Video games and shooting: Is the NRA right?

After a week of silence following the Sandy Hook school shooting that killed 20 first graders and six staff in Newtown, Conn., the National Rifle Association blamed the entertainment industry – specifically the producers of violent video games for inciting what has become a pattern of gun violence in the United States.

In describing the industry, NRA Vice President Wayne LaPierre said, “There exists in this country a callous, corrupt and corrupting shadow industry that sells, and sows, violence against its own people.”

Mr. LaPierre faulted the news media for failing to report on “vicious, violent video games” such as “Grand Theft Auto,” “Mortal Kombat,” and “Splatterhouse” as egregious examples. He also singled out “Kindergarten Killer,” a free, fairly obscure online game.

“How come my research department could find it and all of yours either couldn’t or didn’t want anyone to know you had found it?” he asked reporters.

Recommended: Second Amendment Quiz

Most academic research, as well as studies by the FBI and the US Secret Service, examining the link between violent video games and incident of violence does not support the gun lobby’s charge.

For example, a 2008 report by researchers at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital funded by the US Department of Justice found that violent video games may increase bullying or physical fighting in schools, but not mass gun violence.

“It’s clear that the ‘big fears’ bandied about in the press – that violent video games make children significantly more violent in the real world; that they will engage in the illegal, immoral, sexist and violent acts they see in some of these games – are not supported by the current research, at least in such a simplistic form,” the report states.

Joan Saab, director of the visual and cultural studies program at the University of Rochester in New York, says the gaming industry should share in the blame for promoting military weaponry to young people, but adds that the popularity of such games reflect the “larger culture we live in, which is heavily militarized,” in the midst of lengthy combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Ms. Saab says that the NRA’s call for armed guards in schools would make that kind of military culture more pervasive for children.

“If there are more armed guards in schools, kids are exposed to more guns. That’s when fantasy and reality aren’t blurred. When there are guns in schools, it becomes real life and the day-to-day environment becomes more dangerous than the game,” she says. In Newtown, as in Aurora, Colo. and the sites of other mass shootings, the gunman was outfitted in military-style dress.

By blaming video games for gun violence, the NRA also puts itself in a vulnerable position because, as Mother Jones reports, the company partnered with gaming producer Cave Entertainment in 2006 for “NRA Gun Club,” a PlayStation 2 game that allows users to fire over 100 different brand-name handguns.

LaPierre did not specify if Congress should move forward in regulating the gaming industry, perhaps because previous attempts were not successful.

A US Supreme Court ruling in 2011 struck down a California law that made it a crime to sell or rent what it classified as violent video games to minors. The ruling said the law, signed by then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) in 2005, violates First Amendment protections.

In the wake of Sandy Hook, Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller introduced a bill that calls for the National Academy of Sciences to examine the possible links between violent video games and violent incidents caused by children.

Overall, gun-based video games do not wholly represent total gaming industry sales, according to data from VGChartz, a UK-based research firm that tracks gaming sales. In 2011, for example, just seven of the top 20 best-selling games in the US involve warfare simulation. The other titles – “Just Dance 3,” “Kinect Adventures!” “New Super Mario Bros. Wii,” “Madden NFL 12,” and “Pokemon Black/White” – are designed around sports, dance, and children’s cartoon characters.

All of the games LaPierre mentions are more than 15 years old, with some dating back to the 1980s, with their popularity waning. For example, total unit sales in the US for the “Mortal Kombat” franchise dropped 70 percent in 2012, compared to the previous year total. The game debuted in 1992.

Gaming experts say that the majority of the games LaPierre cited do not portray gun violence – “Mortal Kombat” involves hand-to-hand combat, for example. They say they do not understand why he did not single out “first person shooter” games such as blockbuster franchises like the “Call of Duty” series, which is based on simulated gun action and is considered one of the most hyper-violent on the market. In fact, according to news reports, the game was also a favorite of Adam Lanza, the Newtown gunman who spent hours at home playing it.

“Some of those games [LaPierre mentions] are older than the [Newtown] shooter,” who was 20, says Christopher Grant, editor-in-chief of Polygon.com, an online site based in New York City that covers gaming news and trends. “I have no idea why he chose them. My theory is he didn’t want to pick anything too modern [such as ‘Call of Duty’ or ‘Doom’] that might overlap unfavorably with something their own members might enjoy.”

“Call of Duty” is known as a favorite of the military and is often credited for driving up recruitment. Activision Blizzard, the company behind “Call of Duty,” has donated thousands of copies to the US Navy; the company also created a non-profit foundation to help returning US military veterans.

According to the NPD Group, a global market research firm, retail gaming sales in the US plummeted 20 percent in the first eight months of 2012 compared to the same time period the previous year, a trend that follows years of declining sales. Between 2008 and 2011, total sales of industry software and hardware dropped 20.5 percent. According to the gaming industry website Gamasutra, 2012 sales are expected to be the lowest since 2006.

The sales drop is representative of major shifts in the gaming industry, which is slowly moving away from console-based games to those that are played via smartphones, digital tablets, and online through social networks.

The change has produced a new type of gamer: They are generally older, more ethnically and economically diverse, and they feed their gaming appetite in smaller bites and on-the-go, as opposed to the traditional gamer profile of a few years ago, which tended to be young males playing for hours in one sitting.

The Entertainment Software Association, an industry trade group based in Washington, reports that the average gamer today is 30 years old, the most frequent game purchaser is 35 years old, and that almost half (47 percent) of all gamers are women.

Recommended: Second Amendment Quiz

Related stories

Read this story at csmonitor.com

Become a part of the Monitor community

Gaming News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Title Post: Video games and shooting: Is the NRA right?
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment

Read More..

Emily VanCamp: My Boyfriend Likes When I Take Off My Makeup

12/22/2012 at 12:15 PM EST

Josh Bowman prefers his girlfriend Emily VanCamp to be au naturel.

"When I take off my makeup, that's my boyfriend's favorite," the Revenge star, 26, tells Women's Health in its January/February issue of her Revenge costar and real-life beau, 24. "And that, to me, is a symbol of a great guy – someone who doesn't care about all that [glamorous] stuff."

VanCamp first realized this special quality her man possessed when she was on a fishing trip with him and his dad in England.

"I was there in my baseball cap and these crappy fishing clothes," she explains. "And I remember thinking, this is when I feel 100 percent comfortable – in these dirty clothes with fish guts all over them. I know it sounds horrendous. I'm at my most confident when I'm in nature and I don't have to dress up."

Emily VanCamp

Courtesy Women's Health

When it comes to her relationship in general, she understands, "It's more about accepting each other as separate people," adding, "Laugh a lot and be really delicate with the other person’s heart, because sometimes you start to take each other for granted. Always remember that neither of you needs to be there. It's a choice every day to stay together."

But even a lady in love appreciates her alone time.

"I like to reflect," she says. "I need that sort of peace and quiet. It's something my friends and I laugh about: 'Oh, Emily’s having a night to herself.' It centers me."

Read More..

Predicting who's at risk for violence isn't easy

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.

___

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

Read More..

Wall Street Week Ahead: A lump of coal for "Fiscal Cliff-mas"

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wall Street traders are going to have to pack their tablets and work computers in their holiday luggage after all.

A traditionally quiet week could become hellish for traders as politicians in Washington are likely to fall short of an agreement to deal with $600 billion in tax hikes and spending cuts due to kick in early next year. Many economists forecast that this "fiscal cliff" will push the economy into recession.

Thursday's debacle in the U.S. House of Representatives, where Speaker John Boehner failed to secure passage of his own bill that was meant to pressure President Obama and Senate Democrats, only added to worry that the protracted budget talks will stretch into 2013.

Still, the market remains resilient. Friday's decline on Wall Street, triggered by Boehner's fiasco, was not enough to prevent the S&P 500 from posting its best week in four.

"The markets have been sort of taking this in stride," said Sandy Lincoln, chief market strategist at BMO Asset Management U.S. in Chicago, which has about $38 billion in assets under management.

"The markets still basically believe that something will be done," he said.

If something happens next week, it will come in a short time frame. Markets will be open for a half-day on Christmas Eve, when Congress will not be in session, and will close on Tuesday for Christmas. Wall Street will resume regular stock trading on Wednesday, but volume is expected to be light throughout the rest of the week with scores of market participants away on a holiday break.

For the week, the three major U.S. stock indexes posted gains, with the Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> up 0.4 percent, the S&P 500 <.spx> up 1.2 percent and the Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> up 1.7 percent.

Stocks also have booked solid gains for the year so far, with just five trading sessions left in 2012: The Dow has advanced 8 percent, while the S&P 500 has climbed 13.7 percent and the Nasdaq has jumped 16 percent.

IT COULD GET A LITTLE CRAZY

Equity volumes are expected to fall sharply next week. Last year, daily volume on each of the last five trading days dropped on average by about 49 percent, compared with the rest of 2011 - to just over 4 billion shares a day exchanging hands on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and NYSE MKT in the final five sessions of the year from a 2011 daily average of 7.9 billion.

If the trend repeats, low volumes could generate a spike in volatility as traders keep track of any advance in the cliff talks in Washington.

"I'm guessing it's going to be a low volume week. There's not a whole lot other than the fiscal cliff that is going to continue to take the headlines," said Joe Bell, senior equity analyst at Schaeffer's Investment Research, in Cincinnati.

"A lot of people already have a foot out the door, and with the possibility of some market-moving news, you get the possibility of increased volatility."

Economic data would have to be way off the mark to move markets next week. But if the recent trend of better-than-expected economic data holds, stocks will have strong fundamental support that could prevent selling from getting overextended even as the fiscal cliff negotiations grind along.

Small and mid-cap stocks have outperformed their larger peers in the last couple of months, indicating a shift in investor sentiment toward the U.S. economy. The S&P MidCap 400 Index <.mid> overcame a technical level by confirming its close above 1,000 for a second week.

"We view the outperformance of the mid-caps and the break of that level as a strong sign for the overall market," Schaeffer's Bell said.

"Whenever you have flight to risk, it shows investors are beginning to have more of a risk appetite."

Evidence of that shift could be a spike in shares in the defense sector, expected to take a hit as defense spending is a key component of the budget talks.

The PHLX defense sector index <.dfx> hit a historic high on Thursday, and far outperformed the market on Friday with a dip of just 0.26 percent, while the three major U.S. stock indexes finished the day down about 1 percent.

Following a half-day on Wall Street on Monday ahead of the Christmas holiday, Wednesday will bring the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index. It is expected to show a ninth-straight month of gains.

U.S. jobless claims on Thursday are seen roughly in line with the previous week's level, with the forecast at 360,000 new filings for unemployment insurance, compared with the previous week's 361,000.

(Wall St Week Ahead runs every Friday. Questions or comments on this column can be emailed to: rodrigo.campos(at)thomsonreuters.com)

(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos; Additional reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Jan Paschal)

Read More..

Taliban Claim Role in Attack That Kills Pakistan Politician

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility on Saturday for a suicide bomb attack that killed a senior politician in northwest Pakistan who was one of the group’s most vocal critics. At least eight other people were killed in the attack and more than 15 others were wounded, senior government officials and doctors at a local hospital said.

The politician, Bashir Ahmad Bilour, was a senior minister in the northwestern Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province, where the Taliban have a strong presence. Mr. Bilour was long on the target list of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, an umbrella organization of the Pakistani militant groups, for publicly denouncing them and challenging their violent policies.

Mr. Bilour was coming out of a meeting of his Pashtun nationalist Awami National Party in the provincial capital of Peshawar, when the suicide bomber blew himself up, said the secretary of home and tribal affairs, Azam Khan.

Mr. Bilour had been taken to the hospital in critical condition, said Dr. Arshad Javed, chief executive of the city’s Lady Reading Hospital.

Among those killed were Mr. Bilour’s secretary and a police officer, Mr. Khan said.

The provincial information minister, Mian Iftikhar Hussain, called for immediate action against militants in the nearby tribal region of North Waziristan, the safest haven for militants in Pakistan, saying it was time to take action against all militants. “Let there be no difference between good Taliban and bad Taliban,” he said.

A security analyst, Asad Munir, a retired brigadier, said the attack would further complicate campaigning in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province for a national election expected next year. He said that secular, liberal and nationalist parties would have a difficult time because they are on the Taliban hit list, and that, “Religious parties will take advantage of the situation.”

Also on Saturday, police officials in the southern province of Sindh said that a mob had tortured and killed a man accused of burning the Koran, the latest in a series of violent episodes in Pakistan stemming from allegations of blasphemy.

The killing occurred Friday in Seeta, a remote village in the Dadu district in southern Sindh Province. The village’s head cleric, Usman Memon, said charred remnants of the Koran had been found in the mosque that morning, and that the victim had been staying at the mosque alone. It is common for impoverished travelers and religious proselytizers to stay at mosques while traveling.

The man, whose name was not known, was handed over to the police and accused of violating Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, Mr. Memon said.

But as news of the episode spread later on Friday, an angry crowd gathered outside the police station and eventually forced its way in. The man was dragged out, tortured and killed, and his body was set on fire, according to the police.

Usman Ghani, the district’s senior police superintendent, said that he had suspended the official in charge of the police station and filed administrative charges against seven other officers for negligence.

He said that charges had been filed against 1,000 people believed to have participated in the mob action and that 150 people had been arrested.

Little was known about the victim or what motive he was thought to have had for burning the Koran, if he did so. Cases of violence arising from blasphemy accusations appear to be on the rise in Pakistan. Human rights groups have said that most of those victimized are members of religious minorities, particularly Christians, but Muslims are sometimes accused.

In a case similar to Friday’s, a mentally disabled man was beaten and burned to death in Punjab Province in July, also after an angry crowd broke into a police station.

Blasphemy is a capital crime in Pakistan, and it is a highly delicate and emotional issue for the deeply conservative country. Calls for repealing or revising the blasphemy laws have met with strong resistance from religious leaders, who have organized large protests against efforts to amend them. Two prominent advocates of changing the laws were assassinated last year.

Ismail Khan reported from Peshawar, and Salman Masood from Islamabad, Pakistan. Zia ur-Rehman contributed reporting from Karachi, Pakistan.

Read More..

Analysis: Apple’s swoon exposes risk lurking in mutual funds

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The nearly 28 percent decline in shares of Apple Inc since mid-September isn’t just painful to individual shareholders. It’s also being felt by investors who chased hot mutual funds that loaded up on Apple as the stock raced to a record $ 705 per share.

Apple makes up 10 percent or more of assets in 117 out of the 1,119 funds that own its shares, according to data from Lipper, a Thomson Reuters company. Those big stakes have contributed positively to each fund’s annual performance to date, with Apple still up about 32 percent for the year. It was trading at $ 527.73 soon after the opening on Friday.

But that year-to-date outcome may not accurately reflect the performance of the funds for individual investors. All told, approximately $ 4.5 billion has been added to funds with overweight stakes in Apple this year, according to Morningstar data. The majority of these dollars were invested after March and after Apple first exceeded $ 600 per share – meaning many investors have been riding down with the decline.

The $ 302 million Matthew 25 fund, for instance, holds 17.4 percent of its assets in Apple, according to Lipper. The fund’s 31.9 percent gain through Thursday makes it one of the top performing funds for the year.

Most of its Apple shares were bought years ago at a bargain basement price of about $ 125 per share. But $ 158.9 million of the fund’s assets – or 53 percent – were invested after the end of March, when Apple was trading near $ 615 per share, according to Morningstar data.

For those investors that bought after March, all that concentration in Apple hasn’t led to a stellar gain but rather a drag on the portfolio. Someone who invested in Matthew 25 in early April has seen the value of the fund’s Apple stake fall about 19 percent, while someone who invested at the beginning of September has watched that outsized Apple stake drop 27.2 percent.

In turn, the majority of the fund’s investors have reaped a much more modest performance than its year-end numbers suggest. Since the end of March, the fund has gained 6.7 percent, according to Morningstar data, far less than its 31 percent year-to-date gain and about two percentage points more than the benchmark Standard & Poor’s 500 index.

Since, September the fund is down nearly 3 percent through Thursday’s close, compared with a 1.1 percent decline in the S&P 500 in that period.

The impact of Apple’s falling stock price shows some of the drawbacks of portfolio concentration, experts say. These stakes can leave the funds overexposed to the ups and downs of one company – counter to what most mutual funds are supposed to do for investors.

“Any time you get over 10 percent of the portfolio in one company it’s a red flag,” said Michel Herbst, director of active fund research at Morningstar. Many fund managers do have risk management rules that prevent them from devoting more than 5 percent to 6 percent of their portfolio to any one stock, he said.

Then again, some funds purposely invest in just a few stocks. Mark Mulholland, the portfolio manager of the Matthew 25 fund, said that taking concentrated positions in companies is the only way to beat an index over longer periods of time.

‘RIGHT-SIZING’ PORTFOLIOS

Along with concerns about iPhone sales in China and tax-motivated selling among people who want to avoid potentially higher capital gains taxes in 2013, the wide fund ownership of Apple may be a factor in the size of the stock’s recent declines, fund managers said. In addition, with so many funds already heavily invested in the high-priced stock, there may be fewer marginal buyers available to push prices up again when shares begin to dip.

“The stock didn’t go from $ 700 to $ 520 because people didn’t like the new iPad. It’s become a favorite short of hedge funds because they know they can get in on this,” said Mark Spellman, a portfolio manager of the $ 300 million Value Line Income and Growth fund with a small position in Apple.

Short interest in the stock rose to 20.6 million shares at the end of November from 15.1 million shares at the end of September, according to Nasdaq.

“Some of my competitors have 12 percent of their assets in Apple, which I think is ludicrous”, said Spellman, who said the company is no longer trading on its fundamentals.

Sandy Villere, who has a 2.5 percent weighting of Apple in his $ 276 million Villere Balanced fund, said that some mutual fund managers are selling shares because of the over-weighting.

“Right now many people who did take huge overweight positions are right-sizing their portfolios to get it in line with their regular weightings,” he said.

Still, some bullish investors see the stock’s recent declines as a buying opportunity.

Mulholland, the Matthew 25 portfolio manager, continues to say that shares should be priced at over $ 1,000 per share based on his valuation of the company at 10 times enterprise value divided by earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA). Apple trades at about 7 times that figure now.

Wall Street analysts’ average price target as of Thursday is $ 742.56, according to Thomson Reuters data. But Mulholland is happy to be more bullish than his peers.

“I’m glad that I’m able to get it at these prices,” he said.

(Reporting By David Randall; Editing by Jennifer Merritt)

Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Title Post: Analysis: Apple’s swoon exposes risk lurking in mutual funds
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment

Read More..

Kim Kardashian Gets Dramatic in Trailer for New Tyler Perry Movie (Video)

12/21/2012 at 12:40 PM EST

She's doing what she does best: standing – pretty in pink – in skin-tight dress in the first few seconds of the new trailer for Tyler Perry's Temptation: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor.

Playing a character named Ava, Kim Kardashian, 32, is taking a stab at a dramatic role in the upcoming movie, alongside stars like Vanessa Williams and one-time frenemy – and sister of ex-boyfriend Ray J – Brandy Norwood.

According to IMDB, the film, due March 29, is about a marriage counselor (played by Jurnee Smollett) whose life changes once she begins a romance with one of her clients. (And smoldering glances aside, no specific word yet what Kim's role in the film entails.)

Still, judging by the brief clip, the movie is full of steamy, melodramatic scenes with a hot cast that also includes Lance Gross and up-and-comer Eric West.

This won't be Kardashian's first time on the silver screen. She made her film debut in 2008's Disaster Movie, and returned to the big screen in 2009's Deep in the Valley.

Read More..

AP IMPACT: Big Pharma cashes in on HGH abuse

A federal crackdown on illicit foreign supplies of human growth hormone has failed to stop rampant misuse, and instead has driven record sales of the drug by some of the world's biggest pharmaceutical companies, an Associated Press investigation shows.

The crackdown, which began in 2006, reduced the illegal flow of unregulated supplies from China, India and Mexico.

But since then, Big Pharma has been satisfying the steady desires of U.S. users and abusers, including many who take the drug in the false hope of delaying the effects of aging.

From 2005 to 2011, inflation-adjusted sales of HGH were up 69 percent, according to an AP analysis of pharmaceutical company data collected by the research firm IMS Health. Sales of the average prescription drug rose just 12 percent in that same period.

___

EDITOR'S NOTE — Whether for athletics or age, Americans from teenagers to baby boomers are trying to get an edge by illegally using anabolic steroids and human growth hormone, despite well-documented risks. This is the second of a two-part series.

___

Unlike other prescription drugs, HGH may be prescribed only for specific uses. U.S. sales are limited by law to treat a rare growth defect in children and a handful of uncommon conditions like short bowel syndrome or Prader-Willi syndrome, a congenital disease that causes reduced muscle tone and a lack of hormones in sex glands.

The AP analysis, supplemented by interviews with experts, shows too many sales and too many prescriptions for the number of people known to be suffering from those ailments. At least half of last year's sales likely went to patients not legally allowed to get the drug. And U.S. pharmacies processed nearly double the expected number of prescriptions.

Peddled as an elixir of life capable of turning middle-aged bodies into lean machines, HGH — a synthesized form of the growth hormone made naturally by the human pituitary gland — winds up in the eager hands of affluent, aging users who hope to slow or even reverse the aging process.

Experts say these folks don't need the drug, and may be harmed by it. The supposed fountain-of-youth medicine can cause enlargement of breast tissue, carpal tunnel syndrome and swelling of hands and feet. Ironically, it also can contribute to aging ailments like heart disease and Type 2 diabetes.

Others in the medical establishment also are taking a fat piece of the profits — doctors who fudge prescriptions, as well as pharmacists and distributors who are content to look the other way. HGH also is sold directly without prescriptions, as new-age snake oil, to patients at anti-aging clinics that operate more like automated drug mills.

Years of raids, sports scandals and media attention haven't stopped major drugmakers from selling a whopping $1.4 billion worth of HGH in the U.S. last year. That's more than industry-wide annual gross sales for penicillin or prescription allergy medicine. Anti-aging HGH regimens vary greatly, with a yearly cost typically ranging from $6,000 to $12,000 for three to six self-injections per week.

Across the U.S., the medication is often dispensed through prescriptions based on improper diagnoses, carefully crafted to exploit wiggle room in the law restricting use of HGH, the AP found.

HGH is often promoted on the Internet with the same kind of before-and-after photos found in miracle diet ads, along with wildly hyped claims of rapid muscle growth, loss of fat, greater vigor, and other exaggerated benefits to adults far beyond their physical prime. Sales also are driven by the personal endorsement of celebrities such as actress Suzanne Somers.

Pharmacies that once risked prosecution for using unauthorized, foreign HGH — improperly labeled as raw pharmaceutical ingredients and smuggled across the border — now simply dispense name brands, often for the same banned uses. And usually with impunity.

Eight companies have been granted permission to market HGH by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which reviews the benefits and risks of new drug products. By contrast, three companies are approved for the diabetes drug insulin.

The No. 1 maker, Roche subsidiary Genentech, had nearly $400 million in HGH sales in the U.S. last year, up an inflation-adjusted two-thirds from 2005. Pfizer and Eli Lilly were second and third with $300 million and $220 million in sales, respectively, according to IMS Health. Pfizer now gets more revenue from its HGH brand, Genotropin, than from Zoloft, its well-known depression medicine that lost patent protection.

On their face, the numbers make no sense to the recognized hormone doctors known as endocrinologists who provide legitimate HGH treatment to a small number of patients.

Endocrinologists estimate there are fewer than 45,000 U.S. patients who might legitimately take HGH. They would be expected to use roughly 180,000 prescriptions or refills each year, given that typical patients get three months' worth of HGH at a time, according to doctors and distributors.

Yet U.S. pharmacies last year supplied almost twice that much HGH — 340,000 orders — according to AP's analysis of IMS Health data.

While doctors say more than 90 percent of legitimate patients are children with stunted growth, 40 percent of 442 U.S. side-effect cases tied to HGH over the last year involved people age 18 or older, according to an AP analysis of FDA data. The average adult's age in those cases was 53, far beyond the prime age for sports. The oldest patients were in their 80s.

Some of these medical records even give explicit hints of use to combat aging, justifying treatment with reasons like fatigue, bone thinning and "off-label," which means treatment of an unapproved condition

Even Medicare, the government health program for older Americans, allowed 22,169 HGH prescriptions in 2010, a five-year increase of 78 percent, according to data released by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in response to an AP public records request.

"There's no question: a lot gets out," said hormone specialist Dr. Mark Molitch of Northwestern University, who helped write medical standards meant to limit HGH treatment to legitimate patients.

And those figures don't include HGH sold directly by doctors without prescriptions at scores of anti-aging medical practices and clinics around the country. Those numbers could only be tallied by drug makers, who have declined to say how many patients they supply and for what conditions.

First marketed in 1985 for children with stunted growth, HGH was soon misappropriated by adults intent on exploiting its modest muscle- and bone-building qualities. Congress limited HGH distribution to the handful of rare conditions in an extraordinary 1990 law, overriding the generally unrestricted right of doctors to prescribe medicines as they see fit.

Despite the law, illicit HGH spread around the sports world in the 1990s, making deep inroads into bodybuilding, college athletics, and professional leagues from baseball to cycling. The even larger banned market among older adults has flourished more recently.

FDA regulations ban the sale of HGH as an anti-aging drug. In fact, since 1990, prescribing it for things like weight loss and strength conditioning has been punishable by 5 to 10 years in prison.

Steve Kleppe, of Scottsdale, Ariz., a restaurant entrepreneur who has taken HGH for almost 15 years to keep feeling young, said he noticed a price jump of about 25 percent after the block on imports. He now buys HGH directly from a doctor at an annual cost of about $8,000 for himself and the same amount for his wife.

Many older patients go for HGH treatment to scores of anti-aging practices and clinics heavily concentrated in retirement states like Florida, Nevada, Arizona and California.

These sites are affiliated with hundreds of doctors who are rarely endocrinologists. Instead, many tout certification by the American Board of Anti-Aging and Regenerative Medicine, though the medical establishment does not recognize the group's bona fides.

The clinics offer personalized programs of "age management" to business executives, affluent retirees, and other patients of means, sometimes coupled with the amenities of a vacation resort. The operations insist there are few, if any, side effects from HGH. Mainstream medical authorities say otherwise.

A 2007 review of 31 medical studies showed swelling in half of HGH patients, with joint pain or diabetes in more than a fifth. A French study of about 7,000 people who took HGH as children found a 30 percent higher risk of death from causes like bone tumors and stroke, stirring a health advisory from U.S. authorities.

For proof that the drug works, marketers turn to images like the memorable one of pot-bellied septuagenarian Dr. Jeffry Life, supposedly transformed into a ripped hulk of himself by his own program available at the upscale Las Vegas-based Cenegenics Elite Health. (He declined to be interviewed.)

These promoters of HGH say there is a connection between the drop-off in growth hormone levels through adulthood and the physical decline that begins in late middle age. Replace the hormone, they say, and the aging process slows.

"It's an easy ruse. People equate hormones with youth," said Dr. Tom Perls, a leading industry critic who does aging research at Boston University. "It's a marketing dream come true."

___

Associated Press Writer David B. Caruso reported from New York and AP National Writer Jeff Donn reported from Plymouth, Mass. AP Writer Troy Thibodeaux provided data analysis assistance from New Orleans.

___

AP's interactive on the HGH investigation: http://hosted.ap.org/interactives/2012/hgh

___

The AP National Investigative Team can be reached at investigate(at)ap.org

EDITOR'S NOTE _ Whether for athletics or age, Americans from teenagers to baby boomers are trying to get an edge by illegally using anabolic steroids and human growth hormone, despite well-documented risks. This is the second of a two-part series.

Read More..

Wall Street slides as fiscal deal unlikely before 2013

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks lost more than 1 percent on Friday after a Republican proposal for averting the "fiscal cliff" failed to pass, diminishing hopes that a deal would be reached soon in Washington.

Trading is expected to be volatile as investors view a fiscal agreement between the White House and Republicans before the end of the year as increasingly unlikely. Lower volume heading into next week's Christmas holiday could increase volatility. The CBOE Volatility Index, or VIX, <.vix> was up 10 percent.

Late on Thursday, Republican House Speaker John Boehner conceded there were insufficient votes from his party to pass a tax bill, dubbed "Plan B," to help avert the so-called fiscal cliff - $600 billion of tax hikes and spending cuts due to start in January. The fear is that failure to come up with a solution to avoid the cliff could tip the U.S. economy into recession.

Plan B had called for tax increases on those who earn $1 million or more a year, and the bill's failure suggested it would be difficult to get Republican support for the more expansive tax increases that Obama has urged, making it less likely an agreement will be reached between the White House and Republicans before the end of the year.

While Friday's slide reflected investors' anxiety, it was not a large enough drop to suggest they believed a deal would be reached too late to avoid damage to the economy, said Mark Lehmann, president of JMP Securities, in San Francisco.

"You could have easily woken up today and seen the market down 300 or 400 points, and everyone would have said, 'That's telling you this is really dire,'" Lehmann said.

"I think you get into mid-January and (the talks) keep going like this, you get worried, but I don't think we're going to get there."

Banking shares, which outperform in times of economic expansion and have led the market on signs of progress with resolving the fiscal impasse, were among the laggards. Citigroup Inc sank 2.7 percent to $39.10, while Bank of America slid 2.5 percent to $11.22. The KBW Banks index <.bkx> lost 1.7 percent.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> dropped 185.38 points, or 1.39 percent, to 13,126.34. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> tumbled 20.88 points, or 1.45 percent, to 1,422.81. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> lost 46.64 points, or 1.53 percent, to 3,003.74.

Even with the declines, the S&P 500 is up nearly 1 percent for the week and about 13 percent for the year, though uncertainty over the cliff may prompt many traders to lock in gains as the year draws to a close.

The day's round of data indicated that the economy showed surprising signs of resilience in November as consumer spending rose by the most in three years and a gauge of business investment jumped.

But separate data showed consumer sentiment slumped in December. The S&P Retail Index <.spxrt> fell 1.5 percent.

U.S.-listed shares of Research in Motion sank 17 percent to $11.72 after the Canadian company, which makes the BlackBerry, reported its first-ever decline in its subscriber numbers late on Thursday.

(Reporting by Leah Schnurr; Editing by Jan Paschal)

Read More..

Syria Uses Cluster Bombs to Attack as Many Civilians as Possible

MAREA, Syria — The plane came in from the southeast late in the afternoon, releasing its weapons in a single pass. Within seconds, scores of finned bomblets struck and exploded on the homes and narrow streets of this small Syrian town.

After the screams and the desperate gathering of the victims, the staff at the local Freedom Hospital counted 4 dead and 23 wounded. All were civilians, doctors and residents said.

Many forms of violence and hardship have befallen Syria’s people as the country’s civil war has escalated this year. But the Syrian government’s attack here on Dec. 12 pointed to one of the war’s irrefutable patterns: the deliberate targeting of civilians by President Bashar al-Assad’s military, in this case with a weapon that is impossible to use precisely.

Syrians on both sides in this fight have suffered from the bloodshed and sectarian furies given dark license by the war. The victims of the cluster bomb attacks describe the tactic as collective punishment, a mass reprisal against populations that are with the rebels.

The munitions in question — Soviet-era PTAB-2.5Ms — were designed decades ago by Communist engineers to destroy battlefield formations of Western armored vehicles and tanks. They are ejected in dense bunches from free-falling dispensers dropped from aircraft. The bomblets then scatter and descend nose-down to land and explode almost at once over a wide area, often hundreds of yards across.

Marea stands along an agricultural plain, surrounded for miles by empty fields. Even at night, or in bad weather, it cannot be mistaken for anything but what it is — the densely packed collection of small businesses, offices and homes that together form a town.

Two journalists from The New York Times were traveling toward Marea as the attack occurred and arrived not long after the exploding bomblets had rippled across its neighborhoods.

Blood pooled on the street, including beside a water-collection point at an intersection where Nabhan al-Haji, 18, was killed.

Another victim, Ahmad Najjar Asmail, had been riding a motorcycle when a submunition landed beside him. He was decapitated. Ramy Naser, 15, was also fatally wounded.

The hospital was crowded with patients. Many more were en route to hospitals in Turkey.

The use of cluster munitions is banned by much of the world, although Syria, like the United States, is not party to that international convention. In the detached parlance of military planners, they are also sometimes referred to as area weapons — ordnance with effects that cover a sprawling amount of ground.

In the attack on Marea, at least three dispensers, each containing 42 bomblets slightly smaller than a one-liter bottle and packed with a high-explosive shaped charge, were dropped squarely onto neighborhoods and homes.

Two funerals began as the sun set, the latest in a town that rose early against Syria’s government, and has been one of the seats of defiance.

One homeowner, Ali Farouh, showed the place where a PTAB-2.5M struck an exterior wall on his patio. His young son held up bits of shrapnel.

“Bashar is a horse,” Mr. Farouh said, almost spitting with disgust as he said the president’s name. “He is a donkey.”

An examination of the area by daylight found the signature signs of an air-delivered cluster munitions attack, including unexploded PTAB-2.5M submunitions, the tail sections and fins of three dispensers and three main dispenser bodies.

One resident also displayed the nearly intact remains of an ATK-EB mechanical time fuse associated with the same dispensers. Fragments of the submunitions’ fins were in abundance. An interior spacer and dispenser nose plate were also found.

Throughout the town, many of the narrow, telltale craters made by shaped charges could be seen. Some cut deep holes through asphalt into the dirt below, almost like a drill.

It was not immediately clear why Marea was attacked, although many residents ascribed motives that mix collective punishment with revenge.

The town is the home of Abdulkader al-Saleh, a prominent rebel field commander in the Aleppo region. Mr. Saleh, charismatic and lean, is locally known with near reverence as Haji Marea, and is celebrated by his townspeople for his mix of battlefield savvy, courage and luck. This month, just days before the cluster attack on his hometown, he was named a leader in the reorganized Free Syrian Army, as many rebels call themselves.

Residents said Marea’s recent history, and its indelible connection to the commander it produced, has earned it a high place on Mr. Assad’s list of targets.

“The regime especially hates us,” said Yasser al-Haji, an activist who lost a cousin in the attack.

No one disputes that Marea has repeatedly been attacked by some of the Assad government’s most frightening weapons. On Thursday, residents reported being hit by ballistic missiles, perhaps Scuds, which they said landed just north of the town with tremendous, earth-heaving explosions.

In the case of the cluster munitions attack, one of the submunitions did strike a building being used by the rebels — a school where some of Haji Marea’s fighters are based. It blasted a small hole in the concrete roof and sprayed bits of concrete and shrapnel into the room below, which was empty.

Several fighters, who were meeting in the next room as the jet screamed overhead — and the sole bomblet, out of more than 100, hit their building — chuckled at their near miss. But they were enraged by the attack.

They spoke of the government’s escalation of weapons throughout the year — from mortars, tanks and artillery to helicopter gunships, then to fixed-wing attack jets. Since summer, Mr. Assad’s military has used cluster munitions repeatedly, and recently began using incendiary cluster munitions, too. This month, Syrian activists and officials in Washington said the government had ratcheted up the pressure with one of the last unused weapons left in its stock — cruise missiles, with conventional warheads. Analysts who have watched the gradual escalations said the Assad government has followed a “boil-the-frog-slowly” strategy.

With the incremental escalations, they say, Mr. Assad has prevented the West from finding cause to enter the war, as NATO did against Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya after he rolled out almost all of his military’s full might at the war’s outset.

One fighter, who gave his name as Mustafa, said that Mr. Assad had little left that he had not used. The fighter said he expected no restraint.

“In the coming days, he’ll use the chemicals and he’ll destroy everything,” he said. “And will burn the people, and kill all the people — children, women, old men, the elders.”

Mr. Assad, Mustafa said, “just needs to kill.”

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: December 21, 2012

An earlier version of this article referred incorrectly to Scuds. They are ballistic missiles, not cruise missiles.

Read More..