LAS VEGAS – Brittney Griner had 18 points, 12 rebounds and eight blocks, and No. 6 Baylor routed Gonzaga 70-49 on Saturday night in the Las Vegas Holiday Classic.
Griner was coming off the first triple-double in school history, when she set a Big 12 record with 11 blocks in a win over Oral Roberts on Wednesday.
Morghan Medlock added 16 points and 11 rebounds for Baylor (10-1), which has won 10 straight after a season-opening loss to Tennessee.
Katelan Redmon scored 13 to lead Gonzaga (9-3).
Gonzaga missed 13 of its first 15 shots as Baylor built a 20-5 lead early in the first half. The Zags cut their deficit to 22-10 on Tiffanie Shives' 3-pointer with 10:54 left, but then went scoreless over the next 5 1/2 minutes as the Lady Bears scored 11 straight points.
Kimetria Hayden's layup off a nifty pass from Griner made it a 23-point lead.
Baylor led 41-24 at the half, shooting 52 percent from the field. Gonzaga cut the deficit to 43-32, but Griner sparked a 10-2 spurt to put the game away.
She also was a force on the defensive end, blocking six shots in the second half.
It was a tough day all-around for Gonzaga basketball — the men's team lost to Duke by 36 points at Madison Square Garden.
Gonzaga will face Texas A&M and Baylor will play Arizona State on Sunday night to finish off the tournament. The 13th-ranked Aggies beat No. 14 Arizona State 72-62 earlier Saturday.
The game was played in a casino a couple of miles off the Strip. The arena is used mostly for rodeos and the facility brought in a movable floor that is usually used by the West Coast Conference for their postseason tournament and for the NBA summer league.
Gonzaga had played twice before on it, winning both games. Coach Kelly Graves reminded his team of that in shootaround Friday night. His team looked a lot less comfortable Saturday.

TEHRAN (AFP) –
Top Iranian dissident Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, a fierce critic of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who was once tapped to become Iran's undisputed number one, has died, reports said Sunday.

"Montazeri, 87, died of an illness last night (Saturday)," the ISNA news agency said.

Montazeri, once designated as the successor to the founder of the 1979 Islamic revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, came out in strong support of the Iranian opposition when it rejected the re-election of Ahmadinejad in June.

The cleric had long been critical of the concentration of power in the hands of the supreme leader and called for changes to the constitution which he helped draw up after the Islamic revolution, to limit the leader's authority.

The grand ayatollah became an inspiration to rights advocates and pro-reform groups and was considered by his followers as the highest living authority of Shiite Islam in Iran.

Montazeri had often criticised hardliner Ahmadinejad over his domestic and foreign policy, including Tehran's nuclear stand-off with the West.

He had also called on other leading clerics to break their silence over incidents and rights abuses during the government's crackdown on opposition supporters protesting the June presidential election, which they claimed was massively rigged in Ahmadinejad's favour.

Controversially, he had called for direct talks between Tehran and Washington to avert a war over Iran's controversial programme of uranium enrichment.

Montazeri, one of the main architects of the Islamic republic, was a student and close ally of Khomeini, whom he was set to succeed.

But the cleric fell from grace in the late 1980s after he became too openly critical of political and cultural restrictions, most notably Iran's treatment of political prisoners and opposition groups.

Montazeri resigned months before Khomeini's death in 1989, and was told by Khomeini to stay out of politics and focus instead on teaching in the religious city of Qom where he was based.

Unfazed by such warnings, he continued to speak out.

The grand ayatollah has also questioned the theological credentials of current supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

This was branded as treason, and in 1997 Montazeri was placed under house arrest.

Freed after five years on health grounds during the reformist presidency of Mohammad Khatami, the grand ayatollah vowed that he would continue to speak out in defence of freedom and justice.

WASHINGTON – Christmas at the White House isn't for sissies.
Take quantities that might work in a private home — guests, cookies, parties, cards, whatever — and add some extra zeros to get a feel for a White House-sized holiday season.
As in 50,000 guests, 28 parties and open houses, a couple hundred thousand holiday cards and untold quantities of cookies, cakes, brownies, truffles and the like to feed the Obamas' holiday throng.
"They eat like crazy," says former White House executive chef Walter Scheib, who cooked for the masses under presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. "Christmas at the White House is the single most mentally and physically challenging thing that you can do."
Scheib said the staff used to joke during the holidays about "White House flextime" — when "you can work any 100 hours you want this week."
As far back as October, pastry chef Bill Yosses' team was plotting strategy and going over drawings for this year's gingerbread house — a 390-pound behemoth whose construction required the use of a band saw. Before Halloween, Yosses already was joking about doing "mental push-ups" to prepare for the coming holiday season.
Yosses' shop stockpiles mounds of cookie dough in the freezer to keep up with day-to-day demand for holiday sweets.
His rule of thumb for receptions: four bite-size dessert items per guest. (Some of which are discreetly slipped into purses and go home as souvenirs.)
This year's menu for the White House dessert buffet table: lemon layer cake, brownies, assorted cookies, pecan pralines, pumpkin pie, chocolate truffles, and more.
Roland Mesnier, one of Yosses' predecessors, says he always tried to sock away enough dough for 120,000 cookies and sweets by Dec. 1.
"If I did not have that, I would be in trouble," Mesnier said.
Michelle and Barack Obama, meanwhile, might want to stockpile hand sanitizer: There's a whole lot of handshaking going on at all those parties and receptions — although White House aides say the Obamas are doing away with formal receiving lines and posed photos with each guest at some events to accommodate more people.
The jockeying for a White House invite is intense enough to sorely test any host's holiday spirit. Speculation over who'll get to attend the president's Hanukkah party, for example, has been swirling in Jewish publications since mid-November, along with grousing that the party's size is down from last year's 800 guests. About 500 will attend this year, the White House says.
Overall, about the same number of guests will visit the White House this holiday season as in years past, although there will be a slightly smaller number of parties and receptions, according to White House aides.
One complicating factor this season is tighter scrutiny of who's getting in the door. Washington still is abuzz over how a couple of aspiring reality TV stars managed to talk their way into the first state dinner of the Obama White House last month. After investigating what went wrong, the White House promised to station its own staff at checkpoints to help the Secret Service determine who is cleared for entry.
Also new: This year's party schedule has been adjusted to accommodate a first family with young children. There are fewer weekend parties and more daytime receptions during the week, when 8-year-old Sasha and 11-year-old Malia are off at school.
And, in tight economic times, it wouldn't do to look too extravagant. So this year's trees feature "recycled" ornaments from presidents past that were shipped all over the country to community groups, which redecorated them with scenes of local landmarks. It was part of what staff described as an effort by the Obamas to ensure a frugal and environmentally friendly holiday season.
Overall, there appear to be fewer trees and decorations this time than in some over-the-top years past, and the same is true of the Christmas card list. Several hundred thousand have been mailed out, paid for by the Democratic National Committee. That compares with 1.5 million sent out by George W. Bush in 2003, paid for by the Republicans.

Mrs. Obama's office did not reveal the cost of this year's holiday festivities, but said a standard amount for holiday entertaining is set aside in the White House budget. And each year, costs are held down by a host of volunteers clamoring to help dress up the White House. This year's volunteers included Simon Doonan, creative director of Barneys New York. He helped design the displays.

Like the Obamas, past presidents and first ladies have set a thrifty tone in austere times. Betty Ford went with a patchwork-trimmed tree for 1974, and distributed instructions so families around the country could make their own decorations. Pat Nixon cut way back on Christmas lights during the energy crisis in 1973.

Over the decades, though, White House holiday festivities generally have become more elaborate, according to Jennifer Pickens, whose new book "Christmas at the White House," details how holiday celebrations have grown.

The pasty chef's creation of a gingerbread house, for example, began in 1969 with a simple A-frame built with 16 pounds of gingerbread and six pounds of icing. This year's 56-inch-by-29-inch re-creation of the White House weighed in with 140 pounds of gingerbread coated with 250 pounds of white chocolate.

Jacqueline Kennedy in 1961 began the tradition of establishing a decorating theme for White House Christmases, selecting "The Nutcracker Suite."

This year's theme is "reflect, rejoice, renew," which is embroidered on the blue ribbons used to hang ornaments.

It's all a long way from the days of Abigail and John Adams, the first couple to spend Christmas at the White House. Mrs. Adams burned more than 20 cords of wood during the first White House Christmas party to try to keep her guests warm, Pickens said, but it wasn't enough and many chilled guests left early.

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http://www.christmasatthewhitehouse.com

(This version CORRECTS spelling of Scheib in paragraph 5.)

WASHINGTON – Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner announced Wednesday that the administration will extend the government's financial bailout program until next fall.
In a letter to House and Senate leaders, Geithner said the extension is "necessary to assist American families and stabilize financial markets."
Money from the $700 billion taxpayer-funded bailout program has helped rescue big Wall Street firms, auto companies and others. That's angered many Americans, who feel the government hasn't provided them with relief from high unemployment and rising home foreclosures.
Geithner said the Troubled Asset Relief Program that Congress passed in October 2008, will be extended until Oct. 3, 2010. He has the authority to extend the TARP simply by notifying lawmakers.
"The recovery of our financial system remains incomplete," Geithner told lawmakers. "And, near-term shocks to that system could undermine the economic recovery we have seen to do."
The Treasury secretary said new commitments bankrolled by the bailout fund will be limited to three areas next year.
One focus is stepping up efforts to curb record-high home foreclosures, a move necessary to stabilize the housing market and support a lasting economic recovery.
Another will be providing capital to small banks, which play a crucial role in providing credit to small businesses — normally a leading engine of job creation. But small banks have been weighed down by problem commercial real estate loans, which has made them reluctant to lend and hurt the ability of small businesses to expand and hire.
In a third area, Geithner said the government may boost its commitment to a program aimed at sparking lending to consumers and small businesses. Run by Treasury and the Federal Reserve, the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility, or TALF, started in March.
Geithner said he didn't expect any new commitments to the TALF would result in additional costs to taxpayers.