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Norway has been voted the best country in the world for humans

(Reuters/Kai Pfaffenbach)

The United Nations’ annual Human Development Report, a behemoth study of every nook and cranny of the world, is out this week. And the countries that come up on top in the rankings portion of the report are entirely unsurprising.

Norway cinches the spot as the overall best country to live in, in the world—making this the 12th continuous year that it’s taken the title. Out of nearly 200 countries, Norway continues to score the highest in life expectancy, education, and standard of living, as well as in a number of smaller subcategories, boosting it to the top slot in the UN’s list (each country was given an average score from 0 to 1).

Norway’s continuous success hinges on a number of factors, including an oil-driven economy, robust healthcare system, and strong government structure. Not just a source of pride, its natural beauty also drives a lush tourism industry.

Close runners-up on the list, released Dec. 14, include Denmark, Australia, and Switzerland. The lowest-ranking countries on the entire list were Niger, the Central African Republic, Eritrea, Chad, and Burundi. While most countries held steady in their rankings from last year, Syria fell 15 spots on the list, and Libya slid down 27 spots.

But here’s a more cheering suggestion of change, from another area of the same report: Though roughly 830 million people in the world are still classified as “working poor” (earning under $2 a day) by the UN, some two billion people were able to move out of extreme poverty over the last 25 years.

Baseball Hall of Famer Rod Carew to undergo heart and kidney transplant

Carew threw out the ceremonial first pitch at a Twins game in April. (Bruce Kluckhohn-USA TODAY Sports)

A machine has kept Carew alive since he nearly died of a heart attack 15 months ago.

By Allyssa Lee

Baseball Hall of Famer Rod Carew is preparing to receive a new heart and a kidney transplant, Carew's wife Rhonda confirmed to the American Heart Association News on Thursday.

The new heart is to replace the machine that has kept the former Twins and Angels first baseman alive since Carew suffered a heart attack and went into cardiac arrest while undergoing a procedure to open clogged arteries in September 2015.

The 71-year-old Carew played for the Minnesota Twins and the California Angels from 1967 to 1985. He was a seven-time AL batting champion and was a first-ballot selection to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1991.

After his heart attack, Carew was diagnosed with extreme heart failure with his heart too weak to pump blood to the rest of his body. Doctors implanted into his chest a left ventricular assist device that took over the heart's pumping duties.

The procedure allowed Carew to resume his life and he toured the country last summer to boost awareness and prevention of heart disease. He attended spring training with the Minnesota Twins and appeared at the All-Star Game in San Diego, where the AL batting title was named in his honor.

Rod Carew at an interleague game between the Angels and the Dodgers in May. (Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports)

“We appreciate your thoughts and prayers for Rod and the medical team,” wife Rhonda told the AHA. “At the same time, our sympathy and appreciation goes to the donor’s family.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Mountain Lion wakes homeowners, drags deer off Hillsborough porch

By Lilian Kim
HILLSBOROUGH, Calif. (KGO) --
A mountain lion was caught on camera dragging a deer off the porch of a Peninsula home.

Hillsborough is buzzing over the video. Homeowners posted it on a community bulletin board and now everyone's talking about it. It happened at 3:30 a.m. off Tartan Trail Road.

Mary Mines and Peter Rauenbuehler were sleeping when they heard loud noises outside their bedroom window. Little did they know it was a mountain lion on their front porch.

"I didn't have my glasses on so when I looked through the peephole I thought it was a coyote," said Mines. "And I turned to Peter and I said, 'There's a coyote on our front porch,' because we have a lot here. I opened the door and I looked and I said, 'That's not a coyote, that's a much bigger animal.'"
She quickly shut the door. The couple then observed the mountain lion from their window. Their security camera captured video of the big cat dragging a deer it had just killed off their property.

They didn't see it, but they say they heard what they believe was the mountain lion slamming the deer onto their metal fence.

"He dragged the deer over the railing because there was deer hair over the top," said Rauenbuehler. "And the dogs didn't seem to intimidate the mountain lion at all. They were barking pretty crazy."

Mountain lions are not uncommon in Hillsborough, especially in the town's Lakeview District, which sits along a canyon, but this is the first time Mines and Rauenbuehler have seen one so close.

"We told the children to be careful when they're out and be aware," Mines told ABC7 News. "And to carry a stick or umbrella with them, to be big and loud if they see something."

This was a close encounter the couple will never forget.

Watch the video here:

North Dakota hotel magnate begins new Vegas construction projects

North Dakota businessman and hotel magnate Gary Tharaldson is constructing several new hotels in Las Vegas, just off the Strip.

by Mary Schimke | Energy Media Group
When people in North Dakota hear the name Gary Tharaldson, they automatically think “hotel.” And rightly so. The former Dazey, North Dakota, gym teacher recently graced the pages of Forbes magazine as North Dakota’s richest man after selling a portfolio of 130 hotels in a variety of chains to Goldman Sachs for $1.2 billion in 2006. Shortly after, he sold the Westward Ho Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas to Harrah’s at a profit of $109 million.

Now, ten years later, he’s still at it. Tharaldson is building mid-tier hotels in a prime Las Vegas location, just off the strip. He’s constructing a six-story, 169-room Hilton Garden Inn and a six-story, 157-room Homewood Suites on Dean Martin Drive near Harmon Avenue. He also has plans to build a five-story, 113-room TownePlace Suites and a five-story, 135-room Home2 Suites at the Tropicana Avenue-Interstate 15 exchange, across the street from where the Golden Palm hotel once stood, reports the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Earlier this year, Tharaldson opened a four-story, 131-room Residence Inn about three miles off the Strip, the type of hotel that Forbes says is typical of Tharaldson’s “formula…to grab prime sites in second-tier cities where land is scarce, even if it’s expensive.” Since 2006, he has opened 26 extended-stay hotels across the country.

The hotels Tharaldson has in the works are not the huge monstrosities most people think of when they envision Las Vegas. They’re not themed hotels with thousands of rooms. Instead, they’re located in a prime location, convenient to the Strip and all its attractions. Yet they are reasonably priced and appeal to many. The Review-Journal said these hotels are great for guests who drive in, because they don’t charge a parking fee, and visitors won’t have to deal with massive parking ramps and steep fees to keep your car. The hotels also appeal to business guests and have the “rowdy image or other trappings of a flashy Las Vegas resort.” Yet they’re still attached to well-known chains that offer loyalty rewards, so visitors feel comfortable with the level of quality they can expect from a Marriott, Hilton or other chain. Plus, keeping in the middle-of-the-road has served him well, says Forbes.

“When times are good, people trade up to better hotels, and when they’re bad, they trade down,” Tharaldson says. “Either way, there I am.”

From glamour to gunfire: the tourist city of Acapulco torn apart by violence

Photograph: Pedro Pardo/AFP/Getty Images

by Nathaniel Parish Flannery in Acapulco
When mayor Evodio Velázquez’s sparkling white Jeep Cherokee SUV pulls up at the side of the road, patrols of soldiers and heavily armed federal police are waiting for him. Velázquez’s “tourist police”, a special unit of young female officers who wear light blue uniforms, stand in a small cluster by the kerb.

Nominally law enforcement agents, these young women are really part of Velázquez’s broader marketing effort for the city of Acapulco – to add some friendly faces as the first point of contact between visitors revelling on this famous Mexican resort’s golden beaches, and the security forces struggling to keep the city safe.

Mid-morning, the sun is rising over the glittering bay but the beaches are mostly empty. Machine-gun carrying police officers – veterans of a decade-long conflict with sophisticated organised crime groups and myriad splinter groups of local street gangs – stand on the perimeter, just out of view of the crowd of photographers who have assembled to document the mayor’s press conference.

The night before, gunmen with pistols stormed on to a patio on Playa Angosta, one of the city’s most picturesque beaches, murdering two men. Hours earlier, an assassin had walked into a city government office and brazenly killed one of Velázquez’s senior officials. In both cases, the assailants escaped before the police arrived.

Throughout the year, gangsters have been dumping bodies in public places and leaving messages threatening Velázquez’s administration.

During the first six months of 2016 alone, 461 people were killed in Acapulco, including a long list of taxi drivers, small business owners and security personnel. The Pacific coast resort is again heading for the unwanted accolade of Mexico’s most violent city in 2016, a title it has received every year since 2012.

But the mayor is undeterred. With his gelled black hair and crisp short-sleeved dress shirt – unstained by sweat despite the oppressive heat – Velázquez narrows his gaze and addresses the reporters: “My government is working to stop crime. I’ll keep working. Acapulco is a city with complications – it has to be accepted. But today we’re at over 90% hotel occupancy. People love Acapulco.”

A reporter yells out: “Has the protective barrier around the tourism zone failed?”

“I think we have to reinforce it,” Velázquez says. “We have to review and strengthen it.”

“Will there be an effect from the Playa Angosta incident?”

“The port is still an option for tourists,” the mayor replies. “We won’t take a step backwards. We’ll keep going.”

As the photographers crowd together, Velázquez joins the squad of tourist police handing out green coconuts to the visitors arriving on the avenue. “Welcome to Acapulco,” he says warmly.

The 38-year-old politician from the leftist PRD party is respected as a local leader who thinks deeply about public policy and isn’t afraid to get out in the streets and talk to his city’s residents. He’s working to improve Acapulco, but it often seems like he faces impossible odds.

The state of Guerrero, where Acapulco is located, is considered one of the least developed, poorest and most problematic states in Mexico. Seven out of every 10 of the state’s 3.4 million residents eke out a living in the informal economy, in precarious self-employed jobs that don’t provide benefits.

Around two-thirds of the state’s population lives in poverty.

Guerrero gained international attention after the disappearance – and alleged murder – of 43 students from the Ayotzinapa teachers’ college in 2014, but has continued to struggle through a constant barrage of unrelated but similarly terrifying incidents over the subsequent years. Mexico’s federal government has sent in trucks full of police and soldiers to patrol the beach, and maintains the narrative that the generalised violence in the mountain towns away from the coast doesn’t affect tourism along the beach front. In 2016, however, that fiction has started to unravel.

Although it remains true that most gangs in the area focus on retail drug distribution and extorting small businesses, on multiple occasions throughout the year gunmen shot and killed people in front of visitors on popular beaches.

On 25 April, for example, heavily armed gunmen attacked a group of federal police staying at the Alba Suites hotel, starting a prolonged shoot-out while terrified visitors fled for cover. On 29 October, two soldiers were kidnapped by a group of armed criminals inside a busy market in downtown Acapulco; their cadavers were discovered two days later. From 29 to 31 November, during one particularly violent weekend, 13 people were killed across the city.

Together with the press and police, the mayor makes his way down the main stretch of coastal highway, stopping to greet patrons at the beachfront restaurants. “We’re happy to see you,” he gushes.

Then he pulls in a group of smiling waiters: “Great guys, thanks,” he beams, shaking their hands.

“The perceptions are there – but what I’ve learned in politics is to keep going forward,” Velázquez tells me.

As the entourage moves onward, a middle-aged woman who works as a promoter for a local hotel stops and addresses him. “Give it your all – it depends on you,” she pleads. “And we depend on tourism.”

A fall from fame

Perched on a cliff overlooking the Pacific, the pastel pink Los Flamingos is one of Acapulco’s oldest and best-known establishments. The hotel’s 82-year-old manager was a friend and protege of the actor John Wayne, one of the hotel’s original owners.

In the 1950s and 60s, Acapulco emerged as a hidden escape for A-list celebrities from California. Over subsequent decades, it transformed from a sleepy beach town to a sprawling city with a population of around two million. But Los Flamingos remains a time capsule to an earlier era.

Christian Hernandez, a big-bellied 34-year-old tourist visiting from Estado de Mexico on the outskirts of Mexico City, lounges with his family by the hotel’s pool. He has been coming to Acapulco since he was a child.

“Normally I come three times a year,” he explains. Over the course of his life, Hernandez has seen the beach town evolve. “Acapulco changed. It was a pueblo and now it’s become like Mexico City,” he says. “But you wake up and you still have this view of the sea – it’s paradise.”

Hernandez has brought eight members of his family with him, including his primary school-age children. The unit of soldiers who camp out in the hotel’s garden and stand guard next to the front gate don’t unnerve him; he says he has come to see Mexico’s ongoing security problems as just another part of the scenery. “There are a lot of police,” he shrugs.

recently ranked Mexico as the world’s third-highest country for crime, behind only Afghanistan and Guatemala. “All over the place it’s the same in this country. Everywhere there’s organised crime,” he says.

Hotels such as Los Flamingos have their own clusters of loyal clients, but they still rely on the general flow of tourism into Acapulco. Collectively, hotels here are depending on the mayor to rebuild the city’s image.

“Acapulco is a city with one million residents and a population of two million during vacation periods. Eighty percent of the population lives from tourism,” the mayor points out. “They work in different professions: cab drivers, tourist services, stores, restaurant owners, nightclub operators … People work in fishing; [there are] farms that supply the restaurants.”
The veteran holidaymakers from the generation of American visitors who first started visiting Acapulco in the 1950s and 60s remember a beach village scratched out of dense foliage along the flat expanse of sand. Now the houses are tightly packed in a haphazard agglomeration of improvised constructions that stretch close to the top of the adjacent mountain ridge. These residential areas have spilled over the hilltops into new, lower-income barrios such as Renacimiento – places that are far from the sea and marked by serious security problems.

Since he came into office in mid-2015, Velázquez has seen Mexico’s federal government focus on dismantling the large trafficking groups that historically operated in Acapulco. The federal police and army have had success in taking out a number of cartel kingpins, but residents regard the new dynamic of gangs and splinter groups as just as dangerous.

Ten years ago, they shared stories and rumours of well-dressed hitmen from out of state driving luxury SUVs and carrying out well-orchestrated, military-style attacks. The players have changed but the threat level remains largely the same: in Renacimiento, residents see young gangsters selling drugs on street corners, and all too frequently hear about teenage gunmen carrying out hits.

“If tourism works then the economy flourishes and the government has resources for managing public policies, for building infrastructure,” he says. “We’re renovating, rebuilding facades and painting historic residential neighbourhoods.”
One of his major projects is the completion of a new bus rapid transit system, which should vastly improve the city’s public transportation network. Another initiative involves painting low-income housing developments with brightly coloured murals.

On a micro scale, Velázquez can work to generate loyalty with visitors by greeting tourists and handing out coconuts, but winning back foreign visitors who book vacations online will require a more expansive, holistic approach.

The mayor, though, is confident that Acapulco’s prospects are improving. Last year its hotels reported 90% occupancy for the December holiday season, and he is sure that 2016 will end with a steady stream of arrivals and a mix of Mexican and foreign tourists celebrating the New Year in Acapulco.

“Acapulco is recovering its tourism,” Velázquez vows. “Little by little, we’re getting out of it.”

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Florida Woman Run Over By Christmas Parade Float

CBS/PENSACOLA (CBSMiami/AP) — A fun holiday event turned into a scary situation over the weekend in northern Florida.

A woman is recovering after being run over by a float in the Pensacola Christmas parade.

Officer Tony Garza tells the Pensacola News Journal 59-year-old Miriam Mimms stepped into the street to pick something up along the parade route Saturday evening when she was apparently bumped from behind and fell into the path of a float.

Officials say a safety person walking with the float saw Mimms fall and pulled her head away from the path of the float’s tire. Authorities say the float ran over the left torso.

The parade was delayed for about 30 minutes. The incident is under investigation.

Mimms was in stable condition when she was taken to the hospital.

(TM and © Copyright 2016 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2016 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

Army Football Team To Wear World War II 82nd Airborne Division-Inspired Uniforms Against Navy

by Staff Writer
This Saturday in their game against Navy, the Army football team will wear uniforms paying tribute to the 82nd Airborne Division of World War II.

The team will wear uniforms inspired by the paratroopers jumpsuits, which will also include a 48-star American flag along the right shoulder, player name tapes, full-color historical unit patches, a division patch and an improvised camo base layer.

Nicknamed the “All Americans” because they drew members from every state in the country, Army will wear an All American Patch on the front of their jersey.

The 82nd Airborne Division during World War II lead the invasion of Italy, Normandy and Holland with little to no reinforcements.

Army will attempt to break their 14-time losing streak to Navy this Saturday at 3 pm ET.