This is not a drill. Injured Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo and girlfriend Candice Crawford are actually engaged. The way you know is that big shiny rock on the third finger of her left hand cannot be mistaken for a cocktail ring.
A year ago, the blogosphere was pulled offside by an ambiguous-looking ring Candice wore on the sidelines in her job as a sports reporter for "CW33" KDAF-TV (Channel 33).
But the new sparkler is the real deal. It features a square, radiant-cut diamond that our local expert guesstimates is well north of five carats. It sits atop a split shank band with two rows of micro-set diamonds. The ring and the setting are either platinum or white gold.
"It's probably platinum," the jeweler says. "If he's cheap, it's white gold."
It would be tacky to mention that it's been just five weeks since Romo's former inamorata Jessica Simpson got engaged to former NFL player Eric Johnson, so we won't.
Romo kept a lower profile with Crawford. But Thursday was her 24th birthday and he proposed while dining with her and her family at Five Sixty atop Reunion Tower.
Matt Cardle is the bookies' favourite to win The X Factor as Sunday night's final showdown gets under way.
The 27-year-old former decorator from Essex is ahead of teen rivals One Direction and Liverpool's Rebecca Ferguson to take the title.
Saturday night's show saw 17-year-old Cher Lloyd leave the competition after polling the lowest number of votes.
All four acts performed duets with some of the biggest names in pop, including Rihanna and Robbie Williams.
Five-piece group One Direction, Simon Cowell's hope to win the final, sang She's The One with Williams.
Cardle sang with chart-topper Rihanna, while Christina Aguilera performed Beautiful with Rebecca Ferguson and Lloyd teamed up with Black Eyed Peas star Will.i.am for her duet.
While Cowell is mentor for One Direction, Dannii Minogue has taken care of Cardle over the course of the series.
Cheryl Cole, who is looking after Rebecca Ferguson, will be hoping to make it three wins in a row after her acts Joe McElderry and Alexandra Burke won the last two competitions.
Bookmaker William Hill is putting Cardle ahead with odds of 8/11, followed by One Direction at 9/4 and Ferguson just behind in third place at 9/2.
The EU plans to make private lenders cover the losses of any future eurozone debt crisis, the BBC has learned.
The decision may significantly raise the future cost of borrowing for over-indebted eurozone governments.
It is part of a new permanent scheme - to be funded by eurozone governments, but not the UK - to replace existing bail-out funds that expire in 2013.
The new mechanism will need a treaty change, which may lead to ratification problems in the Irish Republic.
The details of the proposed European Stability Mechanism are included in a draft European Union communique obtained by the BBC.
The changes come too late for the Republic of Ireland, which was forced by European partners to foot the bill for rescuing its banks in order to get an 85bn euro bail-out. Government defaults In future, Brussels may require a crisis-stricken eurozone government to force losses on its existing private lenders - including investors in government bonds - before it would provide a bail-out package.
The creation of the European Stability Mechanism in 2013 will formally collapse one of the founding principles of the single currency, ie the "no bail-out" clause.
Rescuing ailing economies will now be enshrined in law through what the draft communique describes as "limited treaty change". This change may prove to be a headache for some EU member states, especially Britain, whose prime minister vowed to call a referendum if any new powers were to be ceded to Brussels.
It will also be a major issue for the Irish Republic, whose constitution demands that any EU treaty changes get the blessing of the entire electorate. Many Irish people are livid at the high rate of interest (5.83%) demanded from their European partners as part of their 85bn euro bail-out and may exact bitter revenge in a referendum.
And if a government got into trouble later down the line, it would be required to default on its other debts, while continuing to make payments on its rescue loans.
"That won't please the markets, who thought that holding government bonds was as safe as cash deposits," says BBC business correspondent Joe Lynam.
From June 2013, government bonds will also have to include "collective action clauses", which would make it much easier for an insolvent government to get the consent of its lenders to any future debt write-offs.
Together, the changes mean a government's private-sector lenders will face a much bigger risk of losing their money.
And this means they are likely to charge the more heavily indebted eurozone member states a higher interest rate.
The rhetoric in the communique comes in stark contrast to the actual bail-out of the Irish Republic in November.
In that rescue, Brussels is accused of having insisted that Dublin honour in full its guarantee of the Irish banks. Many Irish are angry that this has landed taxpayers with the bill for repaying loans made to its insolvent banks.
However, with European banks dangerously undercapitalised, European leaders feared that a default by the Irish banks could trigger a Europe-wide banking crisis.
Separately, the EU is planning to carry out a new, and much stricter, set of stress tests on its big banks this year.
Brussels is accused of making the Irish government foot the bill for bailing out its banks
The tests will determine how much capital the banks need to absorb future losses.
The previous stress tests, held over the summer, were criticised for failing to consider the possibility of a default by a eurozone government. Referendum hurdle The planned Lisbon Treaty amendment is short and open-ended, leaving European leaders flexibility to structure the new arrangement however they choose.
It states only that: "The Member States whose currency is the euro may establish a stability mechanism to safeguard the stability of the euro area as a whole. The granting of financial assistance under the mechanism will be made subject to strict conditionality."
The amendment may also open the way towards a common eurozone government bond at a later date.
This was a solution to the eurozone debt crisis proposed by Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker and Italian Finance Minister Giulio Tremonti, but rejected by Germany.
Ratification of the treaty change may prove a challenge in some countries.
The Irish Republic's constitution requires a referendum at a time when the public is angry with Europe over the harsh terms of their bail-out.
In the UK, the amendment is not expected to trigger a referendum.
The draft communique states that EU members outside the eurozone - such as the UK - may choose to participate in the new bail-out arrangement "on an ad hoc basis".
However, right-wing members of his Conservative party may demand that Prime Minister David Cameron use the opportunity to negotiate UK opt-outs from existing treaty requirements.
The communique also said that the EU will endorse making Montenegro an official candidate to join the European Union, meaning the country can begin formal accession negotiations.
Two explosions in Sweden's capital Stockholm are being investigated as a "crime of terror", officials say.
A car blew up in a busy shopping area on Saturday afternoon, followed moments later by a second explosion nearby.
Witnesses said a man found dead after the second blast had been carrying an explosive device. Two people were hurt.
Swedish PM Fredrik Reinfeldt condemned the attacks as unacceptable in an open society with a functioning democracy that respects different cultures.
"Our democracy functions well," he told a press conference. "Those who feel frustration or anger have the opportunity to express it without resorting to violence." Lone operator? Swedish security police have not yet released the dead man's name, although director of operations Anders Thornberg says they now have a clearer idea about him.
Police are still trying to link these three events: the emails, the explosion in the car, and then the death of the man.
The prime minister and the security services are taking great pains to say: "Hold on a minute, let's not jump to conclusions, let's actually form those links".
But you've only got to surmise at the death of the man, through explosives that he was carrying, a short time after the explosions in the car, to assume there was a link between the two.
The bigger question is whether it was only him involved, whether he had set off the explosions in the car somehow, and then fled, either deliberately setting off the explosives on himself as a suicide bombing or accidentally setting them off.
They're also trying to work out whether there were more people involved in a conspiracy in Sweden and even more people involved in a conspiracy going outside the country.
"As far as we know it looks like he has been working for himself but we don't know, we have to make that really sure," he said.
"So we are investigating whether there could be more perpetrators. We don't know."
Swedish media have named a 28-year-old man of Iraqi origin as the suspected bomber.
Police are investigating a set of e-mails sent shortly before the blasts threatening attacks because Sweden had sent troops to Afghanistan.
Sweden has some 500 soldiers deployed in Afghanistan as part of the international military force.
The e-mails, with MP3 audio files in Swedish and Arabic, were sent to the Swedish security service and the TT news agency.
They called for "mujahideen" - or Islamist fighters - to rise up in Sweden and Europe, promising Swedes would "die like our brothers and sisters".
They also attacked the country for caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad drawn by Swedish artist Lars Vilks.
"The mail was about one man," police spokesman Ulf Goranzon told a press conference on Sunday.
"He was not satisfied with developments in Sweden regarding [the fact] that we have military troops in other countries, that there had been protests and that there have been said bad things about the Prophet [Muhammad]."
A man found dead near the site of the second explosion has not been named
Sweden has a reputation for openness and tolerance, but in recent years, tensions have risen, the BBC's Stephen Evans in Stockholm says.
There has been resentment at immigration as the economy has stuttered, and some Muslims have grown more militant.
In September, the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats won 20 seats in parliament, taking 5.7% of the vote.
If confirmed as a suicide bombing, the attack would be the first of its kind in Sweden. However, Swedish citizens have been linked to suicide bomb plots abroad.
On Thursday, a court in Gothenburg found two Swedish citizens of Somali origin guilty of planning suicide attacks in Somalia.
The imam of Stockholm's main mosque, Sheik Hassan Mussa, said in a statement he deplored "all forms of attacks, violence fears and threats against innocent people, whatever the motive or pretext." Twin blasts Saturday's blasts struck as people were out Christmas shopping.
2 May 2010: New York police defuse improvised car bomb after vehicle loaded with propane tanks, fireworks, petrol and a clock device is left parked in New York's Times Square
30 June 2007: Jeep loaded with propane canisters driven into the glass doors of Glasgow airport and set ablaze. Driver Kafeel Ahmed dies from severe burn injuries. Passenger Bilal Abdulla, British-born Muslim of Iraqi descent, sentenced to 32 years for conspiracy to commit murder
29 June 2007: Two cars containing petrol, gas cylinders and nails fail to explode in London. One device, left outside a nightclub, is defused after an ambulance crew spot smoke. The second is found after a car is towed from a nearby street where it had been parked illegally
The car exploded on the busy shopping street of Drottninggatan at 1700 (1600 GMT) and the second blast occurred 10 to 15 minutes later on a street about 300m away, police said.
The car had contained gas canisters and there were a series of minor explosions, a spokesman told the BBC.
Unconfirmed reports in Sweden's Aftonbladet newspaper said the man found dead near the site of the second blast had been carrying pipe bombs, as well as a backpack full of nails.
Eyewitnesses saw him lying on the ground with blood coming out of his stomach. Tweeting about the blasts, Foreign Minister Carl Bildt said a terrorist attack that could have been "truly catastrophic" had failed.
In November, Sweden raised its terror alert level from low to elevated because of a "shift in activities" among Swedish-based groups thought to be plotting attacks.
A security official said the threat level had not been raised as a result of Saturday's attacks.
By Geoff Dyer in Beijing
Published: December 11 2010 18:37 | Last updated: December 11 2010 18:37
Chinese inflation jumped again in November to over 5 per cent, putting pressure on the authorities to raise interest rates and further rein in the huge monetary stimulus of the last two years.
The consumer price index rose by 5.1 per cent in November, higher than expected and up from 4.4 per cent in October, which was already well above the 3 per cent target that the government has set for inflation.
Combined with a renewed increase in fixed asset investment and jump in exports over the last month, the further increase in inflation will add to concerns about an overheating economy.
Senior Chinese officials began an annual meeting in Beijing over the weekend to chart economic policy for the next year, which state media said would focus on how to contain inflation.
The Politburo has already announced a shift in monetary policy from the “appropriately loose” stance of the last two years to “prudent” and some analysts expect an imminent increase in interest rates. On Friday, the central bank raised reserve requirements for commercial banks for the fifth time this year and the third in just over a month in order to drain liquidity from the financial system.
The biggest contributor to rising inflation was food prices, which increased 11.7 per cent year-on-year, from 10.1 per cent in October. However, non-food inflation also increased from 1.6 per cent y-o-y in October to 1.9 per cent.
According to Qian Wang at JP Morgan in Hong Kong, strong fiscal spending “coupled with the still accommodative monetary environment…. and still low interest rates, indeed raise the risk of overheating by early next year.”
However, Andy Rothman at CLSA in Shanghai said that the current increase in inflation was primarily the result of bad weather, which has raised the price of vegetables. Although interest rates might rise by 0.25 per cent before the end of the year, he said there would not be a significant tightening of monetary policy next year.
Instead, the increase in factory-gate inflation would lead to lower corporate profits as companies found their margins squeezed. “Overcapacity and strong competition leaves few firms with the ability to fully pass these higher costs on to final goods prices,” he said.
The government said on Friday that exports increased 34.9 per cent year on year in November, while imports surged 37.7 per cent. On Saturday it said that the rate of growth in industrial production increased slightly to 13.3 per cent last month, while the increase in fixed asset investment also accelerated from 24.4 per cent in January to October, compared to the same period the year before, to 24.9 per cent in January to November.
