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Android-powered Ouya console now shipping to 1,200 developers [video]
Label: TechnologyTitle Post: Android-powered Ouya console now shipping to 1,200 developers [video]
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Fans to introduce Beyonce at Super Bowl halftime
Label: LifestyleNEW YORK (AP) — All the single ladies — and fellas — will have a chance to join Beyonce on the field at the Super Bowl.
Pepsi announced Friday that fans will introduce the Grammy-winning diva when she takes the stage Feb. 3 at New Orleans’ Mercedes-Benz Superdome. A contest that kicks off Saturday will allow fans to submit photos of themselves in various poses, including head bopping, feet tapping and hip shaking. Those pictures will be used in a TV ad to air ahead of Beyonce’s halftime performance, and 50 of those who submit photos — along with a friend — will be selected to introduce the singer.
Photo contest details are at www.pepsi.com/halftime . The contest ends Jan. 19, but Jan. 11 is the cutoff date for those interested in introducing Beyonce.
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India gang rape victim dies in Singapore hospital
Label: HealthSINGAPORE/NEW DELHI (Reuters) – An Indian woman whose gang rape in New Delhi triggered violent protests died of her injuries on Saturday in a Singapore hospital, bringing a security lockdown in Delhi and recognition from India‘s prime minister that social change is needed.
The Indian capital braced for a new wave of protests, closing metro stations and banning vehicles from the city centre district where young activists had converged to demand improved women’s rights. The news came in the early hours of the morning in India and there were no signs of protests as morning broke.
The 23-year-old medical student, severely beaten, raped and thrown out of a moving bus in New Delhi two weeks ago, had been flown to Singapore in a critical condition by the Indian government on Thursday for specialist treatment.
“We are very sad to report that the patient passed away peacefully at 4:45 a.m. on Dec 29, 2012 (2045 GMT Friday). Her family and officials from the High Commission (embassy) of India were by her side,” Mount Elizabeth Hospital Chief Executive Officer Kelvin Loh said in a statement.
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said in a statement he was deeply saddened by the death and described the emotions associated with her case as “perfectly understandable reactions from a young India and an India that genuinely desires change.
“It would be a true homage to her memory if we are able to channelize these emotions and energies into a constructive course of action.”
Delhi‘s Chief Minister, Sheila Dikshit, expressed revulsion.
“It is a shameful moment for me not just as a chief minister but also as a citizen of this country,” she said.
The woman, who has not been identified, and a male friend were returning home from the cinema by bus on the evening of December 16 when, media reports say, six men on the bus beat them with metal rods and repeatedly raped the woman. The reports say a rod was used in the rape, causing internal injuries. Both were thrown from the bus. The male friend survived the attack.
Singh’s government has been battling criticism that it was tone-deaf to the outcry that followed the attack and was heavy handed in its response to the protests in the Indian capital.
Most rapes and other sex crimes in India go unreported and offenders are rarely punished, women’s rights activists say. But the brutality of the December 16 assault sparked public outrage and calls for better policing and harsher punishment for rapists.
VEHICLES BARRED FROM DELHI CITY CENTRE
T.C.A. Raghavan, the Indian High Commissioner to Singapore, told reporters hours after the woman’s death that a chartered aircraft would fly her body back to India on Saturday, along with members of her family. The woman’s body had earlier been loaded into a van at the hospital and driven away.
In New Delhi, the Joint Commissioner of Traffic Police, Satyendra Garg, told NDTV news channel that residents and commuters were advised to avoid the city centre.
The case has received blanket coverage on cable television news channels. Some Indian media have called the woman “Amanat”, an Urdu word meaning “treasure”.
Talking to reporters earlier on Saturday, Raghavan declined to comment on Indian media reports accusing the government of sending her to Singapore to minimize the possible backlash in the event of her death.
Some Indian medical experts had questioned the decision to airlift the woman to Singapore, calling it a risky maneuver given the seriousness of her injuries. They had said she was already receiving the best possible care in India.
But Dr B.D. Athani, medical superintendent of the New Delhi hospital where she had initially been treated, told Indian television the intention was to give the victim the best chance of surviving in what he described as “an extreme case”.
“Her condition was very critical from day one. We had managed what best we could do at our end … she had to be shifted to a centre with much better facilities.”
On Friday, the Singapore hospital had said the woman’s condition had taken a turn for the worse. It said she had suffered “significant brain injury”. She had already undergone three abdominal operations before arriving in Singapore.
The suspects in the rape – five men aged between 20 and 40, and a juvenile – were arrested within hours of the attack and are in custody. Media reports say they are likely to be formally charged with murder next week.
Commentators and sociologists say the rape tapped into a deep well of frustration many Indians feel over what they see as weak governance and poor leadership on social and economic issues.
Many protesters have complained that Singh’s government has done little to curb the abuse of women in the country of 1.2 billion. A global poll by the Thomson Reuters Foundation in June found that India was the worst place to be a woman because of high rates of infanticide, child marriage and slavery.
New Delhi has the highest number of sex crimes among India’s major cities, with a rape reported on average every 18 hours, according to police figures. Government data show the number of reported rape cases in the country rose by nearly 17 percent between 2007 and 2011.
(Additional reporting by Ross Colvin and Devidutta Tripathy in New Delhi; Saeed Azhar, Edgar Su and Sanjeev Miglani in Singapore; Editing by Michael Roddy, Ron Popeski and Mark Bendeich)
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Obama to make statement at 5:45 p.m.: White House
Label: BusinessWASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama is scheduled to make a statement to the media at 5:45 p.m. ET, the White House said on Friday. The statement follows a meeting with congressional leaders on avoiding fiscal cliff tax increases and spending cuts.
The president and lawmakers are working ahead of a January 1 deadline to come up with a compromise to prevent a fiscal shock that economists warn could slow fragile economic growth.
(Reporting By Mark Felsenthal)
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2 arrested after Guinea treasury chief killed
Label: WorldCONAKRY, Guinea (AP) — Officials in the West African nation of Guinea say they’ve arrested two suspects in the case of the killing of the country’s treasury chief, who was shot to death nearly two months ago.
Authorities paraded the pair in front of journalists Friday. Aissatou Boiro was killed as she was driving home. She had launched an investigation into the loss of 13 million francs ($ 1.8 million) which went missing from the state coffers.
The government says the suspects were found with Boiro‘s computer memory stick and mobile telephone.
The men denied any involvement in her slaying and said a friend had given them the items.
Boiro’s colleagues say she had zero tolerance for corruption and was intent on putting an end to the mismanagement of state funds.
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Leaked BlackBerry 10 slides show video calling and screen sharing for BBM
Label: TechnologyTitle Post: Leaked BlackBerry 10 slides show video calling and screen sharing for BBM
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Stallone did not copy screenplay for “The Expendables”: judge
Label: LifestyleNEW YORK (Reuters) – A federal judge has reaffirmed his decision to dismiss a lawsuit accusing actor Sylvester Stallone of copying someone else’s screenplay to make his popular 2010 movie “The Expendables.”
U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff in Manhattan on Thursday rejected claims of copyright infringement damages by Marcus Webb, who contended that the movie’s screenplay contained 20 “striking similarities” to his own “The Cordoba Caper.”
Webb claimed that both works had similar plots, and involved hired mercenaries in a Latin American country that was home to a villain dictator named General Garza.
But Rakoff said no reasonable juror could find that the works were so similar as to eliminate the possibility that Stallone crafted his screenplay on his own.
Not even the general’s name was an automatic red flag, Rakoff said, writing that “Garza” was the 34th most common Hispanic nickname in the United States.
“The court has carefully examined the entire litany of plaintiff’s proffered ‘striking similarities’ and finds none of them remotely striking or legally sufficient,” Rakoff wrote. “These are two very different screenplays built on a familiar theme: mercenaries taking on a Latin American dictator.”
Other defendants in the case included Nu Image Films, which produced the movie, and Lions Gate Entertainment Corp, which distributed the movie in the United States.
Lawyers for Webb did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
“The Expendables” was released in August 2010, and featured other older action stars like Jet Li and Arnold Schwarzenegger. A sequel, “The Expendables 2,” was released in August 2012.
In June, Rakoff decided to dismiss Webb’s case [ID:nL2E8HQA93] but did not provide his reasons until Thursday.
Stallone also starred in the “Rocky” and “Rambo” movies.
The case is Webb v. Stallone et al, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 11-07517.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel; Editing by Jan Paschal)
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Study links milk-producing protein to aggressive breast cancer
Label: HealthHONG KONG (Reuters) – The discovery that a protein which triggers milk production in women may also be responsible for making breast cancers aggressive could open up new opportunities for treatment of the most common and deadliest form of cancer among women.
Found in all breast cells, the protein ELF5 tries to activate milk production even in breast cancer cells, which does not work and then makes the cancer more aggressive, according to scientists in Australia and Britain.
“The discovery opens up new avenues for therapy and for designing new markers that can predict response to therapy,” said lead author Professor Chris Ormandy from the Garvan Institute of Medical Research in Sydney.
In 2008, Ormandy‘s work linked ELF5 to milk production.
The latest research by Ormandy and his team, published in the journal PLOS Biology on Friday, went a step further to find the link between ELF5 and breast cancer.
“Cancer cells can’t respond properly (to ELF5), so they … acquire some characteristics … that make the disease more aggressive and more refractory (resistant) to treatment with existing therapies,” Ormandy said by telephone.
Ormandy and his team grew human breast cancer tissues, genetically manipulated to contain high amounts of ELF5, in petri dishes and saw how the protein proliferated aggressively.
FINDINGS MAY HELP TARGETED THERAPY
Breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer and the top cause of cancer death among women, accounting for 23 percent of total cancer cases and 14 percent of cancer deaths in women.
To decide on treatment, doctors normally need to find out if the cancer has receptors for the hormones estrogen and progesterone, which, in the case of breast cancer patients, promote growth in their tumors.
Two-thirds of breast cancers are usually positive for estrogen receptors, which then require anti-hormonal therapies that lower estrogen levels in the patient or block estrogen from supporting the growth of the cancer.
For the remaining one-third of patients, their cancers do not have receptors, which means they won’t benefit from hormonal therapies. Such patients are usually given other treatments, such as chemotherapy.
Ormandy’s team found that cancers with these receptors had low levels of ELF5, while those without receptors had significantly higher levels of the protein.
“What we have shown in this paper is high ELF5 tumors are dependent on ELF5 for their proliferation and if we block ELF5 in high ELF5 tumors, we will block proliferation and that will treat the tumor,” Ormandy said.
“If we can develop a drug that targets ELF5, it will be very useful for that group of women,” he said.
(Reporting by Tan Ee Lyn; Editing by Paul Tait)
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In Bangladesh, the Garment Factories Keep Burning
Label: BusinessOn Nov. 24, a fire broke out in the Tazreen Fashions plant outside Dhaka, Bangladesh. It was the worst industrial accident in Bangladesh’s history, resulting in 111 deaths and provoking widespread calls for improved safety measures in the country’s garment industry.
In the four weeks since the Tazreen fire, 17 additional conflagrations have broken out in Bangladeshi textile and garment factories, based on reports in the local press that were compiled by the Dhaka office of Solidarity Center, an organization affiliated with the AFL-CIO. In one case, a worker died as panic-stricken employees jammed a stairwell to escape their workplace. A separate case involved no fire, but workers rushed out of a factory after an electric short circuit made a loud noise.
Abdus Salam Murshedy, president of the Exporters Association of Bangladesh and a member of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers & Exporters Association, says the fires were triggered by short circuits, faulty wiring, or sudden power surges. “Some workers got injured when they started running out of their factories in a panic. We are trying to boost confidence among the workers so they don’t panic in case of a fire.”
Murshedy is coordinating an effort to improve safety standards in garment factories in the industrial belt of Ashulia, on the outskirts of Dhaka. “We won’t be able to do our business any more without improving compliance standards,” he says. The government of Bangladesh did not respond to requests for comment.
If the Tazreen fire effectively pushes the government and the factory owners to make Bangladesh’s garment factories safe—much as the Triangle Shirtwaist fire did in the U.S. a century ago—“It would be a sea change that we’ve been looking for for a long time,” says Celeste Drake, trade policy specialist for the AFL-CIO. The use of child labor in Bangladesh has diminished considerably, thanks in part to outside pressure, she says, noting it may take action by the U.S. government to convince Bangladeshis to change further. In particular, she says, “the president has the power to remove tariff benefits from a country,” which would make U.S.-bound exports from Bangladesh more expensive.
For Cathy Feingold, director of the AFL-CIO’s international department, and Scott Nova, executive director of the Worker Rights Consortium, big U.S. and European retailers and apparel companies must be persuaded to press Bangladesh to do more. “The brands need to take responsibility for their supply chains,” says Feingold. Nova says he figures it would cost the big brand companies less than 10¢ per garment to ensure safe factories in Bangladesh. Instead, “as long as the companies press for low prices from their suppliers, the government of Bangladesh cannot be active in improving safety,” he says. With subcontractors in Bangladesh operating on razor-thin margins, they face an incentive to cut corners.
The best motivation for Bangladeshis to improve worker safety may come not from corporations or the West, however, but from neighboring Burma. As that country emerges as a potential center for textile and apparel manufacturing, Burmese trade unions are viewing Bangladesh as a case study in how an emerging-market economy should not handle issues of safety and workers’ rights, says Tim Ryan, Asia department director for Solidarity Center. “They look at Bangladesh and say, ‘we don’t want to go down that route,” he says, suggesting that a prospering, worker-friendly state on its border might add to pressure for Bangladesh to improve workplace safety and overall conditions for its own garment workers.
Devnath a special correspondent for Bloomberg News in Dhaka.
Businessweek.com — Top News
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10 Things to Do on Dec. 26
Label: TechnologyChristmas has ended and New Year’s Eve is still a few days away. What’s a person to do during this holiday lull?
1. Complain About Your Christmas Gifts
[More from Mashable: ‘We Are Young’ Performed on Vintage Computer Parts]
All I got for Christmas was some CDs and movies and my little brother got an iPad. Thanks a lot Obama!
— Nick Pagliara (@NickPagliara) December 26, 2012
[More from Mashable: What Christmas Is Like in a Simulated Mars Colony]
All i got for christmas was socks and toothpaste. Thats fucked up
— Inferior (@KowaiiShiAkuma) December 26, 2012
2. Use Your New Label Maker
Image courtesy of Imgur
3. Find Weird Crap Around Your Parents’ House
Hey @shaq at my parents house for Christmas and found this collectible! #longtime fan! twitter.com/GuyCPalmer/sta…
— Guy Palmer (@GuyCPalmer) December 26, 2012
Found this at my parents house- my first mobile phone from 13 years ago. I’m pretty old. twitter.com/ScottOfTheRive…
— Scott (@ScottOfTheRiver) December 23, 2012
A little walk down memory lane on Christmas morning when I found this at my parents’ house.#snaggingitforsure twitter.com/Mandery/status…
— Laura Kroll (@Mandery) December 25, 2012
4. Attempt to Learn How a Kindle Works
My mum just asked me ‘what time doesthe Internet close because I want to buy a book for my kindle?’ #wtf
— Natasha Wedlock (@NatashaWedlock) December 21, 2012
Does anybody know how to work a kindle fire? Mine is stressing me out!
— Emily Fitzhugh (@EmiFitzU) December 26, 2012
but like how does this kindle work?
— a (@its_audrey) December 25, 2012
5. Recreate Old Family Photos
Image courtesy of Reddit, 31Max
Image courtesy of Imgur, ConnorUllmann
6. Try to Figure Out What Boxing Day Is
What is this “Boxing Day” you guys speak of, and do I get to wear silk shorts?
— The Robfather (@thatUPSdude) December 26, 2012
Every year I wonder what Boxing Day is before deciding I’m too lazy to look it up and taking a nap instead.
— joseph birdsong (@josephbirdsong) December 26, 2012
No matter what people tell you, Boxing Day is not the day that Canadians celebrate the birth of Muhammad Ali.
— Mark Campbell (@MrWordsWorth) December 26, 2012
What is Boxing Day and why don’t Americans celebrate it?
— Andrea Cooney (@ACCooney) December 20, 2012
Educate yourself.
7. Put Away the Christmas Throw-Up
Image courtesy of Reddit, xbaahx
8. Return the Stuff You Don’t Want
Image courtesy of Imgur
9. Reuse the Christmas Tree Tinsel and Other Holiday Decorations
Image via Borntobenervous.com
Image courtesy of Flickr, stuartpilbrow
10. Take a Nap
1. Sluggish Pug
Image courtesy of Flickr, chriswaits
Click here to view this gallery.
Thumbnail image courtesy of Flickr, formatc1
This story originally published on Mashable here.
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SPOILER ALERT: Twist awaits US fans of ‘Downton’
Label: LifestyleNEW YORK (AP) — British fans of “Downton Abbey” are feeling blue after Tuesday’s conclusion of Season 3, even as the U.S. audience eagerly anticipates this third cycle on PBS’ “Masterpiece” beginning Jan. 6.
(ANY “ABBEY” DEVOTEES WHO PREFER NOT TO LEARN WHAT AWAITS THEM ARE URGED TO STOP READING RIGHT NOW.)
___
One of the stars of this wildly popular British costume drama is leaving the series after its third season. Dan Stevens had opted not to continue beyond his initial commitment, the British network ITV confirmed Wednesday.
His character, Matthew Crawley, has been written out with what ITV called an “untimely and tragic death” in the season finale. That episode will air in the U.S. in February.
Michelle Dockery will be returning in Season 4 as Matthew’s soon-to-be widow, Lady Mary.
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S.Africa’s Mandela ‘not yet fully recovered’: spokesman
Label: HealthJOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – Former South African President Nelson Mandela is doing well after being discharged from hospital, although he is still not fully recovered, a government spokesman said on Thursday.
“He is not yet fully recovered, but he has sufficiently moved forward so that he can be discharged,” Mac Maharaj told local broadcaster eNCA.
“He is sufficiently well to be home.”
The 94-year-old anti-apartheid leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate was discharged from the hospital on Wednesday, ending a nearly three-week stay during which he was treated for a lung infection and had surgery to remove gallstones.
Mandela, who has been in frail health for several years, is now receiving care at his suburban Johannesburg home.
Mandela has a history of lung problems dating back to when he contracted tuberculosis while in jail as a political prisoner. He spent 27 years in prison, including 18 years on the windswept Robben Island off Cape Town.
The former president was admitted to a Pretoria hospital on December 8 and this was his longest stay in a hospital since he was released from prison in 1990.
Current President Jacob Zuma visited Mandela on Christmas Day and said the former South African leader was doing much better, making progress and in good spirits.
Mandela was also admitted to a hospital in February because of abdominal pain but released the following day after a keyhole examination showed there was nothing seriously wrong with him.
He has spent most of his time since then in another home in Qunu, his ancestral village in the impoverished Eastern Cape province.
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Brent holds near $111 on US fiscal uncertainty; Japan supports
Label: BusinessSINGAPORE (Reuters) – Brent crude held near $ 111 per barrel on Thursday as jittery investors stayed on the sidelines with a deadline to avert a U.S. fiscal crisis approaching, while hopes the new Japanese government’s policies will spur demand supported prices.
U.S. President Barack Obama and Republican lawmakers resumed talks on Wednesday over the so-called fiscal cliff – tax hikes and spending cuts slated to take effect next week that could push the economy back into recession.
“There is no easy way to resolve the U.S. fiscal cliff, but there should be a compromise at some point and that’s what the market is looking for,” said Tetsu Emori, a commodity fund manager at Astmax in Tokyo.
Front-month Brent futures slipped 16 cents to $ 110.91 per barrel at 0501 GMT, giving up some of the previous session’s 2 percent gain.
Brent may face some resistance between $ 112 and $ 113 before falling towards $ 102.7 over the next three months, according to Wang Tao, Reuters market analyst for commodities and energy technicals.
U.S. crude dropped from a nine-week high reached on Wednesday, shedding 6 cents to $ 90.92.
Oil futures rose in early Asian trade, taking a cue from Japanese stocks, which were at an 18-month high after the country’s new prime minister said beating deflation in the world’s No. 3 oil consumer and taming a strong yen were his top priorities.
“There are hopes that the aggressive fiscal policies will help Japan get out of deflation and, as it is an importer of commodities, that’s a positive for oil markets,” Emori said.
The government will pursue bold monetary policy, flexible fiscal policy and a growth strategy to encourage private investment, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said on Wednesday .
CLIFFHANGER
The White House and Republicans are still far apart, as hopes for legislation to prevent the U.S. economy from tumbling off the fiscal cliff switch to the Senate.
Democrats control a majority in that chamber but still need some support from Republicans across the aisle for a likely attempt to raise taxes on the wealthy.
Obama will try to revive budget crisis talks – which stalled last week – when he returns to Washington on Thursday after cutting short his Christmas holiday in Hawaii.
“While markets have vacillated between optimism and pessimism over the prospects for a compromise, we expect a deal only at the last minute, with lots of decisions delayed into the New Year and austerity of roughly 2 percent of GDP,” Bank of America-Merril Lynch analysts said in their weekly report.
Worries about supplies from the Middle East rose once more after security forces in the United Arab Emirates arrested a cell of UAE and Saudi Arabian citizens which they said was planning to carry out militant attacks in both countries and other states.
The region holds some of the world’s largest oil fields and as a result any unrest in the area triggers supply concerns.
Oil futures may rise in the first quarter of 2013 with the global economy showing early signs of a pick-up, and on expectations that the fiscal crisis will be resolved.
Encouraging economic data from China, aggressive action by the European Central Bank to help its economies, and quantitative easing by the U.S. Federal Reserve together brighten the outlook for oil in the near-term.
U.S. crude could rise to $ 100 per barrel and Brent may test $ 120 by the end of March, said Emori.
Also supporting prices are expectations that U.S. crude stockpiles may have decreased last week as refiners kept inventory low for year-end tax purposes.
Crude stocks may have dropped by 1.9 million barrels in the week ended Dec 21, a Reuters poll showed on Wednesday.
Inventory data from the American Petroleum Institute will be released on Thursday, while numbers from the Energy Information Administration will be out on Friday, a day later than usual, because of the Christmas holiday.
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Afghan bomber attacks near major US base
Label: WorldKABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A vehicle driven by a suicide bomber exploded at the gate of a major U.S. military base in eastern Afghanistan on Wednesday, killing the attacker and three Afghans, Afghan police said. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack.
Police Gen. Abdul Qayum Baqizai said a local guard who questioned the vehicle driver at the gate of Camp Chapman was killed along with two civilians and the assailant. The camp is located adjacent to the airport of the capital of Khost province, which borders Pakistan. Chapman and nearby Camp Salerno had been frequently targeted by militants in the past, but violent incidents have decreased considerably in recent months.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in an email that the bomber targeted Afghan police manning the gate and Afghans working for the Americans entering the base. He claimed high casualties were inflicted.
NATO operates with more than 100,000 troops in the country, including some 66,000 American forces. It is handing most combat operations over to the Afghans in preparation for a pullout from Afghanistan in 2014. Militant groups, including the Taliban, rarely face NATO troops head-on and rely mainly on roadside bombs and suicide attacks.
NATO forces and foreign civilians have also been increasingly attacked by rogue Afghan military and police, eroding trust between the allies.
On Tuesday, the Interior Ministry said a policewoman who killed an American contractor in Kabul a day earlier was a native Iranian who came to Afghanistan and displayed “unstable behavior” but had no known links to militants.
The policewoman, identified as Sgt. Nargas, shot 49-year-old Joseph Griffin, of Mansfield, Georgia, on Monday, in the first such shooting by a woman in the spate of insider attacks. Nargas walked into a heavily-guarded compound in the heart of Kabul, confronted Griffin and shot him once with her pistol.
The U.S-based security firm DynCorp International said on its website that Griffin was a U.S. military veteran who earlier worked with law enforcement agencies in the United States. In Kabul, he was under contract to the NATO military command to advise the Afghan police force.
The ministry spokesman, Sediq Sediqi, told a news conference that Nargas, who uses one name like many in the country, was born in Tehran, where she married an Afghan. She moved to the country 10 years ago, after her husband obtained fake documents enabling her to live and work there.
A mother of four in her early 30s, she joined the police five years ago, held various positions and had a clean record, he said. Sediqi produced an Iranian passport that he said was found at her home.
No militant group has claimed responsibility for the killing.
The chief investigator of the case, Police Gen. Mohammad Zahir, said that during interrogation, the policewoman said she had plans to kill either the Kabul governor, city police chief or Zahir himself, but when she realized that penetrating the last security cordons to reach them would be too difficult, she saw “a foreigner” and turned her weapon on him.
There have been 60 insider attacks this year against foreign military and civilian personnel, compared to 21 in 2011. This surge presents another looming security issue as NATO prepares to pull out almost all of its forces by 2014, putting the war against the Taliban and other militant groups largely in the hands of the Afghans.
More than 50 Afghan members of the government’s security forces also have died this year in attacks by their own colleagues. The Taliban claims such incidents reflect a growing popular opposition to the foreign military presence and the Kabul government.
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Huawei shows off 6.1-inch Android phablet ahead of CES [video]
Label: TechnologyTitle Post: Huawei shows off 6.1-inch Android phablet ahead of CES [video]
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Britain’s royal family attends Christmas services
Label: LifestyleLONDON (AP) — Britain‘s royal family is attending Christmas Day church services — with a few notable absences.
Wearing a turquoise coat and matching hat, Queen Elizabeth II arrived at St. Mary Magdelene Church on her sprawling Sandringham estate in Norfolk. She was accompanied in a Bentley by granddaughters Beatrice and Eugenie.
Her husband, Prince Philip, walked from the house to the church with other members of the royal family.
Three familiar faces were missing from the family outing. Prince William is spending the holiday with his pregnant wife Kate and his in-laws in the southern England village of Bucklebury. Prince Harry is serving with British troops in Afghanistan.
Later Tuesday, the queen will deliver her traditional, pre-recorded Christmas message, which for the first time will be broadcast in 3D.
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Early Childhood Obesity Rates Might Be Slowing Nation-Wide
Label: HealthAbout one in three children in the U.S. are now overweight, and since the 1980s the number of children who are obese has more than tripled. But a new study of 26.7 million young children from low-income families shows that in this group of kids, the tidal wave of obesity might finally be receding.Being obese as a child not only increases the risk of early-life health problems, such as joint problems, pre-diabetes and social stigmatization, but it also dramatically increases the likelihood of being obese later in life, which can lead to chronic diseases, including cancer, type 2 diabetes and heart disease. Children as young as 2 years of age can be obese–and even extremely obese. Early childhood obesity rates, which bring higher health care costs throughout a kid’s life, have been especially high among lower-income families.”This is the first national study to show that the prevalence of obesity and extreme obesity among young U.S. children may have begun to decline,” the researchers noted in a brief report published online December 25 in JAMA, The Journal of the American Medical Association. (Reports earlier this year suggested that childhood obesity rates were dropping in several U.S. cities.)The study examined rates of obesity (body mass index calculated by age and gender to be in the 95th percentile or higher–for example, a BMI above 20 for a 2-year-old male–compared with reference growth charts) and extreme obesity (BMI of more than 120 percent above that of the 95th percentile of the reference populations) in children ages 2 to 4 in 30 states and the District of Columbia. The researchers, led by Liping Pan, of the Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity and Obesity at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, combed through 12 years of data (1998 to 2010) from the Pediatric Nutritional Surveillance System, which includes information on roughly half of all children on the U.S. who are eligible for federal health care and nutrition assistance.A subtle but important shift in early childhood obesity rates in this low-income population seems to have begun in 2003. Obesity rates increased from 13.05 percent in 1998 to 15.21 percent in 2003. Soon, however, obesity rates began decreasing, reaching 14.94 percent by 2010. Extreme obesity followed a similar pattern, increasing from 1.75 percent to 2.22 percent from 1998 to 2003, but declining to 2.07 percent by 2010.Although these changes might seem small, the number of children involved makes for huge health implications. For example, each drop of just one tenth of a percentage point represents some 26,700 children in the study population alone who are no longer obese or extremely obese. And if these trends are occurring in the rest of the population, the long-term health and cost implications are massive.Public health agencies and the Obama Administration have made battling childhood obesity a priority, although these findings suggest that early childhood obesity rates, at least, were already beginning to decline nearly a decade ago. Some popular prevention strategies include encouraging healthier eating (by reducing intake of highly processed and high-sugar foods and increasing fruit and vegetable consumption) and increased physical activity (both at school and at home).The newly revealed trends “indicate modest recent progress of obesity prevention among young children,” the authors noted. “These finding may have important health implications because of the lifelong health risks of obesity and extreme obesity in early childhood.”
Follow Scientific American on Twitter @SciAm and @SciamBlogs.Visit ScientificAmerican.com for the latest in science, health and technology news.
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Sale shoppers ‘set to spend £3bn’
Label: Business26 December 2012 Last updated at 00:11 ET
British shoppers are expected to spend almost £3bn in the Boxing Day sales, experts have predicted.
Millions of bargain-hunters are set to descend on High Streets and shopping centres across the UK.
Shops will be cutting prices and opening as early as 06:00 GMT in a bid to tempt customers in.
Market analyst Experian says online spending is expected to be the “biggest and busiest ever”, accounting for almost £500m on Boxing Day.
Tube strike
Amazon UK said it had seen sales on Christmas Day increase by 263% over the last five years.
This was partly due to the growth in home broadband and the popularity of tablets and smartphones.
MoneySupermarket.com said shoppers were set to spend £2.9bn in the Boxing Day sales.
A survey for the website found that four million people plan to head to the stores, as well as five million who will shop online.
However, there could be problems for shoppers in London because of a strike by Tube drivers – although extra buses will be provided to the West End and the Westfield shopping centres in Stratford and White City.
Experian said visits to retail websites were expected to reach 126 million on Boxing Day, an increase of 31% on last year.
James Murray, from Experian, said: “Christmas 2012 is on track to be another record-breaker for online retail, outstripping 2011 on all fronts.
“The current market trends suggest that in the UK, Boxing Day will be the biggest day for online retail, with an estimated 126 million visits to online retail outlets and a massive 17 million hours spent online shopping on this day alone.”
But comparison website Pricerunner said figures suggested that almost half people asked were not planning on buying anything in the sales.
Business failures
The British Retail Consortium (BRC) said Christmas spending in shops this year was “acceptable but not exceptional”.
BRC spokesman Richard Dodd said poor accessibility on high streets, lack of parking and weak consumer demand were more of a threat than an increase in online shopping.
He said some High Street retailers would “undoubtedly” fail after Christmas.
“Retail sales over the weekend have been up to expectations but expectations were relatively modest. Christmas will turn out to be acceptable but not exceptional,” he said.
“There are a lot of myths around online retail. Ten per cent of overall retailing over the year comes from online shopping and actually it presents lots of opportunities for the retail sector.”
But business recovery group Begbies Traynor warned that High Street retailers faced the threat of closure as more people shopped online.
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Toronto reaches skyward, but how dark the clouds?
Label: WorldTORONTO (Reuters) – Barry Fenton walked to the bank of floor-to-ceiling windows in his 30th-floor uptown Toronto penthouse suite and declared, “This is the best view of the city.”
To the south, a mass of steel-and-glass skyscrapers glinted in the bright autumn sun. Several cranes were in motion on unfinished buildings, a common sight in a city in the midst of a residential building boom.
“If you look around the core, every building you look at has a different look to it, a different ambience,” said the energetic co-founder of Lanterra Developments, one of the city’s most active builders. “That’s important.”
Fenton, 56, says he is confident the city’s condominium market will remain strong — despite warnings that it is all moving too far, too fast — and has an ambitious lineup for future development. And he is not alone in his optimism.
Toronto‘s seams are bursting with new condo and hotel towers designed by star architects like Frank Gehry and built by famed developers like Donald Trump.
But Fenton and others who see Toronto emerging from its “pokey” past — as a columnist in the Globe and Mail recently described it — face some formidable obstacles: an infrastructure buckling under soaring density rates, the laws of supply and demand and preservationists who say too many new towers are destroying the city’s character.
Canada’s central bank drew a bead on the city of 2.6 million this month in its weighty “Financial System Review,” warning of “potential future supply imbalances” in the condo market.
The Bank of Canada noted that the number of unsold condominiums in pre-construction has doubled, to 14,000, over the past year.
Greater Toronto home sales have slowed after years of steady increases. Sales fell 16 percent in November from the same month a year ago, according to the Toronto Real East Board. So far, however, prices are flattening, not falling, as some analysts have predicted.
In defiance of warnings by the central bank and economists, two mega-projects were unveiled within days of each other in October — a three-tower condo complex to be designed by Gehry and a multi-tower office project that includes a massive casino.
RACE TO THE TOP
More skyscrapers — 147 of them — are being built in Toronto than anywhere in North America, according to Emporis, the German data provider. That is twice as many as in New York, a city with about three times the population.
Toronto is getting taller fast. Fifteen buildings that will be more than 150 meters (492 feet) high are under construction, more than anywhere in the western hemisphere.
The recently completed Trump International Hotel topped out at 277 meters, just shy of Toronto’s tallest skyscraper, the 72-story First Canadian Place, which is 298 meters. That height could be exceeded by a couple of major projects on the drawing boards, including the Mirvish project.
(The city’s tallest freestanding structure, however, is the CN Tower, which soars over Toronto at 553 meters.)
“Toronto is creating a very sustainable future by building condos downtown,” said Daniel Libeskind, the American architect, who was in Toronto in October for a ceremony for one of his latest projects, the 57-story L Tower, with its sweeping, curvaceous, design that rises above the city’s modernist Sony Center for Performing Arts.
“It fights urban sprawl and brings people into the heart of the city.”
While building in big American cities and in Western Europe cratered following the financial crisis four years ago, Toronto never stopped booming. Demand for residential space has been strong, and while the office market has also been healthy, most of the new developments have been for condo projects.
Lanterra’s Fenton said his company has built some 9,000 condominium units in Toronto over the past 10 years and now has “in the hopper” up to 6 million square feet of property in downtown Toronto that is being rezoned for new projects.
Lanterra gained prominence over the past five years for the development of Maple Leaf Square, which included two condo towers, a hotel and office space, near the city’s hockey shrine, Air Canada Center, on land that had sat vacant for years.
Now it is “one of the hottest places to be,” said Fenton.
“ONE TOWER LEADS TO ANOTHER”
Some worry that Toronto can’t handle much more development.
“We have accumulated a serious infrastructure deficit,” wrote Ken Greenberg, a Toronto architect, in the Globe and Mail in October. “We have failed to make the investments in public transit that are urgently needed. Our narrow sidewalks and poorly designed streets are already jammed.”
He criticized the city officials and developers for a lack of coordinated planning. “One tower leads to another,” he said.
Despite decades of debate about transportation policy, Toronto has just two subway lines, a fleet of charming but lumbering streetcar lines and crumbling roadways.
Commuters in Toronto spend at least 80 minutes in traffic a day, on average — worse than what commuters face in London or Los Angeles — according to the Toronto Board of Trade.
Toronto’s City Planning Department did not respond to numerous requests for comment.
There is also concern about soaring neighborhood density rates. The city’s waterfront area has seen the most growth. Its population has soared 134 percent in a decade and is up 66 percent in the past five years, to 43,295, according to city data.
Toronto’s aging energy grid is strained. In July, downtown Toronto endured an eight-hour blackout after a transformer blew due to high demand. There was a similar outage last January.
THE MEGA-PROJECTS
Now two of the most ambitious projects the city has ever seen are being floated.
First out of the gate was theater impresario David Mirvish, who with his father, the late Ed Mirvish, helped create Toronto’s vibrant arts and theater scene.
In early October, Mirvish unveiled a plan for three condominium towers, with up to 85 floors each, that would be the city’s tallest buildings.
A podium at the buildings’ base would house two museums, including one for the Mirvish family’s contemporary art collection.
The Mirvish buildings would be designed by Gehry, the celebrated Canadian-born architect whose 76-story 8 Spruce Street residential tower was just completed in New York.
“These towers can become a symbol of what Toronto can be,” the 83-year-old Gehry said at project’s unveiling. “I am not building condominiums, I am building three sculptures for people to live in.”
Two weeks later, Oxford Properties Group, a Canadian developer with a $ 20 billion global real estate portfolio, announced a $ 3 billion makeover of the downtown convention center, just south of the Mirvish and Gehry project. It envisions a casino, two hotel towers and two office towers that would be among the tallest in the city.
Adam Vaughan, a city councilor whose district would encompass both projects, said a lot more planning is needed. He had kinder words for the Mirvish proposal — “it’s a transformative and astonishing proposal” — than for Oxford’s project, which he called “all out of proportion.”
“It’s time to have a really smart conversation about how we are building this neighborhood because there is a hell of lot of density arriving not just with this project but with all the projects that have been approved,” he said in an interview.
AT THE KIT KAT
Al Carbone, owner for the past three decades of the Kit Kat restaurant, doesn’t think people like Vaughan are listening to him, as the councilor and other politicians are not heeding the growing concerns about the rapid pace of development.
He said buildings are springing up too close to lot lines, creating jammed sidewalks and alleyways. And the sun does not shine on the streets like it once did.
He supports the Mirvish project, which would preserve his street, known as Restaurant Row. But he is battling a separate 47-story building that would go up steps away from his restaurant.
The plan, which still must be approved, would retain the historic facades of buildings on the street, which Carbone believes will destroy the character of the row.
“It’s a tough battle,” said Carbone, who launched the website SaveRestaurantrow.com to drum up support in opposition to the project. “You can’t have a condo on every corner.”
WHERE IS TORONTO HEADED?
Some believe Toronto is at a crossroads as developers, politicians and citizens debate the rapid changes the city’s urban landscape.
The Globe and Mail’s Marcus Gee dismissed the idea that the development was somehow bad for the city in a column in October, saying the condo boom “has transformed our once-pokey downtown into a vibrant, around-the-clock urban community.”
David Lieberman, an architect who also teaches at the University of Toronto’s architectural school, agrees the new developments have been good for the city, but he is not sure the city’s citizens are ready for it.
“We have such an excellent opportunity to get things right, but there is the Canadian conservatism,” Lieberman said, sipping coffee in his studio in an old downtown Toronto house. “Canadians in their city building are not risk takers.”
(Reporting By Russ Blinch. Editing by Janet Guttsman and Douglas Royalty)
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Jasa SEO Murah
Label: Jasa Seo, Jasa Seo Murah
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Dozens of Android Games, Apps Discounted for Google Holiday Sale
Label: TechnologyThe Google Play store — that’s the name of the Android “app store,” or the “Android Market” for those of you new to the change — is featuring dozens of game and app sales for Android smartphones and tablets. Well, actually, it’s not; you can see some of the discounted apps on the front page, but there’s no special section of the website or on-device market that says where the ones on sale are, or even how to find them. And the “Holiday Surprise” feature is only a handful of deals picked by Google itself.
Here’s a look at some of the major game publishers’ Android sales, along with discounted creativity apps and where to find more details.
Gameloft‘s “Android Christmas” sale
It may be too late for Hanukkah this year, but top-tier Android publisher Gameloft has put a dozen of its titles up for sale for Christmas just $ 0.99 . These games are normally in the $ 5-7 range, making them among Android’s priciest.
Besides its licensed games based on movies — like superhero films “The Dark Knight Rises” and “The Amazing Spider-Man,” and (inexplicably) “The Adventures of Tintin” — Gameloft is best known for creating mobile versions of popular PC and console games. Not in the sense that they are official ports, so much as that they’re remarkably similar, to the extent that they arguably could be official ports if the serial numbers were filed off. With that in mind, several of its Modern Combat (which are totally not Modern Warfare) and N.O.V.A. first-person shooters (which are totally not Halo) are included in the sale, although the most recent installment of the former — Modern Combat 4 — is not.
Superhero fans may also want to check out Marvel Games’ Avengers Initiative, which isn’t a Gameloft title but is also on sale for $ 0.99 .
Square-Enix’s “Winter of Mobile” sale
Best known for having invented the jRPG genre, Square-Enix has brought several of its most popular titles to Android, and most of them are discounted (from their extremely high launch prices) for the holidays.
Crystal Defender, Chrono Trigger, and Final Fantasy have all received numerous 1-star reviews on Google Play for technical issues, and reviewers complain that the titles haven’t been optimized for Android hardware. The Chaos Rings titles, however, fare much better with reviewers, and are much more steeply discounted as well, at $ 3.99 each compared to their usual price of $ 12.99. They’re ports of the iOS originals, which were Square-Enix’s first attempts at making “real” jRPGs for mobile devices.
SEGA’s Holiday Sale
SEGA’s games are on sale for the holidays across the board, on pretty much every platform. On Android, that mostly amounts to Sonic 4 (episodes 1 and 2) and Sonic CD, all of which are on sale for $ 0.99 . Strategy title Total War Battles and rollerblade platformer Jet Set Radio, meanwhile, are on sale for $ 1.99.
Creativity / productivity apps on sale
Android phones and tablets aren’t just for gaming. If you didn’t pick up Microsoft Office-compatible OfficeSuite Pro 6+ during Google‘s earlier $ 0.25 sale, it’s discounted to $ 0.99 now from its regular price of $ 14.99. Autodesk’s professional drawing apps, SketchBook Mobile and SketchBook Pro for Tablets, are $ 0.99 and $ 2.99 compared to $ 1.99 and $ 4.99 regularly, and the Jotter handwriting app — which requires a Samsung Galaxy Note — is half-off at $ 1.99.
Stay up to date
Many more Android games and apps are being discounted for the holidays. Apps such as (the aptly-named) AppSales can help keep you apprised of the latest additions. Meanwhile, the Android Police blog is maintaining an up-to-date “Enormous List” of all holiday sales.
Jared Spurbeck is an open-source software enthusiast, who uses an Android phone and an Ubuntu laptop PC. He has been writing about technology and electronics since 2008.
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Venezuela’s Chavez improving after surgery: officials
Label: HealthCARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is improving after a cancer operation in Cuba and has started exercising, officials said on Monday, amid doubts over whether the former soldier is in good enough health to continue governing.
Vice President Nicolas Maduro said he had spoken by phone with Chavez, who was walking and doing exercises as part of his treatment.
“We’ve gotten the best present we could get this Christmas: a phone call from our commander president,” Maduro said on state television.
Information Minister Ernesto Villegas said earlier in the day that Chavez had “shown a slight improvement in his condition,” without providing details.
Chavez has not been heard from in two weeks following a fourth operation for an unspecified type of cancer in the pelvic region. The government has said he suffered post-operatory complications including unexpected bleeding and a lung infection, but offered few details about his actual condition.
His death, or even his resignation for health reasons, would upend the politics of the South American OPEC nation where his personalized brand of oil-financed socialism has made him a hero to the poor but a pariah to critics who call him a dictator.
His allies are now openly discussing the possibility that he may not be back in time to be sworn in for his third six-year term on the constitutionally mandated date of January 10.
Opposition leaders say a delay to his taking power would be another signal that Chavez is not in condition to govern and that fresh elections should be called to choose his replacement.
They believe they have a better shot against Maduro, Chavez’s anointed successor, than against the charismatic president who for 14 years has been nearly invincible at the ballot box.
But a constitutional dispute over succession could lead to a messy transition toward a post-Chavez era.
Maduro has become the government’s main figurehead in the president’s absence. His speeches have mimicked Chavez’s bombastic style that mixes historical references with acid insults of adversaries.
Opposition leader Henrique Capriles, who lost to Chavez in the October presidential vote, slammed Maduro in an interview published on Sunday for failing to seek dialogue with the opposition at a time of political uncertainty.
“Maduro is not the one that won the elections, nor is he the leader,” Capriles told the local El Universal newspaper. “Because Chavez is absent, this is precisely the time that (Maduro) needs help from people (in the opposition camp).”
Chavez has vastly expanded presidential powers and built a near-cult following among millions of poor Venezuelans, who love his feisty language and social welfare projects.
The opposition is smarting from this month’s governors elections in which Chavez allies won 20 of 23 states. They are trying to keep attention focused on day-to-day problems from rampant crime to power outages.
(Reporting by Brian Ellsworth; Editing by Sandra Maler)
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Japan’s policy veteran Motegi likely to serve as trade minister: media
Label: BusinessTOKYO (Reuters) – Incoming Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is likely to pick policy veteran Toshimitsu Motegi as trade minister, who will also take charge of energy and other key economic policies, media reported on Tuesday.
Motegi, 57, a former policy affairs chief for the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), will tackle energy problems after last year’s Fukushima nuclear crisis, as well as issues such as the U.S.-led Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) free trade pact, public broadcaster NHK said.
Motegi was a leading member of the LDP’s panel tasked with drafting an economic revival plan aimed at tackling the strong yen, deflation and preventing Japanese firms from shifting overseas.
The LDP returned to power in the December 16 election for the lower house, calling for radical monetary easing and big spending on public works.
First elected to parliament in 1993 as a member of a small opposition party, Motegi joined the LDP shortly thereafter and has served posts including parliamentary vice-minister for the trade ministry and senior vice-minister for foreign affairs.
Motegi’s formal appointment is likely to be made on December 26, when Abe is expected to be elected as prime minister in parliament and form a new cabinet.
(Reporting by Tetsushi Kajimoto)
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Bolivia’s Morales visits Cuba after Chavez surgery
Label: WorldHAVANA (AP) — Bolivian President Evo Morales has made a lightning trip to Havana where key ally Hugo Chavez is convalescing after cancer surgery.
Morales did not speak to foreign journalists during his weekend visit. Cuban state-run media didn’t confirm that he visited Chavez, but said he came “to express his support” for the Venezuelan president. The Cuban government had invited media to cover Morales’ arrival Saturday and departure Sunday but withdrew the invitation with no explanation.
Photos released by Cuban media showed President Raul Castro greeting Morales at the airport in Havana.
Morales aides said Monday he planned to make a statement later about Chavez.
Chavez underwent on Dec. 11 his fourth cancer-related operation since last year, two months after winning reelection to a six-year term. Venezuelan officials say his condition is stable.
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RIM shares fall at the open after earnings
Label: TechnologyTORONTO (Reuters) – Research In Motion Ltd fell in early trading on Friday following the BlackBerry maker’s Thursday earnings announcement, when the company outlined plans to change the way it charges for services.
RIM, pushing to revive its fortunes with the launch of its new BlackBerry 10 devices next month, surprised investors when it said it plans to alter its service revenue model, a move that could put the high-margin business under pressure.
Shares fell 16.0 percent to $ 11.86 in early trading on the Nasdaq. Toronto-listed shares fell 15.8 percent to C$ 11.74.
(Reporting by Allison Martell; Editing by Gerald E. McCormick)
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Bethenny Frankel and husband of 2 years separating
Label: LifestyleLOS ANGELES (AP) — Bethenny Frankel and husband Jason Hoppy are separating.
The 42-year-old TV personality, chef, author and entrepreneur told The Associated Press Sunday that the split brings her “great sadness.”
“This was an extremely difficult decision that as a woman and a mother, I have to accept as the best choice for our family,” Frankel said. “We have love and respect for one another and will continue to amicably co-parent our daughter who is and will always remain our first priority. This is an immensely painful and heartbreaking time for us.”
Frankel and Hoppy were married in 2010 and have a daughter, Bryn, who was born that same year. The couple’s courtship and marriage were documented in two reality series, “Bethenny Getting Married?” and “Bethenny Ever After…” Frankel gained fame as a star of “The Real Housewives of New York City.” Since her stint on the Bravo show, she has written four books, released a fitness video and founded her Skinnygirl line of cocktails, shapewear and nutritional supplements.
She launched a talk show, “Bethenny,” over the summer that is set to air nationally on Fox stations in 2013.
___
AP Entertainment Writer Sandy Cohen is on Twitter: www.twitter.com/APSandy .
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Few tests done at toxic sites after superstorm
Label: HealthOLD BRIDGE, N.J. (AP) — For more than a month, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has said that the recent superstorm didn’t cause significant problems at any of the 247 Superfund toxic waste sites it’s monitoring in New York and New Jersey.
But in many cases, no actual tests of soil or water are being conducted, just visual inspections.
The EPA conducted a handful of tests right after the storm, but couldn’t provide details or locations of any recent testing when asked last week. New Jersey officials point out that federally designated Superfund sites are EPA’s responsibility.
The 1980 Superfund law gave EPA the power to order cleanups of abandoned, spilled and illegally dumped hazardous wastes that threaten human health or the environment. The sites can involve long-term or short-term cleanups.
Jeff Tittel, executive director of the Sierra Club in New Jersey, says officials haven’t done enough to ensure there is no contamination from Superfund sites. He’s worried toxins could leach into groundwater and the ocean.
“It’s really serious and I think the EPA and the state of New Jersey have not done due diligence to make sure these sites have not created problems,” Tittel said.
The EPA said last month that none of the Superfund sites it monitors in New York or New Jersey sustained significant damage, but that it has done follow-up sampling at the Gowanus Canal site in Brooklyn, the Newtown Creek site on the border of Queens and Brooklyn, and the Raritan Bay Slag site, all of which flooded during the storm.
But last week, EPA spokeswoman Stacy Kika didn’t respond to questions about whether any soil or water tests have been done at the other 243 Superfund sites. The agency hasn’t said exactly how many of the sites flooded.
“Currently, we do not believe that any sites were impacted in ways that would pose a threat to nearby communities,” EPA said in a statement.
Politicians have been asking similar questions, too. On Nov. 29, U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., wrote to the EPA to ask for “an additional assessment” of Sandy’s impact on Superfund sites in the state.
Elevated levels of lead, antimony, arsenic and copper have been found at the Raritan Bay Slag site, a Superfund site since 2009. Blast furnaces dumped lead at the site in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and lead slag was also used there to construct a seawall and jetty.
The EPA found lead levels as high as 142,000 parts per million were found at Raritan Bay in 2007. Natural soil levels for lead range from 50 to 400 parts per million.
The EPA took four samples from the site after Superstorm Sandy: two from a fenced-off beach area and two from a nearby public playground. One of the beach samples tested above the recreational limit for lead. In early November, the EPA said it was taking additional samples “to get a more detailed picture of how the material might have shifted” and will “take appropriate steps to prevent public exposure” at the site, according to a bulletin posted on its website. But six weeks later, the agency couldn’t provide more details of what has been found.
The Newtown Creek site, with pesticides, metals, PCBs and volatile organic compounds, and the Gowanus Canal site, heavily contaminated with PCBs, heavy metals, volatile organics and coal tar wastes, were added to the Superfund list in 2010.
Some say the lead at the Raritan Bay site can disperse easily.
Gabriel Fillippeli, director of the Center for Urban Health at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, said lead tends to stay in the soil once it is deposited but can be moved around by stormwaters or winds. Arsenic, which has been found in the surface water at the site, can leach into the water table, Fillippeli said.
“My concern is twofold. One is, a storm like that surely moved some of that material physically to other places, I would think,” Fillippeli said. “If they don’t cap that or seal it or clean it up, arsenic will continue to make its way slowly into groundwater and lead will be distributed around the neighborhood.”
The lack of testing has left some residents with lingering worries.
The Raritan Bay Slag site sits on the beach overlooking a placid harbor with a view of Staten Island. On a recent foggy morning, workers were hauling out debris, and some nearby residents wondered whether the superstorm increased or spread the amount of pollution at the site.
“I think it brought a lot of crud in from what’s out there,” said Elise Pelletier, whose small bungalow sits on a hill overlooking the Raritan Bay Slag site. “You don’t know what came in from the water.” Her street did not flood because it is up high, but she worries about a park below where people go fishing and walk their dogs. She would like to see more testing done.
Thomas Burke, an associate dean at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, says both federal and state officials generally have a good handle on the major Superfund sites, which often use caps and walls to contain pollution.
“They are designed to hold up,” Burke said of such structures, but added that “you always have to be concerned that an unusual event can spread things around in the environment.” Burke noted that the storm brought in a “tremendous amount” of water, raising the possibility that groundwater plumes could have changed.
“There really have to be evaluations” of communities near the Superfund sites, he said. “It’s important to take a look.”
Officials in both New York and New Jersey note they’ve also been monitoring less toxic sites known as brownfields and haven’t found major problems. The New York DEC said in a statement that brownfields in that state “were not significantly impacted” and that they don’t plan further tests for storm impacts.
Larry Ragonese, a spokesman for the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, said the agency has done visual inspections of major brownfield sites and also alerted towns and cities to be on the lookout for problems. Ragonese said they just aren’t getting calls voicing such concerns.
Back at the Raritan Bay slag site, some residents want more information. And they want the toxic soil, which has sat here for years, out.
Pat Churchill, who was walking her dog in the park along the water, said she’s still worried.
“There are unanswered questions. You can’t tell me this is all contained. It has to move around,” Churchill said.
Health News Headlines – Yahoo! News
Title Post: Few tests done at toxic sites after superstorm
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