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NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has detected signs of icy bodies raining down in an alien solar system. The downpour resembles our own solar system several billion years ago during a period known as the "Late Heavy Bombardment," which may have brought water and other life-forming ingredients to Earth. During this epoch, comets and other frosty objects that were flung from the outer solar system pummeled the inner planets. The barrage scarred our moon and produced large amounts of dust. Now Spitzer has spotted a band of dust around a nearby bright star in the northern sky called Eta Corvi that...

Explanation: Few cosmic vistas excite the imagination like the Orion Nebula, an immense stellar nursery some 1,500 light-years away. This stunning false-color view spans about 40 light-years across the region, constructed using infrared data from the Spitzer Space Telescope. Compared to its visual wavelength appearance, the brightest portion of the nebula is likewise centered on Orion's young, massive, hot stars, known as the Trapezium Cluster. But the infrared image also detects the nebula's many protostars, still in the process of formation, seen here in red hues. In fact, red spots along the dark dusty filament to the left of the...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer was hit with a $60 million libel lawsuit by a former Marsh & McLennan Cos executive over a column published on Slate.com concerning an insurance bid-rigging scandal.

Casey Anthony. The name and the trial spark emotion. But there is a far deeper issue lurking beneath, a monster of much greater importance. Recent years have borne witness to the rampant rise of prosecutorial zeal in the courts. While no responsible citizen wants crime unpunished, prosecutors, in all their forms, have been growing in power and influence. When prosecutorial power teams up with political ambition or a high-reaching career path, we must watch carefully the potential threat to individual liberty.

Keith Olbermann's national audience holds a 'meet-up' with the star. Keith Olbermann is BACK! And Algore's got him! Yes, Keefie is back on TV, bringing his "Meltdown" show to Uncle Al's little vanity network, Current TV. However, after the initial voyeur factor, when people tuned in to see Keef reduced to such rank humiliation, now his numbers are doing a nosedive even from that. The DUmmies dwell on this, here in this THREAD, "'Countdown’ on Current TV Drops 30% in Week Two." And then there is other news in the TV lib-talk wars: Eliot Spitzer has been CANCELED! OH NOES!...

The Eliot Spitzer experiment is over at CNN. The network reshuffled its prime-time schedule on Wednesday, canceling the former New York governor's 8 p.m. show, "In the Arena." Spitzer lasted less than a year at the network. He began on CNN's prime-time lineup last October paired with conservative columnist Kathleen Parker, who exited in February. The show never made a ratings dent in a tough cable news time slot dominated by Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly. CNN is moving Anderson Cooper's news program, which now airs at 10 p.m., into the 8 p.m. time slot. Former CNBC personality Erin Burnett...

CNN on Wednesday cancelled Eliot Spitzer’s 8 p.m. political talk show, “In The Arena,” after only nine months, and said it would shift Anderson Cooper’s 10 p.m. nightly newscast into the time slot.

1:42 p.m. | Updated CNN on Wednesday cancelled Eliot Spitzer’s 8 p.m. political talk show, “In The Arena,” after only nine months, and said it would shift Anderson Cooper’s 10 p.m. nightly newscast into the time slot. The cable news channel also said that Erin Burnett, a new hire from CNBC, would take over the 7 p.m. time slot on weekdays, replacing John King, who will move to 6 p.m. “The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer,” which currently runs from 5 to 7 p.m., will move to 4 to 6 p.m. ... The changes at CNN will begin to take...

Dominique Strauss-Kahn: IMF head 'hired prostitutes from Manhattan madam'Dominique Strauss-Kahn hired prostitutes from the "Manhattan Madam" who infamously also served Eliot Spitzer, the disgraced former Governor of New York, she claimed on Wednesday night. By Jon Swaine, New York 1:03AM BST 19 May 2011 Kristin Davis said she provided young women for the IMF chief in 2006, as he ran for the French Socialists' presidential nomination, and that one complained about his "aggressive" behaviour. "He was a client of my agency," she told The Daily Telegraph. "When men abuse women I'm no longer going to protect their identities". Mr Strauss-Kahn,...

NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has detected the crossing of a solid planet in front of a star located at only 42 light-years in the constellation Cancer. Thanks to this detection, astronomers know that this "super-Earth" measures 2.1 times the size of our Earth. This is the smallest exoplanet detected in the neighborhood of our Sun. The discovery is based on data acquired by the Spitzer spacecraft last January. The data allowed astronomers to detect the "transit" of the planet, i.e. the tiny decrease of the star's brightness occurring when the planet passes in front of it. "So far, the exquisite...

On CNN’s In the Arena, Eliot Spitzer morphed back to his days in the Manhattan District Attorney’s office, donning reading glasses and telling “fugitive” Wisconsin Senator Fred Risser he “poked around your state’s constitution for a few minutes this afternoon.” The senator, who joined the program by phone from an “undisclosed location,” is part of a group of Wisconsin lawmakers who fled the state in an effort to stop Gov. Scott Walker’s move to end collective bargaining. Those lawmakers now face the possibility of arrest.Spitzer, reading from the Wisconsin constitution, suggested arresting Sen. Risser might not be

NEW YORK (AP) – CNN’s prime-time talk show “Parker/Spitzer” is no more with the departure of Kathleen Parker. Her partner, former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, will remain in the time slot in a new show called “In the Arena,” working with E.D. Hill, Will Cain and others.

This is how crappy it is to work for CNN... Kathleen Parker, the Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist who co-hosted CNN's 8 p.m. show, is leaving just five months after the show debuted, the company announced Friday."I have decided to return to a schedule that will allow me to focus more on my syndicated newspaper column and other writings," Parker said in a statement.More here This is like James Carville canceling an appointment so he can go get a haircut.I'm sure it wasn't a very pleasant experience working with a man like Eliot Spitzer, who probably was offended being in the...

After months of turbulence at CNN’s Parker Spitzer, the network will drop co-host Kathleen Parker from the show, according to sources and a memo released to CNN staff. Eliot Spitzer will continue with the show. According to CNN chief Ken Jautz, the new show will be solo-anchored by Spitzer and an “ensemble format” of contributors and be called In the Arena. The new show debuts Monday. Here’s the memo: I want to share with you some news today regarding our 8pm show. Kathleen Parker has decided to leave the program to focus on her writing, and we have decided to...

According to a report posted tonight on the website of The Wall Street Journal, CNN is considering replacing Kathleen Parker, co-host of the ratings-challenged Parker Spitzer. The WSJ story quotes unnamed sources who say a new co-host could be named to join Eliot Spitzer as part of a major overhaul of the show, which has floundered in the ratings since its debut three months ago. CNN’s primetime programs performed poorly in 2010, which marked the network’s worst ratings performance in fourteen years. Whether a re-boot of Parker Spitzer–and a resulting name change, one imagines–would solve any of the network’s problems...

CNN is considering replacing Kathleen Parker, co-host of its new evening program "Parker Spitzer," according to people familiar with the matter, as the network struggles to reverse a steep slide in its evening audience. The conservative columnist could be replaced by a new co-host to serve alongside former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, as executives mull a shake-up of the show, the people said, adding that no decision has been made. "Parker Spitzer" hasn't been able to significantly build its audience since its debut just over three months ago.

NEW YORK (CBS.MW) -- Former Credit Suisse First Boston star banker Frank Quattrone surrendered to federal authorities Wednesday morning and will face criminal charges, prosecutors said. James Comey, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, will unveil the charges at a 1 p.m. ET press conference. Quattrone, a former star banker for CSFB, allegedly advised his colleagues in late 2000 to destroy documents while regulators were investigating the ways Wall Street investment banks were doling out shares of lucrative initial public offerings. The former banker is charged in a three-count criminal complaint with obstruction of justice, document destruction...

Astronomers have discovered that a huge, searing-hot planet orbiting another star is loaded with an unusual amount of carbon. The planet, a gas giant named WASP-12b, is the first carbon-rich world ever observed. The discovery was made using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, along with previously published ground-based observations. "This planet reveals the astounding diversity of worlds out there," said Nikku Madhusudhan of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, lead author of a report in the Dec. 9 issue of the journal Nature. "Carbon-rich planets would be exotic in every way -- formation, interiors and atmospheres." It's possible that WASP-12b might...

Eliot Spitzer's TV sidekick is so fed up with playing second fiddle to the hooker-loving ex-gov that she's threatening to walk, sources told The Post yesterday. Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker actually stormed off the set of the "Parker Spitzer" show during a pre-taping a few weeks ago -- furious that her co-host is continually allowed to take charge of their nightly CNN chat-fest, the insiders said. Although still fuming, Parker did return to wrap up the segment, they said. But she's angry that the show's producers are allegedly doing nothing to play up her strengths on the ailing show,...

Who says politics isn't a circus? Kristin Davis, the one-time Manhattan madam who says she supplied call girls to El- iot Spitzer when he was New York's governor, shares a stage tonight with state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and all the o ther candidates in the only debate of New York's gubernatorial race. Davis is running for governor as the candidate of the Anti-Prohibition Party. She was guaranteed a place tonight when Republican Carl Paladino demanded that Cuomo debate all the third-party hopefuls, and Cuomo agreed. "It won't be hard to stand out in a crowd of middle-aged white men...