Late-night wars erupt again, over ice cream

Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Fallon faced off on Thursday's "The Colbert Report" in a mock feud over their respective Ben & Jerry's flavors. The ice-cream maker years ago named "Americone Dream" for Colbert, while earlier this week "Late Night Snack" was unveiled for Fallon, host of "Late Night" on NBC.

The two traded insults, with Fallon claiming Americone Dream was merely a "palate cleanser for 'Toss.0.'" Colbert said "Late Night Snack" was "pretty good — for 12:30" and compared it to a Fallon "Saturday Night Live" sketch: "Halfway through, you break down laughing and you can't finish it."

The two sought backup, yelling "Lead-ins assemble!" Jay Leno didn't show, but Jon Stewart did. Armed with a bat, the trio of late-night hosts resembled a similar throw-down among Colbert, Stewart and Conan O'Brien during the 2007-2008 writers strike.

Colbert and Fallon attempted an ice cream eating contest. But when brain freeze set in, they instead settled for a sing-along.

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Online:

http://www.colbertnation.com

http://www.latenightwithjimmyfallon.com

(This version CORRECTS title of 'Toss.0.')

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China paper blasts Middle East protest movements

Such movements have brought nothing but chaos and misery to their countries' citizens and are engineered by a small number of people using the Internet to organize illegal meetings, the Beijing Daily, published by the city's party committee, said in a front-page editorial.

"The vast majority of the people are strongly dissatisfied (with the protests), so the performance by the minority becomes a self-delusional ruckus," the newspaper said.

The editorial appeared amid anonymous calls posted on the Internet for Middle East-inspired protests in dozens of Chinese cities the past two Sunday afternoons.

While drawing few outright demonstrators, the appeals have deeply unnerved authorities constantly on guard for any sign of challenges to Communist rule. Police and security agents shooed away onlookers and assaulted and detained journalists who turned up at the designated protest sites in Beijing and Shanghai.

Foreign reporters have been repeatedly warned to stay away from the sites this weekend and threatened with unspecified consequences if they disobey.

China's censors have carefully shaped local coverage of the protests in the Middle East to discourage Chinese citizens from drawing inspiration from them. State media emphasize the protests' negative effects on the societies and economies of the countries involved and give prominent coverage to the woes of Chinese workers evacuated from Libya and elsewhere.

In its editorial, the Beijing Daily attempted to draw a sharp distinction between China and the Middle Eastern countries roiled by unrest, where disdain for long-serving autocratic rulers has frequently been fueled by high unemployment and economic woes.

Chinese people, it said, support their nation's political stability, economic development, and favorable government policies. Those looking to create or discover news of Middle East-style protests in China will come up empty, it said.

"However, we must clearly recognize that there are always people inside and outside the country with ulterior motives who want to seize on the problems we have encountered over the course of development in order to incite unrest," the newspaper said.

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Boston SP Beckett throws simulated game

Beckett missed his scheduled start on Thursday. He experienced mild concussion symptoms after being hit in the left temple on Monday by an errant ball while shagging flies in the outfield during batting practice.

Beckett is expected to make his next start on Tuesday. The Red Sox have split-squad games that day against the Astros at home and in Jupiter, Fla., against the Cardinals.

Beckett faced six Red Sox minor leaguers, throwing a mix of all his pitches.

"I felt good," he said. "It's a (simulated) game. There's just not a lot of adrenaline and stuff that goes into that. But I like it when the guys go up there and swing. (It) gives you a little bit of feedback one way or the other. It's hard to get a lot of feedback if the guys don't swing, just not a lot of things that correlate to a game unless you have a little bit of something going on."

Beckett said although he has not lifted weights since the incident, he feels that his overall condition and arm strength are where they need to be. The work he's been able to get in has allowed him to continue his regular progression.

"Yeah, I think I'm right there," he said. "I wouldn't have thrown that many pitches. I probably would have thrown less than that, in fact, unless I would have ran into a long inning and even then, they wouldn't have let me go over so many pitches in one inning.

"As far as workload, yes. As far as the other things that go into actually pitching in a spring training game, (those) are a little bit different, whether it be routine or stuff like that."

Beckett said he is still feeling the effects of being hit.

"I'm actually good," he said. "(But) I'm really sore on the left side of my head. My jaw and stuff like that are pretty sore. But I think I'm pretty much back to normal."

He didn't notice the concussion symptoms until the day after the incident.

"I don't think initially I was that scared," he said. "It actually took when I went to lunch (the next day) and I couldn't do it. I couldn't be away from my house without laying down. And that's when I finally said, 'Hey, there's something wrong here.' Because I was kind of resistant to even thinking I had a concussion.

"I tried to come in the next day. I was like 'Oh, I'm ready to go back to work. Let's get this over with.' And I found out that day when I went to lunch. It was a little bit of a setback."

Beckett is coming off a disappointing 6-6 season in which he had a 5.78 ERA with 45 walks.

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Top cable programs for Feb. 21-27

Rankings for the top 15 programs on cable networks as compiled by the Nielsen Co. for the week of Feb. 21-27. Day and start time (EST) are in parentheses:

1. "Jersey Shore" (Thursday, 10 p.m.), MTV, 5.48 million homes, 7.72 million viewers.

2. "WWE Raw" (Monday, 9 p.m.), USA, 3.857 million homes, 5.89 million viewers.

3. "WWE Raw" (Monday, 10 p.m.), USA, 3.853 million homes, 5.82 million viewers.

4. "NCIS" (Sunday, 8 p.m.), USA, 3.68 million homes, 5.06 million viewers.

5. "NCIS" (Sunday, 7 p.m.), USA, 3.41 million homes, 4.74 million viewers.

6. "SpongeBob SquarePants" (Saturday, 9:30 a.m.), Nickelodeon, 3.22 million homes, 4.77 million viewers.

7. NBA Basketball: New York vs. Miami (Sunday, 8 p.m.), ESPN, 3.174 million homes, 4.21 million viewers.

8. "SpongeBob SquarePants" (Sunday, 9:30 a.m.), Nickelodeon, 3.170 million homes, 4.18 million viewers.

9. "Royal Pains" (Thursday, 9 p.m.), USA, 3.04 million homes, 4.05 million viewers.

10. "NCIS" (Monday, 7 p.m.), USA, 3.02 million homes, 4.01 million viewers.

11. "Big Time Rush" (Monday, 8 p.m.), Nickelodeon, 2.99 million homes, 4.23 million viewers.

12. "SpongeBob SquarePants" (Saturday, 9 a.m.), Nickelodeon, 2.967 million homes, 4.39 million viewers.

13. "NCIS" (Thursday, 7 p.m.), USA, 2.964 million homes, 4.15 million viewers.

14. "Teen Mom II" (Tuesday, 10 p.m.), MTV, 2.95 million homes, 4 million viewers.

15. "NCIS" (Sunday, 9 p.m.), USA, 2.94 million homes, 3.95 million viewers.

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MTV and Nickelodeon are owned by Viacom. USA is owned by General Electric Co.'s NBC Universal. ESPN is owned by the Walt Disney Co.

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Online:

http://www.nielsen.com/

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Police say suicide bomber targeting Iraqi soldiers in western Iraq kills 8 people

Array

(AP) — Police say suicide bomber targeting Iraqi soldiers in western Iraq kills 8 people.

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Redskins cut LB Andre Carter, G Derrick Dockery

Neither move was a surprise. Carter was a poor fit for the team's 3-4 defense, and Dockery had become a bench-sitter who was due $3.8 million in salary in 2011.

The cuts came a day after the Redskins cut running back Clinton Portis rather than pay him $8.3 million next season. It wasn't that long ago that Portis, Carter and Dockery were premium-paid, reliable members of the starting lineup, but all will be at least 30 by the start of the next season and have no place in coach Mike Shanahan's plans.

Carter had 11 sacks in 2009 playing defensive end in the 4-3, but he struggled when moved to linebacker last season in the 3-4. He started only five games and had 2½ sacks, symbolic of the argument that the Redskins switched the scheme before they had the personnel in place to make it work.

Dockery hadn't missed a game in his eight-year career, playing in 116 straight in the regular season, before he was made inactive in Week 5, having struggled to adapt to Shanahan's zone blocking scheme on offense. Dockery, whose starting job was taken by Kory Lichtensteiger, played in only one more game the rest of the season.

Dockery was drafted by the Redskins in the third round in 2003 and hit the big-money free agent jackpot twice in a short amount of time. He left in 2007 to sign a blockbuster $49 million deal with Buffalo but was cut after two seasons. He then returned to Washington to sign a five-year $26.5 million contract with $8.2 million guaranteed in 2009.

The Redskins also made a second-round tender to restricted free agent linebacker Chris Wilson. The tender is subject to whatever free agent rules are included when the NFL and the players' union reach a new collective bargaining agreement.