Israel Steps Up Aerial Strikes in Gaza

Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

A man injured by bombing in the Zaitoun neighborhood of Gaza City on Saturday that also killed one person. More Photos »

GAZA CITY — Israel broadened its assault on the Gaza Strip on Saturday from mostly military targets to centers of government infrastructure, obliterating the four-story headquarters of the Hamas prime minister with a barrage of five bombs.

The attack came a day after the prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, hosted his Egyptian counterpart in that very building, a sign of Hamas’s new legitimacy in a radically redrawn Arab world. That stature was underscored Saturday by a visit to Gaza from the Tunisian foreign minister and the rapid convergence in Cairo of two Hamas allies, the prime minister of Turkey and the crown prince of Qatar, for talks with the Egyptian president and the chairman of Hamas on a possible cease-fire.

But the violent conflict showed no sign of abating as it finished its fourth day. Gaza militants again fired long-range missiles at the population center of Tel Aviv, among nearly 60 that soared into Israel on Saturday, injuring five civilians in an apartment building in Ashdod, in southern Israel, and four soldiers in an unidentified location.

Israel said it hit more than 200 targets overnight and continued with afternoon strikes on a Hamas commander’s home in the Gaza City neighborhood of Zeitoun and on a motorcycle-riding militant in the southern border town of Rafah. Israel has also made preparations for a possible ground invasion.

Hamas health officials said 45 Palestinians had been killed and 385 wounded since Wednesday’s escalation in the cross-border battle; 3 Israelis have died and 63 civilians have been injured.

“Everybody is afraid of what’s next,” said Mkhaimar Abusada, a political science professor at Al Azhar University in Cairo, predicting that the rockets fired at Tel Aviv and, on Friday, at Jerusalem, would provoke a rerun of Israel’s ground invasion four years ago.

Mr. Abusada and Efraim Halevy, a former head of Israel’s intelligence service, both said there is no clear endgame to the conflict, since Israel neither wants to re-engage in Gaza nor to eliminate Hamas and leave the territory to the chaos of more militant factions. “Ultimately,” Mr. Halevy said, “both sides want Hamas to remain in control, strange as it sounds.”

But Mr. Abusada cautioned that “there is no military solution to the Gaza problem,” saying: “There has to be a political settlement at the end of this. Without that, this conflict is just going to go on and on.”

In Cairo, a senior official of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist group allied with President Mohamed Morsi, said he was working furiously on Saturday to secure a cease-fire. Mr. Morsi met with the Turkish premiere, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, while Egypt’s foreign minister huddled with the Qatari prince and its intelligence chief sat with Khaled Meshaal, the chief of Hamas’s political wing, Egyptian media reported.

Hamas, which has controlled the Gaza Strip since 2007 but is considered a terrorist organization by Israel and the United States, wants to turn its Rafah crossing with Egypt into an open, free-trade zone, and for Israel to withdraw from the 1,000-foot buffer it patrols on Gaza’s northern and eastern borders. The Brotherhood official said that the Israeli side of the talks remained “the sticking point,” though he would not be specific about the issues.

Ben Rhodes, Mr. Obama’s deputy national security adviser, told reporters aboard Air Force One en route to Asia that the president had spoken daily with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel since the crisis began, as well as to Mr. Erdogan and Mr. Morsi.

“They have the ability to play a constructive role in engaging Hamas and encouraging a process of de-escalation,” Mr. Rhodes said of the Turkish and Egyptian leaders. Describing rocket fire coming from Gaza as “the precipitating factor for the conflict,” he added, “We believe Israel has a right to defend itself and they’ll make their own decisions about the tactics that they use in that regard.”

But the Tunisian foreign minister, standing outside Al Shifa Hospital here, told reporters that Israel “has to respect the international law to stop the aggression against the Palestinian people.”

Mr. Netanyahu, for his part, spoke Saturday with the leaders of Germany, Italy, Greece and the Czech Republic, according to a statement from his office.

Jodi Rudoren reported from Gaza City and Isabel Kershner from Jerusalem. Reporting was contributed by Fares Akram and Tyler Hicks from the Gaza Strip, Carol Sutherland and Iritz Pazner Garshowitz from Jerusalem, and David D. Kirkpatrick and Mayy El Sheikh from Cairo.

Read More..

Nintendo seeks to shake up gaming again with Wii U

LOS ANGELES (AP) — It can scan zombies, replace a TV remote, open a window into virtual worlds and shoot ninja stars across a living room. It’s the Wii U GamePad, the 10-by-5-inch touchscreen controller for the successor to the Wii out Sunday, and if you ask the brains behind the “Super Mario Bros.” about it, they say it’s going to change the way video games are made and played.

“You can’t manufacture buzz,” said Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime. “You can’t manufacture word of mouth. All we can do is to provide the product and the games to foster some sparks that hopefully enable that to happen. We think we have that with Wii U.”

Much like the iPad, the curvaceous GamePad features a touchscreen that can be manipulated with the simple tap or swipe of a finger, but it’s surrounded by the kinds of buttons, bumpers, thumbsticks and triggers that are traditionally found on a modern-day game controller. There’s also a camera, stylus, microphone, headphone jack and speakers.

While the Wii U can employ its predecessor’s motion-control remotes with a sensor bar that similarly detects them in front of the TV, the console’s focus on two-screen experiences makes it feel more like a high-definition, living-room rendition of the Nintendo DS and 3DS, the Japanese gaming giant’s dual-screen hand-held devices, than the original Wii.

“It’s a second screen like a tablet or a cellphone, but it’s different,” said Mark Bolas, professor of interactive media at the University of Southern California. “In addition to providing more information, the GamePad is also a second viewpoint into a virtual world. Nintendo is letting you turn away from the TV screen to see what’s happening with the GamePad.”

The touchscreen controller can also serve as a makeshift TV remote control and online video aggregator for services like Netflix and Amazon Instant Video. (Nintendo cheekily calls it TVii and announced Friday that it won’t be available until December.) Some games have the ability to flip-flop between the TV screen and the GamePad screen, allowing for non-gaming use of the TV.

There are limitations to the GamePad: it won’t work after it’s been moved 25 feet away from the Wii U console; it lasts about three to five hours after charging; and while its touchscreen is intuitive as those that have come before it, the GamePad is not quite as simple to use as the Wii controllers that had everyone bowling in their living rooms.

“Is the GamePad more complex than the Wii Remote was six years ago? Certainly,” said Fils-Aime. “On the other hand, I believe consumers will easily grasp the GamePad and what we’re trying to do with the varied experiences we’ll have not only at launch but over the next number of years in this system’s life.”

The abilities of the GamePad are most notably showcased by Nintendo Co. in the amusement park-themed mini-game collection “Nintendo Land,” which comes with the deluxe edition of the console. “Nintendo Land” turns the GamePad into several different tools, such as the dashboard of a spaceship or the ultimate advantage in a game of hide-and-seek.

In other titles, the controller mostly eliminates the need to pause the action to study a map in order to figure out where to go next or scour an inventory for just the right weapon. That can all be achieved simultaneously on the GamePad screen, which is best illustrated among the launch titles in Ubisoft’s survival action game “ZombiU.”

The GamePad acts as a high-tech scanner in “ZombiU” that can analyze a player’s surroundings in a version of London overrun by zombies. It pumps up the terror by drawing players’ attention away from the horrors lurking around them.

Will gamers who’ve grown up with their eyes glued to the TV and hands gripped on a controller adapt to glimpsing at another screen? The Wii U edition of “Call of Duty: Black Ops II,” for example, invites players to customize their arsenal on the fly on the GamePad, as well as engage in multiplayer matches without needing to split the TV in half.

Nintendo expects 50 games will be available for the Wii U by March 2013. There will be 23 games released alongside the console when it debuts Sunday, including the platformer “New Super Mario Bros. U,” karaoke game “Sing Party,” an “armored edition” of “Batman: Arkham City” and the Mickey Mouse adventure “Disney Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two.”

“New consoles come along and nobody exploits their full capabilities for the first two to three years,” said Warren Spector, creative director at “Epic Mickey 2″ developer Junction Point Studios. “It’s only after you’ve had two or three projects that you fully understand what the hardware is capable of doing. We’re going to be experimenting with it more.”

Fils-Aime said he’s already envisioning ways that developers will innovate with future games. He pointed to some of the console’s features that aren’t on display in the launch line-up, such as the ability to play with two GamePads at once or utilize the console’s near-field communication technology to interact with other gadgets in the room.

“I think that developers and consumers are ready for new experiences,” said Fils-Aime. “More than anything else, I think that’s what is driving excitement for Wii U. They’ve experienced what this generation has to offer. They’re ready for something new.”

___

Online:

http://www.nintendo.com/wiiu

___

Follow AP Entertainment Writer Derrik J. Lang on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/derrikjlang.

Gaming News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Rose McGowan's Dating Deal-Breaker: Sloppy Kisses

By Lilly Workneh

11/17/2012 at 05:25 PM EST

No need to find a secret spell on how to kiss Rose McGowan: The former Charmed star will tell you what she likes – and what she doesn't.

"Don't be sloppy!" McGowan, 39, tells PEOPLE. "That's the worst. You could find the hottest guy on the planet and if he's a bad kisser, it just doesn't work."

The actress hosted Cosmopolitan and Maybeline's Kisses for the Troops event on Monday in New York City and spilled the beans on what she considers to be a sexy smooch.

"I like the man to be medium aggressive, not somebody who's going to shove his tongue down your throat," she says. "That's not sexy."

Smooching comes with the territory for an actress says McGowan, who previously dated rocker Marilyn Manson and was engaged to filmmaker Robert Rodriguez.

"I had to kiss a lot of people on Charmed and I would kiss people I wouldn't even know. I'd say 'Hi, you're Ted? Let's make out Ted. Okay, Ted, it was really nice to meet you. I'll never see you again.' "

As far as kissing skills go, McGowan says guys shouldn't bother trying to learn too much. "I don't think you can teach somebody [to kiss]," she says. "You either just know how to do it or you don't."

Read More..

EU drug regulator OKs Novartis' meningitis B shot

LONDON (AP) — Europe's top drug regulator has recommended approval for the first vaccine against meningitis B, made by Novartis AG.

There are five types of bacterial meningitis. While vaccines exist to protect against the other four, none has previously been licensed for type B meningitis. In Europe, type B is the most common, causing 3,000 to 5,000 cases every year.

Meningitis mainly affects infants and children. It kills about 8 percent of patients and leaves others with lifelong consequences such as brain damage.

In a statement on Friday, Andrin Oswald of Novartis said he is "proud of the major advance" the company has made in developing its vaccine Bexsero. It is aimed at children over two months of age, and Novartis is hoping countries will include the shot among the routine ones for childhood diseases such as measles.

Novartis said the immunization has had side effects such as fever and redness at the injection site.

Recommendations from the European Medicines Agency are usually adopted by the European Commission. Novartis also is seeking to test the vaccine in the U.S.

Read More..

Girl, 15, forced into prostitution by family counselor

A San Bernardino family counselor responsible for providing services to children and families also coerced a 15-year-old girl into prostitution and sold sexual services on the Internet, the San Bernardino County district attorney's office said Thursday.

Daron Lamar Whitworth, 42, worked for EMQ FamiliesFirst, a nonprofit that provides social services, mental-health and foster care for young children and families in San Bernardino County, authorities said. He was arrested without incident Thursday and booked into Central Detention Center in San Bernardino. 

Police have issued arrest warrants for two alleged accomplices: Whitworth's uncle Jacory C. Williams, 30, and Charmaine Williams, 24, both of San Bernardino. Charmaine Williams is in Los Angeles County Jail for unrelated reasons. 

Whitworth faces 44 charges, including felony counts of human trafficking, pimping and pandering a minor under 16, and unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor, according to court records. 

Investigators from the Riverside County Sheriff's Department began to gather evidence in August after the arrest of a juvenile for street prostitution in Hemet. The investigation gradually revealed that most of the unlawful activity had taken place in San Bernardino County, according to the release. 

Anyone with additional information or who believes they have been a victim is encouraged to contact Sgt. John Sawyer with the Riverside County Sheriff's Department at (951) 544-7000.

ALSO:

Four 14-year-olds arrested in more than 400 acts of vandalism

‘Western Bandit’ wanted in 9 armed robberies, transgender slaying

Police arrrest Hawthorne man accused of raping woman he met online

-- Frank Shyong

twitter.com/frankshyong

Read More..

Tensions Escalate in Gaza Conflict

New Cars Search

Used Cars Search

More in Automobiles

Corner Office

If I Hire You, What’s Your 100-Day Plan?

John Duffy of 3C Interactive says he asks job candidates to describe what their first months on the job would be like, partly to “learn what their expectations are, and where they think we’re at.”

Find the best job in the New York metro area and beyond.

Read More..

Pittsburgh airport to offer free ‘cell phone’ lot

IMPERIAL, Pa. (AP) — Pittsburgh International Airport is offering free parking for folks who want to sit in their cars and wait for arriving passengers to call on cell phones to say they’ve arrived.

Allegheny County Airport Authority officials are hoping the plan will prevent motorists from congesting the curb near the airport’s terminal or the access roads around it by driving around in circles waiting for cell phone calls from arrivals.

Drivers can now park free for an hour in the extended term lot farthest from the terminal, and pay only $ 1 for a second hour of parking. After two hours, the spots will cost $ 8.

Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Robert Pattinson Wanted to Put Walruses in Breaking Dawn Sex Scene

People Pets

11/16/2012 at 06:30 PM EST

Robert Pattinson

Picture Perfect/REX; Getty

Those pillow-biting sex scenes are about to get even hotter now that Kristen Stewart's onscreen alter ego Bella Swan is a full-blown, cold-blooded vampire in the final installment of the Twilight saga.

But if it were up to Robert Pattinson, who plays Bella's husband Edward Cullen, the bedroom action would get even wilder.

"I would put [the sex scene] the last day of the schedule," he told BBC Radio 1 of his fantasy turn in the director's chair. "[I'd] say, 'Listen, I've got to have a closed set. It's really, really important. No one can see the monitors or anything,' and then just put like a walrus in or something."

Jokes aside, it's not so sexy puckering up in front of the cameras.

"Kissing is harder than love-making scenes, I think," Pattinson, 26, says. "You can't kiss like normally you'd kiss."

Adds The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2 star, whose movie arrives in theaters Friday: "You got a one in three chance of smashing someone's tooth out."

Read More..

EU drug regulator OKs Novartis' meningitis B shot

LONDON (AP) — Europe's top drug regulator has recommended approval for the first vaccine against meningitis B, made by Novartis AG.

There are five types of bacterial meningitis. While vaccines exist to protect against the other four, none has previously been licensed for type B meningitis. In Europe, type B is the most common, causing 3,000 to 5,000 cases every year.

Meningitis mainly affects infants and children. It kills about 8 percent of patients and leaves others with lifelong consequences such as brain damage.

In a statement on Friday, Andrin Oswald of Novartis said he is "proud of the major advance" the company has made in developing its vaccine Bexsero. It is aimed at children over two months of age, and Novartis is hoping countries will include the shot among the routine ones for childhood diseases such as measles.

Novartis said the immunization has had side effects such as fever and redness at the injection site.

Recommendations from the European Medicines Agency are usually adopted by the European Commission. Novartis also is seeking to test the vaccine in the U.S.

Read More..

Irvine plans review of Great Park funds

Irvine leaders are planning a detailed review of the $200 million spent on what has been billed as the country's next great urban park, one that is supposed to rival New York's Central Park with a majestic man-made canyon, rivers, forests and botanical gardens.

Despite the spending, only a sliver of the park has been built, and most of the Marine base land remains fenced off. Park funds are expected to be exhausted next year.

With a new majority taking over the council next month, city leaders indicated that they want to take a closer look at the decade-long effort to build the municipal park.

PHOTOS: A not so 'Great Park'

"The three of us have been severe critics of the profligate spending at the park and because of that we want to know where every dime has gone and what we've received for it," said Jeff Lalloway, an incumbent council member. "I think that's a fair question."

Lalloway and his allies have been especially critical of the amount of money spent on planning, public relations and events at the Orange County Great Park rather than construction.

"I want to build the park," Lalloway said. "I'm not certain that the current council majority has been ever interested in doing that."

A Times analysis last month showed that less than a fifth of the money spent on the park was actually used for construction. Only about 200 of the promised 1,347 acres have been developed, and half of that has been leased for commercial farming. The runways of the former Marine base have yet to be pulled up, and some of the barracks remain.

The Times also found that nearly half the money contractors were paid was awarded without competitive bids and that a public relations firm was paid a $1.2-million annual retainer.

"My No. 1 suggestion is that the council authorize a forensic audit in the next year and look at where the dollars have gone," said Christina Shea, an incoming council member who previously served on the panel.

There have long been bitter feelings between the two Irvine council factions, and they have leaped to the forefront again.

Much of the new majority's anger is directed at Larry Agran, one of the park's strongest advocates and one of the city's most veteran political figures, who has long headed the liberal faction that has usually controlled city affairs.

"It's not Larry's private project, but the city's," Shea said. "We need to get it back on track. Is it worth $240 million? I don't think so."

Agran, who remains on the council after losing the race for mayor, declined to talk to The Times, other than insisting that there had been only one or two no-bid contracts.

Beth Krom, an Agran ally on the council, opposes an audit. "I would put it in the witch-hunt category," she said. "I'm not sure what they're looking for, what they're going to find. It's more about headlines than going forward."

She also criticized the new majority's attacks on the amount of money spent on planning. "In my world, you plan first and execute afterward," she said. "What we need now is not slash and burn. What we need is creativity. You can find money. You can't find vision."

Great Park was the object of one of Orange County's great political battles. County supervisors wanted an international airport on the decommissioned Marine base, but county voters decided in 2002 that they preferred a showcase park.

City leaders made a deal with a developer to build homes and businesses around the site that would provide taxes to pay for construction and operation of the park.

But the city now faces questions of how it is going to pay for the remaining park construction.

Developer FivePoint Communities Inc. put its plans on hold when the housing market crashed.

Then last spring, as part of its solution to California's budget deficit, the state grabbed the $1.4 billion in redevelopment funds that were earmarked for the park over the next 45 years.

FivePoint can build 4,894 homes. Early this year, the company offered to trade the rights to develop about 1 million square feet of commercial property for an additional 5,800 homes in a complicated deal that would bring the city about $200 million.

Lalloway, who has been half of Irvine's two-person negotiating committee, said they have not talked to FivePoint since May or June. "I personally have no idea where the deal is because in my opinion it's not moved since that time," he said.

jeff.gottlieb@latimes.com

Read More..

Palestinian Rockets Kill Three Israelis and Trigger Air Sirens in Tel Aviv

KIRYAT MALACHI, Israel — Israel and Hamas widened their deadly conflict over Gaza on Thursday, as militants fired dozens of rockets — including one that killed three civilians in an apartment block in this small southern Israeli town — and two longer-range rockets aimed at Tel Aviv, causing no harm but triggering the first air raid warning there set off by incoming fire from Gaza. The death toll in Gaza from Israeli airstrikes rose to at least 19, including five children and a pregnant teenager.

There was no sign that either side was prepared to dial back the confrontation that has threatened a new war in the Middle East, despite entreaties for restraint by world leaders including President Obama and Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary general, who planned a visit there in coming days. If anything, the Israelis intensified their attacks on Gaza after the Tel Aviv scare and made new moves toward a possible ground invasion.

The Israeli deaths were the first since Israel’s military launched ferocious aerial assaults on Wednesday to stop the chronic rocket fire from Gaza, the Palestinian coastal enclave controlled by Hamas, the militant Palestinian group.

The Israel Defense Forces said in a cryptic statement that one of the two longer-range rockets aimed at Tel Aviv landed but did not hit the ground — meaning that it likely crashed into the Mediterranean Sea — and that the other appeared to have landed far outside the city. Exact locations were not specified.

But the Tel Aviv air raid warnings — which residents of Israel’s largest metropolis had not heard except for drills or malfunctions since Saddam Hussein’s Scuds threatened them in the first Persian Gulf War, more than two decades ago — were a reminder of their vulnerability to an attack from Gaza, less than 40 miles away. They also underscored Israel’s stated reason for seeking to destroy the missile-launching sites in Gaza.

Ehud Barak, the minister of defense, said the targeting of Tel Aviv and the scope of the Palestinian rocket fire “represents an escalation, and there will be a price for that escalation that the other side will have to pay.”

Mr. Barak also dropped a further hint that planning for a ground invasion of Gaza had begun, saying he had instructed the army to broaden its draft of reservists to “be prepared for any kind of development if and when it will be required.” Israeli officials said 30,000 reservists could be called, and heavy machinery and tanks rumbled south along Israeli roads leading to Gaza on Thursday in preparation for a possible invasion.

The Israel Defense Forces said that within hours of the Tel Aviv air raid warning, they had attacked 70 underground rocket-launching sites in Gaza, and “direct hits were confirmed.” There were also unconfirmed reports that Israeli rockets had struck near Gaza’s Rafah crossing into Egypt, forcing the Egyptians to close it.

.

Brig. Gen. Yoav Mordechai, a spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces, said its aerial assaults had hit more than 200 sites in Gaza by late Thursday, and “we’ll continue tonight and tomorrow.” He also said militants in Gaza had fired about 300 rockets into southern Israel and at least 100 more had been intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome antimissile defense system.

The Israeli aerial assault on Gaza that began on Wednesday was the most intense military operation by Israel in Gaza since an invasion four years ago.

The regional perils of the situation sharpened as President Mohamed Morsi of Egypt warned that his country stood by the Palestinians against what he termed Israeli aggression, echoing similar condemnation on Wednesday.

“The Egyptian people, the Egyptian leadership, the Egyptian government and all of Egypt is standing with all its resources to stop this assault, to prevent the killing and the bloodshed of Palestinians,” Mr. Morsi said in nationally televised remarks before a crisis meeting of senior ministers. He also instructed his prime minister to lead a delegation to Gaza on Friday and said he had contacted President Obama to discuss strategies to “stop these acts and doings and the bloodshed and aggression.”

Isabel Kershner reported from Kiryat Malachi, Israel, and Rick Gladstone from New York. Reporting was contributed by Fares Akram from Gaza, Rina Castelnuovo from Kiryat Malachi, Mayy El Sheikh and David D. Kirkpatrick from Cairo, Gabby Sobelman from Jerusalem and Alan Cowell from Paris.

Read More..

Cesar Millan Reveals: I Attempted Suicide

People Pets

11/15/2012 at 06:30 PM EST

Cesar Millan with dog Daddy

Meredith Jenks

It seemed Cesar Millan had been on top of the world, but then it all came crashing down.

In 2010, the trainer and television personality known as the Dog Whisperer was working with celebrity clients, had a hit show and was becoming an international advocate for bully breeds.

Millan, 43, was dealt his first loss when Daddy, the 16-year-old pit bull who had been Millan's best example of a "calm, submissive" dog, died in February.

Then, in June of that year, Millan learned that his wife of 16 years, Ilusion Millan, had filed for divorce.

"I was at the lowest level I had ever been emotionally and psychologically," Millan wrote on his blog in August of this year.

So low, in fact, that he attempted suicide, a revelation Millan makes in Cesar Millan: The Real Story, a documentary airing on Nat Geo Wild on Nov. 25.

"Daddy was my Tibet, my Himalaya, my Gouda, my Buddha, my source of calmness," Millan tells the Associated Press.

After surviving the overdose, Millan opted for work, exercise and affection over antidepressants. His recovery progressed further when he met Jahira Dar, a woman Millan calls "the one."

He plans to propose soon. "I am a traditional guy, so I like to do the whole parent thing," Millan said. "I know they are going to say yes, but I like the whole Cinderella story."

Read More..

Diabetes rates rocket in Oklahoma, South

NEW YORK (AP) — The nation's diabetes problem is getting worse, and the biggest jump over 15 years was in Oklahoma, according to a new federal report issued Thursday.

The diabetes rate in Oklahoma more than tripled, and Kentucky, Georgia and Alabama also saw dramatic increases since 1995, the study showed.

The South's growing weight problem is the main explanation, said Linda Geiss, lead author of the report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study.

"The rise in diabetes has really gone hand in hand with the rise in obesity," she said.

Bolstering the numbers is the fact that more people with diabetes are living longer because better treatments are available.

The disease exploded in the United States in the last 50 years, with the vast majority from obesity-related Type 2 diabetes. In 1958, fewer than 1 in 100 Americans had been diagnosed with diabetes. In 2010, it was about 1 in 14.

Most of the increase has happened since 1990.

Diabetes is a disease in which the body has trouble processing sugar; it's the nation's seventh leading cause of death. Complications include poor circulation, heart and kidney problems and nerve damage.

The new study is the CDC's first in more than a decade to look at how the nationwide boom has played out in different states.

It's based on telephone surveys of at least 1,000 adults in each state in 1995 and 2010. Participants were asked if a doctor had ever told them they have diabetes.

Not surprisingly, Mississippi — the state with the largest proportion of residents who are obese — has the highest diabetes rate. Nearly 12 percent of Mississippians say they have diabetes, compared to the national average of 7 percent.

But the most dramatic increases in diabetes occurred largely elsewhere in the South and in the Southwest, where rates tripled or more than doubled. Oklahoma's rate rose to about 10 percent, Kentucky went to more than 9 percent, Georgia to 10 percent and Alabama surpassed 11 percent.

An official with Oklahoma State Department of Health said the solution is healthier eating, more exercise and no smoking.

"And that's it in a nutshell," said Rita Reeves, diabetes prevention coordinator.

Several Northern states saw rates more than double, too, including Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio and Maine.

The study was published in CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

___

Associated Press writer Ken Miller in Oklahoma City contributed to this report.

___

Online:

CDC report: http://tinyurl.com/cdcdiabetesreport

Read More..

Justin Bieber freeway chase charged unconstitutional, judge says

A Los Angeles Superior court judge threw out charges related to a first-of-its-kind anti-paparazzi law Wednesday in the case of a freelance photographer who was charged in connection with a freeway chase involving pop star Justin Bieber. 

Judge Thomas Rubinson ruled that while Los Angeles city prosecutors could proceed with two traffic-related charges against Paul Raef, the two counts related to the state law did not pass Constitutional muster.

Passed in  2010, the law punishes paparazzi driving dangerously to obtain images they will sell. But Rubinson said the law violated First Amendment protections by overreaching and potentially affecting such people as wedding photographers or photographers speeding to a location where a celebrity was present.

Attorney David S. Kestenbaum, one of the lawyers representing Raef, said Wednesday he was pleased by the judge's decision, which showed his client was simply doing his job.

"The judge said that when you are talking about people doing their job and yet running the risk of additional criminal punishment, it has a chilling effect from anyone from newsgathers to wedding photographers and even real estate agents," Kestenbaum said. "It just a lesson in constitutional law.

The ruling comes less than six months after Bieber was pulled over by the California Highway Patrol on the 101 Freeway in the San Fernando Valley and cited for driving his Fisker sports car at high speed. The pop star said then he was being chased by a freelance paparazzo later identified as Raef.

Los Angeles city prosecutors filed charges against the 30-year-old photographer for allegedly chasing Bieber and then speeding off when police tried to pull over both Bieber and Raef.

The charges included four misdemeanors: reckless driving, failing to obey a peace officer, and two counts of following another vehicle too closely and reckless driving, with the intent to capture pictures for commercial gain.

With the dismissal of the latter charges, Raef still faces the potential of six months in county jail.

Bieber was involved in another traffic incident Tuesday. He was pulled over in a white Ferarri
around 6:30 p.m. Tuesday in the 600 block of Hayward Avenue in West Hollywood and was
cited for making an unsafe left turn and having an expired registration, Sheriff's Department spokesman Steve Whitmore said.

ALSO:

Increased Rose Bowl security planned for USC-UCLA game

MTV: Santa Monica Airport crowd got too large to continue concert

No charges expected in probes of 'Modern Family' actress, mother

--Andrew Blankstein

Photo: Justin Bieber performing Friday in New Jersey. Credit: Mike Coppola / Getty Images

Read More..

Israelis Launch Major Assault on Gaza, Killing Hamas Commander

GAZA — Israel on Wednesday launched one of the most ferocious assaults on Gaza since its invasion four years ago, hitting at least 20 targets in aerial attacks that killed the top military commander of Hamas, drew strong condemnation from Egypt and escalated the risks of a new war in the Middle East.

The Israelis coupled the intensity of the airstrikes with the threat of another ground invasion and warnings to all Hamas leaders in Gaza to stay out of sight or risk the same fate as the Hamas military commander, Ahmed al-Jabari, who was killed in a pinpoint airstrike as he was traveling by car down a Gaza street. “We recommend that no Hamas operatives, whether low level or senior leaders, show their faces above ground in the days ahead,” the Israel Defense Forces said in a Twitter message.

The ferocity of the airstrikes, which Israel called Operation “Pillar of Defense” in response to repeated rocket attacks by Gaza-based Palestinian militants, provoked rage in Gaza, where Hamas said the airstrikes amounted to war and promised a harsh response. It quickly launched dozens of rockets into southern Israel, including several that struck the city of Beersheba, shattering windows and damaging cars but causing no injuries.

Civil-defense authorities in Israel, anticipating retaliation, raised alert levels early in the day and told residents in southern Israel to take precautions. Many remained indoors or congregated in bomb shelters.

The Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza said the Israeli attacks had killed at least five others besides Mr. Jabari, including a baby and a 7-year-old girl, and had wounded at least 40.

The abrupt escalation in hostilities between Israel and Hamas, the militant organization regarded by Israel as a terrorist group sworn to Israel’s destruction, came amid rising tensions between Israel and all of its Arab neighbors. Israel has faced growing lawlessness on its border with the Sinai, including cross-border attacks. It recently fired twice into Syria, which is caught in a civil war, after munitions fell in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, and it has absorbed rocket fire from Gaza, which has damaged homes and frightened the population.

Israeli officials had promised a robust response to the rocket fire, but for the moment, at least, opted against a ground invasion and instead chose airstrikes and targeted killings.

The Israeli attacks especially threatened to further complicate Israel’s fragile relations with Egypt, where the Islamist-led government of President Mohamed Morsi, reversing a policy of ousted predecessor Hosni Mubarak, had established closer ties with Hamas and had been acting as a mediator to restore calm between Israel and Gaza-based militant groups.

In the first crisis in Israeli-Egyptian relations since Mr. Morsi came to power, he called the Israeli actions “wanton aggression on the Gaza Strip.” He ordered Egypt’s ambassador to Israel to return home, summoned the Israeli ambassador to protest, and called for emergency meetings of both the United Nations Security Council and the Arab League over the Gaza attacks. Egyptian state media said Foreign Minister Mohamed Amr had “warned Israel against the consequences of escalation and the negative reflections it may have on the security and stability of the region.”

Mr. Morsi’s Freedom and Justice Party, which was founded by the Muslim Brotherhood, posted a video on its Web site of what was described as the burned body of a Palestinian child said to have been killed in the Israeli attacks, in what appeared to be a deliberate attempt to inflame passions. His party also issued a statement saying: “The wanton aggression against Gaza proves that Israel has yet to realize that Egypt has changed and that the Egyptian people who revolted against oppression will not accept assaulting Gaza.”

A spokesman for Hamas, Fawzi Barhoum, said the Israelis had “committed a dangerous crime and broke all redlines,” and that “the Israeli occupation will regret and pay a high price.”

Military officials in Israel, which announced responsibility for the death of Mr. Jabari, later said in a statement that their forces had carried out additional airstrikes in Gaza targeting what they described as “a significant number of long-range rocket sites” owned by Hamas that had stored rockets capable of reaching 25 miles into Israel. The statement said the airstrikes had dealt a “significant blow to the terror organization’s underground rocket-launching capabilities.”

Yisrael Katz, a minister from Israel’s governing Likud Party, issued a statement saying that the operation had sent a message to the Hamas political leaders in Gaza “that the head of the snake must be smashed. Israel will continue to kill and target anyone who is involved in the rocket attacks.”Hamas and medical officials in Gaza said both Mr. Jabari and a companion were killed by the airstrike on his car in Gaza City. Israeli news media said the companion was Mr. Jabari’s son, but there was no immediate confirmation.

Fares Akram reported from Gaza, and Isabel Kershner from Jerusalem. Reporting was contributed by Mayy El Sheikh and David D. Kirkpatrick from Cairo, Gabby Sobelman in Jerusalem, Rina Castelnuovo in Beersheba, Israel, and Rick Gladstone from New York.

Read More..

Hope Solo Weds Jerramy Stevens Amid Assault Allegations?

By Dahvi Shira

11/14/2012 at 06:35 PM EST

Jerramy Stevens and Hope Solo

NFL/Getty; Jeff Vinnick/Getty

One day after former Seattle Seahawks tight end Jerramy Stevens was arrested on suspicion of assaulting his fiancée, U.S. women's soccer team goalkeeper Hope Solo, the pair reportedly tied the knot.

"Confirmed," Sportsradio 950 AM and 102.9 FM radio host Dave Mahler Tweeted on Tuesday. "Jerramy Stevens and Hope Solo were married tonight. Events of yesterday morning didn't change plans."

The pair, who had only been dating for about two months, applied for a marriage license last Thursday. According to court documents, the athletes were arguing over whether to wed in Florida or Washington State.

Stevens, 33, was reportedly released from custody by a Kirkland, Wash., Municipal Court judge on Tuesday after determining there wasn't enough evidence to hold the former football star.

All of the former Dancing with the Stars contestant's social media pages have gone silent since Nov. 6., and calls to her rep have not been returned.

Read More..

New gene triples risk for Alzheimer's disease

Scientists have identified a new gene variant that seems to strongly raise the risk for Alzheimer's disease, giving a fresh target for research into treatments for the mind-robbing disorder.

The problem gene is not common — less than 1 percent of people are thought to have it — but it roughly triples the chances of developing Alzheimer's compared to people with the normal version of the gene. It also seems to harm memory and thinking in older people without dementia.

The main reason scientists are excited by the discovery is what this gene does, and how that might reveal what causes Alzheimer's and ways to prevent it. The gene helps the immune system control inflammation in the brain and clear junk such as the sticky deposits that are the hallmark of the disease. Mutations in the gene may impair these tasks, so treatments to restore the gene's function and quell inflammation may help.

"It points us to potential therapeutics in a more precise way than we've seen in the past," said Dr. William Thies, chief medical and scientific officer of the Alzheimer's Association, which had no role in the research. Years down the road, this discovery will likely be seen as very important, he predicted.

It is described in a study by an international group published online Wednesday by the New England Journal of Medicine.

About 35 million people worldwide have dementia, and Alzheimer's is the most common type. In the U.S., about 5 million have Alzheimer's. Medicines such as Aricept and Namenda just temporarily ease symptoms. There is no known cure.

Until now, only one gene — ApoE — has been found to have a big impact on Alzheimer's risk. About 17 percent of the population has at least one copy of the problem version of this gene but nearly half of all people with Alzheimer's do. Other genes that have been tied to the disease raise risk only a little, or cause the less common type of Alzheimer's that develops earlier in life, before age 60.

The new gene, TREM2, already has been tied to a couple other forms of dementia. Researchers led by deCODE Genetics Inc. of Iceland honed in on a version of it they identified through mapping the entire genetic code of more than 2,200 Icelanders.

Further tests on 3,550 Alzheimer's patients and more than 110,000 people without dementia in several countries, including the United States, found that the gene variant was more common in Alzheimer's patients.

"It's a very strong effect," raising the risk of Alzheimer's by three to four times — about the same amount as the problem version of the ApoE gene does, said Dr. Allan Levey, director of an Alzheimer's program at Emory University, one of the academic centers participating in the research.

Researchers also tested more than 1,200 people over age 85 who did not have Alzheimer's disease and found that those with the variant TREM2 gene had lower mental function scores than those without it. This adds evidence the gene variant is important in cognition, even short of causing Alzheimer's.

"It's another piece in the puzzle. It suggests the immune system is important in Alzheimer's disease," said Andrew Singleton, a geneticist with the National Institute on Aging, which helped pay for the study.

One prominent scientist not involved in the study — Dr. Rudolph Tanzi, a Harvard Medical School geneticist and director of an Alzheimer's research program at Massachusetts General Hospital — called the work exciting, but added a caveat.

"I would like to see more evidence that this is Alzheimer's" rather than one of the other dementias already tied to the gene, Tanzi said. Autopsy or brain imaging tests can show whether the cases attributed to the gene variant are truly Alzheimer's or misdiagnosed, he said.

___

Online:

Medical journal: http://www.nejm.org

Alzheimer's info: http://www.alzheimers.gov

Alzheimer's Association: http://www.alz.org

___

Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP

Read More..

Justin Bieber, driving Ferarri, gets second citation in 6 months

For the second time in six months, pop star Justin Bieber has been cited by authorities for a traffic violation involving a high-end sports car.

But this time Bieber can't blame his traffic violation on the paparazzi. This time it was all Bieber during an apparent joyride Tuesday night in West Hollywood, according to Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies.

Bieber was pulled over in a white Ferarri around 6:30 p.m. Tuesday in the 600 block of Hayward Avenue and was cited for making an unsafe left turn and having an expired registration, said sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore.

"He was obviously enjoying his vehicle more than he was recognizing the laws," Whitmore said.

The incident comes less than six months after Bieber was pulled over by the California Highway Patrol on the 101 Freeway in the San Fernando Valley and cited for driving his Fisker sports car at high speed. The pop star said then he was being chased by a freelance paparazzo.

Los Angeles city prosecutors filed charges against the photographer, Paul Raef, 30, for allegedly chasing Bieber and then speeding off when police tried to pull both Bieber and Raef over. 

Raef is the first paparazzo to be charged under a 2010 state law that adds penalties on paparazzi driving dangerously for images they will sell, city prosecutors said.

Asked if Bieber's second alleged violation constituted a trend, Whitmore said he wasn't sure.

"You have two incidents," Whitmore said. "Is that a pattern? I don't know. I know that he's a teenager."

ALSO:

LAPD searching for possible kidnap victim in El Sereno

Red flag warning issued for brush fire danger in L.A. area

Man in wheelchair shot while waiting to buy "Call of Duty" game

-- Andrew Blankstein

Photo: Justin Bieber performs at the Barclays Center on onday in the Brooklyn, New York.Credit: Stephen Lovekin / Getty Images

Read More..

White House Supports Top U.S. Commander in Afghanistan

President Obama has faith in Gen. John R. Allen, the top American and NATO commander in Afghanistan, the White House spokesman said on Tuesday, after it was disclosed that the general was under investigation for what the Pentagon called “inappropriate communication” with the woman whose complaint to the F.B.I. set off the scandal involving David H. Petraeus’s extramarital affair.

“The president thinks very highly of General Allen,” the spokesman, Jay Carney, said at a White House news briefing. “He has faith in General Allen,” and believes that he has done “an excellent job” as commander in Afghanistan, Mr. Carney added. General Allen’s recent nomination to become the supreme allied commander in Europe, Mr. Carney said, is delayed at the request of Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta pending the investigation’s outcome.

Mr. Panetta and other officials disclosed overnight the investigation into General Allen’s e-mails with Jill Kelley, the woman in Tampa, Fla., who was seen by Paula Broadwell, Mr. Petraeus’s lover, as a rival for his attentions.

Mr. Petraeus’s affair led to his resignation as head of the C.I.A. on Friday, and the F.B.I.’s investigations into e-mails in the matter apparently led in turn to General Allen’s correspondence.

In a statement released to reporters on his plane en route to Australia early Tuesday, Mr. Panetta said the F.B.I. on Sunday had referred “a matter involving” General Allen to the Pentagon.

Mr. Panetta turned the matter over to the Pentagon’s inspector general to conduct an investigation into what a defense official said were thousands of pages of documents, many of them e-mails between General Allen and Ms. Kelley.

A senior law enforcement official in Washington said on Tuesday that F.B.I. investigators, looking into Ms. Kelley’s complaint about anonymous e-mails she had received, examined all of her e-mails as a routine step.

“When you get involved in a cybercase like this, you have to look at everything,” the official said, suggesting that Ms. Kelley may not have considered that possibility when she filed the complaint. “The real question is why someone decided to open this can of worms.”

The official would not describe the content of the e-mails between General Allen and Ms. Kelley or say specifically why F.B.I. officials had decided to pass them on to the Defense Department. “Generally, the nature of the e-mails warranted providing them to D.O.D.,” he said.

Under military law, adultery can be a crime.

The defense official on Mr. Panetta’s plane said that General Allen, who is also married, told Pentagon officials that he had done nothing wrong. Neither he nor Ms. Kelley, who is also married with children, could be reached for comment early Tuesday. Mr. Panetta’s statement praised General Allen for his leadership in Afghanistan and said, “He is entitled to due process in this matter.”

A senior Defense Department official said General Allen had denied having an extramarital affair with Ms. Kelley. But the official said the content of some of the e-mails “was of a flirtatious nature.”

“Some were of an affectionate nature,” the official said, adding that it was unclear whether the flirtatiousness expressed was from General Allen to Ms. Kelley, from Ms. Kelley to General Allen, or mutual.

“That is what makes the e-mails potentially inappropriate,” he said.

The official said that he had not read the e-mails, but had been briefed on the content, and that they did not contain anything inappropriate regarding operations or security.

But there were conflicting assessments of the content of the e-mails. Associates of General Allen said that the e-mails were of an innocuous nature. Some of the e-mails, these associates said, used terms of endearment, but not in a flirtatious way.

Pentagon officials cautioned against making too much of the number of documents, since some might be from e-mail chains, or brief messages printed out on a whole page.

The Pentagon inspector general’s investigation opens up what could be a widening scandal into two of the most prominent generals of their generation: Mr. Petraeus, who was the top commander in Iraq and Afghanistan before he retired from the military and became director of the C.I.A., only to resign on Friday because of the affair, and General Allen, who also served in Iraq and now commands 68,000 American troops in Afghanistan.

Although General Allen will remain the commander in Afghanistan, Mr. Panetta said that he had asked President Obama to delay the general’s nomination to be the commander of American forces in Europe and the supreme allied commander of NATO, two positions he was to move into after what was expected to be easy confirmation by the Senate. Mr. Panetta said in his statement that Mr. Obama agreed with his request.

Scott Shane and Thom Shanker contributed reporting from Washington.

Read More..

RIM sees BB10 devices in stores soon after launch

WATERLOO, Ontario (Reuters) – Research In Motion is confident its new BlackBerry 10 devices will be 100 percent ready for the January 30 launch and available in stores “not too long after” that, Chief Operating Officer Kristian Tear said on Tuesday.

“We’re working hard right now to make sure all the bits and pieces and all the details are in place for the date, when the devices will be available for consumers and enterprises,” Tear told Reuters in an interview.

RIM, which virtually invented the concept of mobile email with its first line of BlackBerry devices more than a decade ago, was roundly criticized for the botched 2011 launch of its PlayBook tablet computer, which RIM had hoped would compete with Apple’s blockbuster iPad.

The PlayBook looked pretty and had top-of-the-line hardware. But its software was far from complete at the launch and needed multiple updates.

The device also lacked the library of apps available on the iPad and on devices that run on Google Inc’s competing Android operating system.

RIM says its the new devices will be faster and smoother than its existing phones and have a large catalog of applications that are crucial to the success of any smartphone.

The company hopes the new devices will allow it to claw back some of the market share it has lost to Android and Apple phones.

Tear said RIM has used input from current BlackBerry users to influence the design of the new devices, The new phones both build on the strengths of RIM’s existing operating system and improve on its weak points, he said.

RIM last month began carrier testing on the new devices, with an initial rollout to more than 50 carriers. Tear, who joined RIM a few months ago from Sony Mobile Communications, said RIM was expanding that to a wider group of carriers across the globe.

“We submitted to 50 carriers to begin with, and obviously that number is increasing as we move forward,” he said. “Our ambition is to make this a global launch, everything will not happen at the same time, but it will be a global launch.”

RIM has said it initially plans to roll out a high-end touchscreen version of the device. Phones with the mini QWERTY keyboards that many long-time BlackBerry users adore will come a few weeks later, while lower-end versions of both devices will be launched later in the year.

The company has yet to say exactly when the devices will be available in stores worldwide or how much they will cost.

“We have to agree with carriers as well on what they want to announce when, so it’s not absolutely to our own discretion,” Tear said.

COST CUTTING

RIM, whose share price has fallen more than 90 percent from a 2008 peak around $ 148, is part way through a major restructuring, as it seeks to trim costs in the run-up to the launch of the new devices.

The company, which has also said it is examining its strategic options, is lowering operating costs by about $ 1 billion and cutting about 5,000 jobs, or about 30 percent of its workforce, by the time its fiscal year ends in early March.

“We are on track to deliver on that,” said Tear. “It is an ongoing process, when it comes to efficiencies and costs.”

RIM’s Chief Legal Officer Steve Zipperstein said the company is pushing ahead with its strategic review.

“The process is ongoing and it continues to be a focus on RIM’s senior management, but we have nothing to report at this moment,” said Zipperstein.

RIM shares, which have risen slightly over the last couple of months in the run-up to the launch of BB10 devices, closed 4.7 percent lower at $ 8.40 on Nasdaq. RIM’s Toronto-listed shares fell by a similar margin to C$ 8.40.

(Reporting by Euan Rocha; Editing by Janet Guttsman, Leslie Adler and Tim Dobbyn)

Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Sesame Street Elmo Puppeteer Accuser Recants Claim

11/13/2012 at 06:00 PM EST

Kevin Clash is no longer facing a claim that he was involved in an underage sexual relationship.

The puppeteer, 52, who is the voice of Elmo on Sesame Street, was granted a leave of absence from the long-running program amid an accusation from an unidentified male that Clash was having sex with him at age 16.

On Tuesday the law firm that represents the accuser released a statement to the Los Angeles Times, recanting the claim.

The accuser "wants it to be known that his sexual relationship with Mr. Clash was an adult consensual relationship," the statement from Andreozzi & Associates says. "He will have no further comment on the matter."

Clash admitted to having a consensual relationship with the male, who he says is now 23, but stated that the man was not a minor at the time they initially got together.

"I am relieved that this painful allegation has been put to rest," Clash told PEOPLE in a statement through his rep. "I will not discuss it further."

Clash's show is equally happy with the outcome.

"We are pleased that this matter has been brought to aclose," Sesame Workshop said in a statement to PEOPLE on Tuesday. "We are happy that Kevin can move on from this unfortunate episode."

• Reporting By CHARLOTTE TRIGGS

Read More..

Report: FDA wanted to close Mass pharmacy in 2003

WASHINGTON (AP) — Nearly a decade ago, federal health inspectors wanted to shut down the pharmacy linked to a recent deadly meningitis outbreak until it cleaned up its operations, according to congressional investigators.

About 440 people have been sickened by contaminated steroid shots distributed by New England Compounding Center, and more than 32 deaths have been reported since the outbreak began in September, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That has put the Framingham, Mass.-based pharmacy at the center of congressional scrutiny and calls for greater regulation of compounding pharmacies, which make individualized medications for patients and have long operated in a legal gray area between state and federal laws.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee released a detailed history of NECC's regulatory troubles on Monday, ahead of a meeting Wednesday meeting to examine how the outbreak could have been prevented. The 25-page report summarizes and quotes from FDA and state inspection memos, though the committee declined to release the original documents.

The report shows that after several problematic incidents, Food and Drug Administration officials in 2003 suggested that the compounding pharmacy be "prohibited from manufacturing" until it improved its operations. But FDA regulators deferred to their counterparts in Massachusetts, who ultimately reached an agreement with the pharmacy to settle concerns about the quality of its prescription injections.

The congressional report also shows that in 2003 the FDA considered the company a pharmacy. That's significant because in recent weeks public health officials have charged that NECC was operating more as a manufacturer than a pharmacy, shipping thousands of doses of drugs to all 50 states instead of small batches of drugs to individual patients. Manufacturers are regulated by the FDA and are subject to stricter quality standards than pharmacies.

The report offers the most detailed account yet of the numerous regulatory complaints against the pharmacy, which nearly date back to its founding in 1998. Less than a year later, the company was cited by the state pharmacy board for providing doctors with blank prescription pads with NECC's information. Such promotional items are illegal in Massachusetts and the pharmacy's owner and director, Barry Cadden, received an informal reprimand, according to documents summarized by the committee.

Cadden was subject to several other complaints involving unprofessional conduct in coming years, but first came to the FDA's attention in 2002. Here are some key events from the report highlighting the company's early troubles with state and federal authorities:

__ In March of 2002 the FDA began investigating reports that five patients had become dizzy and short of breath after receiving NECC's compounded betamethasone repository injection, a steroid used to treat joint pain and arthritis that's different from the one linked to the current meningitis outbreak.

FDA inspectors visited NECC on April 9 and said Cadden was initially cooperative in turning over records about production of the drug. But during a second day of inspections, Cadden told officials "that he was no longer willing to provide us with any additional records," according to an FDA report cited by congressional investigators. The inspectors ultimately issued a report citing NECC for poor sterility and record-keeping practices but said that "this FDA investigation could not proceed to any definitive resolution," because of "problems/barriers that were encountered throughout the inspection."

__ In October of 2002, the FDA received new reports that two patients at a Rochester, N.Y., hospital came down with symptoms of bacterial meningitis after receiving a different NECC injection. The steroid, methylprednisolone acetate, is the same injectable linked to the current outbreak and is typically is used to treat back pain. Both patients were treated with antibiotics and eventually recovered, according to FDA documents cited by the committee.

When officials from the FDA and Massachusetts Board of Pharmacy visited NECC later in the month, Cadden said vials of the steroid returned by the hospital had tested negative for bacterial contamination. But when FDA scientists tested samples of the drug collected in New York they found bacterial contamination in four out of 14 vials sampled. It is not entirely clear whether FDA tested the same lot shipped to the Rochester hospital.

__ At a February 2003 meeting between state and federal officials, FDA staff emphasized "the potential for serious public consequences if NECC's compounding practices, in particular those relating to sterile products, are not improved." The agency issued a list of problems uncovered in its inspection to NECC, including a failure to verify if sterile drugs met safety standards.

But the agency decided to let Massachusetts officials take the lead in regulating the company, since pharmacies are typically regulated at the state level. It was decided that "the state would be in a better position to gain compliance or take regulatory action against NECC as necessary," according to a summary of the meeting quoted by investigators.

The FDA recommended the state subject NECC to a consent agreement, which would require the company to pass certain quality tests to continue operating. But congressional investigators say Massachusetts Board of Pharmacy did not take any action until "well over a year later."

__ In October 2004, the board sent a proposed consent agreement to Cadden, which would have included a formal reprimand and a three-year probationary period for the company's registration. The case ended without disciplinary action in 2006, when NECC agreed to a less severe consent decree with the state.

Massachusetts officials indicated Tuesday they are still investigating why NECC escaped the more severe penalty.

"I will not be satisfied until we know the full story behind this decision," the state's interim health commissioner Lauren Smith said in a transcript of her prepared testimony released a day ahead of delivery. Smith is one of several witnesses scheduled to testify Wednesday, including FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg.

The committee will also hear from the widow of 78-year-old Eddie C. Lovelace, a longtime circuit court judge in southern Kentucky. Autopsy results confirmed Lovelace received fungus-contaminated steroid injections that led to his death Sept. 17.

Joyce Lovelace will urge lawmakers to work together on legislation to stop future outbreaks caused by compounded drugs, according to a draft of her testimony.

"We now know that New England Compounding Pharmacy, Inc. killed Eddie. I have lost my soulmate and life's partner with whom I worked side by side, day after day for more than fifty years," Lovelace states.

Barry Cadden is also scheduled to appear at the hearing, after lawmakers issued a subpoena to compel him to attend.

The NECC has been closed since early last month, and Massachusetts officials have taken steps to permanently revoke its license. The pharmacy has recalled all the products it makes, including 17,700 single-dose vials of a steroid that tested positive for the fungus tied to the outbreak.

Read More..

Teen bitten 6 times by rattlesnakes while searching for cell signal

A 16-year-old El Cajon girl is lucky to be alive after being bitten at least six times by rattlesnakes.

"On a scale from 1 to 10 the pain was 45," Vera Oliphant recalled.

The young woman was visiting her uncle in Jamul, Calif., east of San Diego about two weeks ago when she decided to walk up a hill, searching for cell phone reception.

"I heard them all over, I heard the rattles, then I ran," said Oliphant.

In her attempt to run back to her uncle's, she stepped right into a rattlesnake's nest.

"My entire body started swelling," said the teen.

She hobbled back to her uncle who was able to get her to the emergency room at Sharp Grossmont Hospital.

"The doctors told me I was lucky to be alive," said Oliphant, who spent four days in intensive care.

"If you get bitten by a snake, the first thing to remember, is that you have more time than you think you do," said Dr. Jordan Cohen of Sharp Grossmont.

Cohen, who said he's seen his share of snakebites, explained that when it comes to this type of injury, many of the well-known first aid techniques often used in the wilderness don't apply. He advised to get to the emergency room as soon as possible and try to stay immobile. Tourniquets and suction are not advised, he said.

Oliphant said her complete recovery will take several more weeks. In the meantime, she said, "I'll never go out in the desert by myself, and I'll be sure to wear boots."

ALSO:

Off-duty Marine fatally shot by Palm Springs police

Man in wheelchair shot waiting to buy 'Call of Duty' game

P.I. says woman was sent to bar to flirt with Costa Mesa councilman

-- Fox 5 San Diego

Read More..

Ismail Khan, Powerful Afghan, Stokes Concern in Kabul

Bryan Denton for The New York Times

Supporters of Ismail Khan gathered outside Herat city on Nov. 1.

HERAT, Afghanistan — One of the most powerful former mujahedeen commanders in Afghanistan, Ismail Khan, is calling on his followers to reorganize and defend the country as Western militaries withdraw, in a public demonstration of faltering confidence in the national government and the Western-built Afghan National Army.

Mr. Khan is one of the strongest of a group of warlords who defined the country’s recent history in battling the Soviets, the Taliban and one another, and who then were brought into President Hamid Karzai’s cabinet as a symbol of unity. Now, in announcing that he is remobilizing his forces, Mr. Khan has rankled Afghan officials and stoked fears that other regional and factional leaders will follow suit and rearm, weakening support for the government and increasing the likelihood of civil war.

This month, Mr. Khan rallied thousands of his supporters in the desert outside Herat, the cultured western provincial capital and the center of his power base, urging them to coordinate and reactivate their networks. And he has begun enlisting new recruits and organizing district command structures.

“We are responsible for maintaining security in our country and not letting Afghanistan be destroyed again,” Mr. Khan, the minister of energy and water, said at a news conference over the weekend at his offices in Kabul. But after facing weeks of criticism, he took care not to frame his action as defying the government: “There are parts of the country where the government forces cannot operate, and in such areas the locals should step forward, take arms and defend the country.”

President Karzai and his aides, however, were not greeting it as an altruistic gesture. The governor of Herat Province called Mr. Khan’s reorganization an illegal challenge to the national security forces. And Mr. Karzai’s spokesman, Aimal Faizi, tersely criticized Mr. Khan.

“The remarks by Ismail Khan do not reflect the policies of the Afghan government,” Mr. Faizi said. “The government of Afghanistan and the Afghan people do not want any irresponsible armed grouping outside the legitimate security forces structures.”

In Kabul, Mr. Khan’s provocative actions have played out in the news media and brought a fierce reaction from some members of Parliament who said the former warlords were preparing to take advantage of the American troop withdrawal set for 2014.

“People like Ismail Khan smell blood,” Belqis Roshan, a senator from Farah Province, said in an interview. “They think that as soon as foreign forces leave Afghanistan, once again they will get the chance to start a civil war, and achieve their ominous goals of getting rich and terminating their local rivals.”

Indeed, Mr. Khan’s is not the only voice calling for a renewed alliance of the mujahedeen against the Taliban, and some of the others are just as familiar.

Marshal Muhammad Qasim Fahim, an ethnic Tajik commander who is President Karzai’s first vice president, said in a speech in September, “If the Afghan security forces are not able to wage this war, then call upon the mujahedeen.”

Another prominent former mujahedeen fighter, Ahmad Zia Massoud, said in an interview at his home in Kabul that people were worried about what was going to happen after 2014, and he was telling his own followers to make preliminary preparations.

“They don’t want to be disgraced again,” Mr. Massoud said. “Everyone tries to have some sort of Plan B. Some people are on the verge of rearming.”

He pointed out that it was significant that the going market price of Kalashnikov assault rifles has risen to about $1,000, driven up by demand from a price of $300 a decade ago. “Every household wants to have an AK-47 at home,” he said.

“The mujahedeen come here to meet me,” Mr. Massoud added. “They tell me they are preparing. They are trying to find weapons. They come from villages, from the north of Afghanistan, even some people from the suburbs of Kabul, and say they are taking responsibility for providing private security in their neighborhood.”

Habib Zahori and Jawad Sukhanyar contributed reporting from Herat, and an employee of The New York Times from Kabul.

Read More..

Political Polling After the End of the Phone

With over a third of U.S. households forgoing the land-line and people using their phones less and less for talking, the phone call is no longer the best way for pollsters to reach the people they need to speak with. With that changing trend, this election season polling places like Gallup worked cell-phone calls into its repertoire to get a better reflection of society, Gallup spokesperson Frank Newport told Wired‘s Mat Honan. And, logically, as more people replace landlines for cell phones, polling would increasingly throw cell-phones into the mix. But, it doesn’t look like that’s really the next frontier in polling. For one, it’s expensive. A 1996 Federal regulation requires that calls to cell phones be hand-dialed, rather than computer generated, which costs more money because employing people (rather than machines) takes dollars, notes Bits Blog’s Quentin Hardy. Plus, because of caller-ID, guilting cell phone users into taking a poll proves harder than haranguing an unsuspecting land-line answerer. (Of course, many land-line owners have caller-ID, too.) So, if the annoying, always disruptive at the worst time, pollster phone call is on the outs, then what does the future of political polling hold?

RELATED: More Than Half of America Likes Obama Again

Survey Monkey

RELATED: Poll: Rick Perry Bests Mitt Romney Among Tea Partiers

For real. The amateur-looking website conducted a series of polls throughout this election period, at times with better accuracy than the over-the-phone guys. In an explanatory post on the site, the company explains it had 96 percent accuracy with its methods. Over 60,000 people took one of the site’s surveys the day before election day alone, SurveyMonkey’s vice president, Philip Garland, told Hardy. 

RELATED: Poll: GOP Race Now Between Newt, Sarah, Mitt and Everyone Else

Though some have questioned the accuracy of the online poll because of its newness to the field. Nate Silver, whose words on all things polling we should now consider law, confirmed that many of the most accurate polling came from online surveys. “When people are asked questions by a person, they feel like they should make a choice,” Garland added. People are more candid on the Internet, which is not at all surprising. 

RELATED: Rick Perry Is Still Leading Despite Some Bad Debates

Text Messages

RELATED: Less Than Half of America Knows What GOP Stands For

Though a new survey says that text messaging is on the decline, Gallup is already experimenting with it as a polling technique in Central and South America, notes Honan. Though it doesn’t sound that different than screening a phone call, text messages are a lot less invasive and they don’t require an answer right away. Also, increasingly, it is how people do much of their communicating. 

Emails, Unfortunately

Though that sounds logical since so many Americans are accessible by email, it turns out it is too hard to get a good sample using email, since many people have multiple email addresses, and it’s hard to account for that difference. Also, isn’t it just so easy to click delete without opening? However, that hasn’t stopped certain organizations from using it, as Bloomberg Businessweek‘s Peter Coy explains. Some firms use email lists that aren’t representative of the general population, he notes. 

Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Whoa! Snooki Is a Redhead

Stylewatch
Style News Now

11/12/2012 at 06:30 PM ET

Courtesy Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi

Motherhood certainly hasn’t tamed Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi‘s sense of style: the Jersey Shore star just dyed her hair fire-engine red.

On Monday, the pint-sized reality starlet shared a picture of herself sitting in her stylist’s chair with her new ‘do, accompanied by a one-word caption: “Sexual.”

The Rihanna-red color is a pretty shocking departure from the basic black tresses we usually see the star sporting – but then again, it’s hardly the most shocking thing Snooki has done in her time.

Though the shade is eye-popping, we actually think it suits her … and gives the now-tamed mama a safer way to express her wild side. Tell us: What do you think of Snooki as a redhead?

–Jennifer Cress

PHOTOS: SHOP EDITOR-APPROVED HAIR PRODUCTS

Read More..

British medical journal slams Roche on Tamiflu

LONDON (AP) — A leading British medical journal is asking the drug maker Roche to release all its data on Tamiflu, claiming there is no evidence the drug can actually stop the flu.

The drug has been stockpiled by dozens of governments worldwide in case of a global flu outbreak and was widely used during the 2009 swine flu pandemic.

On Monday, one of the researchers linked to the BMJ journal called for European governments to sue Roche.

"I suggest we boycott Roche's products until they publish missing Tamiflu data," wrote Peter Gotzsche, leader of the Nordic Cochrane Centre in Copenhagen. He said governments should take legal action against Roche to get the money back that was "needlessly" spent on stockpiling Tamiflu.

Last year, Tamiflu was included in a list of "essential medicines" by the World Health Organization, a list that often prompts governments or donor agencies to buy the drug.

Tamiflu is used to treat both seasonal flu and new flu viruses like bird flu or swine flu. WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl said the agency had enough proof to warrant its use for unusual influenza viruses, like bird flu.

"We do have substantive evidence it can stop or hinder progression to severe disease like pneumonia," he said.

In the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends Tamiflu as one of two medications for treating regular flu. The other is GlaxoSmithKline's Relenza. The CDC says such antivirals can shorten the duration of symptoms and reduce the risk of complications and hospitalization.

In 2009, the BMJ and researchers at the Nordic Cochrane Centre asked Roche to make all its Tamiflu data available. At the time, Cochrane Centre scientists were commissioned by Britain to evaluate flu drugs. They found no proof that Tamiflu reduced the number of complications in people with influenza.

"Despite a public promise to release (internal company reports) for each (Tamiflu) trial...Roche has stonewalled," BMJ editor Fiona Godlee wrote in an editorial last month.

In a statement, Roche said it had complied with all legal requirements on publishing data and provided Gotzsche and his colleagues with 3,200 pages of information to answer their questions.

"Roche has made full clinical study data ... available to national health authorities according to their various requirements, so they can conduct their own analyses," the company said.

Roche says it doesn't usually release patient-level data available due to legal or confidentiality constraints. It said it did not provide the requested data to the scientists because they refused to sign a confidentiality agreement.

Roche is also being investigated by the European Medicines Agency for not properly reporting side effects, including possible deaths, for 19 drugs including Tamiflu that were used in about 80,000 patients in the U.S.

____

Online:

www.bmj.com.tamiflu/

Read More..

Mother charges 'Modern Family' star had unlawful sex in home

Authorities are investigating an allegation by the mother of "Modern Family" star Ariel Winter that her daughter's 18-year-old boyfriend had unlawful sex with the 14-year-old actress, according to sources familiar with the investigation.

The L.A. County Sheriff''s Department's Special Victims Unit also is separately examining whether Winter's mother, Chrisoula Workman, physically abused the teenage actress.

So far, detectives have not gathered any specific evidence to substantiate the allegations in either investigation involving Ariel, otherwise  known to millions as Alex Dunphy, the brainy member of "Modern Family's"  Dunphy family.

The investigations began last month after a judge awarded temporary guardianship of Ariel, whose real name is Ariel Workman, to her adult sister, Shanelle Gray, also an actress. Ariel, through her sister's attorney, alleged in a court filing that she was subject to ongoing physical and mental abuse by her mother. 

Three days after Ariel took legal action to split from her mother, Chrisoula Workman reported on Oct. 6 to the sheriff's Crescenta Valley station that her daughter's 18-year-old boyfriend had unlawful sex with the underage actress.

Chrisoula Workman contends she discovered her daughter in the guest bedroom of her Montrose home on Sept. 24 in bed with a young man, believed to be 18, according to sources not authorized to discuss the investigation.

The young man was described as the teenage actress' boyfriend of several months, according to the sources. According to sources, both the teenagers have denied doing anything unlawful.

Detectives also have been unable to substantiate Ariel's abuse allegations, but the investigation remains ongoing.

"It's all untrue, it's all untrue," Chrisoula Workman told People magazine. "I have
my doctor's letter that my daughter's never been abused. ... I have
stylists' letters that she's never been abused."

She added in an interview with E!: "I would never abuse her in any way, and I have always tried my best to
always protect her and do what is right for her. My daughter is in a
business that requires you to grow up fast. It's hard enough being a
teenage girl, but it's even harder when you are in the public eye. 
However, because you are in the public eye, it doesn't mean you are no
longer in need of good parenting."

A judge last month ordered the actress' mother to
stay away from Ariel and have no contact with the minor, pending a Nov.
20 hearing on the guardianship and control of at least $500,000 in
assets.

"Minor Ariel Workman has been a victim of on-going physical abuse
(slapping, hitting, pushing) and emotional abuse (vile name-calling,
personal insults about minor and minor's weight, attempts to sexualize
minor, deprivation of food etc.) for an extended period of time by the
minor’s mother, Chrisoula Workman. ...," her attorneys said in a petition for guardianship.

As is standard practice in such cases, an attorney is representing
the interests of the young actress. To protect her earnings and existing
assets, lawyers are seeking to move her money to accounts off-limits
to her mother.

-- Richard Winton and Andrew Blankstein

Photo: Actress Ariel Winter in September. Credit: Richard Shotwell / Invision / Associated Press

Read More..