Taylor Swift won her second straight entertainer of the year trophy at the ACMs. She bested her all-male competitors, including four-time winner Kenny Chesney, along with Brad Paisley, Shelton and Aldean.

While accepting her award, Swift took a moment to say hello to Kevin McGuire and his family. McGuire, a high school football player and Swift fan who has cancer, was to have been Swift’s date to the awards, but he was hospitalized and couldn’t make it.

“He’s not here but I promised him I would give him a shoutout,” Swift said of the Somerdale, N.J., resident.

The members of KISS, sporting full makeup, almost looked out of place as the rockers announced Lady Antebellum as winners of vocal group of the year. The country trio thanked fans, family and country radio for the win.

The night’s single record of the year went to Aldean and Clarkson for their hit duet, “Don’t You Wanna Stay.” The pair’s collaboration also won vocal event of the year.

Some awards were handed out before the televised show on Sunday night, including Toby Keith’s “Red Solo Cup,” which scored video of the year. His rowdy live version of the song got the ACM audience members out of their seats Sunday night at the MGM Grand Garden Arena.

The awards ceremony was chock-full of performances by everyone from Lionel Richie and The Band Perry to Keith Urban and Sara Evans. Viewers didn’t see an award announcement until more than a half-hour into the show.

Actor-comedian-banjo player Steve Martin joined Rascal Flatts on “Banjo” after a brief tribute to country pioneer Earl Scruggs, who died last week.

Martina McBride and Train’s Pat Monahan teamed up to help New Jersey couple Christina Davidson and Frank Tucci get married on stage while they sang “Marry Me.”

Among the stars who strutted on the red carpet included The Band Perry, Eli Young Band and Underwood, who arrived in a long strapless nude-colored dress with silver details. She said she kept stepping on the hem of her own dress. Jennifer Nettles of Sugarland described her custom Max Azria dress color as “watermelon Jolly Rancher.”

Here is the complete winner list of ACM awards 2012:

Song of the Year: “Crazy Girl,” Eli Young Band

Entertainer of the Year: Taylor Swift

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Tiger Woods

For the fourth time in five years, Woods faces a major setback to his season, having battled through a left knee injury in 2008 to win the US Open, knee and tendon pain last year.

The former World No. 1 has not won an official event on any tour since the Australian Masters on November 15, 2009, just before the revelations of a secret sex life that led to his divorce from ex-wife Elin Nordegren.

“In the past, I may have tried to continue to play, but this time, I decided to do what I thought was necessary.” Woods said in a statement.

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Whitney Houston found dead

She was 48. The timing of her death, the eve of the Grammys, the biggest music event of the year, makes the horrible news even more tragic. According to CNN, Houston was pronounced dead at 3:55 p.m. PT at the Beverly Hilton Hotel.

Her self-titled debut album, released in 1985, sold 25 million copies worldwide. In total, she released seven albums and three film soundtracks; a winner of six Grammys, Houston sold over 200 million albums and singles worldwide. She earned 30 Billboard Awards, 22 American Music Awards and two Emmy Awards.

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DeGruy and Wight were long-time colleagues of Cameron. Wight co-produced the feature film “Sanctum 3D” with Cameron after accompanying him on six deep-ocean documentary expeditions.

DeGruy, an Emmy award winner with 30 years’ experience in ocean filmmaking, was director of undersea photography for Cameron’s “Last Mysteries of the Titanic.”

Reacting to the deaths of his colleagues , Cameron said, “Mike and Andrew were like family to me. They were my deep-sea brothers, and both were true explorers who did extraordinary things and went places no human being has been. They died doing exactly what they loved most, heading out to sea on a new and personally challenging expedition, having fun in the way they defined it for themselves, which was hardship and toil to achieve something never done before. They were passionate storytellers who lived by the explorer’s code of humor, empathy, optimism, and courage. Their deaths are a tremendous loss for the world of underwater exploration, conservation, and filmmaking.”

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The story goes that on February 2, if the groundhog (also known as a woodchuck) emerges from its burrow and sees its shadow, there will be six more weeks of winter. No shadow means an early spring.

Thanks to the movie “Groundhog Day,” the marmot Punxsutawney Phil has reached celebrity status. The supposedly 125-year-old rodent, who gained fame in the comedy starring Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell, boasts a Facebook page along with media hype.

So how accurate is the forecast from Punxsutawney Phil? According to the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club, Phil’s reading is 100% accurate, natch. But the National Climatic Data Center disagrees, noting that its research shows “no predictive skill for the groundhog during the most recent years of this analysis.”

Groundhog or no, the first day of spring is officially March 20, and it can’t come soon enough.

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The Obama administration is struggling to keep the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, on its side as it carefully tries to open talks with the Taliban. Yet the video showing such a desecration — a possible war crime — is likely to weaken the American position with both. The Taliban and Mr. Karzai each pointed to the images as evidence of American brutality, a message with broad appeal in Afghanistan, where word of the video was slowly spreading on Thursday.

Senior military officials in Kabul and at the Pentagon confirmed that the video was authentic and that they had identified the Marines as members of the Third Battalion, Second Marines, which completed a tour of Afghanistan this fall before returning to its base at Camp Lejeune, N.C. The officials did not release the Marines’ names but said one wore a corporal’s uniform.

Pentagon officials said the video had been made between March and September 2011, when the Marine battalion was stationed in Helmand Province, a strategic Taliban heartland and a center of the opium poppy trade. The officials said that they did not know the precise location shown in the video but that it had probably been made in the northern part of the province, where the battalion had been operating. Seven of the approximately 1,000 Marines in the battalion were killed during the seven-month deployment.

The Taliban reaction out of Afghanistan was muted. “This is not the first time we see such brutality,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told Reuters. He added that “the video will not harm our talks and prisoner exchange.”

But Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who led the outpouring of Afghan outrage and is ambivalent about U.S.-led talks with the Taliban, may use the incident to delay talks. “This act by American soldiers is completely inhumane and condemnable in the strongest possible terms,” said the President, who rarely resorts to such strong language after Taliban atrocities.

Previous American military mistakes – especially air strikes that killed civilians – have sparked major, angry, anti-American demonstrations in the mountain-ringed capital and brought harsh denunciations from Mr. Karzai.

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NASA

“This is a major milestone on the road to finding Earth’s twin,” Douglas Hudgins, Kepler program scientist said in a statement. “Kepler’s results continue to demonstrate the importance of NASA’s science missions, which aim to answer some of the biggest questions about our place in the universe.”

Kepler-22b has several Earth-like characteristics: The new planet’s temperature is around 72 degrees Fahrenheit and its radius is 2.4 times Earth’s. The planet completely orbits its star, which is similar to our sun, every 290 days, just 75 days shy of an Earth year.

But how close is the new Earth really?

Since one light year is the equivalent nearly six trillion miles, it would take 22 million years to travel 600 light years on a space shuttle and visit Kepler 22-b with our current technology.

But while we won’t be able to visit this Kepler-22b, scientists say another planet like it and closer to it could be discovered in this lifetime. The Kepler telescope has already detected hundreds of new planets.

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If the rumors are true, this will be the second wedding in two years that Smirnoff has called off. Smirnoff was previously engaged to Maksim Chmerkovskiy from “Dancing With the Stars.”

The New York Daily News reports that Smirnoff has been seen as recently as Saturday wearing her engagement ring. But according to a source, Smirnoff only wears the ring in public.

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The National Retail Federation says 226 million shoppers visited stores and websites between Thanksgiving Day and Sunday.

So what sort of Web-only deals are out there? Here are a few from some major retailers.

Best Buy

Best Buy is the largest bricks-and-mortar consumer electronics retailer out there, but it doesn’t shy away from Cyber Monday. Among the price cuts: a 55-inch Samsung LED-backlit TV, normally $1,500, is selling for $999.99, the HTC Titan running Windows Phone and the HTC Wildfire S running Android are both free with a new two-year contract, point-and-shoot cameras are $40 to $80 off, a number of laptops are on sale including a 15.6-inch Toshiba Satellite for $279.99.

Amazon

Discounted goods on Amazon.com can be found pretty much all year. So while a sale is nothing new for the online retail giant, the company is promising that it’s Cyber Monday discounts will be significant. However, unlike most retailers, Amazon’s Cyber Monday promotion isn’t lasting just one day, but instead all week.

Dell

Dell also regularly offers discounts on its website, but for Cyber Monday it has discounted 21 specific items, some of which are already sold out. The computer maker dropped the price a variation of its Inspiron 14R from $499.99 to $399.99 Other laptops are on sale to, but at only $50 off rather than $100, such as the Inspiron 15, Inspiron 15R and Inspiron 17R.

Cyber Monday Tips:

1) Free Shipping is the rule.
Many big stores like Amazon.com, Walmart.com and Target.com are automatically doing free shipping right now on most items.

2) Shopping Online Saves Chicagoans almost 10% in Sales Tax.
Amazon, Overstock.com, Buy.com, Zappos.com, Shoes.com and many other big online stores don’t collect sales tax from IL shoppers.

3) Your credit card may be a free extended warranty.
Most American Express cards, for example, include a warranty extension service that doubles your warranty automatically for up to one year for any items purchased with the card.

4) Don’t forget the coupon codes!
Our average shopper takes less than 90 seconds to find a code and saves 24%.

Happy Cyber Monday all!

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Ricky Pempengco was stabbed in the chest and back during an altercation with another man in a San Pedro convenience store this week. He later died of his injuries, while the alleged killer escaped. Capili didn’t comment publicly on his reasons for attacking the Glee star’s dad, but reportedly told a government official that Pempengco had attacked him first.

Charice also told the Filipino press that she will not forgive Capili because he has not accepted responsibility for the brutal crime.

“He should not defend himself. He cannot bring back my dad,” the singer-actress said.

Charice flew back to the Philippines and paid respects to her father early Wednesday. She also apologized for canceling the rest of her tour dates, saying “my family comes first.” She had been scheduled to perform in Singapore.

“Whoever did this must be brought to justice. Justice must be served, not just for my father but for everyone concerned,” she told a radio interview.

Angel Capili Jr., the suspect in the murder of Charice’s father expressed regret for what he has done and asked for forgiveness from Charice. “Humihingi po ako ng kapatawaran sa kanya. Sana ay mabigyan niya ako ng pagkakataon na mapatawad niya ako.”

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