Olympic 400m champion LaShawn Merritt tested positive for anabolic steroids found in his over the counter penis enlargement product.
Merritt, who is also the world champion at 400 metres, said in a statement via his lawyer that he was "deeply sorry" at failing three doping controls for the banned substance dehydroepiandrosterone.
The 23-year-old American, who faces a two-year ban, said: "To know that I've tested positive as a result of a product that I used for personal reasons is extremely difficult to wrap my hands around.
Very unfortunate turn of phrase there...
ETS Fight Is Back On
So says K-Rudd.
KEVIN RUDD says the great moral challenge posed by climate change is undiminished and he will keep trying to implement an emissions trading scheme if Labor is re-elected.
In an interview with the Herald, Mr Rudd rejected growing criticism that he had abandoned the climate change cause because it was no longer a vote winner after the Copenhagen conference and the defeat of his emissions trading scheme.
"It's very clear cut that whether climate change is topical or not, whether it is popular or not, the reality of it does not disappear," he said.
"This remains a fundamental economic, environmental and moral challenge. Whether it's newsworthy or not in a particular season is beside the point. We haven't changed our view of this.''
The Senate has twice blocked legislation for the emissions trading scheme. The legislation is again before the Parliament but the Senate has delayed debate until at least next month and there is next to no chance there will be a vote before the election expected in the spring.
Mr Rudd said that if he is re-elected, he will try again to have a scheme introduced but it would depend on the make-up of the Senate.
''We've got to ensure that we act on climate change and we do so always within the scope of our powers. We maintain our position that this is part of the most efficient and most effective means by which we can reduce greenhouse gas emissions with the least cost to the economy.''
Well it's good to hear he still has the appetite for putting a price on carbon. There I was thinking that maybe there were secret briefings that told him an Ice Age was coming anyway and made all global warming redundant or something, but clearly that's not the case.
It's nice to know it's on the agenda-radar again.
The Health Deal We Had To Have
A cool article from Peter Hartcher here.
Once the NSW Premier had landed in Canberra on Sunday, Rudd zeroed in on her as his first target. He assessed Kristina Keneally as the most likely of the three recalcitrants to yield because the NSW Government was in the weakest political position of the three, facing an election it's likely to lose, and was the one most in need of a deal to deliver more hospital funds.
Under the offer already on the table, NSW stood to gain an extra $964 million in upfront Commonwealth health money over four years.
Before going to the dinner that Rudd was to host for all the premiers and their treasurers that night, the Prime Minister sweetened the offer to NSW by hundreds of millions of dollars and asked Keneally to commit immediately.
Keneally was not as desperate as Rudd had hoped, however. She refused to commit and said she needed time to think about it.
Just before all the premiers and treasurers were due to arrive at The Lodge for dinner, the treasurers' invitation was cancelled. They were told that they would be dining separately at the Hyatt Hotel, with the federal Treasurer, Wayne Swan, as their host. The state treasurers were unimpressed when they were led into a small, windowless dining room next to the hotel cafe. They were even less impressed when they tried to discuss key issues with Swan and he rebuffed them.
The state treasurers also asked Swan about the forthcoming Henry review of the tax system. ''No one will be worse off,'' Swan told them, and otherwise wouldn't tell them a thing, not even the date of its release. ''It'll come when it comes,'' he said.
To round out the experience the states again went at each other about the health deal, with John Lenders and NSW's Eric Roozendaal defending their decision to reject the Rudd plan.
The state ministers concluded that Swan had been sent to ''mind'' them so that Rudd could corral the premiers and try to win them over. It didn't work.
That evening the state delegations heard unofficially that Rudd intended to hold them for a day longer than they had planned, into Tuesday.
The blow by blow of how these people staggered to the finish line is very interesting. Kristina Kenneally is still a stinking mess of a premier and really, this does not raise her from the low estimation in which I hold her; but all the same she did all right to bluff to K-Rudd that "we-was-not-so-desperate-yeah?"
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