The FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) futures contract (FKLI) on Bursa Malaysia Derivatives opened higher on buying interest despite the weaker cash market.
At 9.32am, spot month February 2014 was six points better at 1,784, March 2014 gained 5.5 points to 1,783 and September 2014 rose seven points to 1,781.5.
June 2014 was flat at 1,773.
Turnover amounted to 1,200 lots while open interest totalled 32,733.
The benchmark FBM KLCI was 0.22 of-a-point lower at 1,785.66 points after 32 minutes of trading.-- Bernama
[unable to retrieve full-text content]The physical price of gold as at 9.30am stood at RM129.49 per gramme, down 20 sen from RM129.69 at 5pm yesterday.-- Bernama
WASHINGTON — Drug store giant CVS Caremark announced Wednesday it will no longer sell tobacco products at its 7,600 pharmacies by Oct. 1.
CVS sells $2 billion in tobacco and tobacco-related products a year, or 3% of overall sales, but CVS officials said selling cigarettes while promoting wellness doesn't make sense.
"Selling tobacco is very inconsistent with being in that business," said Helena Foulkes, CVS's pharmacy president. "We really thought about this decision as it relates to the future as a health company — it's good for customers and our company, in the long run."
Foulkes told USA TODAY that CVS sees its future as an alternative to the doctor's office, with 26,000 pharmacists and nurse practitioners counseling customers about how to control their high cholesterol, diabetes and high blood pressure.
"Any form of tobacco use makes those chronic conditions more difficult to deal with," she said. "This is good for business and the right thing to do."
President Obama — a former smoker — hailed the announcement, saying in a statement Wednesday: "As one of the largest retailers and pharmacies in America, CVS Caremark sets a powerful example, and today's decision will help advance my administration's efforts to reduce tobacco-related deaths, cancer, and heart disease, as well as bring down health care costs — ultimately saving lives and protecting untold numbers of families from pain and heartbreak for years to come."
CVS officials met with tobacco company executives Tuesday to explain the decision, understanding that eliminating tobacco products from the pharmacies would likely affect the tobacco industry's bottom line, as well.
"Obviously, you would think they would be disappointed about the decision," said Larry Merlo, CEO of CVS Caremark, of the meeting with the officials. But he said they understood the rational behind the decision. And it probably won't be a huge loss for them: Morgan Stanley issued an analysis Wednesday stating that CVS probably accounts for about 2% of industry sales.
"We do not believe that CVS's exit — or the potential exit of other pharmacy chains in the future — will reduce total sales," the statement reads.
Other pharmacies are expected to eventually follow suit, and some cities in California and Massachusetts have banned tobacco sales at all pharmacies. The American Pharmacists Association asked for a ban on sales in 2010 at pharmacies, including at grocery stores that have pharmacies, according to an article published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Wednesday
As the Affordable Care Act is implemented, it's important to help people stay healthy, said Troy Brennan, the company's chief medical officer.
"It's expensive to provide health care for all the people through the ACA," Brennan said. The company will announce a "very large" smoking cessation program in the spring.
Foulkes said seven out of 10 smokers would like to stop, and half have tried to in the past year.
Ezekiel Emanuel, a University of Pennsylvania bio-ethicist and one of the architects of the health care law, said he sees smoking as one of the top health issues facing the United States. He agrees that reducing smoking-related costs is important as more people become insured so others don't have to take on the burden of those costs and called working to reduce smoking "kind of a no-brainer."
CVS expects to lose about $2 billion in sales annually, Foulkes said, but the company hopes to recoup its losses in other ways, including an increased focus on its pharmacy management benefit program to help insurers save money on employees' health. Merlo said the change would not affect their bottom line.
And while they intend to look at other ways to push a health-oriented focus, Merlo said they had no plans to eliminate alcohol or candy from the pharmacies, saying that "occasional use does not cause the problems that tobacco does." Instead, they intend to focus on keeping tobacco out of the hands of young people so they don't begin lifelong addictions, he said.
More than 480,000 people die from smoking-related ailments a year, according to the JAMA article by Brennan and Steven Schroeder, director of the Smoking Cessation Leadership Center at the University of California.
Smoking has gone down significantly, from 42% of adults in 1965 to 18% today. This comes after increases in taxes, and public areas — such as airports, bars and federal buildings — where smoking is prohibited. Advertising also diminished the appeal of smoking. Just this week, the American Cancer Society launched an advertising campaign aimed at how teenagers would look in the future if they begin smoking now. Still, 42 million people smoke and 16 million are sick, according to JAMA.
The Rhode Island-headquartered company maintained that its exit from the tobacco category will not affect its 2014 operating profit guidance. Its shares are down about 1% in pre-market trading.
NEW: Police release names of suspects, all facing drug-related charges
Police found Hoffman's personal journal in his apartment, sources say
Source: Police recover 350 bags of what is believed to be heroin
Hoffman withdrew $1,200 from ATM the night before he died, source says
New York (CNN) -- Four people believed to be connected to the drugs found in Philip Seymour Hoffman's apartment were arrested late Tuesday night, law enforcement officials told CNN.
During the raid that led to the arrest of the three men and one woman, police recovered 350 glassine-type bags of what is believed to be heroin, the officials said.
Apartments at 302 Mott Street in Manhattan, where the four were arrested, are part of the investigation into Hoffman's death, according to a police source.
The source identified suspects being investigated in connection with drugs sold to Hoffman as Juliana Luchkiw, 22, charged with criminal use of drug paraphernalia, criminal possession of a controlled substance and unlawful possession of marijuana; Max Rosenblum, 22, charged with criminal use of drug paraphernalia, criminal possession of a controlled substance and unlawful possession of marijuana; Robert Vineberg, 57, charged with criminal possession of a controlled substance and criminal use of drug paraphernalia; and Thomas Cushman, 48, charged with criminal possession of a controlled substance.
Vineberg was found to have the actor's phone number stored in his cell phone, a law enforcement official told CNN.
When police were called to Hoffman's fourth-floor Manhattan apartment Sunday, they found the actor lying on the bathroom floor with a syringe in his left arm. He was wearing shorts and a T-shirt, his eyeglasses still resting on his head, according to law enforcement sources familiar with the inquiry.
Investigators discovered close to 50 envelopes of what they believed was heroin in the apartment, the law enforcement sources said. They also found used syringes, prescription drugs and empty glassine-type bags, the sources said.
Also found in Hoffman's apartment was his personal journal, resting on a living room TV stand, two law enforcement sources said.
Preliminary tests Tuesday showed the heroin recovered from the apartment does not contain fentanyl, a law enforcement official told CNN. More testing will be done.
Fentanyl is a powerful narcotic used to treat cancer patients' pain.
Last week, Maryland officials said heroin tainted with fentanyl had claimed at least 37 lives since September. And last month, at least 22 people in western Pennsylvania died after using heroin mixed with fentanyl.
While results of an autopsy will definitively reveal exactly how Hoffman, 46, died, the role heroin may or may not have played is a key part of the investigation.
Final hours
Police are trying to piece together the actor's movements last weekend as they look for anyone who might be linked to the drugs that apparently killed him.
On Tuesday, a law enforcement source told CNN that the night before Hoffman died, he withdrew $1,200 from a grocery store ATM near his apartment.
Hoffman got the money in six transactions Saturday night, according to the source.
A witness told investigators he saw the Oscar-winning actor talking to two men wearing messenger bags about 8 p.m.
Police are also reviewing surveillance video, including video of a restaurant where Hoffman had brunch Saturday morning with two people.
In a 2011 interview with "60 Minutes," Hoffman discussed his past struggles with drug and alcohol addiction.
"Anything I could get my hands on, I liked it all," he said.
Fear, Hoffman said, made him sober up.
"You get panicked. ... I was 22 and I got panicked for my life. It really was, it was just that," he said. "And I always think, 'God, I have so much empathy for these young actors that are 19 and all of a sudden are beautiful and famous and rich.' I'm like, 'Oh my God. I'd be dead.'"
But last year, Hoffman said he'd fallen off the wagon, started taking prescription pills and slipped into snorting heroin, according to TMZ.
Magazine writer John Arundel said he met the actor at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah two weeks before his death.
"I said, 'What do you do?' And at that point, he took off his hat and he said, 'I'm a heroin addict,'" Arundel said.
"Didn't look like he was (joking). Seemed like he was having one of those 'coming to God' moments -- where it just stuck him as, 'this is the revelatory moment.'"
But actor George Clooney said he had dinner with Hoffman a few months ago, and he seemed fine.
"I have to say he seemed in pretty good shape," Clooney said. "I mean, there's no way to explain it."
Filmmaker Chris Barrett interviewed Hoffman January 17 at the Sundance Film Festival. "He didn't look well at Sundance. His skin color was very pale, but he wasn't disheveled as some media was reporting," Barrett told CNN.
Dim the lights
Family and close friends of the actor will hold a private funeral service in New York. Plans are also under way for a memorial service later this month. No information on the dates was available.
On Wednesday night, the famed Broadway theater district will dim its marquees for one minute at 7:45 p.m. in Hoffman's memory.
Hoffman appeared on Broadway three times.
CNN's Ray Sanchez in New York contributed to this report.
Share prices on Bursa Malaysia rebounded from yesterday's losses to open firmer across-the-board in the early trading today, lifted by renewed buying interest following positive overnight performance on Wall Street.
At 9.10am, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) stood at 1,784.36, up 5.53 points from yesterday's settlement at 1,778.83.
The benchmark index opened 6.01 points higher at 1,784.84, with demand mostly seen in index-linked counters.
Gains in Petronas Gas lifted the composite index by 1.15 points, with oil and gas share gaining 32 sen or 1.4 per cent to RM23.14.
Market breadth was positive as gainers trounced losers 149 to 36, with 101 counters unchanged, 1,307 untraded and 17 others suspended.
Turnover stood at 108.936 million shares worth RM46.063 million.
HwangDBS Vickers Research said a technical rebound could be on the cards for the Malaysian bourse today.
"The benchmark FBM KLCI, after hitting a low of 1,769.80 yesterday, will probably extend its recovery pattern by climbing above the immediate resistance line of 1,780 ahead.
"This follows an overnight bounce-up on Wall Street," the research house said in a note today.
Key US stock bellwethers rose between 0.5 per cent and 0.9 per cent from their oversold territories after slumping as much as 4.3-7.3 per cent from their recent highs, it added.
On the scoreboard, the Finance Index rose 39.18 points to 16,327.69, the Industrial Index increased 10.51 points to 3,041.88 and the Plantation Index gained 8.73 points to 8,315.1.
The FBM Emas Index improved 34.64 points to 12,326.83, the FBMT100 Index rose 33.2 points to 12,041.99, the FBM 70 garnered 21.48 points to 13,605.47 and the FBM Ace rose 25.46 points to 5,897.81 points.
Among actives, Minetech Resources rose two sen to 23.5 sen, IRIS Corp added 1.5 sen to 41 sen and Astral Supreme inched up half-a-sen to 20 sen.
As for heavyweights, Maybank was up two sen to RM9.58, TNB soared six sen to RM11.34, while both CIMB and Sime Darby were flat at RM6.85 and RM8.87, respectively.
Axiata Group, however, shed one sen to RM6.54.-- Bernama
[unable to retrieve full-text content]The physical price of gold as at 9.30am stood at RM129.42 per gramme, down 72 sen from RM130.14 at 5pm yesterday.-- Bernama
President Barack Obama is defending his record on promoting strong families in the African-American community, rejecting suggestions during an interview released Monday that he hasn't done enough as president to tout the benefits of marriage.
"We address it explicitly all the time," Obama told Fox News's Bill O'Reilly in an exchange recorded before Sunday's Super Bowl.
In response to O'Reilly's statement that Obama and first lady Michelle Obama were not engaged in a campaign to reduce out-of-wedlock births among black Americans, the president insisted that such messages are part of his rhetoric even if the media doesn't pick up on them.
"I will send you at least 10 speeches I have made since I have been president, talking about the importance of men taking responsibility for their children, talking about the importance of young people delaying gratification. talking about the importance of when it comes to child rearing, paying child support, spending time with your kids, reading with them," Obama said. "So, whether it's getting publicity or not is a whole different question."
The president did not cite speeches where he had directly promoted marriage, but he insisted that he done so.
O'Reilly cited statistics showing that 72 percent of African-American children are born out of wedlock, a factor often leading to poverty, but Obama sought to broaden out the conversation to other racial groups.
"What's interesting when you look at what's going on right now, you are starting to see in a lot of white working-class homes similar problems when men can't find good work, when the economy is shutting ladders of opportunity off from people, whether they are black, white, Hispanic, it doesn't matter, that puts pressure as well on the home," the president said.
"So, you have got an interaction between an economy that isn't generating enough good jobs for folks who traditionally could get blue collar jobs even if they didn't have a higher education and some legitimate social concerns that compound the problem. And, so, we want to hit both."
Obama said the White House is gathering "philanthropists and business people, city by city" to address both social and economic aspects of the issue.
The interview, recorded after a live interview before Sunday's Super Bowl, aired Monday on Fox News's "O'Reilly Factor."
[unable to retrieve full-text content]The physical price of gold as at 9.30am stood at RM130.78 per gramme, down 14 sen from RM130.92 at 5pm last Thursday.-- Bernama
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — Peyton Manning's eyes got wide as the ball zipped past his helmet and into the end zone.
Manning spent the past two weeks trying to envision and work through every possible scenario that he and his Denver Broncos could face in the Super Bowl against the Seattle Seahawks. It's hard to believe that even once Manning imagined not being able to catch the game's opening snap.
Yet just 12 seconds into Super Bowl XLVIII, before Manning had thrown a pass or handed off to a running back, the Broncos trailed 2-0. For a team that scored 606 points in the regular season, 2-0 hardly seemed insurmountable. Neither did 5-0, or 8-0, nor maybe even 22-0 at halftime — not when Manning could remind his teammates about that time they rallied from down 24-0 to the San Diego Chargers in 2012.
But it was just mistake after mistake after mistake, so many errors, by so many Broncos, that the first snap and safety will be remembered as just the first bad moment in a night filled with them for Denver in the 43-8 loss.
Still, the bad snap was the moment that seemed to change so much for Manning, who on Saturday night received his fifth NFL MVP award.
Suddenly, the quarterback who had been so upbeat in the days leading up to the Super Bowl, telling jokes and stories, reflecting on his career-altering neck surgeries and deflecting talk about potential retirement, was rattled, and his brilliant 2013 season, perhaps the best of his brilliant career, ended with his worst game since signing with the Broncos last year.
"We knew they were fast, it was still a matter of us doing our jobs better and we didn't do that tonight," Manning said.
And it didn't happen from the beginning. Seattle fans roared as Manning lined up for the opening snap of his third Super Bowl. It was so loud that it felt like a road game, yet the Broncos were trying to operate using Manning's cadence rather than a silent snap count.
"We weren't able to. I thought I heard him, and I snapped the ball," Ramirez said. "I was shocked. You never expect anything like that to happen. Of course I'll take full blame for that."
But it was just mistake after mistake after mistake, so many errors, by so many Broncos, that the first snap and safety will be remembered as just the first bad moment in a night filled with them for Denver, which lost 43-8.
"They came out right from the jump and punched us around. Anytime you have a team out there that punches you around, you have to punch back. it seemed like the harder we fought, the quicker we failed," Broncos cornerback Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie told USA TODAY Sports. "It was like we were in quicksand out there."
The first snap seemed to change so much for Manning, who on Saturday night received his fifth NFL MVP award.
Manning also threw two first-half interceptions, including one that was returned 69 yards for a Seattle touchdown, failed to lead the Broncos to a first down in the first quarter, and lost a fumble in the second half. Both interceptions came on poorly thrown passes – off-target wobblers Manning tossed with Seattle defenders in his face or batting at his arm.
"Certainly to finish this way is very disappointing," Manning said. "It is not an easy pill to swallow, but eventually, you have to."
Those mistakes were Manning's, but he wasn't the only Bronco to falter. Two days after Broncos head coach John Fox said in his final pre-Super Bowl news conference that the "star players have to be great in championship games," few of the Broncos who were so special in leading Denver to its first Super Bowl appearance in 15 years played well.
Seattle, much like it was when the Seahawks blew out the Broncos in a preseason game in August, were the aggressors. Broncos cornerback Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie, the only Denver defensive player who had played in a prior Super Bowl, only shook his head when asked how to explain such a blowout.
Rodgers-Cromartie said he believed that a team that had already survived – and even thrived – despite the loss of five defensive starters, as well as All-Pro left tackle Ryan Clady, and spent a month without their head coach while he recovered from heart surgery, would be able to overcome Seattle's hot start.
The offensive line that had barely allowed Manning to be touched in two AFC playoff games (and hadn't allowed a sack) couldn't handle Seattle's ferocious front seven, as Manning had little time to throw and rarely looked comfortable in the pocket. Even if there was time for Manning to throw, the Broncos' receivers struggled to get open deep against Seattle's physical defensive backs.
Even the Broncos' best offensive player Sunday, receiver Demaryius Thomas, lost a fumble in the third quarter while trying to extend a 23-yard catch with a stiff-arm to kill the Broncos' first promising drive. Thomas scored the Broncos' first touchdown later in the quarter, on a 14-yard pass from Manning, but that score (and subsequent two-point conversion), only cut Seattle's lead to 36-8.
"What probably hurts more is to turn it over, and turn it over that many times, especially in this game, against a good football team," Broncos executive vice president John Elway said.
Denver's defense, meanwhile, a group that held Tom Brady and the New England Patriots and Philip Rivers and the Chargers to three points each in the first three quarters of their previous playoff games, held Seattle to a pair of early field goals and largely contained Marshawn Lynch, yet struggled against the Seahawks' passing game that was rejuvenated by the return of Percy Harvin.
"He was a factor for them, with his runs, and his speed," Rodgers-Cromartie said.
Harvin, who scored a touchdown on the opening kickoff of the second half, was dangerous on end-around and sweep plays, while Seattle's other receivers found plenty of separation from Denver's defensive backs. When Jermaine Kearse broke four tackles on his way to the end zone on a third-quarter touchdown, Denver's defense was done.
If the Broncos' were devastated by their 2012 playoff loss to the Baltimore Ravens – a loss they used as motivation throughout this year – this game left the team and its fans stunned, with good reason. Denver hadn't been held to less than 20 points all season, and had never been blown out in the Manning Era. In 35 previous games, the Broncos lost only seven times, and never by more than 10 points.
"Just a total let down," left tackle Chris Clark said. "It hurts because we're way better than what we showed."
VIDEO: Manning talks about disappointing Super Bowl
Elway was Denver's quarterback the last time the Broncos were here, leading Denver to consecutive titles in 1997 and 1998. This Super Bowl though felt more like Elway's earlier trips to the Super Bowl, like the 55-10 loss to San Francisco and a 42-10 loss to Washington.
Elway shook his head when asked if Sunday felt similar.
"No, those are separate," Elway said.
Elway was young in those early losses, unlike Manning, who plans to return to the Broncos next year at age 38 to try to make another run at his elusive second Super Bowl ring. Elway didn't have much to say now that could make Manning, nor the rest of his players, feel much better.
"It's just one of those nights," Elway said. "We had a tremendous year. We'll use his and hopefully we'll learn from this and we're going to go at it again next year."
The man was found on a Marshall Islands atoll on Thursday
Castaway says he's Jose Ivan Alvarengo, 37
Man says he lived off turtles and rainwater while adrift
Companion died four weeks after pair left Mexico, Alvarengo says
(CNN) -- A mysterious castaway claiming to have been lost at sea for 13 months is now safely back on land, but many questions remain about how he could have lived on his small boat for so long as it drifted across the Pacific Ocean.
The man calling himself Jose Ivan Alvarengo turned up in a heavily damaged boat on a remote coral atoll in the Marshall Islands, claiming that he had been living off fish and turtles he had caught and relying on rainwater, and sometimes his own urine, to drink.
Authorities are trying to determine the veracity of Alvarengo's story.
He was found on sparsely populated Ebon Atoll, a 22-hour boat ride from the capital of Majuro, on Thursday. The southernmost of the Marshall Islands' atolls, Ebon has only 2.2 square miles of land, one phone line and no Internet service. The government airplane that services the atoll was not working, so Alvarengo did not make it to Majuro until Monday morning.
Alvarengo, who says he is 37, is now in a local hospital recovering from his ordeal, said U.S. Ambassador Tom Armbruster.
"He's in much better shape than one would expect after such an ordeal," Armbruster said.
"I had just killed a bird to eat and saw some trees," he is quoted as saying.
"I cried, 'Oh, God.' I got to land and had a mountain of sleep. In the morning, I woke up and heard a rooster and saw chickens and saw a small house. I saw two native women screaming and yelling. I didn't have any clothes; I was only in my underwear, and they were ripped and torn," The Telegraph quotes Alvarengo as saying.
People on the island where he was found Thursday say the 26-foot fiberglass boat was in very bad condition, covered in barnacles and with the carcasses of several turtles littering the deck.
Alvarengo claims to have set off from a port near the southwestern Mexican city of Tapachula, near the border with Guatemala, for what was supposed to be a one-day expedition to catch sharks on December 21, 2012.
He claimed that he and a teenage companion were blown off-course by northerly winds and then caught in a storm, eventually losing use of their engines.
According to Anjenette Kattil of the Marshall Islands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Alvarengo said that four weeks into their drift, he lost the young man because he refused to eat raw birds. There are no details on what Alvarengo did with the young man's body.
Alvarengo told the Telegraph his companion's death had him contemplating suicide.
"For four days, I wanted to kill myself. But I couldn't feel the desire; I didn't want to feel the pain. I couldn't do it," he is quoted as saying.
Kattil said Alvarengo worked for a company named Camaroneras de la Costa in Mexico. He has told authorities that he is a citizen of El Salvador but has lived in Mexico for the past 15 years and wishes to be repatriated back to Mexico.
Armbruster, the U.S. ambassador, said Alvarengo indicated that he had relatives living the United States and U.S. officials would attempt to locate them.
Government officials have been in contact with Mexico's ambassador to the Marshall Islands, who is based in the Philippines, concerning Alvarengo in hopes he can contact El Salvadoran authorities.
The Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement saying it has sent personnel from its embassy in the Philippines "to learn directly about the case."
If Alvarengo's story proves true, the trip across the Pacific would have taken him across roughly 5,000 miles (8,000 kilometers) of open ocean before ending in the Marshall Islands, about halfway between Hawaii and Australia, in the northern Pacific.
Such an amazing journey isn't unheard-of in the small Pacific nation, as three Mexican fishermen made a similar drift voyage in 2006 that lasted nine months. Those men lived off fish they caught and rainwater, and they read the Bible for comfort.
Conditions in the Pacific make the timeline of Alvarengo's journey plausible, according to Judson Jones, a producer for CNN Weather.
Jones said the currents between Mexico and the Marshall Islands would have carried a boat about 27 miles (42 kilometers) a day. That would mean the journey would take about 208 days if the boat stayed in the current. But Jones said a meandering journey in and out of the currents was most likely, making a 13-month journey believable.
CNN's Nick Parker and Brad Lendon and journalist Jack Niederthal contributed to this report.
NEWARK — Cold weather in New Jersey at this time of year in unavoidable.
The frigid temperature expected for Sunday's Super Bowl in East Rutherford doesn't bode well for the pass-happy Denver Broncos offense — even more so when the Seattle ground game and top-ranked defense is factored in.
Any precipitation just adds to the Seahawks advantage in a game where a neutral playing field is the main idea.
"It's cold in Seattle, but not this cold," Seattle WR Golden Tate said at Media Day Tuesday. "I've played here before and we are definitely comfortable. I don't think it's going to effect how we play as much.
"It's not so much the cold weather, but maybe bad weather. For a receiver, if there is rain, you have to change your gloves and it's tougher to catch. You have to really focus. And if there is wind, that pushes the ball around."
The forecast has brightened some for Sunday, with game-time temps expected to hover above freezing with just a 10 percent chance of precipitation. That percentage is down from the 40 percent mark forecasters had it at earlier this week.
"We don't worry about the weather," Seahawks defensive lineman Chris Clemons said. "The weather is what it is and there is bad weather in Seattle. We don't really think weather will be a problem for us, but both teams understand that it's going to be an issue."
A man of few words, Marshawn Lynch gave his brief take on the conditions Thursday afternoon. The Seahawks running back will play a big factor regardless, but poor weather would likely force the ball into his hands early and often.
"Sounds like a fun day," he said. "I mean, I get to run into a lot of people."
Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning is often criticized for his play in low-temperature games and has enough pressure on his shoulders to cement his legacy as one of the greatest, if not the greatest, to ever play the QB position. Add in a Seattle defense that boasts a secondary with standout corner Richard Sherman and safety Earl Thomas and a below 40-degree situation that Manning is just 8-11 in during his career.
"Every game takes on its own identity," Manning said Thursday. "I still think it has a lot more to do with the opponent than the elements. I've always felt that way, that if you are moving the ball or not moving the ball, it has something to do with how you are playing as an offense and how the defense is playing. I still believe that it comes down to how you are executing."
There shouldn't be any doubt that Manning can win his second Super Bowl Sunday. The playing field, however, lends the advantage to the team that reached the game by running the ball effectively and playing great defense, not the team that has one of the scariest aerial attacks in the history of the league.
"If you're running bad plays on first down, and having second and 12s and third and 10s, you are probably not moving the ball whether you are playing in 80-degree weather or playing in cold weather," Manning said. "That's what we are focusing on this week, just trying to be on top of our execution, knowing that you have to be on top of it against a defense as good as this one."
A key New Jersey Democrat said Sunday that a new accusation about Gov. Chris Christie's knowledge of the bridge closing scandal enveloping his administration is unproven and raises credibility questions about the accuser.
New Jersey Assemblyman John Wisniewski said on NBC's Meet the Press that the allegation from former Christie ally David Wildstein that there is evidence Christie knew of the George Washington Bridge lane closings last September as they were occurring doesn't match the documents Wildstein has given the investigating committee.
Wildstein, a former Port Authority executive, "submitted over 900 pages of documents in response to the committee's subpoena. Apparently what's he talking about must be something other" than what he has already given the committee, Wisniewski said.
The New Jersey politician leading the investigation into the Chris Christie bridge scandal discusses the latest information in the case.
He added that it was "a great question" why Wildstein did not turn over to the legislative panel evidence of Christie's knowledge of or involvement in the bridge closing scheme if he in fact had any such evidence.
"It really raises questions," Wisniewski said when asked about Wildstein's credibility.
In a letter Friday to Port Authority, Alan Zegas, an attorney for Wildstein, said "evidence exists… tying Mr. Christie to having knowledge of the lane closures, during the period when the lanes were closed, contrary to what the Governor stated publicly."
Christie said last month, "I had no knowledge or involvement in this issue, in its planning or its execution."
In the letter, Zegas did not say what the evidence was nor did he say whether Wildstein or someone else had the evidence to which he referred.
Commenting on the Zegas letter, Wisniewski wondered about "the use of the words 'evidence exists' as opposes to saying 'I have documents" or 'I have an e-mail.' It's a curious choice of words… maybe he knows somebody else that has information, maybe this is a conversation he had."
The Democratic lawmaker added, "We don't have any proof right now that the governor said, 'Go and close the lanes.' We know that somebody who was in his office, Bridget Kelly, ordered the lane closures."
Based on the documents his committee has examined so far, Wisniewski said, "Nothing yet implicates the governor directly." He said the question remains, "Who told Bridget Kelly to close the lanes?"
Some saw the lane closings as political retribution by Christie's forces, targeting Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich, a Democrat, for not endorsing Christie's re-election bid.
Last month, appearing before the New Jersey state Assembly Transportation Committee, Wildstein invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
The investigation of the lane closings has caused a severe political headache for Christie, a potential contender for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination.
But the 2012 GOP vice presidential candidate, Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, came to Christie's defense Sunday on ABC's This Week. "I think he's been a fantastic governor," Ryan said. "Right now, all we know is one person's word against another. You can't base any conclusion on such a thing. And so unless something else is known or made clear, I don't see you would change what's going on right now."
Ryan said he does not think Christie should quit as head of the Republican Governors Association "because nothing has been proven, and you always give a person the benefit of the doubt in those kinds of situations."
This story was originally published on Sun Feb 2, 2014 10:56 AM EST
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