Asian shares held back by weak Japan GDP, U.S. fiscal cliff

TOKYO (Reuters) – Asian shares were capped on Monday as investors’ concerns about the fiscal crisis in the United States and Greece’s bailout program dented optimism over the growth prospects of the world’s two largest economies, the United States and China.

Adding to the uncertainty, Japan reported that its economy shrank 0.9 percent in July-September from the previous quarter, the first contraction in three quarters, suggesting faltering global demand and weak consumer spending may push the world’s third-largest economy into a mild recession.

India’s industrial output undershot forecasts in September.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan <.MIAPJ0000PUS> was up 0.1 percent after ending last week down 0.7 percent at a one-week low. Energy <.MIAPJEN00PUS> and materials <.MIAPJMT00PUS> underperformed, weighing on resources-reliant Australian shares <.AXJO> which eased 0.3 percent.

South Korean shares <.KS11> were off 0.2 percent and India’s BSE index <.BSESN> slipped into negative territory while Southeast Asian stocks were mixed. Hong Kong <.HSI> shares were up 0.1 percent but Shanghai <.SSEC> equities fell 0.2 percent.

Japan’s Nikkei stock average <.N225> fell 0.8 percent to a four-week low. <.T>

“Investors remain consumed by U.S. fiscal cliff consequences, and this is capping market enthusiasm with such a significant obstacle remaining in the path of financial markets,” Tim Waterer, senior trader at CMC Markets said.

A 0.1 percent rise in U.S. stock futures suggested a firm Wall Street open, but European shares will be mixed, with financial spreadbetters expecting London’s FTSE 100 <.FTSE>, Paris’s CAC-40 <.FCHI> and Frankfurt’s DAX <.GDAXI> to open between up 0.1 percent and down 0.1 percent. <.L> <.EU> <.N>

President Barack Obama on Friday invited congressional leaders to the White House, kicking off negotiations to avoid the “fiscal cliff” by finding a compromise to cut the U.S. deficit before nearly $ 600 billion worth of spending cuts and tax increases kick in early 2013.

Analysts say the fiscal cliff could derail the U.S. economy, which has shown signs of a modest recovery.

Markets are also eyeing the debt ceiling, which needs to be raised to avoid a government shutdown.

Commodities were mixed, with U.S. crude inched up 0.1 percent to $ 86.12 a barrel while Brent fell 0.2 percent to $ 109.23. Gold was up 0.2 percent to $ 1,734.20 an ounce and London copper rose 0.1 percent to $ 7,580 a ton.

“Commodities in general will be weighed down as November and December mark the bookclosing season for hedge funds,” said Naohiro Niimura, a partner at research and consulting firm Market Risk Advisory.

Base metals such as copper face limited upside as improving Chinese data means less need for further stimulus while the timing of expected infrastructure spending is unclear, he said.

“Since these public spendings will likely come from bank loans, sluggish loan data suggests investment may not have begun,” Niimura said.

Data on Monday showed Chinese banks extended 505.2 billion yuan ($ 81.5 billion) of new local currency loans in October, below market expectations of 600 billion yuan.

US, CHINA IMPROVE

The dollar steadied against the yen at 79.48, hovering near Friday’s three-week low of 79.07 yen.

The euro inched up 0.2 percent to $ 1.2730, off a two-month low against the dollar of $ 1.2690 touched on Friday. The euro inched up after Greece on Sunday won a parliamentary approval for the 2013 budget law, vital for reviving its stalled international aid and avoid insolvency.

But euro zone finance ministers were unlikely to release a new tranche of loans to Greece at their meeting on Monday.

“Worries about Greece still remain, but at least some uncertainties have been removed, so we are unlikely to see a big euro selloff,” said Masashi Murata, senior currency strategist at Brown Brothers Harriman in Tokyo.

U.S. September wholesale inventories and sales, as well as November consumer sentiment rose while China‘s trade surplus ballooned to its biggest in 45 months in October, reinforcing other indicators that have suggested the need for new economic stimulus measures had become less urgent.

China is also taking steps which may affect global capital flows. It plans to boost foreign investment in mainland stock and bond markets by raising quotas for the Renminbi Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor scheme, which allows approved investors to channel offshore yuan funds into mainland markets.

It also eyes raising the quotas for the Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor scheme, the original, dollar-denominated program that allows institutional investors to buy stakes in Chinese-listed stocks or bonds.

For outside investment, the sovereign wealth fund China Investment Corporation said it will focus more of its $ 482 billion firepower on Asia.

Sentiment steadied in Asian credit markets, with the spread on the iTraxx Asia ex-Japan investment-grade index barely moved from Friday.

(Additional reporting by Narayanan Somasundaram in Sydney and Lisa Twaronite in Tokyo; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)

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BBC must reform or die, says Trust chairman

LONDON (Reuters) – The BBC could be doomed unless it makes radical changes, the head of its governing trust said on Sunday, after its director general quit to take the blame for the airing of false child sex abuse allegations against a former politician.

Chris Patten, chairman of the BBC Trust, said confidence had to be restored if the publicly funded corporation was to withstand pressure from rivals, especially Rupert Murdoch‘s media empire, which would try to take advantage of the turmoil.

“If you’re saying, ‘Does the BBC need a thorough structural radical overhaul?’, then absolutely it does, and that is what we will have to do,” Patten, a one-time senior figure in Prime Minister David Cameron‘s Conservative Party and the last British governor of Hong Kong, told BBC television.

“The basis for the BBC’s position in this country is the trust that people have in it,” Patten said. “If the BBC loses that, it’s over.”

George Entwistle resigned as director general on Saturday, just two months into the job, to take responsibility for the child sex allegation on the flagship news programme Newsnight.

The witness in the report, who says he suffered sexual abuse at a care home in the late 1970s, said on Friday he had misidentified the politician, Alistair McAlpine. Newsnight admitted it had not shown the witness a picture of McAlpine, or approached McAlpine for comment before going to air.

Already under pressure after revelations that a long-time star presenter, the late Jimmy Savile, was a paedophile, Entwistle conceded on the BBC morning news that he had not known – or asked – who the alleged abuser was until the name appeared in social media.

The BBC, celebrating its 90th anniversary, is affectionately known in Britain as “Auntie”, and respected around much of the world.

But with 22,000 staff working at eight national TV channels, 50 radio stations and an extensive Internet operation, critics say it is hampered by a complex and overly bureaucratic and hierarchical management structure.

THOMPSON’S LEGACY

Journalists said this had become worse under Entwistle’s predecessor Mark Thompson, who took over in the wake of the last major crisis to hit the corporation and is set to become chief executive of the New York Times Co on Monday.

In that instance, both director general and chairman were forced out after the BBC was castigated by a public inquiry over a report alleging government impropriety in the fevered build up to war in Iraq, leading to major organisational changes.

One of the BBC’s most prominent figures, Newsnight presenter Jeremy Paxman, said since the Iraq report furore, management had become bloated while cash had been cut from programme budgets.

“He (Entwistle) has been brought low by cowards and incompetents,” Paxman said in a statement, echoing a widely-held view that Entwistle was a good man who had been let down by his senior staff.

Prime Minister Cameron appeared ready to give the BBC the benefit of the doubt, believing that “one of the great institutions of this country” could reform and deal with its failings, according to sources in his office.

Patten, who must find a new director general to sort out the mess, agreed that management structures had proved inadequate.

“Apparently decisions about the programme went up through every damned layer of BBC management, bureaucracy, legal checks – and still emerged,” he said.

“One of the jokes I made, and actually it wasn’t all that funny, when I came to the BBC … was that there were more senior leaders in the BBC then there were in the Chinese Communist Party.”

Patten ruled out resigning himself but other senior jobs are expected to be on the line, while BBC supporters fear investigative journalism will be scaled back. He said he expected to name Entwistle’s successor in weeks, not months.

Among the immediate challenges are threats of litigation.

McAlpine, a close ally of former prime minister Margaret Thatcher, has indicated he will sue for damages.

Claims for compensation are also likely from victims who say Savile, one of the most recognisable personalities on British television in the 1960s, 70s and 80s, sexually abused them as children, sometimes on BBC premises.

INQUIRIES

Two inquiries are already under way, looking at failures at Newsnight and allegations relating to Savile, both of which could make uncomfortable reading for senior figures.

Police have also launched a major inquiry into Savile’s crimes and victims’ allegations of a high-profile paedophile ring. Detectives said they had arrested their third suspect on Sunday, a man in his 70s from Cambridgeshire in central England.

Funded by an annual licence fee levied on all TV viewers, the BBC has long been resented by its commercial rivals, who argue it has an unfair advantage and distorts the market.

Murdoch’s Sun tabloid gleefully reported Entwistle’s departure with the headline “Bye Bye Chump” and Patten said News Corp and others would put the boot in, happy to deflect attention after a phone-hacking scandal put the newspaper industry under intense and painful scrutiny.

He said that “one or two newspapers, Mr. Murdoch’s papers” would love to see the BBC lose its national status, “but I think the great British public doesn’t want to see that happen”.

Murdoch himself was watching from afar.

“BBC getting into deeper mess. After Savile scandal, now prominent news program falsely names senior pol as paedophile,” he wrote on his Twitter website on Saturday.

It is not just the BBC and the likes of Entwistle and Patten who are in the spotlight.

Thompson, whom Entwistle succeeded in mid-September, has also faced questions from staff at the New York Times over whether he is still the right person to take one of the biggest jobs in American newspaper publishing.

Britain’s Murdoch-owned Sunday Times queried how Thompson could have been unaware of claims about Savile during his tenure at the BBC as he had told British lawmakers, saying his lawyers had written to the paper addressing the allegations in early September, while he was still director general.

(Editing by Kevin Liffey and Sophie Hares)

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Taiwan’s HTC settles patent disputes with Apple

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — Taiwanese smartphone maker HTC Corp. has settled with Apple Inc. on their outstanding patent disputes.

In a joint statement Sunday, the two companies said they also signed a 10-year license agreement that will extend to current and future patents held by one other.

Apple and HTC had battled patents over various smartphone features since March 2010, with the Cupertino-based firm accusing HTC phones that run on Google‘s Android software of infringing on its patents.

HTC chief executive Peter Chou says ending the litigation will allow his company to focus more on product innovation.

HTC has grown as the first maker of phones running on Android software. But its sales faltered from the second half of 2011 in a market increasingly divided between Apple and Samsung Electronics Co.

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Is “Our Kind of Traitor” next for Mads Mikkelsen?

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Since winning the Best Actor award at this year’s Cannes Film Festival for Thomas Vinterberg‘s “The Hunt,” Mads Mikkelsen has been inundated with offers for new projects.

Mikkelson, who also stars in Denmark’s entry for the foreign Oscars, “A Royal Affair,” has yet to decide what he will do next, according to his representatives. But one of his choices, they say, is “Our Kind of Traitor,” the film adaptation of the John le Carre spy novel.

“Our Kind of Traitor, is being put together by a consortium of British producers, including Film4, Potboiler Productions and The Ink Factory.

It will be directed by Justin Kurzel from a screenplay by Hossein Amini. It tells the story of a young English couple who bond with a millionaire Russian businessman after a chance encounter on vacation.

What they don’t know is that the enigmatic Russian is a money launderer seeking to defect to British intelligence before his rivals have a chance to murder him. He has chosen the couple as his lifeline.

The couple’s recruitment by the secret service is followed by a deadly chase, which takes them from the souks of Marrakesh to London, to the French Open Tennis Final in Paris and to a thrilling climax in the Swiss Alps.

Ralph Fiennes name has also come up with the project, as has Jessica Chastain‘s, although a rep for the actress says she has yet to receive an offer.

Mikkelsen has lately been busy in Canada filming his role as Dr. Hannibal Lecter, which U.S. writer-producer Bryan Fuller has reinvented for a 13-episode NBC-Gaumont television series, “Hannibal.”

Mikkelsen, who got his break in Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn‘s “Pusher” in 1996, has notched up a number of high-profile credits, including the role of the villain Le Chiffre in the James Bond movie, “Casino Royale.” He also played the composer in “Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky,” and could be seen in “Clash of The Titans” and “The Three Musketeers.”

This summer he filmed Fredrik Bond’s “The Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman,” with Shia LaBeouf and Evan Rachel Wood, and Danish director Asger Leth’s “Move On.” The Danish film powerhouse, TrustNordisk is also working on a new project for the actor to film next summer but said that it is keeping the details closely under wraps.

His other upcoming films include the French period piece “Michael Kohlhaas,” which tells the story of a well-to-do horse merchant, and an adventure-western called “The Stolen.”

The Ink Factory and Potboiler Productions did not return calls to TheWrap for comment on the casting for “Our Kind of Traitor.”

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Boehringer Ingelheim to start late-stage hepatitis C drug trial

BOSTON (Reuters) – Boehringer Ingelheim said on Saturday it plans to initiate a late-stage clinical trial of its experimental hepatitis C treatment following promising results from earlier studies.

The company announced final data from a mid-stage trial of its treatment regimen which showed that 69 percent of patients in the study were free of the virus 12 and 24 weeks following the end of treatment.

Hepatitis C is a blood-borne infectious disease of the liver that can lead to liver failure and transplant.

Historically, hepatitis C has been treated with pegylated interferon and ribavirin, but treatment lasts as long as 48 weeks and interferon is associated with flu-like side effects.

The goal of drugmakers now, including Boehringer, Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc, Gilead Sciences Inc and Bristol-Myers Squibb Co is to develop products that do not need to be combined with interferon. Most analysts consider Gilead to currently be at the forefront of the race.

Full results from Boehringer’s trial, known as SOUND-C2, were presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases in Boston. Preliminary data were presented earlier this year.

Boehringer’s trial tested a combination of BI-201335, a protease inhibitor, BI-207127, a polymerase inhibitor, and ribivirin.

Boehringer is a privately held company headquartered in Ingelheim, Germany.

(Reporting By Toni Clarke; Editing by Marguerita Choy)

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Obama Hangs Tough on the Fiscal Cliff

President Barack Obama made clear today that he plans to take a tough line in budget negotiations with congressional Republicans. That pretty much assures that there will be no deal soon and we’ll be hearing about the “fiscal cliff” of automatic spending cuts and scheduled tax hikes long past Jan. 1.

The fiscal cliff is scheduled to be reached at the start of 2013. But the most likely outcome now is that the parties will come up with a patch—a temporary agreement to postpone the effects of the fiscal cliff while negotiations continue. That will keep the economy from suffering an immediate blow, but it will also mean continued uncertainty, which discourages consumers from spending and businesses from investing.

Tired of hearing about the fiscal cliff now? Wait until next summer, when it could still be a topic of daily conversation inside the Beltway. On the eve of the election, Representative James Clyburn of South Carolina, the third-ranking House Democrat, told Fox News Channel’s Neil Cavuto that a patch could last “up to, maybe, around a year.”

In a speech in the White House East Room, Obama said the election showed that “a majority of Americans agree with my approach.”

Obama wants to end the Bush tax cuts on household income above $ 200,000 a year (individuals) or $ 250,000 a year (couples). That will affect just 2 percent of Americans. Republicans want to preserve all of the Bush tax cuts, including for the highest-income Americans. In a gambit to put the Republicans in a politically difficult position, Obama called on Congress to extend the Bush tax cuts for people earning under $ 250,000 a year while negotiations continue on the top brackets. “We shouldn’t need long negotiations or drama,” he said.

House Speaker John Boehner said Nov. 8 that GOP leaders were open to increasing revenue, but by closing deductions and credits, not by raising tax rates, which they continue to oppose. Boehner also said any revenue increase should come as part of a package that overhauls entitlement spending and the tax code.

Obama said he was inviting congressional leaders of both parties to the White House next week for talks.

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Twin explosions strike southern Syrian city

BEIRUT (AP) — Syria‘s state-run news agency says two large explosions have struck the southern city of Daraa, causing multiple casualties and heavy material damage.

SANA did not immediately give further information or say what the target of Saturday’s explosions was.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says the blasts went off near a branch of the country’s Military Intelligence in Daraa.

The Observatory, which relies on a network of activists on the ground, says the explosions were followed by clashes between regime forces and rebels fighting to topple President Bashar Assad.

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Walmart Moves Up Black Friday

Walmart is kicking off Black Friday shopping earlier than ever this year, opening stores at 8 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day.

“In addition to offering amazing low prices on the season’s top gifts, Walmart is taking the historic step to ensure wishlist items like the Apple iPad2 are available for customers during a special one-hour event on Thanksgiving,” the world’s largest retailer said in a statement today.

“We know it’s frustrating for customers to shop on Black Friday and not get the items they want,” said Duncan Mac Naughton, chief merchandising and marketing officer, Walmart U.S. “This year, for the first time ever, customers that shop during Walmart’s one-hour event will be guaranteed to have three of the most popular items under their tree at a great low price.”

Other retailers will also be opening earlier, including Sears at 8 p.m. on Thanksgiving, moved up from 4 a.m. on Black Friday last year. Kmart will be open Thanksgiving Day 6 a.m. to 4 p.m., then it will close and reopen 8 p.m. to 3 a.m. Macy’s, Kohl’s and Best Buy open at midnight; Toys R Us hasn’t announced its plans. Advice on how to snag the best deals.

To help convince folks to head out to the store after dinner, Walmart said it will guarantee that customers who are inside the store and in line between 10 p.m. and 11 p.m. can get these deals:

Apple iPad ®2 16GB with Wi-Fi – $ 399 plus get a $ 75 Walmart Gift Card

Emerson ® 32 720p LCD TV – $ 148

LG ® Blu-ray™ Player – $ 38

“If any of these items happen to sell out before 11 p.m. local time, Walmart will offer a Guarantee Card for the item which must be paid for by midnight and registered online. The product will then be shipped to the store where it was purchased for the customer to pick up before Christmas,” the retailer said.

A few of the top items available in store, while supplies last, include:

8 p.m. on November 22: Gifts for the Entire Family – Toys, Gaming, Home and Apparel

Xbox 360 ® 4GB + SkyLanders ™ Bundle – $ 149

Wii ™ Console- $ 89

More than 100 video games priced at $ 10, $ 15 or $ 25 each

Top Toys of the Season: Leappad ® 1.0 Learning Tablet ($ 65) and Furby ® ($ 45)

Razor ® Accelerator 12-Volt Electric Scooter – $ 79

Fisher Price Power Wheels ® Jeep ® Wrangler 6-Volt Ride Ons (Hot Wheels ® and Barbie ®) – $ 89 each

Licensed Boys’ and Girls’ 2-Piece Sleep Set – $ 4.50 each

Mens and Ladies Denim – $ 9.50 each

Home appliances such as a Crock Pot ® 6-Quart Slow Cooker and Mr. Coffee ® Programmable 12-Cup Coffee Maker – $ 9.44 each

Shark ® Steam Pocket Mop and Ninja ® Pulse Blender – $ 39 each

Fashion Dolls such as Barbie ®, Bratz ™ and Disney ® Princess – $ 5 each

Hundreds of DVD and Blu-ray movies such as Brave, The Amazing Spiderman, Hunger Game ranging from $ 1.96 to $ 9.96 each

Better Homes and Gardens ® 700-Thread Count Sheet Set – $ 19.96

48″ Air-Powered Hockey Table – $ 29.86

14′ Trampoline with Enclosure and Bonus Flash Light Zone – $ 159

10 p.m. on November 22: The BIG Event – Brand Name Electronics

Vizio ® 60″ 720p LED Smart TV with built in Wi-Fi – $ 688

Samsung ® 43″ 720p 600Hz Class Plasma HDTV – $ 378

HP ® 15.6″ Laptop with 4GB and 320GB hard drive – $ 279

Nikon ® D3000 Digital Camera with Lens Kit – $ 449

Samsung ® Smart ST195 Digital Camera – $ 99

Beats by Dr. Dre ® Headphones – $ 179.95

Nook ® Color ™ 8GB Tablet – $ 99

Virgin Mobile ® 3G/4G Hotspot – $ 39.88

5 a.m. on Nov. 23: Caffeine Not Needed – Great Savings on Gifts from Jewelry to Tires

Sharp ® 70″ 1080p 120Hz HDTV – $ 1,798

Acer ® 13.3″ Ultrabook ™ with 4GB and 320GB solid state drive – $ 499

$ 100 Walmart gift card with the purchase of select smartphones such as the Samsung ® Galaxy S III, Droid RAZR M by Motorola ® and HTC ® One X

Goodyear Tires ranging from $ 59 – $ 99 each

Forever Bride 1/3 -Carat T.W. Diamond Ring in 10K Gold – $ 198

Stanley ® 6-Drawer Rolling Tool Cabinet with 85-Piece Mechanic Tool Set – $ 99

Singer ® Sew Mate 5400 60-Stitch Sewing Machine – $ 99.97

5? Pre-Lit Harrison Christmas Tree – $ 20

Better Homes and Gardens Deluxe Recliner – $ 199

Black Friday Specials & More Online:

Samsung 50″ Class LED 1080p 60Hz HDTV – $ 698

Ematic 7″ Tablet Android 4.0 1GHz, 4GB – $ 49

Dsi XL Ultimate Bundle – $ 129

Razor A Kick Scooter, Multiple Colors – $ 25

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“Lincoln” Reviews: Is Steven Spielberg’s biopic Oscar-worthy?

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – “Lincoln,” with a cast of acting titans like Daniel Day-Lewis and Tommy Lee Jones, arrives in theaters Friday with many predicting big things come Oscar night. But does Steven Spielberg‘s biopic of the Great Emancipator live up to the early hype?

Based on initial reviews, it seems like Spielberg and company have delivered. Critics are raving about Day-Lewis’ performance and crediting the film with taking a historical figure who is cloaked in myth and making him relatable and sympathetically human. Instead of uncoiling a birth-through-death chronology of Father Abraham, “Lincoln” narrows its gaze to a few key months in 1865 when the president was trying to simultaneously end the Civil War and pass an amendment abolishing slavery.

The film, which will expand nationally next week after opening in limited release this weekend, scored a bullish 92 percent “fresh” rating on critics aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.

In TheWrap, Alonso Duralde lavished praise on the film and its literate script from Pulitzer Prize winner Tony Kushner for finding the man behind the monument. His one bone of contention was not with the film itself but with its gauzy ad campaign.

“The dreadful trailer makes ‘Lincoln‘ look like an awful collection of Spielbergian excesses, including swelling John Williams moments (admittedly, there are one or two) and Janusz Kaminski’s honey-baked lighting (OK, granted, it appears, but not too often), not to mention Tommy Lee Jones‘ terrible wig (which actually winds up being organic in his memorable turn as Thaddeus Stevens),” Duralde writes. “Don’t let the marketing campaign keep you from seeing one of the best American movies this year, and Spielberg’s finest work in decades.”

Perhaps no critical enthusiasm could match that of A.O. Scott. In a glowing review in The New York Times, Scott sounds the trumpets for Spielberg’s epic, urging parents to bundle their children into the local multiplex to see history unfurl across the screen.

“Some of the ambition of ‘Lincoln‘ seems to be to answer the omissions and distortions of the cinematic past, represented by great films like D. W. Griffith‘s ‘Birth of a Nation,’ which glorified the violent disenfranchisement of African-Americans as a heroic second founding, and ‘Gone With the Wind,’ with its romantic view of the old South,” Scott writes. “To paraphrase what Woodrow Wilson said of Griffith, Mr. Spielberg writes history with lightning.”

For Kenneth Turan, the greatness of the film lies in its understatedness. Writing in the Los Angeles Times, he lauded Spielberg for abandoning his more bombastic impulses to focus on the interior life of an American president.

“There is nothing bravura or overly emotional about Spielberg’s direction here, but the impeccable filmmaking is no less impressive for being quiet and to the point,” Turan writes. “The director delivers selfless, pulled-back satisfactions: he’s there in service of the script and the acting, to enhance the spoken word rather than burnish his reputation.”

It’s an “A,” declares Entertainment Weekly’s Owen Gleiberman, who hails the film for getting its hands dirty while depicting the sausage-making of politics.

“The Lincoln we see here is that rare movie creature, a heroic thinker,” he writes. “He has the serpentine intellect of a master lawyer, infused with a poet’s passion. ‘Lincoln’ brilliantly dramatizes the delicacy of politics, along with the raw brutality of it.”

In New York magazine, David Edelstein savored the film, but admitted that a few moments could have gone down more smoothly. In particular, he said the film’s initial scenes suffered from musty dialogue and some of the political wrangling it depicted was difficult to follow. Ultimately, however, he credited the picture with finding a fresh take on a president whose legacy has been dissected and debated for generations.

“By the time the movie ends, you don’t feel as if you know Lincoln – few, in his own time, claimed to know him,” Edelstein writes. “But you feel as if you know what it was like to be in his presence. And so an icon (it’s a measure of how promiscuously that word is thrown around that it seems inadequate for one of history’s truly iconic figures) has become a man – and, startlingly, within reach.”

There were a few critics, of course, who were not ready to endorse “Lincoln.” In the Newark Star-Ledger, Stephen Whitty slammed the movie for choking on its own self-serious and mocked it for too many scenes of intense debates held by men with copious facial hair.

“So if you’ve been sitting around wondering, ‘Gee, when is Spielberg ever going to make another ‘Amistad?’ ’ here’s your answer,” Whitty writes.

Apparently, Whitty would prefer another “Jaws.”

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California teen steps into rattlesnake nest, survives

SAN DIEGO (Reuters) – A teenage California girl searching for a cell phone signal to call her mother in a rural area outside San Diego inadvertently stepped into a nest of rattlesnakes and was bitten six times, but survived.

The 16-year-old, Vera Oliphant, spent four days in the intensive care unit of Sharp Grossmont Hospital, and doctors gave her 24 vials of antivenom after she was bitten by an adult rattlesnake and five young rattlers outside her uncle’s home.

“I was trying to find a signal to call my mom and text my boyfriend,” Oliphant said on Friday, a day after she was released from the hospital following the October 27 incident.

“I didn’t see them until I already stepped on their nest and I felt them biting me.”

“My vision started to go right away. First it looked like the snakes blended into the leaves and then I started seeing black spots around the edges and I started blacking out.”

She returned to her uncle’s home in Jamul, outside San Diego, and he immediately packed her into the car and rushed her to the emergency room, she said.

On the way, she talked to her mom and her boyfriend, who told her to stay calm so the venom wouldn’t spread.

“I told my mom and my boyfriend I love them in case I don’t get to see them again,” she said.

Doctors there administered 24 vials of antivenom to quash the dangerous toxins, according to a hospital spokesman. Snakebites usually aren’t fatal, although a handful of people die in the United States each year from snake bites, including bites from rattlesnakes.

Oliphant has recovered and will be returning to classes at Chaparral High School in El Cajon on Monday. She said the next time she can’t get a signal, she will handle it differently.

“Be careful where you step,” she said. “If you don’t need to, just wait until you are somewhere that you can call people.”

(Editing By Cynthia Johnston and Todd Eastham)

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