Wyden a good challenge and voters more than one choice.

Elizabeth Hovde writes a Sunday column for The Oregonian and posts during the week on oregonlive.com/thestump. Reach her at ehovde@earthlink.net

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18th Century figures recalled during 250th anniversary tea - Recorder Community Newspapers

Posted: 06 Mar 2010 05:14 AM PST