LOS ANGELES – It's the country cutie versus the King of Pop at this year's American Music Awards. Taylor Swift comes into Sunday's ceremony with six nominations. Michael Jackson has five. And both are up for artist of the year. Also vying for the show's top prize are multiple nominees wholesale ugg boots Kings of Leon, Lady Gaga and Eminem. The American Music Awards honor the year's top-selling artists in the categories of pop/rock, country, rap/hip-hop, soul/R&B, alternative, adult contemporary, Latin and contemporary inspirational. Fans voted online to select the winners. "The AMAs are like the loose, crazy cousin of the music awards," said rocker Melissa Etheridge, who was to be a presenter on the show, shortly before it began. "They've been around a long time, and they tend to go with whatever is really popular. It's everything. It's a whole big pot all stuck in together, and I love that." Swift, who has enjoyed a nba jerseys chart-topping year with her crossover album "Fearless," is up for female artist and favorite album in the pop/rock and country categories. She's also nominated for favorite adult-contemporary artist. Jackson is nominated for male artist and favorite album in the pop/rock and soul/R&B categories for his greatest-hits collection, "Number Ones." The 2003 album surged in popularity after Jackson died in June at age 50. Eminem has four nominations: Pop/rock male artist and rap/hip-hop artist and album for "Relapse," along with artist of the year. Lady Gaga and Kings of Leon have three nods each. She's up for female artist and album for her debut, "The Fame," and the Nashville quartet is up UGG Short Metallic Boots for alternative artist and favorite pop/rock band. Other triple-nominees include Beyonce, the Black Eyed Peas and T.I. Even more than awards, the AMAs are about the performances. That's what AMA presenter Selena Gomez was excited about. "It's about all coming together and just enjoying music," the teen entertainer said. The performance she was most anticipating? "Rihanna. I UGG Tasmina Sandals love her," Gomez said. Etheridge said she was more interested in seeing Lady Gaga. "I've got to see what she's wearing or what she's not wearing," she said. More than a dozen artists are set to take the stage Sunday. Besides Rihanna and Lady Gaga, Whitney Houston, Green Day, Jennifer Lopez, Lil Wayne, Keith Urban, Jay-Z, Mary J. Blige and Adam Lambert are among those planning to perform. Janet Jackson is set to open the show with a medley of songs.

PHOENIX (Reuters) – A week after abruptly quitting his longtime job as a CNN television news host and commentator, Lou Dobbs said on Thursday he is considering career options including possible runs for the White House or U.S. Senate. "Right now I feel exhilaration at the wide range of choices before me as to what I do next," Dobbs, whose outspoken views on immigration and other topics often wholesale ugg boots angered liberals, told Reuters in a telephone interview from New York on Thursday. Dobbs, 64, a veteran CNN anchor who had become one of the most divisive figures in U.S. broadcast journalism, announced last Wednesday he was leaving CNN after spending the better part of 30 years at the 24-hour cable news network. He still hosts a daily radio show. A Texas native, Dobbs has drawn fire from Latino leaders and civil rights groups for frequent on-air remarks UGG Nightfall Boots about U.S. border control and immigration that critics saw as demonizing illegal immigrants. He was also seen as lending credence to the "birther" conspiracy theory, whose adherents believe President Barack Obama's Hawaiian birth certificate was faked to hide a Kenyan birthplace that would make the first black U.S. president ineligible for his office. Dobbs acknowledged his commentary also stirred friction with CNN executives. Discussions with CNN/U.S. President Jonathan Klein made it clear Dobbs' style of combining news and opinion was untenable at the network, Dobbs said. "They wanted to reverse direction on my show from what had been a news debate and my opinion to a middle-of-the road, as UGG Classic Short Boots Jon Klein styled it, non-opinion show," he said. "It was just not gratifying to me to sit there and read a news show -- and I much prefer to be more engaged." Dobbs vowed to carry on expressing his views "fully and straightforwardly in the public arena no matter what I decide to do next." Since his departure, some have speculated he might run as a candidate for the U.S. Senate in New Jersey, where he has a home, or even run as a third-party candidate in the 2012 U.S. presidential elections -- options he says remain on the table. "I am ruling nothing out. ... I have come to no conclusions and no decisions," he said. "Do I seek to have some influence on public policy? Absolutely. Do I seek to represent and champion the middle class in this country and those who aspire to it? Absolutely. And I will."

WASHINGTON – Worried that the Army may have missed red flags about the alleged shooter in the Fort Hood massacre, the Pentagon probably will open an inquiry into how all the military services keep watch on other volatile soldiers hidden in their ranks, officials said Tuesday. The investigation, still in the planning stages, would be a broad examination ranging beyond the specific case of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the Army psychiatrist accused in the killings, officials said. The inquiry, they said, could look at personnel policies and the availability of mental health services for troubled troops. Defense Secretary Robert Gates wants a unified probe that goes beyond the Army, but has not decided how far-reaching the inquiry would be or who would lead it, Pentagon press secretary Geoff uggs outlet Morrell said Tuesday. "There are issues that need to be looked at department-wide, and the focus at this point is trying to figure out some of these questions," Morrell said. The Army's No. 2 officer bluntly said Tuesday that officials fear more people like Hasan may be undetected inside the armed forces. "I think we always have to be concerned about that," Army Vice Chief of Staff Peter Chiarelli said as he outlined separate efforts to curb rising suicide rates in the Army. The service has been the combat force most affected by the stress of fighting two wars. The Army has been preparing for its own UGG Tasmina Sandals examination of what went wrong in the Hasan case and ways to prevent a similar attack. That probe could stand alone or be part of a larger inquiry. Hasan apparently slipped through cracks in the Army's personnel and mental health systems, keeping his job and readying for overseas deployment to Afghanistan even though aspects of his behavior and statements had alarmed co-workers and others. Hasan is accused of opening fire on mostly unarmed soldiers and civilians at the Texas Army post on Nov. 5, killing 13 people. He is charged with murder and is expected to be tried in a military court. The Army chief of staff, Gen. George Casey, had said that the service would take a hard look at itself following the deaths. Any inquiry would have to be careful not to overlap the criminal investigation and legal case against Hasan. Chiarelli said the Army has begun collecting information that would go into the investigation. He would not discuss the probe beyond that but said the Army is trying to keep better tabs on mental UGG Nightfall Boots health and improve services for the mentally ill or troubled. The investigation would consider some questions Morrell described as immediate, although he would not be specific, and some he said will take longer to frame and sort through. Another official said there will be a speedy look at whether the military has missed danger signs in other cases. Still, another said, one possibility would be to bring in outsiders to examine practices and safeguards. Those officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is still being organized. Two military officials said Tuesday that Casey is looking at forming an investigative panel. It would look at Hasan as a whole, his career development and at what point someone should have or might have raised an alarm, one of the officials said. The proposed Army probe would focus on Hasan's six years at Washington's Walter Reed Medical Center, where he worked as a psychiatrist before he was transferred to Fort Hood in July, one said. The doctors who oversaw Hasan's medical training had discussed at a meeting concerns about Hasan's overly zealous religious views and strange behavior months before the attack, a military official UGG Classic Short Boots told The Associated Press last week. Hasan also was characterized as a mediocre student and lazy worker, but the doctors saw no evidence that he was violent or a threat. The military official spoke on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to speak publicly about the meeting. The FBI learned late last year of Hasan's repeated contact with a radical Muslim cleric in Yemen who encouraged Muslims to kill U.S. troops in Iraq. President Barack Obama already has ordered a review of all intelligence related to Hasan and whether the information was properly shared and acted upon within government agencies.

WASHINGTON – In courtrooms barred to the public, dozens of terror suspects are pleading for their freedom from the Guantanamo Bay prison, sometimes even testifying on their own behalf by video from the U.S. naval base in Cuba. Complying with a Supreme Court ruling last year, 15 federal judges in the U.S. courthouse here are giving detainees their day in court after years behind bars half a world away from their homelands. The judges have found the government's evidence against 30 detainees wanting and ordered their release. That number could rise significantly because the judges are on track to hear challenges from dozens more prisoners. Scooped up along with hard-core terrorist suspects in Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere, these 30 detainees stand in stark contrast to the 10 prisoners whom the Obama administration targeted for wholesale ugg boots prosecution Friday for plotting the Sept. 11 and other terrorist attacks. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the professed mastermind of 9/11, and four of his alleged henchmen are headed for a federal civilian trial in New York; five others, including a top suspect in the bombing of the USS Cole, will be tried by a military commission. More detainees are expected to soon be added to the prosecution list. But there will still be plenty of cases left among the 215 detainees now at Guantanamo to keep the judges here busy as they work to clear a legal morass the Bush administration created after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Bush administration Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld once promised Guantanamo held "the worst of the worst." The judges here have rejected pleas for release from eight detainees, UGG Short Metallic Boots but they have concluded the government doesn't even have enough evidence to keep 30 other detainees behind bars. "There is absolutely no reason for this court to presume that the facts contained in the government's exhibits are accurate," District Judge Gladys Kessler wrote in ordering the release of Alla Ali Bin Ali Ahmed. He was repatriated to Yemen after a seven-year stay at Guantanamo, where he was brought as a teenager. "Much of the factual material contained in those exhibits is hotly contested for a host of different reasons ranging from the fact that it contains second- and third-hand hearsay to allegations that it was obtained by torture to the fact that no statement purports to be a verbatim account of what was said," Kessler said. She ruled the government failed to prove the detainee was part of or substantially supported Taliban or al-Qaida forces. The evidentiary record "is surprisingly bare," U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly wrote in ordering the release of Fouad Mahmoud Al Rabiah, a 50-year-old father of four from Kuwait who had been an aviation engineer for Kuwaiti Airways for 20 years. He has been imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay since 2002. Rabiah is one of dozens of men who won their cases in court or who have been cleared for transfer by the Obama administration who are still among the 215 detainees at Guantanamo. Finding countries willing to take the detainees has proved difficult. Since Obama took office, only 25 detainees have actually left. In the case of a detainee from Syria, Abdulrahim Abdul Razak Al Ginco, who uses the surname Janko, U.S. District Judge Richard Leon pointed to evidence that the man had been tortured repeatedly by al-Qaida for UGG Tasmina Sandals three months into falsely confessing that he was a U.S. spy, then jailed for 18 months by the Taliban in Kandahar before he fell into the hands of U.S. forces. "Notwithstanding these extraordinary intervening events, the government contends that Janko was still 'part of' the Taliban and/or al-Qaida when he was taken into custody," Leon wrote in ordering the detainee's release. "Surely extreme treatment of that nature evinces a total evisceration of whatever relationship might have existed!" One detainee who lost his bid for freedom was Adham Mohammed Ali Awad, taken into custody seven years ago when he was a teenager. "It seems ludicrous to believe that he poses a security threat now, but that is not for me to say, " wrote U.S. District Judge James Robertson. "The case against Awad is gossamer thin," consisting of raw intelligence, multiple levels of hearsay and documents whose authenticity cannot be proven, said Robertson. "In the end, however, it appears more likely than not that Awad was, for some period of time, 'part of' al-Qaida." The detainees' hearings — which usually last a day or two apiece — are expected to go well into next year, unless the Obama administration finds homes for them in other countries in the meantime. Some 45 percent of the detainees UGG Nightfall Boots are citizens of Yemen. Afghanistan is the home country of about one in 10 detainees. Saudi Arabia, Algeria and Tunisia together are home for about one in five, according to the Pentagon. The courthouse's Guantanamo cleanup started with the Bush administration still in office, set in motion by the district judges just days after the Supreme Court ruled that detainees could go to civilian court to challenge their indefinite detention. After two earlier Supreme Court rulings in favor of the detainees, a Republican-controlled Congress stepped in to effectively keep detainees from seek freedom from civilian courts, but the Democratic-controlled Congress let the June 2008 ruling stand. The district judges contacted the attorney general and the defense secretary to arrange for a secure video link to Guantanamo. A few judges have taken testimony by satellite from several detainees who wanted to speak on their own behalf. Typically, the first half hour of a detainee's hearing is open to the public, with the prisoner listening by phone. Then the courtroom doors are locked, and the judges hear classified evidence. The 15 judges' chambers were outfitted with safes, special laptop computers and printers and each of the judges' law clerks underwent background checks and was given a security clearance to UGG Classic Short Boots deal with classified information that dominates the evidence. One of the last bastions of judicial opposition to the detainees is the federal appeals court on the fifth floor of the courthouse. There, a three-judge panel ruled the judges lack authority to order them released into the United States even if they have won their release and have nowhere else to go. Considered no threat to the United States, the detainees in that case are 17 Muslims, known as Uighurs. They were picked up in Afghanistan after fleeing western China and fear persecution if returned to China. The Supreme Court has agreed to hear their appeal, with a decision expected next spring. This year, the U.S. government found a home for four Uighurs in Bermuda and six on the Pacific island nation of Palau. The seven still at Guantanamo hope to live in the United States. To achieve that goal, their lawyers must persuade the Supreme Court to rule in their favor.