CNN’s Anderson Cooper, reporting from Egypt, explained how he and his camera crew were attacked as they were reporting on protests in Cairo’s Tahrir Square. Cooper said in a video on CNN, “It was pandemonium.” He added, “A young man would come up, look at you and then punch you right in the face.”

Based on what he says, protesters were “punching us in the head” and “They don’t want any pictures taken” while Cooper was “using a little flip camera but they didn’t notice.” He also commented, “The situation was getting very bad, very quickly.”

Larry King, 77, finished up his CNN talk show “Larry King Live” after 25 years Thursday.

King has conducted about 50,000 interviews during his broadcasting career. Since joining CNN in 1985, he has recorded more than 6,000 shows.

No “return” has been anticipated or reported. It appears King is retiring for real.

According to CNN, King commented, “Six o’clock tonight will go on to 7 o’clock, with or without me. Some news will break, and I won’t be there to cover it. I’m going to miss it.”

Dr. Drew Pinsky, who currently hosts the fourth season of “Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew” on VH1, will start a primetime show weeknights at 10 p.m. on HLN in the spring.

Since Pinsky is able to talk about any current issue, such as Facebook bullying or celebrity scandals, which highly attract the audience, it seems like his show is highly anticipated by HLN.

According to the Associated Press, Scot Safon, executive vice president in charge of HLN commented, “Our audience all day long is responding in a big way to these stories. He’s a real doctor. He’s a behaviorist, he’s tremendously empathetic, he explains things well. He has — for lack of a better term — a bedside manner that makes you trust him.”

This is an unedited transcript of Florida Gubernatorial Debate with CNN’s John King. CREDIT: CNN’s John King/USA.

JOHN KING, HOST: Good evening everyone from the University of South Florida in Tampa. This is a special edition of JOHN KING, USA, the Florida’s Governor Debate sponsored by CNN and the “St. Petersburg Times”. Just eight days from Election Day and this race, one of the nation’s most important contests, is a dead heat.

And the outcome could matter to you regardless of whether you live here in Florida. The country’s most populist state is front and center in all of the big national debates. Unemployment in this state just shy of 12 percent, it ranks second nationally in foreclosures. And immigration, health care, school standards and taxes all are front-burner issues in the race for governor.

The two candidates tonight, a Republican Rick Scott, a health care executive. And Democrat Alex Sink, the state’s chief financial officer. I’m also joined by Adam Smith, the political editor for the “St. Petersburg Times” — two quick pieces of housekeeping before we get started.

The candidates have graciously agreed to a free-wheeling format. We’ll have a lively conversation and our audience here has agreed to hold all reaction until our hour-long conversation ends. And let me remind the audience one more time that’s very important. Don’t deny your candidate’s time, so let’s get started.

Mr. Scott, if you watch your conversations here, your campaign rallies, your television ads, one would think that you might be running against the president of the United States. You call your opponent an Obama liberal. You made your name before you decided to run for governor attacking the Obama health care approach. Is there nothing this president has done in his first nearly two years, where you would say Mr. President, amen, I’m with you 100 percent.

RICK SCOTT (R), FLORIDA GOV. CANDIDATE: If I was going to pick one thing, at least he’s continued the — fight the war in Afghanistan, so I think that’s positive. He’s continued to do what President Bush did and try to defend the country. But I think the rest of his policies, the stimulus is a disaster. I think Obama care is going to be horrible for patients. It’s going to be horrible for taxpayers. It’s probably the biggest job killer ever. I think his just — you know his belief that big government works, it doesn’t. It’s killing jobs. And my opponent that’s — that’s what she believes in.

KING: One thing. One thing in nearly two years, that’s it?

SCOTT: That’s it.

KING: That’s it. Ms. Sink, I want you to answer his charge. If you listen to him, you are an Obama liberal and you would be a rubber stamp in Tallahassee. Anything the president wants to do in Washington, you would echo and help implement from the — from your position in Tallahassee. Where would you stand up to the president? Where has he been wrong?

ALEX SINK (D), FLORIDA GOV. CANDIDATE: Well let me give a lot of examples. Both sides where I agree with the president and I have disagreed with the president. But I have to say, Rick that every time you put that Obama liberal label on me, you just don’t know what you’re talking about. I have always been a fiscal conservative. I served as the chair — the vice chair –

KING: You say that you’ve always have been a fiscal conservative. Is that a contrast with the president? Has he not been a fiscal conservative?

SINK: Well I’m not — I’m not grading the president right now. What I’m answering is that Rick Scott continues to say that I’m an Obama liberal and you cannot put that label on me. Every newspaper in this state has called me a fiscal conservative with the right plan for Florida, who will cut taxes, that’s my plan, and cut government spending.

So let’s go back and talk about these charges about the relationship with the president. Let me say that I agree with the president on his education reforms. The reforms and race to the top are good and positive, and I’m very pleased that Florida was one of the winners of the race to the top grant. But when the president and his administration are doing things that hurt Floridians, he is going to hear about it.

SINK: Like?

SINK: Like I think that the Bush tax cuts ought to be extended. Look, Florida is a state of small businesses, and those tax cuts have got to be extended, because otherwise they will hurt small businesses, and my plan is all around small businesses. I also took issue with the handling of the BP oil spill and they heard about it from me loud and clear.

ADAM SMITH, POLITICAL EDITOR, ST. PETERSBURG TIMES: Mr. Scott, you’ve described the president’s agenda as a disaster for our economy. You look at your tax returns. You actually had greater taxable income under President Obama than you did Bush. Your tax rate is actually lower under President Obama. It seems like you are doing better under the president.

SCOTT: Well you know what I do is I follow all the rules. Whatever the tax rates are, the tax rates are. You know the way I’ve made my money is build companies. And so when you build companies and you sell things, that’s when you generally have your income. So that’s what I’ve done, but you know let’s look at, you know, what President Obama has done and what my opponent wants to do. She has spending plans that are going to cost us $12.5 billion. (INAUDIBLE) sent her a letter saying what taxes are you going to increase? We all know that all the things President Obama has done, we know that taxes have to go up.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He keeps saying you are going to raise taxes. What do you say?

SINK: Well you know even your own newspaper ad called that charge false on every single count. I don’t know where that $12.5 billion comes from. There is nothing in my plan that calls for tax increases. That’s not the way to grow our economy. And let me just go back. Rick Scott constantly says I follow the rules. Well he certainly was not following the rules when he led a company that was convicted of 14 felonies because they were engaged in Medicare fraud. He is just somebody that we can’t trust, because he doesn’t know how to follow the rules.

KING: We’re going to those issues as we continue the conversation, but on the point Adam was just asking about, will you tell the people of Florida tonight — it’s the last chance they’ll get to see the two of you together before the election in eight days — that if you’re elected to a four-year term that you would absolutely not raise taxes? Or you cannot make that promise because you don’t know what is ahead?

SINK: Well my plan, which I have a very specific and detailed plan, calls for cutting taxes for businesses who hire more Floridians because look, that’s the problem that we have right now. Our unemployment rate is high.

SCOTT: (INAUDIBLE) other businesses could have tax increases —

SINK: No. I have nothing — there is nothing in my plans that says raising taxes. That is just a false charge that we’ve heard over and over and over again from Rick Scott.

SINK: Everyone — every one of your ads has been claimed as being full of lies and false ads by the newspapers.

SCOTT: That’s untrue. The — you are going to increase the pay for state workers. OK. How are you going to pay for that?

SINK: Rick –

I came across this really interesting story two days ago: plans by the autonomous region of Southern Sudan to build multi-billion dollar cities in the shapes of animals. The detailed blueprints show outlined drawings of a rhinoceros and a giraffe, with plans for structures inside their “bodies.”

Image via Wikimedia/Mandavi

The plan’s budget is just over $10 billion, even though Southern Sudan is one of the poorest regions on earth and has a budget of just $2 billion for 2010. Many believe the region should spend its expected influx of oil money to quickly improve living conditions for the poor. Here’s an excerpt from the Al Jazeera story :

“It doesn’t seem like the government of Southern Sudan should be using its resources or staff time when the people of Southern Sudan lack basic services like health care and water,” Nora Petty, an aid worker with the Malaria Consortium in Juba, said.

Of course, some believe the opposite. This, from CNN.com:

“Others think the idea could help put an aspiring new nation on the map.

“If it happened, everybody would come to see the country. It would mean we are developed,” says Ochira Bosco, 27, who works in a Juba restaurant.”"

Plans place the regional capital, Juba, inside the two-horned rhino blueprint.

Still, Nora Petty’s opinion is popular, especially when inspecting the region’s infrastructure stats. Again, from the Al Jazeera story:

“To connect all major towns in southern Sudan we need 13,000km of roads … we need five to six billion dollars to tarmac about 80 per cent of that.”

Right now, Southern Sudan has about 60 km of roads and health care services are rarely readily available for the country’s populace.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out, as the referendum on Southern Sudan’s independence should take place in early January 2011.

Good TV night on Sunday coming up with premieres of AMC’s “The Prisoner” at 8 p.m., “Drive-Thru” on Fuel at 8:30 p.m., “Tough Love” on VH1 at 9 p.m., and a great feature called “WWII IN HD” on History also at 9. Blast has seen “WWII in HD” and we approve, especially for military history buffs.

In news news, CNN quickly replaced Lou Dobbs with the king of the touchscreen, John King. King will host a weeknight political show at 7 p.m.

Spike has a new cars show called “Unique Autosports: Miami,” starting February 28 at 10:30 a.m. There will be eight half hour episodes combining cars, celebrities and beautiful Miami. Guests will include LeBron James, Diddy, and players from the Yankees.

A bunch of news out of SyFy today. The network formerly known as Sci-Fi has a comedy series coming out called “Outer Space Astronauts” starting December 8 at 9:30 p.m. The show is about eight quirky soldiers who travel the stars looking for adventures. It’s basically making fun of Stargate, and it shows how much the network has changed in 10 years.

SyFy got good ratings on the premiere “Ghost Hunters Academy” on Wednesday, drawing 2 million total viewers, the best ratings for a reality series on SyFy since January 2008′s “Ghost Hunters International.”

Famed author Ray Bradbury will executive produce a six-episode miniseries about six of his short stories. “The Bradbury Chronicles” hasn’t been picked up by a network yet.

“Friday Night Lights” premieres at 9 p.m. tonight on DirecTV’s The 101 Network. So, good luck to the six people that will be watching it tonight.

TBS will launch “Lopez Tonight” with George Lopez on November 9 at 11 p.m. with a star-studded lineup including Ellen DeGeneres, Eva Longoria-Parker and Kobe Bryant on night one and Sandra Bullock, Ray Romano, Jamie Foxx, Jessica Alba, Charlie Sheen, Queen Latifah, Marc Anthony, Ted Danson, Andy Garcia, Larry David, Taylor Lautner, Oscar de la Hoya, Kelly Osbourne, Floyd Mayweather, Eva Mendes, Arsenio Hall and Kathy Griffin for the first few episodes. It will air Monday-Thursday.

Nielsen announced that FOX News rules the cable news primetime waves with MSNBC coming in second place. CNN is down toward the bottom, with “Anderson Cooper 360″ placing forth in the ratings, behind re-runs of “Nancy Grace” and “Countdown.” Not a good sign for CNN.

TNT approved a pilot for the George Clooney-produced drama “Delta Blues” about an eccentric Memphis police officer who doubles as an Elvis impersonator.

The World Series starts tonight. Nothing else of note, except for “It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown” on ABC. Here in Boston, smart money’s on the Peanut gang.

According to the Canadian Radio-Television Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) AlJazeera English is, most likely, on its way to major broadcast networks in the Great White North.

Many however have quite the negative view of AlJazeera, especially the Arabic network. They’ve been accused of giving a “voice to terrorists” and have, in the past, aired some seriously anti-Semitic programming.

But AlJazeera English is the station that’s on its way to Canada, not AlJazeera Arabic. AJE was established just three years ago and even though it is, like Aljazeera Arabic, owned by the Qatari government, it operates independently from its big sister station.

I watch AlJazeera English regularly on Livestation. It’s a quality all-day news channel that reports on issues much like CNN does, but from a differing, more localized and internal perspective.

CNN’s coverage of American politics is hard to match. It’s comprehensive and seen from all angles. It’s quality. Why? Well it operates from the area on which it reports, the U.S. Atlanta, Washington D.C., Los Angeles and New York City. Everything is covered. Here.

So, naturally, a news channel operating out of the Middle East would give the world a more authentic idea of what is going on there than, say, CNN, whose headquarters are a long way from the Mid-East.

You wouldn’t rely on the BBC for American political news, so why are we forced to watch CNN to learn about the Middle East? After all, CNN’s global sister stations aren’t available to us here in the U.S. and Canada.

The current vast news landscape is made up largely of Middle Eastern issues. AlJazeera’s main headquarters are right smack-dab in the middle of the Middle East: Doha, Qatar, just off the eastern coast of Saudi Arabia. They also have broadcast stations in Kuala Lumpur, London and Washington D.C. They air at least one 30-minute news show from each base everyday.

In addition to the four headquarters, AJE has 69 bureaus set up all over the world, many of which are in the southern hemisphere. They also employ 1,200 staff of more than 45 ethnicities.

That doesn’t sound too oppressive to me. These stats make them the most diverse news network in the world.

If you watch the channel you’ll know their anchors, reporters and weathermen come in all colors. As a person of color, that’s a nice thing to see on TV. Finally.

Many of their staff is also women.

I admit I’ve never watched AlJazeera Arabic, aside from all the terrorist videos that have become infamous in the West. I’ve heard the negative criticism and the allegations of anti-Americanism toward the AJA. I’ve also seen some of the proof.

But that doesn’t mean AJE isn’t a quality, unbiased organization. It operates independently from AJA and caters, purposefully, toward a Western audience.

You only have to watch programs like “Witness” and “People & Power” to understand the quality of AlJazeera English. Seriously, download LiveStation and watch those programs. They are phenomenal examples of how AJE brings attention to important issues that get either get lost in Western mainstream media filters or go undetected on news radar.

About 80 per cent of AJE’s stories relate to the Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Latin America, about twice as much as the BBC and CNN.

AJE’s reporting of not only Middle Eastern issues but also those issues that affect the forgotten areas of Latin America, Africa and Asia are without a doubt superior to those few pieces produced and released by CNN and the BBC.

The rest of the world needs a voice. AlJazeera English is it. So please come on down to Canada.

Click on the link below to see President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad dance around answering Christiane Amanpour’s question regarding the safety of his opponent Mir Hossein Mousavi. There are conflicting reports on whether Mousavi is under house arrest.

In the video, Ahmadinejad compares the rioting to misplaced passion by fans of the losing team after a soccer match. Degrading.

Ahmadinejad presser video on CNN

The protests went deep into the night. Journalists and citizens were arrested and beaten, police cars and bikes were set on fire, windows were broken – it was complete chaos, not seen since the 1979 Iran Revolution.

Protesting is not something Iranians normally do, so it’s a good sign of the people fighting for what they believe is rightfully theirs – a democratically-elected and coherent government that will represent the people in the way they want to be represented.

For up-to-the-minute updates on what’s happening in Iran, follow @LilyMazahery, a human rights activist and lawyer getting updates from friends in Iran, @tehranelection, a student living in Tehran, and @Change_for_Iran, a man named Farhad, who is, according to his tweets, taking part in the riots.

Seriously, follow these people. The two Iranians are really risking a lot by updating the world on what’s happening inside their country, since Twitter, Facebook and other sites were banned for a long time yesterday.

I was reading the American Journalism Review yesterday morning and I found a story about local TV stations cutting investigative reporting teams to fit budget. Investigative reporting on local TV has never been stellar, however it does provide citizens of a specific locality with an in-depth look at some of the less publicized scandals and atrocities occurring in their vicinity.

The AJR article reports the stations like WJLA-TV in the nation’s capital have cut their “I-Team” to save money. WJLA VP of News Bill Lord says that he needs to “do newscasts before I can do specialty items.” That makes sense; newscasts provide viewers with a small glimpse of everything that’s happening in the U.S. Some of the more learned viewers actually stick around to see what’s going on outside of America.

Adrienne Roark, the News Director at Miami’s WFOR-TV makes the best argument for keeping investigative reporters. “It’s what sets you apart from all the other noise out there” she told AJR. Ratings.

That, to me, makes more sense. Personally, I think all local news stations (just as most of them do) should only report local news and create in-depth local stories. If I want news on a broad scale, I turn to CNN or CBC, I don’t watch CP24 or City TV (those are local Toronto news networks).

But if I do want local news I flip to the smaller stations because I know they can offer a more detailed look into local stories that affect my area. Just like CNN or CBC can give me a better look into what’s happening in different parts of the country and in different countries.

This is where I think a structural overhaul needs to take place. Local stations should see investigative local coverage as a top priority. And while some do, investigative reporters that uncover local scandals and even triumphs should remain a part of the team because they are crucial to the survival of real journalism and to citizens understanding what’s going on in their surroundings.

Journalism is not just the reiteration of fact. It the discovery and analysis of new developments that provide the public with an all-encompassing view of an event. That’s what real journalists do, and that’s why it’s a trade that should be upheld and protected, as long as it continues to operate honorably.

To survive, these in-depth reports would have to air on a regular basis, not every few months. That makes the title of “investigative” null, however, something like in-depth coverage or in-depth storytelling should definitely have a place, at least on a weekly basis, in all local newscasts.

Just a thought.

Twitter, the wildly popular micro-blogging service is most useful for satiating that thirst for up to the minute updates from friends, family, and celebrity alike.‚  However, the service is also the turf for the current race to a million battle between media news heavyweight CNN and movie and TV star Ashton Kutcher.

Kutcher, bewildered at his massive number of followers offered a challenge to the news giant earlier this week.‚  The terms?‚  If he hits the million mark before CNN does, he’ll ding-dong-ditch ex-CNN executive Ted Turner’s house, film it, and throw it on Youtube for all to enjoy.

Where’s the video game tie-in you ask?‚  Electronic Arts recently tweeted that if Kutcher wins, the one millionth follower (apparently that can be tracked) will be awarded every last game EA puts out in ’09 (on a specified system) and have their likeness added to The Sims 3 roster.

Currently, CNN has a large edge with over 962,860 followers compared with that of the 947,074 of Kutcher.

Maybe you didn’t like The Butterfly Effect or that 70′s show, but you certainly love mass amounts of free video games and enshrinement into The Sims legacy don’t you?

Kutcher’s Twitter

CNN’s Twitter

EA’s Twitter

Kutcher’s Youtube video describing challenge

Larry King of CNN responds to Kutcher’s challenge

CNN calls Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota and New York for Sen. Barack Obama.‚  ABC calls Texas for McCain.

CNN also calls Wyoming and North Dakota for McCain.‚  Fox News calls New Mexico for Obama.

Obama has so far carried predominantly blue states and McCain has taken the red states. Obama, before today, had large leads in all the states called by CNN and Fox News.

McCain had big a lead in Wymoning, however polls showed Obama leading 45%-43% North Dakota before tonight.‚  Still, only three electoral college votes from that state.

The numbers, added from projections by various media organizations, stands at 175-119 for Obama.

A CNN poll shows 47 percent of Americans are afraid Sen. John McCain, if elected, wouldn’t complete his first term as president in good health.

Nearly 30 of the 47 percent are “very concerned” about McCain’s health and his ability to complete a four-year term as president of the United States, one of the most stressful jobs in the world.

McCain released an extensively long health record earlier this year to try and stymie these types of fears.‚  His physician also released a statement concluding that there is no reason “that would preclude McCain from fulfilling all the duties and obligations.”

There are some doubts about Sen. Barack Obama’s health, too.‚  Obama, a former smoker, has eight percent of those polled “very concerned” and 11 percent “somewhat concerned.”‚  Obama released a one-page medical record showing he is in excellent health.

But wait, McCain has more to worry about.‚  Twenty-seven percent of those polled said age would be one of several key factors when they cast their ballots in November.

McCain has had three bouts with skin cancer.‚  He, like Obama, was a smoker but he quit in 1980.

Obama quit smoking when he started his presidential campaign last year but has admitted he’s smoked a few times since then.

McCain’s health is obviously a concern; he’s 72 and could soon have one of the most trying jobs in the world.

The fears are understandable but this poll is surprising.‚  I for one didn’t think 30 percent of those polled would be “very concerned” about his health.‚  I’m not.

They debated, for the second time, their positions on the economy, health care and energy independence, as well as a host of other issues affecting Americans all over the country.

Obama won this one.‚  He was articulate in his speech, meticulous in most of his policy and overall very calm.‚  He knocked the economy debate out of the park and effectively linked McCain to Bush on that issue, as well as on the debt and deficit.

McCain again proposed a spending freeze.‚  He proposed that the government buy and renegotiate bad loans to stabalize the economy.‚  I’m sorry, but how will you do that with no money?

McCain spoke well, but on the major issues like the economy and foreign policy, he was pretty weak.‚  It was surprising that he didn’t give better insight into his policy on foreign affairs, Obama came out on top on that topic which was surprising.

In the end both candidates were still quite unspecific, which was expected.‚  A lot of it was broad, especially their plans for health care.‚  You could hear a lot of their stump speeches incorporated into the answers.

What I found odd was McCain reluctance to priortize and order the issues he will tackle if elected.‚  He basically said he’ll work on everything at the same time. Sure.

Obama said he’d kill Bin Laden and crush Al Qaeda.‚  That’s a pretty bold promise.‚  He said he’d act if Pakistan refuses to aid or gets in the way of their hunt.

McCain, at one point, referred to Obama as “that one.”‚  It’s pretty clear these guys aren’t exactly amiable.‚  McCain initiated post-debate contact, but when Obama stretched out his hand to shake McCain’s he seemed to ignore it, and Obama settled on shaking Cindy McCain’s hand.

The candidates, for the most part, only attacked each other on policy; I was happy with that.

The bottom line is, right now people don’t care about Ayers or the Keating 5, they care about keeping their heads above stormy economic waters.‚  Having a large portion of this debate centered around the economy showed how unprepared McCain is to tackle the current crisis.‚  Neither is prepared, Obama just has a better outlook and implementation plan.

Obama did however dodge some questions, most obviously the last one.‚  The candidates were asked to specify something they do not know, and how they would go about learning it.‚  Obama told the audience what he DOES know; that America is in crisis blah, blah, blah.‚  His answer was an indirect one.

McCain answered the question directly and said what he does not know is “what is going to happen.”‚  He then told the audience exactly what shape the country is in and again, blah, blah, blah.‚  His answer was better organized.

It was a good debate, the idea for the format was great, I just rather the candidates got a chance to talk to each other directly.‚  Everyone wants to see that exchange.‚  The town hall setting made it seem very personal, but it was a safe setting for each candidate. It didn’t allow for any major slip-ups.

A CNN poll reports that 54% of viewers thought Obama won the debate, as opposed to 30% for McCain.‚  On CNN.com however, an overwhelming 83% of over 40,000 quick poll voters tagged Obama as the victor.

It’s starting to get pretty dangerous for McCain.‚  He’s loosing ground in key states like Florida and Ohio and to top it all off, he’s not performing well in the debates.‚  With only one debate left, republicans hope he steps it up.