On a soggy night at Stamford Bridge, Chelsea finally prevailed against Liverpool in a Champions League semi-final after failures in 2005 and 2007.

Didier Drogba was immense on the muddy surface and bagged two lightning quick goals at the near post as the Londoners triumphed 3-2 after extra time and 4-3 on aggregate. 

Liverpool battled hard with Fernando Torres scoring yet again but ultimately Chelsea were worthy winners, even if they thought a chance had gone when Michael Essien's strike was ruled out for offside...probably correctly.

After all the boardroom wrangling at Liverpool, it will be interesting to see what Rafa Benitez does next. Chelsea boss Avram Grant is on his way to Moscow to face Manchester United in the first all-English final, and as he sank to his knees at the end Chelsea fans finally saw the emotion they thought was lacking since Jose Mourinho's departure.

The night, though, belonged to Frank Lampard, who slotted home an extra time penalty to make it 2-1 for Chelsea after Sami Hyypia's careless foul on Michael Ballack just inside the box.

Days after the death of his mother, Lampard placed the spotkick perfectly and ran to the corner kissing his black armband and holding it to the sky. She would have been proud of you, Frank.

Every day we hit the refresh button, full of hope that billionaire investor Carl Icahn's blog will finally arrive despite long odds and uncooperative lawyers. Looks like we're almost there.

Icahn told Reuters on Wednesday that The Icahn Report is finally going live -- "in a week or two" -- with its founder's famously strong opinions about corporate governance and the individual companies that fail to live up to his standards.

"I think the time has finally come when people are starting to focus on the many abuses in a number of companies in corporate America and the damage they do," the 71-year-old financier and hedge fund operator said.

The blog will arrive in the wake of Icahn's successful, highly publicized demands for change in companies including Motorola Inc and Time Warner Inc , both of which ultimately gave in to his demands that they change leadership and spin off major divisions. He also was instrumental in clearing roadblocks in Oracle Corp's $8.5 billion bid to acquire BEA Systems.

Not all of Icahn's investments work out, however, notably real estate developer WCI Communities Inc , whose shares have collapsed over the past year as the high-end condominium market dried up. Icahn is WCI's largest shareholder, with 4.8 million shares, according to regulatory filings.

Icahn, whose net worth is estimated at $14.5 billion by Forbes, dismissed the lackluster performance in some stock plays, saying investors need to be patient.

He pointed out that he bought the Stratosphere Casino and other Las Vegas properties a decade ago for around $300 million. Last week, he closed on a deal to sell them to real estate funds managed by Goldman Sachs for $1.3 billion, a $1 billion gain.

(Reporting by Dane Hamilton)

ALLENTOWN, Pa. - Republican presidential candidate John McCain frequently rails against "earmarks," the special spending projects that members of Congress procure for their home districts, often with little or no oversight. 

But Wednesday he admitted he sometimes admired the results. 

On a visit to an Allentown hospital during a week-long campaign swing featuring health care issues, the Arizona senator met a woman with ovarian cancer who was treated in a $80 million clinical trial program funded by an earmark. 

McCain praised the woman's treatment and later said some earmarks were clearly worthy. 

"It's the process I object to," McCain told reporters. "We need to start over from scratch." 

McCain told reporters that wasteful spending projects had drained away money that could have been used for infrastructure improvements that would prevent tragedies like last year's deadly bridge collapse in Minnesota. 

He has promised to eliminate earmarks and make spending projects compete for funding in congressional budget deliberations. 

"When you earmark in the middle of the night you have no budgetary constraints," he said.

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage.

Photo credit: Reuters/Carlos Barria. (McCain listens speaks during a news conference at Miami's Children Hospital in Florida April 28, 2008.

The other shoe -- or is it an ax -- is finally dropping for staff at Bear Stearns, with letters going out this week telling them whether they'll keep their jobs when JPMorgan's acquisition is complete.

One Bear employee who works in the emerging markets business in London has received confirmation he will be laid off, he told Reuters on Wednesday. Another in the same department said he was expecting to hear later in the day that he would be retained.

"Some individuals and some businesses are beginning to hear what their status is," added a source close to the bank.

A third London-based staffer who does not work on a trading desk, but on the business side said: "I'm waiting for my letter from JPMorgan to see about a job offer. I've been told verbally there is a job for me, which is a great relief."

The total number of layoffs is not yet known, but more than half of Bear Stearns employees are expected to lose their jobs. JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon has declined approximately one thousand times to give details.

Not that it will come as much consolation to axed Bear Stearns employees, but executives including co-head of fixed-income Jeffrey Mayer, co-heads of equities Steven Meyer and Bruce Lisman, and former CEO Ace Greenberg are known to have survived the purge. CEO Alan Schwartz, CFO Sam Molinaro, controller Jeffrey Farber and general counsel Michael Solender may also eventually accept employment with the bank, according to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing.

The New York Times reported over the weekend that Ace Greenberg, who started as a Bear Stearns clerk in 1949, is gifting $360,000 to 25 longtime mailroom and clerical employees -- $200 a month over six years. Greenberg "has sold over $30 million in Bear stock since early 2007," the Times reported.

Photo: A man holds a battle ax during three-day Highland Games Festival in Fehraltdorf near Zurich, REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth

Blog Guy, you see so much stuff while combing the Earth for the bizarre, I bet nothing even shocks you anymore.

You'd lose that bet. Take a look at this tradition, where people drop babies from a tall building so they will grow up healthy and strong.

You're making that up!

Check out the video report.

More stuff from Oddly Enough

Gold's oil-buying power is at its lowest in three years. (The chart shows the price of oil rising relative to the price of gold.) Hedge funds and other traders who play the gold/oil spread could be taking profits. Otherwise, this is hard to explain, since gold is considered a leading indicator of inflation.

In the past two weeks, crude oil prices rose to a record near $120 a barrel, while the spot price of gold fell from around $950 to $870 an ounce. Today an ounce of gold buys 7.65 barrels of oil. When gold was near $1,000 an ounce earlier this year, an ounce bought more than 10 barrels of oil. Gold's weakest point relative to oil was in 2005 around 6 barrels.

Is the underperformance signalling that inflation expectations are overblown? Perhaps the Fed knows something ... it cut a key interest rate another quarter percentage point on Wednesday and said it expected inflation to moderate in coming quarters, as energy and commodity prices level out. "I am still not getting why gold is trading down here and crude is up there. So something's gotta give," said Jonathan Jossen, an independent floor trader on the COMEX gold floor.

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. - California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said on Wednesday he's likely to make another major speech at the Republican National Convention later this year, as he did in 2004, and that he's going to join his buddy John McCain on the campaign trail later this year.

The governor spoke of his plans during a lunch session for participants at the Milken Institute Global Conference on the economy.

Schwarzenegger announced on Jan. 31 that he is supporting McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.

The governor noted that his wife, Maria Shriver,  is a lifelong Democrat who supports Barack Obama. 

Schwarzenegger told the conference that he likes the environmental stands of each of the three presidential candidates: McCain, Obama and Democrat Hillary Clinton.  But said he sided with McCain because he knows him best and has a long working relationship with the Arizona senator.

On Tuesday night, the Milken audience was asked, by a show of applause, which of the three candidates they supported. It was a close call between McCain and Obama who the audience liked the most. Only a handful put their hands together for Clinton, who won the California primary over Obama handily earlier this year.

Because he was born outside the United States, the Austrian-born Schwarzenegger is not eligible to run for president. If he were, perhaps he would not have uttered the line on Wednesday that "Nobody is dying to go to Iowa," the state that holds the first contest in the presidential nominating process and one where candidates are expected to spend alot of time wooing voters. Schwarzenegger said that when he was extoling the virtues of California.

Reporting by Bernie Woodall

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage. 

Photo credit: Reuters/Phil McCarten (Schwarzenegger participates in a panel discussion at the Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills, Calif.)

Time Warner's first quarter results were yet another demonstration of how the one-time biggest media company on Earth is making some progress, but continues to grapple with its biggest issue -- AOL.

First the good news (take-aways from the call):

• Cable networks were a standout in the first quarter, with advertising revenue rising 13 percent. The strong audience ratings have inspired it to hold its presentation to advertisers on the same week as the broadcast upfronts. Bewkes: "You may have noticed that this year, Turner's up front is scheduled for the same week as the broadcast upfront. That is not a coincidence. We believe Turner is now positioned better than ever to challenge the broadcast networks. This argument is increasingly resonating with advertisers and agencies and we expect to see that reflected in this upfront." Just how good is it? Consider that CPMs at Turner are about 60 to 70 percent of the prices commanded by broadcast, Bewkes said.
• In a quarter when Wall Street expected rivals to steal share from cable operators, Time Warner Cable stunned investors by adding 55,000 basic video subscribers. Growth in new customers came across the board.
• Another bright sign this year could come from a decision to shrink film release windows. Time Warner plans to release all of its films on video-on-demand and DVDs on the same day. A decision to back Sony's Blu-ray has encouraged Time Warner to now project industry wide sales of movies on next generation format to rise about 30 percent faster than it previously thought, or about $ 1 billion in sales.
• Time Inc, a perennially unloved division, has rarely been a source of good news for the company. But in the first quarter, its digital initiatives helped the division's online revenue offset the decline in print advertising. Unique visitors were up about 30 percent year over year and page views rose 25 percent.

Now the bad...

• AOL: Even as the rivals enjoy robust online advertising growth, AOL's restructuring and "execution challenges" in trying to integrate over $1 billion worth of acquisitions hurt the first and probably the second quarter's display advertising business. What's also troubling to investors is that its third party advertising business, which commands lower margins, will be a bigger part of its business mix, executives said. Online ad growth will be better in the second quarter compared to the first, but 2008 profits is expected to be lower than last year.
• There was a small measure of relief that Time Warner has finally decided to split off its cable business, but investors were looking for much more -- like news of a big special dividend paid out by Time Warner Cable to Time Warner shareholders for its troubles all these years -- or any details at all.
• Why didn't a single analyst ask a question about AOL's context within the Microsoft, Yahoo bid? And none of the executives volunteered information either.

(Photo: Reuters)

Call it the new simplicity. IAC's businesses are better off on their own in the market than trying to work with a strategic partner, according to chief mogul Barry Diller.
    
Recently empowered by a court decision that says he can do what he wants with IAC with little limitation from controlling shareholder Liberty Media, Diller said today a plan to spin off four major IAC units probably won't involve any partners and that he was on track to complete the separation in August. 

Here's his comments from a conference call to discuss quarterly earnings. We're wondering how much of this may still be a negotiating position, or should we expect to see one big IAC, and four little IACs, trading on the Nasdaq before Thanksgiving: 
    

What we're not discussing is the possibility of a so-called swap transaction with Liberty. While the potential for such a deal exists just by the nature of our relationship, I think it's very unlikely that one will occur. 
 
Relative to private equity, we've had lots of discussions, we have lots of people knocking on the door and coming in and talking about different schemes and ideas. The truth is as we go through this, I think we're not probably going to do any of them. I think that the best thing to do is simplicity. We may do one or some modified thing but I don't think we're going to do anything that would particularly engage (the) private equity world. 
    
The best thing is to get these companies spun out and to get them into the public markets, get their managements out there, so to speak, and taking care of their own businesses and talking to the investment community. I think that's probably the better step forward for us at this point. 

For those watching at home, Liberty was mulling a swap for IAC's HSN shopping channel, or maybe a smaller asset. Firms such as Quadrangle and Elevation Partners were also among the parties who have discussed taking a stake in another IAC unit.

(Photo: Reuters)

You'll never guess who I met at Base Camp.

After a quick stop to watch the monks and nuns at the Rongpo monastery at prayer this morning, we finally got up to Base Camp proper this afternoon.

It was pretty bleak. Basically, a cluster of tents on an exposed rocky flat. It made us feel almost grateful for our humble cabins back at the media centre.

The views, as always, were a compensation.

I was trying to get a couple of basic facts from an official whose English was as good as my Chinese when we reached the point of non-communication.

I turned around to find someone to help me out with translation and found a willing soul who I assumed to be from the corps of Chinese media at the camp.

He translated and nodded in reply to my cheery "thanks mate".

Next thing I knew, though, three Chinese women journalists were squealing like schoolgirls and posing for pictures with my interpreter.

Turns out this was Zhang Chao Yang, CEO of Chinese web portal Sohu and hero to China's vast young army of netizens (couldn't someone invent a new name for web users?).

Once we repaired to a nearby tent for tea, Zhang told me he was not only at base camp because Sohu was a media partner of the Everest leg of the torch relay, but also because he was a keen climber himself.

He has climbed a fair few mountains himself and been to 6,666m on Everest. He didn't fancy going all the way to the top, though, because he thought it might damage the brain which has made his fortune.

I wouldn't be surprised, though, if there were at least some celebrity involvement with this great adventure.

Ed adds: Our team have to tough it out for a few more days at Everest. You'd think by looking at the pictures the weather is lovely, right? Wrong. Apparently it's blowing a gale up there, so at the very earliest it'll be Saturday before there's any action. Read Nick's story.

And by the way, we've hit the 100-day countdown till the start of the Games. For all our Olympic stories, take a look at our website .

Pix from the top (l-r). Armed Chinese border police stand in formation at a camp near the base camp of Mount Everest, also known as Qomolangma April 30, 2008. Buddhist monks and nuns pray as they sit in the temple of Rongbo Monastery situated at the foot Everest. Yaks laden with supplies walk past the large camp for the Olympic torch's ascent of Everest, also known as Qomolangma, in the Tibet Autonomous Region April 30, 2008. Chinese journalists taking it easy. And the Reuters team ... Mark, Dave and Nick (tough job guys!: Ed). All snaps by David Gray.