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NBC: Leno, O’Brien returning to air

(CNN) — The new year will see new shows from Jay Leno and Conan O’Brien, says NBC.

The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and Late Night with Conan O’Brien will return with all-new episodes on January 2, according to a statement from NBC. The shows had been in reruns for two months because of the Writers Guild of America strike.

During the 1988 writers strike, Johnny Carson reluctantly returned to ‘The Tonight Show’ without his writers after two months, said NBC’s Executive Vice President for Late Night Primetime Series, Rick Ludwin, in the statement. Both Jay and Conan have supported their writers during the first two months of this WGA strike and will continue to support them. However, there are hundreds of people who will be able to return to work as a result of Jay’s and Conan’s decision.

Both Leno and O’Brien have been paying staffers’ salaries since early December, following in the footsteps of David Letterman, who has paid the employees of his Late Show with David Letterman and The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson since the strike began November 5. Letterman’s production company owns both his and Ferguson’s shows.

Letterman has been in negotiations to bring back his and Ferguson’s shows, according to an article in The New York Times Sunday. E-mail to a friend

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Flu shots now mandatory for New Jersey preschoolers

TRENTON, New Jersey (AP) — New Jersey on Friday became the first state to require flu shots for preschoolers, saying their developing immune systems and likelihood of spreading germs make them as vulnerable to complications as the elderly.

State Health Commissioner Dr. Fred M. Jacobs approved the requirement and three other vaccines for school children starting September 1, 2008, over the objections of some parent groups.

The new requirements will have a direct impact on reducing illnesses, hospitalizations and deaths in one of New Jersey’s most vulnerable populations — our children, Jacobs said in a statement.

A health advisory board Monday backed the new requirements on a 5-2 vote with one abstention after parents said they worried about the safety of giving young children dozens of vaccine doses.

Some also say they don’t want government making their medical decisions.

Starting in September, all children attending preschool or licensed day care centers will have to get an annual flu shot, Jacobs said. That makes New Jersey the first state to require flu shots for preschoolers or older students, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. Watch more on New Jersey’s new flu shot law.

New Jersey also will require preschoolers to get a pneumococcal vaccine and sixth-graders to get vaccines against meningitis, which New Jersey already requires for college dormitory residents, and a booster shot against whooping cough, which in recent years has seen a resurgence blamed on waning potency of shots given to infants and preschoolers.

The four additional vaccines are recommended by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the American Academy of Pediatrics and other medical groups.

Some parents support proposed legislation that would give families a right to skip required immunizations by lodging a philosophical objection, as some other states allow. The bill has been sitting in a committee without action for several years.

New Jersey does grant an automatic exemption on religious grounds and allows exemptions for medical reasons.

The new vaccines will be available for free for low-income families, and private insurers generally will cover the cost.
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King pardons rape victim

(CNN) — Saudi King Abdullah has pardoned a rape victim who had been sentenced to 200 lashes and six months in prison in a case that sparked international attention, a Saudi newspaper has reported.

King Abdullah issued the royal pardon on Monday, Al-Jazirah newspaper quoted a Saudi Justice Ministry official as saying.

Saudi sources told CNN that the king’s pardon was not related to the beginning of the Hajj nor the Eid al-Adha festival that follows, which is normally when the Saudi monarch issues amnesty for prisoners.

Saudi Arabia’s justice minister said the king felt the pardon would be in the best interests of the Saudi people, and the decision did not reflect any lack of confidence in the Saudi justice system.

The White House welcomed King Abdullah’s decision, but National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe stressed that this is obviously a matter for the Saudi Arabians and King Abdullah.

A Saudi court ruled the 19-year-old had an illegitimate relationship with a man who was not her husband, and that the rape occurred after she and the man were discovered in a compromising situation, her clothes on the ground.

The attacks took place in Qatif in March 2006 when the woman was engaged to be married.

The case has drawn international attention, provoked outrage in the West and cast light on the treatment of women under strict Islamic law in Saudi Arabia.

The woman was meeting with a man — described by the woman’s attorney as a former friend from whom she was retrieving a photograph — when they both were abducted last March. Watch what is known about the royal pardon

Seven men were convicted in their abduction and her rape and received sentences ranging from 10 months to five years in jail.

The Saudi lawyer who represented the woman faced a disciplinary hearing for insulting the Supreme Judicial Council and disobeying the rules and regulations of the judiciary. The hearing has been postponed.

Abdul Rahman al-Lahem said the rape case had elicited a fierce response, including calls for his beheading.

U.S. President George W. Bush said last week that King Abdullah knows our position loud and clear on the case.

Under Saudi law, women are subject to numerous restrictions, including a strict dress code, a prohibition against driving and a requirement that they get a man’s permission to travel or have surgery. E-mail to a friend

CNN’s Mohammed Jamjoom contributed to this report

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Lieberman: McCain can reunite our country

(CNN) — Sen. Joe Lieberman is crossing party lines and endorsing Republican Sen. John McCain for president.

Being a Republican is important. Being a Democrat is important. But you know what’s more important than that? The interest and well-being of the United States of America, the Democrat-turned Independent said in announcing his decision Monday morning in New Hampshire.

Let’s put the United States first again, and John McCain is the man as president who will help us do that, he said.

Lieberman, the Democrats’ vice presidential nominee in 2000, said the next president needs to break through the reflexive partisanship that is poisoning our politics today and stopping us from getting anything done in Washington.

In accepting Lieberman’s backing, McCain said, It is one of the great honors of my political career to have known him, to have worked with him and to have received his endorsement.

The Connecticut senator decided to endorse McCain because he considers him the most capable to be commander in chief on day one of his administration, and the most capable of uniting the country so that we can prevail against Islamic extremism, a Lieberman aide said earlier.

The Lieberman aide insists the senator does not see this as a commentary on or an endorsement of the Republican party, only the person.

The endorsement could help emphasize McCain’s experience on national security issues, demonstrate his ability to work across party lines and perhaps help persuade Independent voters in New Hampshire to support his 2008 presidential bid, as many of them did during his first campaign in 2000.

McCain also picked up key endorsements this weekend from two of the most influential papers for voters in Iowa and New Hampshire, The Des Moines Register and The Boston Globe.

Lieberman, who broke with the Democratic Party over Iraq, won re-election as an Independent after losing the party’s Senate nomination to an anti-war challenger in 2006.

He still caucuses with the Democrats, giving them their razor-thin majority in the chamber. Lieberman chairs the Homeland Security Governmental Affairs Committee, and he still attends weekly Democratic strategy meetings. But his adviser said the endorsement appears to be a hangover from the 2006 race, when top Democrats backed the Democratic nominee, Ned Lamont, rather than support Lieberman’s Independent candidacy.

I have the greatest respect for Joe, but I simply have to disagree with his decision to endorse Senator McCain, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, told CNN in a written statement.

Lieberman’s office called Reid’s office Sunday to inform the Democratic leader of his decision to endorse a Republican, a Reid spokesman said.

Lieberman and McCain co-sponsored the 2002 resolution that authorized the U.S. invasion of Iraq the following March, and Lieberman has remained a supporter of the nearly 5-year-old war in Iraq at a time when Democratic leaders are trying to bring the conflict to an end.

He had not planned to endorse anyone until after the primary season, but McCain asked for his endorsement a few days after the two men returned from a Thanksgiving trip to Iraq together, the aide said.

A CNN/WMUR poll released last week found McCain tied for second in the New Hampshire, which hosts the first primary of the 2008 presidential race in January.

He and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani both rated 19 percent support among New Hampshire Republicans, while Mitt Romney, the former governor of neighboring Massachusetts, led the race with 32 percent.

The poll of 354 likely Republican primary voters was conducted from December 6 through December 10. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percentage points.
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Ron Paul supporters raise millions in 24-hour ‘money bomb’

COLUMBIA, South Carolina (AP) — Republican presidential hopeful Ron Paul’s supporters raised over $6 million Sunday to boost the 10-term Texas congressman’s campaign for the White House.

Called a Money Bomb, the goal was to raise as much money as possible on the Internet in one day. The campaign’s previous fundraiser brought in $4.2 million.

At midnight EST, donations were over $6 million, according to the campaign Web site. Those donations are processed credit card receipts, said Paul campaign spokesman Jesse Benton.

Benton said the median donation is about $50 in the fundraiser, which was the idea of Paul supporters who are not officially connected to the campaign.

Trevor Lyman, a Paul supporter who is traveling the country following the Ron Paul blimp, said the date of the fundraiser coincides with the 234th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party. Watch supporters raise cash at a Boston Tea Party

The Ron Paul blimp is an aerial billboard emblazoned on one side with Who is Ron Paul? Google Ron Paul. The other side reads Ron Paul Revolution.

The blimp, another grass-roots effort, was in Chester, South Carolina, on Sunday, and organizers hope to get it to New Hampshire before the January 8 primary there. E-mail to a friend

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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