Visitors to Union Square enjoy the balmy weather on Sat. Jan. 7, 2012. (DNAinfo/Sarah Tan)

MANHATTAN — The mercury is expected to reach 60 degrees by Friday — another warm streak in an already mild winter that belies the fact that it’s the middle of February. 

Temperatures are expected to rise throughout the week under mostly sunny skies, going up to 60 on Friday, according to Accuweather.com.

Despite the chance of a shower Thursday and Friday, the temperature is a far cry from the average high at this time of year, which is in the low 40s.

But it is on par with a warm spell last year, when the mercury hit 67 degrees on Feb. 18, 2011.

Forecasters said the warm stretch will end this weekend, when the mercury dips back down into the 40s.

New Yorkers will also have to contend with strong winds on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday, with gusts around 40 mph likely, AccuWeather reported.

RELATED CONTENT

• More Weather Coverage
• Megabus’ Port Authority Stop Gets Three Month Reprieve, Judge Rules
• 5 Napkin Burger to Open in Union Square Monday Night
• Best Places to Take the Kids During the Mid-Winter Break
• NoHo Restaurant Mercat Closed by Health Department
• Pastor Goes on Hunger Strike to Protest Church Ban in City Schools

Article source: http://www.dnainfo.com/20120220/manhattan/warm-weather-on-tap-for-end-of-week

COLUMBUS, Ohio (Reuters) – Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum challenged President Barack Obama‘s Christian beliefs on Saturday, saying White House policies were motivated by a “different theology.”

A devout Roman Catholic who has risen to the top of Republican polls in recent days, Santorum said the Obama administration had failed to prevent gas prices rising and was using “political science” in the debate about climate change.

Obama’s agenda is “not about you. It’s not about your quality of life. It’s not about your jobs. It’s about some phony ideal. Some phony theology. Oh, not a theology based on the Bible. A different theology,” Santorum told supporters of the conservative Tea Party movement at a Columbus hotel.

When asked about the statement at a news conference later, Santorum said, “If the president says he’s a Christian, he’s a Christian.”

But Santorum did not back down from the assertion that Obama’s values run against those of Christianity.

“He is imposing his values on the Christian church. He can categorize those values anyway he wants. I’m not going to,” Santorum told reporters.

A social conservative, Santorum is increasingly seen as a champion for evangelical Christians in fights with Democrats over contraception and gay marriage.

“This is just the latest low in a Republican primary campaign that has been fueled by distortions, ugliness, and searing pessimism and negativity – a stark contrast with the President who is focused everyday on creating jobs and restoring economic security for the middle class,” said Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt.

The campaign’s response signaled a new respect for Santorum. Until this week, the Obama campaign appeared exclusively focused on Mitt Romney. Republicans are waging a state-by-state contest to pick a candidate to challenge Obama in November’s election.

At a campaign appearance in Florida last month, Santorum declined to correct a voter who called Obama, a Christian, an “avowed Muslim.”

Santorum told CNN after that incident, “I don’t feel it’s my obligation every time someone says something I don’t agree with to contradict them, and the president’s a big boy, he can defend himself.”

QUESTIONS ROMNEY RECORD ON OLYMPICS

On Saturday, Santorum also took aim at Romney, his main Republican rival, on one of the central accomplishments of his resume, saying the former Massachusetts governor’s rescue of the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics required millions of dollars in handouts from the federal government.

The attack was a response to the Romney camp trying to portray Santorum as a proponent of big government because of his use of earmarks while he served in the U.S. Senate.

“He heroically bailed out the Salt Lake City Olympic Games by heroically going to Congress and asking them for tens of millions of dollars to bail out the Salt Lake Olympic Games – in an earmark,” Santorum said.

“One of his strongest supporters, John McCain called it potentially the worst boondoggle in earmark history. And now Governor Romney is suggesting, ‘Oh, Rick Santorum earmarked,’ as he requested almost half a billion dollars of earmarks as governor of Massachusetts to his federal congressmen and senators. Does the word hypocrisy come to mind?” Santorum said.

Romney often talks of how he turned around the struggling Olympics organization and is appearing in Utah on Saturday to mark the anniversary of the Olympics.

In a statement, the Romney campaign said Santorum was in a weak position to challenge its candidate on big spending.

“Sometimes when you shoot from the hip, you end up shooting yourself in the foot. There is a pretty wide gulf between seeking money for post-9/11 security at the Olympics and seeking earmarks for polar bear exhibits at the Pittsburgh Zoo. Mitt Romney wants to ban earmarks, Senator Santorum wants more ‘Bridges to Nowhere,’” said Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul.

(Editing by Peter Cooney)

Article source: http://news.yahoo.com/santorum-says-obama-agenda-not-based-bible-011457960.html

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – President Barack Obama sought on Thursday to stoke enthusiasm in California about his 2012 re-election drive, saying he wanted another chance to overhaul immigration and tackle climate change with a second term.

At a series of fundraisers in San Francisco, the Democrat acknowledged he has had a tough first three years in office and asked supporters to summon the energy to mobilize for him again to complete unfinished business on his agenda.

“We’re going to have to be as focused as we were in 2008,” he said, joking that it was “not as trendy” to support him now as when he first emerged as a presidential candidate, but also noting the economic downturn has dampened spirits.

“We’ve gone through three tough years and so people want to hope, but they’ve been worn down by a lot of hardship,” he told 70 people who paid $35,800 each to attend a dinner that included a live performance from soul singer Al Green.

He said his second-term to-do list included making sure health care and Wall Street reforms were fully implemented, continuing to bolster education and scientific research, and advancing U.S. oil, gas and clean energy production.

He also pitched items of interest but left unattended in his first term, including addressing the large numbers of undocumented workers in the United States and facing down global warming.

“We’ve still got to get immigration reform done, because we are a nation of immigrants and we are a nation of laws,” he said, adding: “We’re going to deal with climate change in a serious way.”

“And we’re going to have to figure out how to pay for all this stuff,” Obama said, saying that wealthier Americans – like him and like them, in his words – “can do a little bit more to make sure that kid around the corner has a chance like we did.”

California’s economy is the biggest among the U.S. states and is the ninth-largest in the world, ahead of India, Canada, Russia and Spain.

Obama has been courting support from both Hollywood and the California tech sector as the election year is underway. He is expected to raise $8 million in six fundraising events in California – the first was in Los Angeles on Wednesday night – plus two in the Seattle area on Friday.

“OBUMMER”

About 100 protesters ranging from conservative Republicans to ardent environmentalists gathered on Thursday evening outside one of Obama’s San Francisco fundraisers. Some held signs that included “OMG – Obama Must Go” and “There Is No Hope And No Change,” a throwback to his 2008 slogan.

Ray Sarakaitis, a 71 year-old Tea Party activist, said he had one goal for the November 6 election. “What we’d like to see is Obama’s reign end at the end of his term,” he said outside the reception for 2,500 people, where tickets started at $100.

The Tea Party movement is a loose-knit, grassroots organization pressuring for smaller government and less taxation.

Earlier on Thursday, in Corona Del Mar, a coastal town south of Los Angeles, critics greeted the presidential motorcade with signs reading “Evict Obummer,” “Protect Religious Freedom” and “Gas Prices Up 91 Percent Under Obama.”

The president attended a fundraising breakfast there where 125 supporters contributed at least $2,500. He told them that “naturally” some of the excitement that infused his 2008 White House run had dissipated, but said it was still vital his backers mobilize ahead of the November vote.

“If anything, it’s more urgent and we have to be more determined and more energized and work even harder. And if we do, we’re going to have four and a half more years to change America,” he said.

Joe Goldman, a 22-year-old law student at the University of San Francisco, said he supported Obama but was disappointed the president hadn’t been able to act more decisively in his first term.

“If his administration took bolder action in the beginning, we would have seen a faster path of recovery,” he said before Obama’s arrival in San Francisco. “When it comes to education and economic policy, the president is steering us in the right direction, but it takes time.”

(Additional reporting by Malathi Nayak; Editing by Philip Barbara)

Article source: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-pitches-unfinished-business-second-term-064056980.html