Follow her odyssey from her messy split with Kris Humphries to her great expectation with Kanye West
Credit: Prahl/Winslow/Splash News Online
Updated: Monday Dec 31, 2012 | 11:45 AM EST
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Food and Drug Administration on Monday approved a Johnson & Johnson tuberculosis drug that is the first new medicine to fight the deadly infection in more than four decades.
The agency approved J&J's pill, Sirturo, for use with older drugs to fight a hard-to-treat strain of tuberculosis that has not responded to other medications. However, the agency cautioned that the drug carries risks of potentially deadly heart problems and should be prescribed carefully by doctors.
Roughly one-third of the world's population is estimated to be infected with the bacteria causing tuberculosis. The disease is rare in the U.S., but kills about 1.4 million people a year worldwide. Of those, about 150,000 succumb to the increasingly common drug-resistant forms of the disease. About 60 percent of all cases are concentrated in China, India, Russia and Eastern Europe.
Sirturo, known chemically as bedaquiline, is the first medicine specifically designed for treating multidrug-resistant tuberculosis. That's a form of the disease that cannot be treated with at least two of the four primary antibiotics used for tuberculosis.
The standard drugs used to fight the disease were developed in the 1950s and 1960s.
"The antibiotics used to treat it have been around for at least 40 years and so the bacterium has become more and more resistant to what we have," said Chrispin Kambili, global medical affairs leader for J&J's Janssen division.
The drug carries a boxed warning indicating that it can interfere with the heart's electrical activity, potentially leading to fatal heart rhythms.
"Sirturo provides much-needed treatment for patients who have don't have other therapeutic options available," said Edward Cox, director of the FDA's antibacterial drugs office. "However, because the drug also carries some significant risks, doctors should make sure they use it appropriately and only in patients who don't have other treatment options."
Nine patients taking Sirturo died in company testing compared with two patients taking a placebo. Five of the deaths in the Sirturo group seemed to be related to tuberculosis, but no explanation was apparent for the remaining four.
Despite the deaths, the FDA approved the drug under its accelerated approval program, which allows the agency to clear innovative drugs based on promising preliminary results.
Last week, the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen criticized that approach, noting the drug's outstanding safety issues.
"The fact that bedaquiline is part of a new class of drug means that an increased level of scrutiny should be required for its approval," the group states. "But the FDA had not yet answered concerns related to unexplained increases in toxicity and death in patients getting the drug."
The FDA said it approved the drug based on two mid-stage studies enrolling 440 patients taking Sirturo. Both studies were designed to measure how long it takes patients to be free of tuberculosis.
Results from the first trial showed most patients taking Sirturo plus older drugs were cured after 83 days, compared with 125 days for those taking a placebo plus older drugs. The second study showed most Sirturo patients were cured after 57 days.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks extended gains, with the Nasdaq up 1 percent on Monday on news that the majority of Senate Republicans are expected to support a tentative deal on the "fiscal cliff."
The market also got a lift from news that President Barack Obama will make a statement on the fiscal cliff at 1:30 p.m. EST at an event with "middle-class Americans," the White House said.
The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was up 82.99 points, or 0.64 percent, at 13,021.10. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was up 12.66 points, or 0.90 percent, at 1,415.09. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was up 37.11 points, or 1.25 percent, at 2,997.43.
(Reporting by Angela Moon; Editing by Jan Paschal)
TOKYO — The newly elected prime minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe, said Sunday that he would seek to build nuclear reactors, reversing within a week in office a campaign pledge to move Japan away from nuclear power.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant on Saturday. He said Sunday that he wanted more built.
The statement about the reactors came in Mr. Abe’s first televised interview since taking office. During his five days as prime minister, he had hinted that he would take a closer look at nuclear power.
“They will be completely different from those at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant,” he told the national television network TBS. Multiple meltdowns at the plant after an earthquake last year forced more than 100,000 people to flee their homes.
“With public understanding, we will be building anew,” Mr. Abe said.
He did not specify where or when. Building nuclear power plants would depart from the direction of the previous government of Yoshihiko Noda, who had pledged to phase out nuclear power by 2040.
It also appeared to go against a campaign platform adopted by Mr. Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party that aims “to establish an economy and society that does not need to rely on nuclear power.” The platform also said Japan would put the development of alternative energy sources, like solar and wind, ahead of nuclear power, and made no mention of new nuclear plants.
Though fervent antinuclear protests across the country have kept all but two of Japan’s 50 reactors off line, Mr. Abe is betting that Japan’s silent majority will condone a return to nuclear to help bolster the economy.
Mr. Abe’s pro-business Liberal Democrats won a landslide victory in parliamentary elections this month, campaigning on promises to take bolder measures to kick-start Japan’s moribund economy. The nation’s biggest business lobby, the Keidanren, has publicly urged the government to restart the nation’s reactors.
Signaling what could be rocky relations with Tokyo’s neighbors, Mr. Abe, who returned as a prime minister after a yearlong stint in 2006-7, also hinted that he may replace or void apologies from 1993 and 1995 for Japan’s having used women as sex slaves during World War II and for past colonial rule and aggression in Asia.
In a separate interview with The Sankei Shimbun, a national daily, he said his previous administration had found no evidence that the women who served as sex slaves to Japan’s wartime military had, in fact, been coerced. The Japanese government will seek to communicate that view, the newspaper quoted Mr. Abe as saying.
A perceived lack of remorse by Japan for its colonial and wartime history has been severely criticized, especially by South Korea and China, which bore the brunt of Japan’s colonial aggressions.
Japan is already embroiled in territorial spats with the two nations, heightening tensions over the past year.
TORONTO (Reuters) – Angry Birds, Instagram and Facebook continued to be among the most downloaded apps of the year but rising stars also earned coveted spots on smartphones and tablets.
This year consumers spent on average two hours each day using mobile applications, an increase of 35 percent over last year, according to analytics firm Flurry. The number is expected to continue growing in 2013.
“2012 was a transformative tipping point in the way consumers use apps,” said Craig Palli, a vice president at mobile marketing company Fiksu, adding that the biggest shift is in consumers’ eagerness to turn to apps for a broad range of day-to-day tasks.
Categories such as social networking, media and entertainment, photo editing, and games, continued to captivate consumer interest, with YouTube and Angry Birds being the top free and paid apps respectively at Apple’s App Store.
Meanwhile, several apps released this year quickly joined the ranks of the top downloaded and revenue grossing apps of the year.
The game Draw Something for iPhone and Android quickly gained widespread popularity when it was released in February, and despite dropping off, is still the second most downloaded paid app of the year Android and Apple devices.
“It had a big run and other multi-player puzzle-oriented games like newcomers LetterPress and ScrambleWithFriends proved popular, too,” Palli said. “But in many respects these titles were inspired by the more revolutionary Words With Friends.”
Songza, a music-discovery app for iPhone, Android and Kindle Fire, saw significant growth in both the United States and Canada, where it is now one of the top free apps on the App Store.
Paper, a sketchbook app for the iPad, is estimated to be one of the top grossing apps released this year according to Distimo, an app analytics company. It was named by Apple as the iPad app of the year.
But the real revolution, according to Palli, is among consumers who are eager to turn to apps for their day-to-day tasks, such as finding a taxi or hotel, following current events or increasingly, making payments.
“It is really consumers who are turning to apps first and traditional methods second,” said Palli.
Uber and Hailo, which allow users to book limos and taxis, and AirBnB and HotelTonight, for finding accommodations, began to move mainstream in 2012, Palli said.
Payment apps such as Square, and Apple’s introduction of the Passbook has further positioned the smartphone as a digital wallet.
This year, during major events such as the Olympics, Hurricane Sandy and the U.S. presidential election, the top apps on the App Store reflected those events, said Palli, showing the demand for keeping up with current events through apps.
(Editing by Patricia Reaney and Bill Trott)
Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News
The 28-year-old showed off her svelte figure in a tiny bikini as she splashed along the shores of Oahu, Hawaii on Saturday.
The singer and son Bronx (with Pete Wentz) joined pregnant big sister Jessica, her fiancé Eric Johnson and 7-month-old niece Maxwell Drew for a Hawaiian holiday.
Ashlee – who recently split from Boardwalk Empire actor Vincent Piazza after a year and a half of dating – smiled as she held hands with Bronx, 4.
This holiday season has been all about family for the Simpson clan. Tina Simpson – who filed for divorce from husband of 34 years, Joe Simpson, in October – also joined the girls in Hawaii.
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The director of the Pumwani Maternity Hospital, located in a hardscrabble neighborhood of downtown Nairobi, freely acknowledges what he's accused of: detaining mothers who can't pay their bills. Lazarus Omondi says it's the only way he can keep his medical center running.
Two mothers who live in a mud-wall and tin-roof slum a short walk from the maternity hospital, which is affiliated with the Nairobi City Council, told The Associated Press that Pumwani wouldn't let them leave after delivering their babies. The bills the mothers couldn't afford were $60 and $160. Guards would beat mothers with sticks who tried to leave without paying, one of the women said.
Now, a New York-based group has filed a lawsuit on the women's behalf in hopes of forcing Pumwani to stop the practice, a practice Omondi is candid about.
"We hold you and squeeze you until we get what we can get. We must be self-sufficient," Omondi said in an interview in his hospital office. "The hospital must get money to pay electricity, to pay water. We must pay our doctors and our workers."
"They stay there until they pay. They must pay," he said of the 350 mothers who give birth each week on average. "If you don't pay the hospital will collapse."
The Center for Reproductive Rights, which filed the suit this month in the High Court of Kenya, says detaining women for not paying is illegal. Pumwani is associated with the Nairobi City Council, one reason it might be able to get away with such practices, and the patients are among Nairobi's poorest with hardly anyone to stand up for them.
Maimouna Awuor was an impoverished mother of four when she was to give birth to her fifth in October 2010. Like many who live in Nairobi's slums, Awuor performs odd jobs in the hopes of earning enough money to feed her kids that day. Awuor, who is named in the lawsuit, says she had saved $12 and hoped to go to a lower-cost clinic but was turned away and sent to Pumwani. After giving birth, she couldn't pay the $60 bill, and was held with what she believes was about 60 other women and their infants.
"We were sleeping three to a bed, sometimes four," she said. "They abuse you, they call you names," she said of the hospital staff.
She said saw some women tried to flee but they were beaten by the guards and turned back. While her husband worked at a faraway refugee camp, Awuor's 9-year-old daughter took care of her siblings. A friend helped feed them, she said, while the children stayed in the family's 50-square-foot shack, where rent is $18 a month. She says she was released after 20 days after Nairobi's mayor paid her bill. Politicians in Kenya in general are expected to give out money and get a budget to do so.
A second mother named in the lawsuit, Margaret Anyoso, says she was locked up in Pumwani for six days in 2010 because she could not pay her $160 bill. Her pregnancy was complicated by a punctured bladder and heavy bleeding.
"I did not see my child until the sixth day after the surgery. The hospital staff were keeping her away from me and it was only when I caused a scene that they brought her to me," said Anyoso, a vegetable seller and a single mother with five children who makes $5 on a good day.
Anyoso said she didn't have clothes for her child so she wrapped her in a blood-stained blouse. She was released after relatives paid the bill.
One woman says she was detained for nine months and was released only after going on a hunger strike. The Center for Reproductive Rights says other hospitals also detain non-paying patients.
Judy Okal, the acting Africa director for the Center for Reproductive Rights, said her group filed the lawsuit so all Kenyan women, regardless of socio-economic status, are able to receive health care without fear of imprisonment. The hospital, the attorney general, the City Council of Nairobi and two government ministries are named in the suit.
___
Associated Press reporter Tom Odula contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Financial markets would be affected adversely if U.S. lawmakers fail to agree on a "fiscal cliff" deal before Tuesday, President Barack Obama said in an interview broadcast on Sunday, while urging Congress to act quickly to extend tax cuts for middle-class Americans.
Lawmakers are seeking a last-minute deal that would set aside $600 billion in tax increases and across-the-board government spending cuts that are set to start within days. If Congress does not make that happen, the first bill brought up in the new year would be to reduce taxes for middle-income families, Obama told NBC's "Meet the Press."
"Now I think that over the next 48 hours, my hope is that people recognize that, regardless of partisan differences, our top priority has to be to make sure that taxes on middle-class families do not go up. That would hurt our economy badly," Obama said in the interview taped on Saturday.
"We can get that done. Democrats and Republicans both say they don't want taxes to go up on middle-class families. That's something we all agree on. If we can get that done, that takes a big bite out of the 'fiscal cliff.' It avoids the worst outcomes," Obama added.
Low income tax rates first put in place under Republican former President George W. Bush are due to expire at the end of the day on Monday - the last day of 2012.
Obama said that failing to reach a deal would have a negative impact on financial markets.
"If people start seeing that on January 1st this problem still hasn't been solved, that we haven't seen the kind of deficit reduction that we could have had had the Republicans been willing to take the deal that I gave them ... then obviously that's going to have an adverse reaction in the markets," he said.
RARE SENATE SESSION ON SUNDAY
Obama met with congressional leaders at the White House on Friday and declared himself cautiously optimistic about the chances of an agreement, but he noted in the interview that nothing had materialized since then.
"I was modestly optimistic yesterday, but we don't yet see an agreement. And now the pressure's on Congress to produce," he said.
The Senate is scheduled to hold a rare Sunday session beginning at 1 p.m. EST (1800 GMT), but it was not clear whether the chamber would have fiscal-cliff legislation to act upon.
Obama sketched out what he believed to be the most likely scenarios the end the back-and-forth between both sides. Either the congressional leaders would come up with a deal, or Democrats in the Senate would bring a bill to the floor seeking an up-or-down vote to extend tax cuts for middle income earners.
"And if all else fails, if Republicans do in fact decide to block it, so that taxes on middle class families do in fact go up on January 1st, then we'll come back with a new Congress on January 4th and the first bill that will be introduced on the floor will be to cut taxes on middle class families," he said.
Obama chided Republicans for resisting his call for tax rates to go up for the top two percent of U.S. earners despite what he viewed as significant compromises on his part to cut spending and reform expensive social programs for the poor and elderly.
"They say that their biggest priority is making sure that we deal with the deficit in a serious way, but the way they're behaving is that their only priority is making sure that tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans are protected. That seems to be their only overriding, unifying theme," Obama said.
"The offers that I've made to them have been so fair that a lot of Democrats get mad at me. I mean I offered to make some significant changes to our entitlement programs in order to reduce the deficit," he said.
(Reporting by Jeff Mason; Editing by David Brunnstrom)
WASHINGTON — The 2012 U.S. elections, though not seminal, revealed much about the nature and direction of U.S. politics.
A divided government may be ingrained: At the presidential level, Democrats start with a decided advantage. Changing demographics — more Hispanics and other minorities solidly behind the party; women and young voters moving that way and forming hard-to-break voting habits — cut the Democrats’ way.
The electoral map that decides U.S. presidential contests tilts Democratic. President Barack Obama won the national popular vote by 3.7 percentage points, and carried the electoral map — the number of electors from each state is based indirectly on population — 332 to 206. If you took 1.9 percentage points from Mr. Obama and added them to Mitt Romney’s tally, the Republican would have won the popular vote by more than 125,000 votes. Yet if that formula were then applied to every state in the country, the only ones that would change would be Florida and Ohio. Mr. Obama would have lost the popular vote but would still have won the Electoral College vote, 285 to 253, and thus the presidency.
This is why some states that are reliably Democratic at the presidential level and where Republicans now control the statehouses are trying to change the Electoral College system. Each state controls its own rules. Only two, Maine and Nebraska, award electors by congressional district; everywhere else, it’s winner-takes-all.
Republicans are pondering a shift to the approach used in Maine and Nebraska. They see a possible test case in Pennsylvania, where Mr. Obama won the popular vote by more than five percentage points, rolling up huge margins in Philadelphia and its suburbs and in Pittsburgh. Mr. Romney, however, carried 13 of the 18 congressional districts. If this new system were in effect, the Republicans would have gotten 13 of the state’s 20 electoral votes while getting trounced in the popular vote. If this occurred in mainly Republican states, it would erase the Democrats’ Electoral College advantage.
In elections for the House of Representatives, Republicans already have a structural advantage. Democratic voters, especially minorities, tend to be bunched into a relatively small number of districts.
“The high-density Democratic population makes it more difficult for Democrats to create more competitive districts,” said Nathan Gonzales, congressional analyst for the Rothenberg Political Report, a nonpartisan newsletter on U.S. politics.
It’s this bunching, more than any redistricting edge, that enabled Republicans to retain a lead of 234 seats to 201 in the House of Representatives this year even though Democrats received a million more votes over all in House races. There is little to suggest this advantage will lessen in the years ahead.
Conventions matter more than debates: The news media treat the national political conventions as irrelevant dinosaurs; the presidential debates are depicted as the Super Bowl or World Cup of politics.
It didn’t work out that way this year. The conventions mattered more. Mr. Romney and the Republicans blew a chance at the convention in Tampa, Florida, to reset his candidacy. At their convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, the Democrats stepped up to the challenge, especially with a powerful speech by former President Bill Clinton that set the basis for more positive public attitudes about the U.S. economy.
Mr. Obama’s disastrous performance in his first debate with Mr. Romney certainly mattered, though the duration of the Republican nominee’s bounce was exaggerated. Before that debate, the president was about four points ahead nationally; that was close to his final margin.
Moving to the center is tough in the media age: Richard M. Nixon advised Republicans to run to the right in the primaries and to quickly move to the center in the general election. This formula worked as recently as 1980 for Ronald Reagan. For Democrats, the formula is to run to the left in the primaries and to move to the center in the general election.
This is much harder to do today with the omnipresent news media tracking and assembling every public pronouncement and policy change. Mr. Romney tried to pivot after the primaries; there is little evidence that it worked well. He couldn’t escape earlier assertions that had alienated Hispanics (calling for undocumented workers to choose self-deportation) or women (boasting that he would end U.S. government funding for Planned Parenthood).
There are polls — and polls: Polls done on the cheap, automatic phone calls, some online surveys and partisan polls all missed the mark. More professional polls, with telephone interviews, conducted for the news media and other sources, were accurate in most instances.
Campaigns matter: Improving attitudes about the economy and, to a small degree, the president’s response to Hurricane Sandy, moved the needle in the closing weeks. Mr. Obama was indisputably a better political candidate.
The contrasting campaigns widened the margin. Post-election forums at Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania, and the campaign e-book “The End of the Line,” by Jonathan Martin and Glenn Thrush of the Web site Politico, illustrated the Obama campaign’s supremacy on tactics: polling, the use of digital and social media, advertising, identifying voters and getting them to the polls.
The biggest advantage was overarching, strategic. “We knew who our guy was and where the country was,” said Stephanie Cutter, Mr. Obama’s deputy campaign manager. “They didn’t seem to have a sense of either.”
While it does have drawbacks just like anything else, Microsoft’s (MSFT) Surface is a great slate for those looking for a fresh new take on the modern tablet. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like very many people were looking for a fresh new take on the modern tablet this holiday season. In a recent note to investors, R.W. Baird analyst William Power recounted recent conversations had at retailers including Best Buy (BBY) and Staples (SPLS). While speaking with sales reps at the stores, Apple’s (AAPL) iPad was the most highly recommended tablet while Amazon’s (AMZN) Kindle Fire line and Samsung’s (005930) Galaxy Tab line were both recommended as alternatives. Microsoft’s Surface tablet, on the other hand, was not pushed by reps at either chain.
[More from BGR: Purported photo of new BlackBerry phone with QWERTY keyboard leaks]
From Power’s note, as picked up by Barron’s:
[More from BGR: Sprint salesman refuses to sell iPhone to customer, says his ‘fingers are too fat’ to use it]
Microsoft’s Surface, which Best Buy just recently started carrying, was not recommended to us by reps without us asking about it specifically. When asked about sales to date, reps noted that the device was new and indicated that early demand has been modest relative to the iPad and Kindle Fire. We would also note that the device was in stock at every store we contacted […] We contacted Staples stores in an effort to further gauge Microsoft Surface sales, though our impression from speaking with reps was tablets are not a major seller at Staples. Tellingly, Staples doesn’t currently carry the iPad. When pressed for details, Staples reps indicated that Surface volumes have been modest to date. Most reps told us that the primary appeal to Surface buyers is the ability to run Microsoft Office. Consistent with our Best Buy checks, the Surface was also in stock at all Staples stores we contacted. Outside of the Surface, the Google Nexus 10 was cited as another strong tablet option.
Further supporting the idea that Microsoft’s debut tablet wasn’t a big seller this holiday season, Twitter user A.X. Ian did a quick analysis of tweets discussing new tablets during a 24-hour period around Christmas Eve.
Based on his data, 1,795 people tweeted about getting a new iPad during that time span while 250 tweeted about their new Kindle Fires, 100 mentioned their new Nexus 10 tablets and just 36 tweets were posted by users who had received a new Surface.
This article was originally published by BGR
Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News
12/28/2012 at 11:00 AM ET
XPosure
Hold off on the congratulations — at least for now.
News and social media sites lit up on Thursday after Shakira‘s boyfriend, FC Barcelona soccer star Gerard Piqué, posted a message on Twitter, announcing the arrival of their baby boy.
“”Our son has been born!” he wrote in Spanish. “We’re very happy! Thank you all for your messages!”
But the baby buzz was short-lived after the father-to-be’s fan following started calling out the coincidental timing of it all — Dec. 28 is Dia de Los Santos Inocentes in Spain and other parts of Latin America, a holiday much like April Fools’ Day.
And all bets on baby’s birth were officially off when Piqué confessed to his prank with a follow-up message Friday morning.
“He has a name! His name is Innocence!” he Tweeted. “Happy Day of the Innocents to everyone!”
– Aaron Parsley and Anya Leon
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The director of the Pumwani Maternity Hospital, located in a hardscrabble neighborhood of downtown Nairobi, freely acknowledges what he's accused of: detaining mothers who can't pay their bills. Lazarus Omondi says it's the only way he can keep his medical center running.
Two mothers who live in a mud-wall and tin-roof slum a short walk from the maternity hospital, which is affiliated with the Nairobi City Council, told The Associated Press that Pumwani wouldn't let them leave after delivering their babies. The bills the mothers couldn't afford were $60 and $160. Guards would beat mothers with sticks who tried to leave without paying, one of the women said.
Now, a New York-based group has filed a lawsuit on the women's behalf in hopes of forcing Pumwani to stop the practice, a practice Omondi is candid about.
"We hold you and squeeze you until we get what we can get. We must be self-sufficient," Omondi said in an interview in his hospital office. "The hospital must get money to pay electricity, to pay water. We must pay our doctors and our workers."
"They stay there until they pay. They must pay," he said of the 350 mothers who give birth each week on average. "If you don't pay the hospital will collapse."
The Center for Reproductive Rights, which filed the suit this month in the High Court of Kenya, says detaining women for not paying is illegal. Pumwani is associated with the Nairobi City Council, one reason it might be able to get away with such practices, and the patients are among Nairobi's poorest with hardly anyone to stand up for them.
Maimouna Awuor was an impoverished mother of four when she was to give birth to her fifth in October 2010. Like many who live in Nairobi's slums, Awuor performs odd jobs in the hopes of earning enough money to feed her kids that day. Awuor, who is named in the lawsuit, says she had saved $12 and hoped to go to a lower-cost clinic but was turned away and sent to Pumwani. After giving birth, she couldn't pay the $60 bill, and was held with what she believes was about 60 other women and their infants.
"We were sleeping three to a bed, sometimes four," she said. "They abuse you, they call you names," she said of the hospital staff.
She said saw some women tried to flee but they were beaten by the guards and turned back. While her husband worked at a faraway refugee camp, Awuor's 9-year-old daughter took care of her siblings. A friend helped feed them, she said, while the children stayed in the family's 50-square-foot shack, where rent is $18 a month. She says she was released after 20 days after Nairobi's mayor paid her bill. Politicians in Kenya in general are expected to give out money and get a budget to do so.
A second mother named in the lawsuit, Margaret Anyoso, says she was locked up in Pumwani for six days in 2010 because she could not pay her $160 bill. Her pregnancy was complicated by a punctured bladder and heavy bleeding.
"I did not see my child until the sixth day after the surgery. The hospital staff were keeping her away from me and it was only when I caused a scene that they brought her to me," said Anyoso, a vegetable seller and a single mother with five children who makes $5 on a good day.
Anyoso said she didn't have clothes for her child so she wrapped her in a blood-stained blouse. She was released after relatives paid the bill.
One woman says she was detained for nine months and was released only after going on a hunger strike. The Center for Reproductive Rights says other hospitals also detain non-paying patients.
Judy Okal, the acting Africa director for the Center for Reproductive Rights, said her group filed the lawsuit so all Kenyan women, regardless of socio-economic status, are able to receive health care without fear of imprisonment. The hospital, the attorney general, the City Council of Nairobi and two government ministries are named in the suit.
___
Associated Press reporter Tom Odula contributed to this report.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks fell on Friday, putting the S&P 500 on track for a fifth straight decline, as President Barack Obama and top congressional leaders were set to make a last-ditch attempt to steer the country away from severe fiscal austerity next year.
Obama and lawmakers from both political parties will meet at the White House on Friday afternoon for talks in an effort to agree on a solution before a New Year's deadline to keep large tax hikes and spending cuts from taking effect. Economists say that combination of automatic higher taxes and lower government spending - known as the "fiscal cliff" - could push the U.S. economy into a recession.
Trading was volatile and stocks rebounded from their session lows after unconfirmed reports that President Obama was about to offer a new plan to Republicans.
But investors' pessimism about achieving anything more than a stop-gap deal by the deadline was reflected in the benchmark S&P 500's drop of 1.3 percent so far this week. The broad index was on pace for its worst weekly performance since mid-November.
A five-day decline would be the S&P 500's longest losing streak in three months.
"There's a pretty good chance that we won't have something in hand by year-end," said Jonathan Golub, chief U.S. equity strategist at UBS, in New York. "It should be pretty obvious that that is now the majority case."
Golub, however, said investors were still counting on a deal that would avoid most of the tax hikes and spending cuts next year even if it does come after the deadline.
"It is widely believed that we're going to get a deal," he said. "We are not going to go over the cliff to the extent that we have a huge economic contraction."
With time running short, members of Congress may attempt to pass a retroactive fix to neutralize tax increases and spending cuts soon after the automatic fiscal policies come into effect on January 1.
The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> fell 65.65 points, or 0.50 percent, to 13,030.66. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> dropped 6.03 points, or 0.43 percent, to 1,412.07. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> slipped 7.29 points, or 0.24 percent, to 2,978.62.
"It doesn't matter which side wins, but at this point, nobody wants to play a game where there aren't rules," said Joe Costigan, director of equity research at Bryn Mawr Trust, in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania.
"So everybody is talking about what the prospects are for changes in the rules. But at the end of the day, nothing is happening."
Highlighting Wall Street's sensitivity to developments in Washington, stocks tumbled slightly more than 1 percent on Thursday after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid warned that a deal was unlikely before the deadline. But late in the day, the three major U.S. stock indexes rebounded and ended down just 0.1 percent after the U.S. House of Representatives said it would hold an unusual Sunday session to work on a fiscal solution.
With many investors away for the holiday-shortened week, volume is expected to remain light and that could exacerbate the stock market's swings.
Positive economic data failed to alter the market's downtrend.
The National Association of Realtors said contracts to buy previously owned U.S. homes rose in November to their highest level in 2-1/2 years, while a report from the Institute for Supply Management-Chicago showed business activity in the U.S. Midwest expanded in December.
Barnes & Noble Inc
Shares of magicJack VocalTec Ltd
The U.S.-listed shares of Canadian drugmaker Aeterna Zentaris Inc surged 16.1 percent to $2.52 after the company said it had reached an agreement with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on a special protocol assessment by the FDA for a Phase 3 registration trial in endometrial cancer with AEZS-108 treatment.
(Reporting by Edward Krudy; Editing by Jan Paschal)
Shiho Fukada for The New York Times
Tourists at the Whampoa Military Academy, on Changzhou Island in Guangzhou.
GUANGZHOU, China — It was 1926, not long after the fall of the Qing dynasty, and much of China had been divided among warlords. In the south, leaders of the young Kuomintang mustered an army. At its head rode Chiang Kai-shek, who called to his side officers he had helped train, and together they marched north to take down the warlords, one by one.
The Northern Expedition was one of the first major tests for graduates of the Whampoa Military Academy, founded just two years earlier on quiet Changzhou Island, about 10 miles east of central Guangzhou, then known to the West as Canton. Mr. Chiang was the academy’s first commandant, appointed by Sun Yat-sen, the idealistic firebrand who wanted to build an army that would unite China.
The academy, now a collection of two-story white buildings near an active naval yard, stands as one of the most potent symbols of the nationalist movement led by Mr. Sun, which has strong contemporary echoes in the rallying cry that Xi Jinping made to his fellow Chinese after taking over in November as general secretary of the Communist Party.
Mr. Xi has spoken of a “great revival of the Chinese nation,” apparently to be accomplished through further opening the economy, tackling official corruption and building up the military. This month, on his first trip outside Beijing, Mr. Xi traveled to several cities here in Guangdong Province; the tour included visits with senior officers of the People’s Liberation Army and a photo opportunity on a naval destroyer. Though he did not visit the Whampoa academy, the message Mr. Xi was telegraphing was the same one Mr. Sun had relayed a century ago.
“When Sun Yat-sen founded the Whampoa academy, his goal was to unite China and to revive China as a nation, which is exactly the same mission that Secretary Xi is on,” said Zeng Qingliu, a historian with the Guangzhou Academy of Social Sciences who wrote a television script for a drama series on Whampoa. “Under that goal and that mission, Chinese people from all over the world and across the country were attracted to Whampoa.”
In fits and starts since the end of the Mao era, the Communists and the Kuomintang, who decamped to Taiwan after losing the civil war in 1949, have been engaging in rapprochement. The Whampoa academy represents an era when the two sides cooperated for a greater good, and recent exhibitions organized there by a museum portray the Kuomintang in a relatively conciliatory light. That, too, has resonance with Mr. Xi’s clarion call, which is meant to inspire all Chinese, even those outside the mainland, including in Taiwan, to take part in the Communist-led project of reviving the motherland.
The first class at Whampoa had 600 students, 100 Communists among them, Mr. Zeng said. Prominent Russian advisers worked at the school. Zhou Enlai was the political director, and other famous Communists held posts or trained there. But the school was never under the party’s control.
The Kuomintang moved it to the city of Nanjing in 1927, after a split with the Communists, and then to the southwestern city of Chengdu, after the Japanese occupied Nanjing, then known as Nanking. After the Kuomintang moved to Taiwan, they established a military academy there that they called the successor to Whampoa. But when historians speak of Whampoa, they mean the original incarnation of the school, before it moved from Guangzhou, Mr. Zeng said.
Japanese bombs decimated the campus in 1938; it was not rebuilt until after 1984, when plans were made to establish a museum. The white buildings interlaced with thick wooden beams are recreations of the originals. A statue of Mr. Sun overlooks the site from a hill. Military enthusiasts, history buffs and other tourists reach the museum by a 10-minute ferry ride from a quiet pier on the east side of Guangzhou.
On a recent afternoon, a young woman guided a handful of soldiers. They walked along a balcony on the second floor and peered into the recreated rooms, including a dormitory with dozens of simple beds on wooden floorboards, a dining room and Mr. Sun’s office.
Outside the main gate, not far from a black wall inscribed with the names of fallen soldiers, tour groups posed for photographs. Then they walked slowly through the gallery rooms to gaze at the black-and-white photos and paintings that showed, from a party-approved perspective, the history of China’s 20th-century wars.
This year, there was a special exhibition on Chinese soldiers who had fought the Japanese in southwest China, along the Burma Road. The exhibition included photographs of Lt. Gen. Claire Lee Chennault, the American aviator who led the “Flying Tigers” unit in that theater. One showed him with Mr. Chiang.
Apple’s (AAPL) share of the global tablet market is in decline now that low-cost Android slates are proliferating, but the iPad still appears to be the most used tablet by a huge margin. Ad firm Chitika regularly monitors tablet traffic in the United States and Canada and in its latest report, Apple’s iPad was responsible for almost 90% of all tablet traffic across the company’s massive network.
[More from BGR: Samsung looks to address its biggest weakness in 2013]
Using a sample of tens of millions of impressions served to tablets between December 8th and December 14th this year, Chitika determined that various iPad models collectively accounted for 87% of tablet traffic in North America. That figure is down a point from the prior month but still represents a commanding lead in the space.
[More from BGR: New purported BlackBerry Z10 specs emerge: 1.5GHz processor, 2GB RAM, 8MP camera]
The next closest device line, Amazon’s (AMZN) Kindle Fire tablet family, had a 4.25% share of tablet traffic during that period, up from 3.57% in November. Samsung’s (005930) Galaxy tablets made up 2.65% of traffic, up from 2.36%, and Google’s (GOOG) Nexus 7 and Nexus 10 tablets combined to account for 1.06% of tablet traffic in early December.
“Despite these gains by some of the bigger players in the tablet marketplace, there has been a negligible impact to Apple’s dominant usage share,” Chitika wrote in a post on its blog.
This article was originally published by BGR
Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News
12/27/2012 at 11:50 AM ET
Splash News Online
Christmas came late for this King!
Nathan Followill and his wife Jessie Baylin welcomed daughter Violet Marlowe Followill on Wednesday, Dec. 26 in Nashville, his rep confirms to PEOPLE.
“Mom, Dad and baby are doing well and are so in love!” a rep for the band says.
Violet, who was born at 4:01 p.m. weighing 7 lbs., 13 oz, is the first child for the Kings of Leon drummer, 33, and the singer/songwriter, 28, who announced the pregnancy in June.
“I’m beyond excited/anxious,” Followill, who wed Baylin in November 2009, Tweeted at the time of the announcement.
Baby girl is in good company — she joins cousins Dixie Pearl, the daughter of frontman Caleb Followill and Lily Aldridge, and Knox Cameron Patrick, the son of guitarist Matthew Followill.
– Anya Leon with reporting by Kevin O’Donnell
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The director of the Pumwani Maternity Hospital, located in a hardscrabble neighborhood of downtown Nairobi, freely acknowledges what he's accused of: detaining mothers who can't pay their bills. Lazarus Omondi says it's the only way he can keep his medical center running.
Two mothers who live in a mud-wall and tin-roof slum a short walk from the maternity hospital, which is affiliated with the Nairobi City Council, told The Associated Press that Pumwani wouldn't let them leave after delivering their babies. The bills the mothers couldn't afford were $60 and $160. Guards would beat mothers with sticks who tried to leave without paying, one of the women said.
Now, a New York-based group has filed a lawsuit on the women's behalf in hopes of forcing Pumwani to stop the practice, a practice Omondi is candid about.
"We hold you and squeeze you until we get what we can get. We must be self-sufficient," Omondi said in an interview in his hospital office. "The hospital must get money to pay electricity, to pay water. We must pay our doctors and our workers."
"They stay there until they pay. They must pay," he said of the 350 mothers who give birth each week on average. "If you don't pay the hospital will collapse."
The Center for Reproductive Rights, which filed the suit this month in the High Court of Kenya, says detaining women for not paying is illegal. Pumwani is associated with the Nairobi City Council, one reason it might be able to get away with such practices, and the patients are among Nairobi's poorest with hardly anyone to stand up for them.
Maimouna Awuor was an impoverished mother of four when she was to give birth to her fifth in October 2010. Like many who live in Nairobi's slums, Awuor performs odd jobs in the hopes of earning enough money to feed her kids that day. Awuor, who is named in the lawsuit, says she had saved $12 and hoped to go to a lower-cost clinic but was turned away and sent to Pumwani. After giving birth, she couldn't pay the $60 bill, and was held with what she believes was about 60 other women and their infants.
"We were sleeping three to a bed, sometimes four," she said. "They abuse you, they call you names," she said of the hospital staff.
She said saw some women tried to flee but they were beaten by the guards and turned back. While her husband worked at a faraway refugee camp, Awuor's 9-year-old daughter took care of her siblings. A friend helped feed them, she said, while the children stayed in the family's 50-square-foot shack, where rent is $18 a month. She says she was released after 20 days after Nairobi's mayor paid her bill. Politicians in Kenya in general are expected to give out money and get a budget to do so.
A second mother named in the lawsuit, Margaret Anyoso, says she was locked up in Pumwani for six days in 2010 because she could not pay her $160 bill. Her pregnancy was complicated by a punctured bladder and heavy bleeding.
"I did not see my child until the sixth day after the surgery. The hospital staff were keeping her away from me and it was only when I caused a scene that they brought her to me," said Anyoso, a vegetable seller and a single mother with five children who makes $5 on a good day.
Anyoso said she didn't have clothes for her child so she wrapped her in a blood-stained blouse. She was released after relatives paid the bill.
One woman says she was detained for nine months and was released only after going on a hunger strike. The Center for Reproductive Rights says other hospitals also detain non-paying patients.
Judy Okal, the acting Africa director for the Center for Reproductive Rights, said her group filed the lawsuit so all Kenyan women, regardless of socio-economic status, are able to receive health care without fear of imprisonment. The hospital, the attorney general, the City Council of Nairobi and two government ministries are named in the suit.
___
Associated Press reporter Tom Odula contributed to this report.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Dow fell 1 percent as stocks added to losses on Thursday. The Nasdaq and S&P 500 earlier declined more than 1 percent, with worries about the U.S. "fiscal cliff" after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid warned the United States appeared poised to head over it.
The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was down 143.83 points, or 1.10 percent, at 12,970.76. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was down 17.60 points, or 1.24 percent, at 1,402.23. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was down 38.09 points, or 1.27 percent, at 2,952.07.
(Reporting By Caroline Valetkevitch; Editing by Kenneth Barry)
TOKYO — Parliament formally elected Shinzo Abe as prime minister on Wednesday, ending a three-year break from decades of near-constant rule by his conservative Liberal Democratic Party.
The victory puts Mr. Abe, 58, a former prime minister and an outspoken nationalist, at Japan’s helm as it faces the growing burden of its aging population, years of industrial decline and the challenge of an increasingly assertive China. The change in prime ministers is the seventh in six years, a high turnover that is itself a sign of the nation’s inability to escape its long economic funk.
Mr. Abe won the support of 328 members of the 480-seat lower house, a total that included votes from the Liberal Democrats’ coalition partner, a small Buddhist party.
Mr. Abe’s pro-business party won a landslide victory over the left-leaning Democratic Party in lower-house elections on Dec. 16. Earlier on Wednesday, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda and his cabinet resigned to make way for the new leader.
Despite Mr. Abe’s vows to strengthen control of a chain of islands in the East China Sea that both Japan and China claim, he has played down any confrontations between Tokyo and its Asian neighbors since the elections, instead focusing his agenda on lifting Japan’s economy out of recession before the upper-house elections next summer.
Mr. Abe has vowed to encourage growth quickly by offering 10 trillion yen, or about $120 billion, in public works and other emergency stimulus spending. He has also promised to force the central bank to move more aggressively to combat deflation and to weaken the value of the yen, actions that would offer relief to beleaguered export industries by making Japanese products cheaper abroad.
The measures are intended to revive the economy ahead of the elections in June, to give Mr. Abe’s party a better chance of winning the upper house and, with it, control of Parliament. Mr. Abe will have to hurry to retain the support of Japan’s weary voters, who have shown themselves quick to turn against leaders who fail to deliver on promises of change.
Immediately after the vote on Wednesday, Mr. Abe began appointing a cabinet filled with relatively young and unknown faces. While many of these appointees are Mr. Abe’s friends, the fresh lineup is also apparently intended to emphasize that the party has changed since it was driven from power three years ago.
Among the few veterans in the cabinet is Taro Aso, 72, a former prime minister, who was appointed finance minister. The post of foreign minister went to Fumio Kishida, 55, a former minister in charge of Okinawan affairs. He is expected to try to smooth ties with the United States, which have been frayed by a dispute over an American air base on Okinawa.
Mr. Abe will face other early challenges, like bridging a rift within his party over whether Japan should join a new regional free-trade agreement led by the United States. The pact, called the Trans-Pacific Partnership, is supported by business leaders but opposed by farmers, two groups that are among the staunchest supporters of the Liberal Democrats.
Another challenge will be responding to China’s stepped-up efforts to assert its claims to the disputed islands, which Japan calls the Senkaku and China calls the Diaoyu. Chinese ships and, more recently, aircraft now make almost daily incursions into Japanese-controlled waters and airspace near the islands, with no signs of letting up.
Mr. Abe has been vague about whether he will shift his energies to his long-held desire to rewrite Japan’s antiwar Constitution to allow for a full-fledged military.
Mr. Abe and other conservatives say such a step is needed for Japan to stand up for itself in light of China’s growing strength, and to share more of the regional security burden with the United States. However, the move could also be seen as provocative by China and South Korea, two victims of Japan’s World War II-era militaristic policies.
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — Riding side by side as a police officer answers a call for help or investigates a brutal crime during a ridealong gives citizens an up close look at the gritty and sometimes dangerous situations officers can experience on the job.
But a new approach to informing the public about what officers do is taking hold at police departments across the United States and Canada 7/8— one that is far less dangerous for citizens but, police say, just as informative.
With virtual ridealongs on Twitter, or tweetalongs, curious citizens just need a computer or smartphone for a glimpse into law enforcement officers‘ daily routines.
Tweetalongs typically are scheduled for a set number of hours, with an officer — or a designated tweeter like the department’s public information officer— posting regular updates to Twitter about what they are seeing as they perform their normal on-duty routine. The tweets, which also include photos and links to videos of the officers, can encompass an array of activities — everything from an officer responding to a homicide to a noise complaint.
Police departments say virtual ridealongs reach a wider range of people at once and help add transparency to the job.
“People spend hard-earned money on taxes to allow the government to provide services. That’s police, fire, water, streets, the whole works, and there should be a way for those government agencies to let the public know what they’re getting for their money,” said Steve Allender, chief of the Rapid City Police Department in South Dakota, which started offering tweetalongs several months ago after watching departments like those in Seattle, Kansas City, Mo., and Las Vegas do so.
On the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, Tarah Heupel, the public information officer for the Rapid City Police Department, rode alongside Street Crimes Officer Ron Terviel as he patrolled Rapid City. Heupel posted regular updates every few minutes about what Terviel was doing, including the officer citing a woman for public intoxication, responding to a call of three teenagers attempting to steal cough syrup and body spray from a store and locating a man who ran from the scene of an accident. Photos were included in some of the tweets.
Michael Taddesse, a 34-year-old university career specialist in Arlington, Texas, has done several ridealongs with police and regularly follows multiple departments that conduct tweetalongs.
“I think the only way to effectively combat crime is to have a community that is engaged and understands what’s going on,” he said.
Ridealongs where “you’re out in the elements” are very different than sitting behind a computer during a tweetalong and the level of danger is “dramatically decreased,” he said. But in both instances, the passenger gains new information about the call, what laws may or may not have been broken and what transpires, he added.
For police departments, tweetalongs are just one more way to connect directly with a community through social media.
More than 92 percent of police departments use social media, according to a survey of 600 agencies in 48 states conducted by the International Association of Chiefs of Police’s Center for Social Media. And Nancy Kolb, senior program manager for IACP, called tweetalongs a “growing trend” among departments of all sizes.
There is no set protocol and departments are free to conduct the tweetalong how they see fit, she said.
In Ontario, Canada, the Niagara Regional Police Service conducted their first virtual ridealong in August over a busy eight-hour Friday night shift. The police department‘s followers were able to see a tweet whenever the police unit was dispatched to one of the more than 140,000 calls received that night.
Richard Gadreau, the social media officer for the police department, said officers routinely take people out on real ridealongs, but there is a waiting list and preference is given to people interested in becoming an officer.
With tweetalongs, many calls also mean many tweets. Kolb said departments are cognizant of cluttering peoples’ Twitter feeds.
That’s why the Rapid City Police Department decided to create a separate account for the tweetalong, Allender said.
Kolb also said officers are careful not to tweet personal or sensitive information. Officers typically do not tweet child abuse or domestic abuse cases, and they usually only tweet about a call after they leave the scene to protect officers and callers.
But Allender, the chief of police in Rapid City, said tweetalongs also show some of the more outrageous calls police deal with on a regular basis — like the kid who breaks out the window of a police car while the officer is standing on the sidewalk.
“Real life is funnier than any comedy show out there and not to make fun of people, embarrass them or humiliate them, but people do funny things,” Allender said. “… I mean, that guy deserves a little bit of ridicule, and everyone who would be watching would agree. That’s just good clean fun to me.”
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Follow Kristi Eaton on Twitter at http://twitter.com/kristieaton
Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News
12/26/2012 at 11:30 AM ET
SPW/Splash News Online. Inset: Startraks
The bangs may have been fake (turns out they were just clip-ins), but Kim Kardashian‘s new hair shade is definitely for real.
Just before Christmas, the reality star decided to go back to her roots — literally — and color her mane a super-deep brown, almost black hue.
For the past few months (while filming Kim and Kourtney Take Miami) the star had been sporting light caramel locks, but Kardashian was clearly ready for a change.
“After Miami I was honestly just soooo over it being light and listened to the suggestions to take my hair back to my natural color!” the star wrote on her website.
Hmm … wonder who it was offering up the suggestions … Her boyfriend and occasional stylist Kanye West, perhaps? After all, he’s supposedly the one responsible for getting her to wear so much black in her wardrobe.
The last time Kardashian had hair this dark was in August, and we’re happy to see her go back to her natural color. Tell us: Do you prefer Kardashian with dark or light hair?
–Jennifer Cress
PHOTOS: SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON 2012′s CELEBRITY HAIR MAKEOVERS!
CHICAGO (AP) — It happened after Columbine, Virginia Tech, Aurora, Colo., and now Sandy Hook: People figure there surely were signs of impending violence. But experts say predicting who will be the next mass shooter is virtually impossible — partly because as commonplace as these calamities seem, they are relatively rare crimes.
Still, a combination of risk factors in troubled kids or adults including drug use and easy access to guns can increase the likelihood of violence, experts say.
But warning signs "only become crystal clear in the aftermath, said James Alan Fox, a Northeastern University criminology professor who has studied and written about mass killings.
"They're yellow flags. They only become red flags once the blood is spilled," he said.
Whether 20-year-old Adam Lanza, who used his mother's guns to kill her and then 20 children and six adults at their Connecticut school, made any hints about his plans isn't publicly known.
Fox said that sometimes, in the days, weeks or months preceding their crimes, mass murderers voice threats, or hints, either verbally or in writing, things like "'don't come to school tomorrow,'" or "'they're going to be sorry for mistreating me.'" Some prepare by target practicing, and plan their clothing "as well as their arsenal." (Police said Lanza went to shooting ranges with his mother in the past but not in the last six months.)
Although words might indicate a grudge, they don't necessarily mean violence will follow. And, of course, most who threaten never act, Fox said.
Even so, experts say threats of violence from troubled teens and young adults should be taken seriously and parents should attempt to get them a mental health evaluation and treatment if needed.
"In general, the police are unlikely to be able to do anything unless and until a crime has been committed," said Dr. Paul Appelbaum, a Columbia University professor of psychiatry, medicine and law. "Calling the police to confront a troubled teen has often led to tragedy."
The American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry says violent behavior should not be dismissed as "just a phase they're going through."
In a guidelines for families, the academy lists several risk factors for violence, including:
—Previous violent or aggressive behavior
—Being a victim of physical or sexual abuse
—Guns in the home
—Use of drugs or alcohol
—Brain damage from a head injury
Those with several of these risk factors should be evaluated by a mental health expert if they also show certain behaviors, including intense anger, frequent temper outbursts, extreme irritability or impulsiveness, the academy says. They may be more likely than others to become violent, although that doesn't mean they're at risk for the kind of violence that happened in Newtown, Conn.
Lanza, the Connecticut shooter, was socially withdrawn and awkward, and has been said to have had Asperger's disorder, a mild form of autism that has no clear connection with violence.
Autism experts and advocacy groups have complained that Asperger's is being unfairly blamed for the shootings, and say people with the disorder are much more likely to be victims of bullying and violence by others.
According to a research review published this year in Annals of General Psychiatry, most people with Asperger's who commit violent crimes have serious, often undiagnosed mental problems. That includes bipolar disorder, depression and personality disorders. It's not publicly known if Lanza had any of these, which in severe cases can include delusions and other psychotic symptoms.
Young adulthood is when psychotic illnesses typically emerge, and Appelbaum said there are several signs that a troubled teen or young adult might be heading in that direction: isolating themselves from friends and peers, spending long periods alone in their rooms, plummeting grades if they're still in school and expressing disturbing thoughts or fears that others are trying to hurt them.
Appelbaum said the most agonizing calls he gets are from parents whose children are descending into severe mental illness but who deny they are sick and refuse to go for treatment.
And in the case of adults, forcing them into treatment is difficult and dependent on laws that vary by state.
All states have laws that allow some form of court-ordered treatment, typically in a hospital for people considered a danger to themselves or others. Connecticut is among a handful with no option for court-ordered treatment in a less restrictive community setting, said Kristina Ragosta, an attorney with the Treatment Advocacy Center, a national group that advocates better access to mental health treatment.
Lanza's medical records haven't been publicly disclosed and authorities haven't said if it is known what type of treatment his family may have sought for him. Lanza killed himself at the school.
Jennifer Hoff of Mission Viejo, Calif. has a 19-year-old bipolar son who has had hallucinations, delusions and violent behavior for years. When he was younger and threatened to harm himself, she'd call 911 and leave the door unlocked for paramedics, who'd take him to a hospital for inpatient mental care.
Now that he's an adult, she said he has refused medication, left home, and authorities have indicated he can't be forced into treatment unless he harms himself — or commits a violent crime and is imprisoned. Hoff thinks prison is where he's headed — he's in jail, charged in an unarmed bank robbery.
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Online:
American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry: http://www.aacap.org
___
AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner
NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks fell on Wednesday as retailers' shares dropped sharply after a report that showed holiday shoppers were less enthusiastic than last year, with investors saying worries about the "fiscal cliff" may have kept them away from stores.
The Morgan Stanley retail index <.mvr> skidded 1.8 percent as holiday-related sales rose 0.7 percent from October 28 through December 24, compared with a 2 percent increase last year, according to data from MasterCard Advisors SpendingPulse. The SPDR S&P Retail Trust
Janna Sampson, co-chief investment officer of OakBrook Investments in Lisle, Illinois, said worries about "fiscal cliff" tax hikes and spending cuts next year had likely kept shoppers from a last-minute rush to the stores.
"I think people held back this year, just worried about that bigger cut out of their paycheck next year and having to tighten their belt," she said. "If you've got to tighten your belts starting in January, people start worrying about overspending."
Department stores' stocks slid. Macy's
President Barack Obama is due back in Washington early Thursday for a final effort to negotiate a deal with Congress to bridge a series of tax increases and government spending cuts set to begin next week. The president will leave Hawaii later on Wednesday, arriving in the capital early on Thursday.
The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> slipped 45.61 points, or 0.35 percent, to 13,093.47. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> shed 8.66 points, or 0.60 percent, to 1,418. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> dropped 23.10 points, or 0.77 percent, to 2,989.50.
Volume was light, with only 1.55 billion shares having traded at midday on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and the NYSE MKT. Many senior traders were still on vacation during this holiday-shortened week and major European markets were closed for the day.
Still, Wednesday marked the third day of losses for the S&P 500 in its worst three-day decline since mid-November.
A Republican plan that failed to gain traction last week triggered the S&P 500's recent drop, highlighting the market's sensitivity to headlines centered around the budget talks.
"No one is hitting the panic button yet, and part of that lack of panic selling is the notion that the Street is getting comfortable with the likelihood of a temporary fix for the fiscal cliff - something that gets us over the date of January 1 in a way where it can be re-addressed," said Peter Kenny, managing director at Knight Capital in Jersey City, New Jersey.
During the last five trading days of the year and the first two of next year, it's possible for a "Santa rally" to occur. Since 1928, the S&P 500 has averaged a gain of 1.8 percent during that period and risen 79 percent of the time, according to data from PrinceRidge.
The benchmark S&P 500 Index is up 12.8 percent for the year, and has recouped nearly all of the losses after the U.S. elections when the fiscal cliff concerns moved to the forefront. This is the best yearly gain for the S&P 500 since 2010.
Data showed U.S. single-family home prices rose in October, reinforcing the view that the domestic real estate market is improving, as the S&P/Case-Shiller composite index of 20 metropolitan areas gained 0.7 percent in October on a seasonally adjusted basis.
In the energy sector, China's Sinopec Group and ConocoPhillips
An outage at one of Amazon.com Inc's web service centers hit users of Netflix Inc's
(Reporting by Edward Krudy; Editing by Jan Paschal)
CAIRO — Hamdeen Sabahi was the most popular leader in the fight against Egypt’s new Islamist-backed constitution. Now he is preparing for his next battle: against Islamist leaders’ plans for Western-style free-market reforms.
Do not listen to your allies in the Muslim Brotherhood, Mr. Sabahi said he warned President Mohamed Morsi, of the Brotherhood’s political arm, in a private meeting a few weeks ago. “Because the Brotherhood’s economic and social thought is the same as Mubarak’s: the law of the markets,” Mr. Sabahi said he had told Mr. Morsi, referring to Hosni Mubarak, the former president. “You will just make the poor poorer, and they will be angry with you just as they were with Mubarak.”
Mr. Sabahi, 58, a leftist in the style of another former president, Gamal Abdel Nasser, frightens most economists. He is an outspoken opponent of free-market economic moves in general as well as of a pending $4.5 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund that economists say is urgently needed to avert a catastrophic currency collapse.
But to the dismay of some Western diplomats, Mr. Sabahi is emerging as an increasingly salient voice in Egyptian politics, in part because of the bruising race to ratify the Islamist-backed charter. Both sides now expect the anti-Islamist opposition to reap big gains in the coming parliamentary vote, set to be held in two months against the backdrop of a simultaneous debate over the I.M.F. loan.
Among Egypt’s opposition figures, Mr. Sabahi has the biggest base of support in the streets. After campaigning as a dark horse in the spring’s presidential election, he missed the runoff by fewer than a million votes, finishing the first round almost neck and neck with Mr. Morsi.
Economic overhaul now poses a critical test of Egypt’s fragile democracy. Without enough trust in government, the changes to the systems of taxes or subsidies needed to reduce the deficit could easily stir new unrest in the streets, just as such moves have in the past. But if Mr. Morsi expects his opponents to hold their fire just because economists say the need is dire, Mr. Sabahi said, the president should think again.
“Why support him, for what?” Mr. Sabahi said in an interview in the borrowed offices of an Egyptian film director, decorated with pictures of President Nasser but also of Che Guevara. “Is he a democratic ruler, is he a revolutionary? Is he a model of a president, so I want him to succeed?”
Mr. Sabahi, 58, known for writing poetry and quoting Arab literature and for his blow-dried hair, was one of the few non-Islamist politicians willing to endure imprisonment alongside the members of the Muslim Brotherhood in the struggle against Egypt’s autocracy, giving him a unique credibility among more secular leaders.
But after missing the presidential runoff this year, Mr. Sabahi declined to endorse either Mr. Morsi or his opponent, Ahmed Shafik, a former Mubarak prime minister. It was a choice between “tyranny in the name of the state” and “tyranny in the name of religion,” Mr. Sabahi said at the time in a television interview.
Mr. Sabahi argued in the interview that although Mr. Morsi won election democratically, he has failed to govern as a democrat. “He is kicking away the ladder he climbed,” Mr. Sabahi said, arguing that Mr. Morsi’s decree setting his authority above the courts, if only for a month, ended his credibility as a democrat.
The resulting discord between the Islamists and their opponents has postponed the I.M.F. loan and helped bring Egypt closer than ever to economic collapse. State media on Tuesday described a “dollarization frenzy” gripping the country as people raced to sell Egyptian pounds. The currency is at its lowest level in the past eight years.
Since Mr. Mubarak’s ouster, Egypt’s hard currency reserves have fallen to $15 billion from $43 billion as it has struggled to prop up the pound, and economists say the government now urgently needs a cash infusion of about $14 billion in order to stay afloat. The $4.5 billion I.M.F. loan is expected to act as a seal of approval for others, after the I.M.F. concludes Egypt is at least on a path to greater balance.
If that loan does not come through soon, “the risk is a disaster,” said Heba Handoussa of the Economic Research Forum. “We can’t afford to wait.”
There are other more Western-friendly faces of the opposition, like Mohamed ElBaradei, the former United Nations diplomat, and Amr Moussa, the former foreign minister. But neither has Mr. Sabahi’s following at the grass roots, and he speaks for a segment of the Egyptian public deeply suspicious of free markets and, especially, the I.M.F. A popular singer, El Manawahly, has even recorded a song and music video opposing the loan. “Oh monetary fund / Show me how to industrialize, plant and kneel.”
The infamous “Charlie Bit My Finger” video has surpassed half a billion views on YouTube — not bad for a 56-second clip of a one-year-old kid biting his older brother’s finger.
Charlie and Harry, now six and eight, returned to the web earlier this year with a new series through Viral Studios. The mini-episodes focus on the boys and their younger brother, Jasper, as they talk about toys, viral videos and — of course — biting things.
[More from Mashable: 8 Festive Christmas Tumblrs, Presented by Santa Dogs]
Mashable sat down for a Skype interview with the three boys last week. Unfortunately, the Internet connection wasn’t the greatest — Harry twice referred to me as a “man made out of boxes” because of the spotty video quality — but they were still able to talk about what toys they were most excited about this holiday season. Check ‘em out below:
[More from Mashable: Now and Then: 10 Awesome Past and Present Pics]
Price: $ 95.50
Image courtesy of Playmobil
Price: $ 19.99
Image courtesy of Fisher-Price
Price: £38.45 (only available in the U.K.)
Image courtesy of Amazon
You can catch all the episodes on the “Charlie Bit Me!” series on their YouTube page. Which toys or gadgets did you score this year? Tell us below.
BONUS: 10 Gifts for People You Hate
Price: $ 19.99 Mother Earth appreciates a little holiday upcycling. Your mother-in-law, on the other hand, may not. Cheaper DIY alternative: Your own toilet paper rolls.
Click here to view this gallery.
Image courtesy of Viral Studios
This story originally published on Mashable here.
Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News
12/25/2012 at 12:15 PM ET
Courtesy Jessica Simpson; Jamie McCarthy/WireImage
It’s official: the stork is once again headed to Jessica Simpson‘s house!
Just seven months after the singer and actress delivered daughter Maxwell Drew, Simpson and fiancé Eric Johnson are expecting their second child, the couple announced via Twitter Christmas Day.
Amid growing pregnancy speculation online, the Fashion Star mentor, 32, shared a photo of her baby girl wearing holiday pajamas and smiling in the sand atop the words, “BIG SIS.”
“Merry Christmas from my family to yours!” Simpson writes.
Recently, Simpson has been spotted around Los Angeles in loose-fitting clothing. She also appeared, in a figure-hugging black dress, at best friend Cacee Cobb‘s recent wedding to Donald Faison, where she served as maid of honor.
Simpson also had been touting her recent post-pregnancy weight loss of 60 lbs. after starring in commercials for Weight Watchers and working out with celebrity trainer Harley Pasternak.
– Andrea Billups and Sarah Michaud
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