Hillary Clinton Suffers a Concussion After Fainting

WASHINGTON — The State Department said Saturday that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who skipped an overseas trip this past week because of a stomach virus, had suffered a concussion after fainting.

The agency said that she was recovering at home and was being monitored by doctors.

The department said Mrs. Clinton was dehydrated because of the virus and that she fainted, causing the concussion. No further details were immediately available.

An aide, Philippe Reines, said that Mrs. Clinton would work from home next week, at the recommendation of doctors.

Read More..

Connecticut Shooting: Bodies Removed from School, Positively Identified

By Mike Fleeman

12/15/2012 at 10:25 AM EST

Connecticut State Police Lt. J. Paul Vance

Mary Altaffer/AP

A horrific day turned to a night of unspeakable grief as parents received formal notifications that their children were killed in the Connecticut school massacre.

The last of the dozens of bodies – most of them children – were removed by early Saturday from Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.

"Our objective certainly was to positively identify the victims to try to give the families some closure," State Police Spokesman Lt. Paul Vance tells CBS News. "Our detectives worked well through the night. By early this morning, we were able to positively identify all of the victims and make some formal notification to all of the families of the victims."

The gunman, identified by multiple law enforcement sources as 20-year-old Adam Lanza, killed 20 children between the ages of 5 and 10 and six adults, before taking his own life at the school. His mother also was killed at a different location, bringing the total death toll to 28.

Eighteen children were pronounced dead at the scene and two at the hospital; six adult victims were pronounced dead at the scene, the Los Angeles Times reports.

Read More..

Fewer health care options for illegal immigrants

ALAMO, Texas (AP) — For years, Sonia Limas would drag her daughters to the emergency room whenever they fell sick. As an illegal immigrant, she had no health insurance, and the only place she knew to seek treatment was the hospital — the most expensive setting for those covering the cost.

The family's options improved somewhat a decade ago with the expansion of community health clinics, which offered free or low-cost care with help from the federal government. But President Barack Obama's health care overhaul threatens to roll back some of those services if clinics and hospitals are overwhelmed with newly insured patients and can't afford to care for as many poor families.

To be clear, Obama's law was never intended to help Limas and an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants like her. Instead, it envisions that 32 million uninsured Americans will get access to coverage by 2019. Because that should mean fewer uninsured patients showing up at hospitals, the Obama program slashed the federal reimbursement for uncompensated care.

But in states with large illegal immigrant populations, the math may not work, especially if lawmakers don't expand Medicaid, the joint state-federal health program for the poor and disabled.

When the reform has been fully implemented, illegal immigrants will make up the nation's second-largest population of uninsured, or about 25 percent. The only larger group will be people who qualify for insurance but fail to enroll, according to a 2012 study by the Washington-based Urban Institute.

And since about two-thirds of illegal immigrants live in just eight states, those areas will have a disproportionate share of the uninsured to care for.

In communities "where the number of undocumented immigrants is greatest, the strain has reached the breaking point," Rich Umbdenstock, president of the American Hospital Association, wrote last year in a letter to Obama, asking him to keep in mind the uncompensated care hospitals gave to that group. "In response, many hospitals have had to curtail services, delay implementing services, or close beds."

The federal government has offered to expand Medicaid, but states must decide whether to take the deal. And in some of those eight states — including Texas, Florida and New Jersey — hospitals are scrambling to determine whether they will still have enough money to treat the remaining uninsured.

Without a Medicaid expansion, the influx of new patients and the looming cuts in federal funding could inflict "a double whammy" in Texas, said David Lopez, CEO of the Harris Health System in Houston, which spends 10 to 15 percent of its $1.2 billion annual budget to care for illegal immigrants.

Realistically, taxpayers are already paying for some of the treatment provided to illegal immigrants because hospitals are required by law to stabilize and treat any patients that arrive in an emergency room, regardless of their ability to pay. The money to cover the costs typically comes from federal, state and local taxes.

A solid accounting of money spent treating illegal immigrants is elusive because most hospitals do not ask for immigration status. But some states have tried.

California, which is home to the nation's largest population of illegal immigrants, spent an estimated $1.2 billion last year through Medicaid to care for 822,500 illegal immigrants.

The New Jersey Hospital Association in 2010 estimated that it cost between $600 million and $650 million annually to treat 550,000 illegal immigrants.

And in Texas, a 2010 analysis by the Health and Human Services Commission found that the agency had provided $96 million in benefits to illegal immigrants, up from $81 million two years earlier. The state's public hospital districts spent an additional $717 million in uncompensated care to treat that population.

If large states such as Florida and Texas make good on their intention to forgo federal money to expand Medicaid, the decision "basically eviscerates" the effects of the health care overhaul in those areas because of "who lives there and what they're eligible for," said Lisa Clemans-Cope, a senior researcher at the Urban Institute.

Seeking to curb expenses, hospitals might change what qualifies as an emergency or cap the number of uninsured patients they treat. And although it's believed states with the most illegal immigrants will face a smaller cut, they will still lose money.

The potential impacts of reform are a hot topic at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. In addition to offering its own charity care, some MD Anderson oncologists volunteer at a county-funded clinic at Lyndon B. Johnson General Hospital that largely treats the uninsured.

"In a sense we've been in the worst-case scenario in Texas for a long time," said Lewis Foxhall, MD Anderson's vice president of health policy in Houston. "The large number of uninsured and the large low-income population creates a very difficult problem for us."

Community clinics are a key part of the reform plan and were supposed to take up some of the slack for hospitals. Clinics received $11 billion in new funding over five years so they could expand to help care for a swell of newly insured who might otherwise overwhelm doctors' offices. But in the first year, $600 million was cut from the centers' usual allocation, leaving many to use the money to fill gaps rather than expand.

There is concern that clinics could themselves be inundated with newly insured patients, forcing many illegal immigrants back to emergency rooms.

Limas, 44, moved to the border town of Alamo 13 years ago with her husband and three daughters. Now single, she supports the family by teaching a citizenship class in Spanish at the local community center and selling cookies and cakes she whips up in her trailer. Soon, she hopes to seek a work permit of her own.

For now, the clinic helps with basic health care needs. If necessary, Limas will return to the emergency room, where the attendants help her fill out paperwork to ensure the government covers the bills she cannot afford.

"They always attended to me," she said, "even though it's slow."

___

Sherman can be followed on Twitter at https://twitter.com/chrisshermanAP .

Plushnick-Masti can be followed on Twitter at https://twitter.com/RamitMastiAP .

Read More..

Wall Street Week Ahead: Holiday "on standby" as clock ticks on cliff

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The last two weeks of December are traditionally quiet for stocks, but traders accustomed to a bit of time off are staying close to their mobile devices, thanks to the "fiscal cliff."

Last-minute negotiations in Washington on the so-called fiscal cliff - nearly $600 billion of tax increases and spending cuts set to take effect in January that could cause a sharp slowdown in growth or even a recession - are keeping some traders and analysts from taking Christmas holidays because any deal could have a big impact on markets.

"A lot of firms are saying to their trading desks, 'You can take days off for Christmas, but you are on standby to come in if anything happens.' This is certainly different from previous years, especially around this time of the year when things are supposed to be slowing down," said J.J. Kinahan, chief derivatives strategist at TD Ameritrade in Chicago.

"Next week is going to be a Capitol Hill-driven market."

With talks between President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner at an apparent standstill, it was increasingly likely that Washington will not come up with a deal before January 1.

Gordon Charlop, managing director at Rosenblatt Securities in New York, will also be on standby for the holiday season.

"It's a 'Look guys, let's just rotate and be sensible" type of situation going on," Charlop said.

"We are hopeful there is some resolution down there, but it seems to me they continue to walk that political tightrope... rather than coming up with something."

Despite concerns that the deadline will pass without a deal, the S&P 500 has held its ground with a 12.4 percent gain for the year. For this week, though, the S&P 500 fell 0.3 percent.

BEWARE OF THE WITCH

This coming Friday will mark the last so-called "quadruple witching" day of the year, when contracts for stock options, single stock futures, stock index options and stock index futures all expire. This could make trading more volatile.

"We could see some heavy selling as there is going to be a lot of re-establishing of positions, reallocation of assets before the year-end," Kinahan said.

RETHINKING APPLE

Higher tax rates on capital gains and dividends are part of the automatic tax increases that will go into effect next year, if Congress and the White House don't come up with a solution to avert the fiscal cliff. That possibility could give investors an incentive to unload certain stocks in some tax-related selling by December 31.

Some market participants said tax-related selling may be behind the weaker trend in the stock price of market leader Apple . Apple's stock has lost a quarter of its value since it hit a lifetime high of $705.07 on September 21.

On Friday, the stock fell 3.8 percent to $509.79 after the iPhone 5 got a chilly reception at its debut in China and two analysts cut shipment forecasts. But the stock is still up nearly 26 percent for the year.

"If you owned Apple for a long time, you should be thinking about reallocation as there will be changes in taxes and other regulations next year, although we don't really know which rules to play by yet," Kinahan said.

But one indicator of the market's reduced concern about the fiscal cliff compared with a few weeks ago, is the defense sector, which will be hit hard if the spending cuts take effect. The PHLX Defense Sector Index <.dfx> is up nearly 13 percent for the year, and sits just a few points from its 2012 high.

(Reporting by Angela Moon; Additional reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Jan Paschal)

Read More..

Susan Rice’s Bluntness Endeared Her to President

Jacquelyn Martin/Associated Press

Susan E. Rice before a cabinet meeting last month at which President Obama lauded the job she was doing. She will now, presumably, stay in her job.

WASHINGTON — For President Obama, the decision to forgo the fight to make Susan E. Rice his secretary of state was a deeply painful one. It required publicly abandoning one of his most loyal aides, who had broken with the Democratic foreign policy establishment early to side with his improbable candidacy, and whose blunt-speaking style — which helped cost her the job — had always been, for Mr. Obama, a part of her appeal.

Typically, just hours before she called Mr. Obama to tell him she had decided to withdraw from contention as Hillary Rodham Clinton’s successor, she rebuked her Chinese counterpart in an informal meeting of the United Nations Security Council, telling him his views excusing a North Korean missile launching this week were “ridiculous.”

He shot back, according to witnesses, that she “better watch your language.”

It was the latest example of why Ms. Rice, the American ambassador to the United Nations, has so often been criticized as being an unusually undiplomatic diplomat, direct to the point of rudeness. But friends and former White House aides say that Ms. Rice’s style is a reflection of Mr. Obama’s own: impatient with niceties, uninterested in small talk or long dinners, focused solely on results.

“They share a common vision and a common style,” said Madeleine Albright, the former secretary of state, who has known Ms. Rice since she was 4 years old and a schoolmate of Ms. Albright’s children. “Some of it is a generational thing, and some of it is life’s experiences.”

“She is incredibly bright, but lots of people in Washington are bright,” Ms. Albright added. “What separates people out here is that some are loyal.”

By the account of White House aides, it is loyalty that led Ms. Rice to conclude that a confirmation battle would be long, bloody and harmful to both her and the president. Pundits will long argue about whether she was pushed into her decision or jumped. But it is clear that for Mr. Obama, giving up on Ms. Rice’s appointment was far different than accepting the resignation of David H. Petraeus, his C.I.A. director, or firing Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, his commander in Afghanistan.

She began advising Mr. Obama after he was elected to the Senate. When he started his run for president in 2007, she took a significant career risk for a woman who had served in the Clinton administration as an assistant secretary of state and was presumed by her friends to be a supporter of Mrs. Clinton’s candidacy. Instead, she left the fold, backing an upstart candidate and substituting her own foreign policy experience for his lack of it.

Mark Alexander, an early campaign adviser and distant cousin of Ms. Rice’s, remembers Mr. Obama saying back then, “I have Susan Rice, and she’s going to be getting her networks going and making sure I have top-notch foreign policy people.” Before making a decision involving foreign policy, “she was the last call he would make.”

For two years, she spent untold hours advising Mr. Obama without pay, appearing on television, organizing position papers and counseling a candidate who often found himself on the defensive. He had opposed the Iraq war and she had been a skeptic; they jointly developed the argument that the United States should quickly end its involvement in Iraq, bolster the American presence in Afghanistan and focus on a “light footprint” strategy elsewhere.

Together they contended that there was no reason the United States should avoid negotiating with Iranian or North Korean dictators, taking on, among others, Mrs. Clinton, then Mr. Obama’s chief Democratic rival for the presidential nomination.

“Throughout the campaign, Susan was making an argument about challenging conventions, whether it was about Iraq or diplomacy with Iran,” Benjamin J. Rhodes, a deputy White House national security adviser and Mr. Obama’s national security speechwriter, said Thursday. “Susan has the expertise that comes from being within the foreign policy establishment, but she had the willingness to challenge it. And for the president, that was a pretty attractive quality.”

David E. Sanger reported from Washington, and Jodi Kantor from New York.

Read More..

Reese Witherspoon Spreads Holiday Cheer While Stuck in Traffic

12/14/2012 at 12:00 PM EST

Reese Witherspoon in Brentwood, Calif.

Splash News Online; Inset: FilmMagic

Reese Witherspoon beat the gridlock gloom with a pinch of holiday humor on Thursday.

The actress was spotted driving a car that would make her the envy of any Christmas fanatic. Witherspoon tricked out her Land Rover with reindeer antlers flanking each side and a red Rudolph nose on the front.

The silly decorations might not illicit giggles from baby Tennessee just yet, but Witherspoon's cute car surely cheered up other drivers lucky enough to catch a glimpse.

The actress, 36, recently joked that she's working on getting her pre-baby brain back. "I couldn't remember, the other day, what you call that thing that keeps the food cold. It was the refrigerator," said Witherspoon. "I couldn't remember the name of it!"

–Julia Haskins

Read More..

APNewsBreak: Texas cancer probe draws NCI scrutiny

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The federal National Cancer Institute says it's taking a fresh look at a troubled $3 billion cancer-fighting effort already being scrutinized by prosecutors and lawmakers in Texas.

The U.S. government's cancer research agency confirmed Friday that upheaval within the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas caught its attention. NCI spokeswoman Aleea Farrakh Khan told The Associated Press that officials are "evaluating recent events" at CPRIT.

CPRIT is on an exclusive list of NCI-approved funding entities, which includes the American Cancer Society. The designation is a federal seal-of-approval that signals high peer review standards and conflict of interest policies.

Khan says NCI has made no decisions about CPRIT or contacted the agency directly.

Prosecutors are investigating CPRIT following an $11 million award to a private company that bypassed review.

Read More..

Wall Street drops as Apple falls, "cliff" looms

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks fell on Friday, with the Nasdaq weighed down by another drop in shares of Apple, and as the overhang of "fiscal cliff" negotiations kept buying to a premium.

Apple slid 4 percent to $508.75 after UBS cut its price target on the stock to $700 from $780. The most valuable U.S. company has seen its stock hit hard in the last three months, and it fell on Friday after a tepid reception for iPhone 5 in China.

The S&P Information Technology Index <.gspt> dropped 0.9 percent as Apple fell and Jabil Circuit Inc lost 6.2 percent to $17.38 after UBS cut its price target.

The possibility of a "fiscal cliff" deal not taking place until early 2013 is rising. The back-and-forth negotiations over the fiscal cliff in Washington have kept markets on hold in what would already be a quiet period for stocks.

"We're faced with uncertainty ... and that's going to continue now into January. It basically puts everybody on hold, and (you) just have the markets kind of thrash around," said Larry Abruzzi, senior equity trader at Cabrera Capital Markets Inc in Boston.

President Barack Obama and House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner held a "frank" meeting on Thursday at the White House to discuss how to avoid the tax hikes and spending cuts set to kick in early in 2013.

The S&P 500 dropped 0.6 percent on Thursday after six straight positive sessions. Investors are concerned that going over the cliff could tip the economy back into recession. While a deal is expected to ultimately be reached, a drawn-out debate - like the one seen over 2011's debt ceiling - can erode confidence.

"The markets are not being reactionary right now, though we lost ground yesterday," said Stephen Carl, head equity trader at the Williams Capital Group in New York.

"It doesn't look like anything has been resolved, or is leaning one way or another."

Still, expectations of an eventual agreement have helped the S&P 500 bounce back over the last month, and on Wednesday, the index hit its highest intraday level since late October. For the year, the S&P has advanced more than 12 percent.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> slipped 24.09 points, or 0.18 percent, to 13,146.63. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> lost 4.81 points, or 0.34 percent, to 1,414.64. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> fell 15.50 points, or 0.52 percent, to 2,976.66.

Best Buy Co Inc slid 15.5 percent to $11.93 after the electronics retailer agreed to extend the deadline for the company's founder to make a bid. Shares jumped as much as 19 percent on Thursday after initial reports of a bid this week from founder Richard Schulze.

Consumer prices fell in November for the first time in six months, indicating U.S. inflation pressures were muted. A separate report showed manufacturing grew at its swiftest pace in eight months in December.

Data out of China was encouraging, as Chinese manufacturing grew at its fastest pace in 14 months in December. The news was seen as helping U.S. materials companies, including U.S. Steel , which rose 6.3 percent to $23.73.

(Editing by Bernadette Baum and Jan Paschal)

Read More..

Top Russian Envoy for Syria and NATO Leader Say Assad Losing Control

Manu Brabo/Associated Press

Free Syrian Army fighters warmed themselves in the northern province of Aleppo on Wednesday.

MOSCOW — Russia’s top Middle East diplomat and the leader of NATO offered dark and strikingly similar assessments of the embattled Syrian president’s future on Thursday, asserting that he was losing control of the country after a nearly two-year conflict that has taken 40,000 lives and has threatened to destabilize the Middle East.

The bleak appraisals — particularly from Russia, a steadfast strategic Syrian ally — amounted to a new level of pressure on the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, who has been resorting to increasingly desperate military measures, including the use of Scud ballistic missiles, to contain an armed insurgency that has encroached on the capital, Damascus.

The Russian diplomat, Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov, acknowledged that Mr. Assad’s forces could be defeated by rebels, whom the Syrian leader has repeatedly dismissed as ragtag foreign-backed terrorists with no popular support.

“Unfortunately, it is impossible to exclude a victory of the Syrian opposition,” said Mr. Bogdanov — the clearest indication to date that Russia believed that Mr. Assad could lose.

Mr. Bogdanov’s remarks, reported by Russia’s Interfax news service, came as the secretary general of NATO, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, told reporters in Brussels that Mr. Assad’s use of ballistic missiles, which Western officials monitoring the Syrian conflict reported on Wednesday — and which Syria has denied — reflected his “utter disregard” for Syrian lives. Mr. Rasmussen also predicted the demise of Mr. Assad’s government.

“I think the regime in Damascus is approaching collapse,” he told reporters after a meeting with the Dutch prime minister at NATO headquarters. “I think now it is only a question of time.”

While the leaders of NATO member states have made similar predictions before, the assertion by Mr. Rasmussen, the leader of the Western military alliance, reinforced a growing consensus that Mr. Assad’s options for remaining in power had been all but exhausted — a view now apparently shared by Russia.

Throughout the Syria crisis, as it has grown from peaceful protests in March 2011 to engulf the country in armed conflict, Russia has acted as Syria’s principal international shield, protecting Mr. Assad diplomatically from Western and Arab attempts to oust him and holding out the possibility of his staying in power during a transition.

Only in recent days has Russia’s view seemed to shift, while Mr. Assad’s foes, grouped in a newly minted and still uncertain coalition, have garnered ever broader international support as the legitimate representatives of the Syrian people.

“We must look squarely at the facts, and the trend now suggests that the regime and the government in Syria are losing more and more control and more and more territory,” Mr. Bogdanov said in remarks to Russia’s Public Chamber, a Kremlin advisory group, according to Interfax.

Russia, he said, was preparing to evacuate its citizens — a complex task, since for decades, Russian women have married Syrian men sent to study in Russia and returned to Syria with them to raise families.

It was the first time an official at Mr. Bogdanov’s level had announced plans for an evacuation, which sent a message to the Syrian government that Russia no longer held out hope that the government could prevail. He said Russia had a plan to withdraw its personnel from its embassy in the Syrian capital, Damascus, but that was s not yet necessary. Russia’s press attaché in Damascus confirmed this, telling Interfax that there was “no sharp deterioration” in conditions there.

Mr. Bogdanov offered a dark view of how the conflict would unfold from this point, saying that it took two years for the rebels to control 60 percent of Syria’s territory, and another year and a half will pass before they control the rest.

“If up until now 40,000 people have died, then from this point forward it will be crueler, and you will lose dozens or many hundreds of thousands of people,” he said. “If you accept this price to topple the president, what can we do? We of course consider this totally unacceptable.”

As the Russian official spoke, fresh evidence of the intensity of the battle emerged. During the civil war, Moscow has been the principal arms supplier for the Damascus government, as it has been for decades. Obama administration and NATO officials said on Wednesday that Syrian government forces had resorted to firing Scud missiles at rebel fighters as the government struggled to slow the momentum of the insurgency.

Ellen Barry reported from Moscow, and Rick Gladstone from New York. Alan Cowell contributed reporting from London and Anne Barnard from Beirut, Lebanon.

Read More..

Review: PlayStation icons join in ‘Battle Royale’

The holiday season is a good time to catch up with old friends. If you’re an Xbox fan, you’re probably getting reacquainted with galactic warrior Master Chief in his new adventure, “Halo 4.” If you’re a Nintendophile, you’re probably frolicking with Mario on your new Wii U.

Sony, meanwhile, has expanded its holiday guest list to invite nearly two decades worth of characters to mix it up in “PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale” (for the PlayStation 3, $ 59.99; Vita, $ 39.99). Fans of the original PlayStation can welcome back old pals like Sir Daniel Fortesque of “MediEvil” and the title character of “Parappa the Rapper.” Younger gamers who have only known the PS3 will be happy to see Nathan Drake from “Uncharted” and Cole MacGrath from “Infamous.” Turn them loose in an assortment of game-inspired arenas and you’ve got chaos.

It’s not an original idea: Nintendo has been pitting its lovable characters against each other since 1999′s “Super Smash Bros.” As you’d expect, “All-Stars” lets up to four players choose their favorite personalities and pound on each other until one is left standing.

The technique is a change from most fighting games. Most of the time, kicking or punching your opponent doesn’t do much damage. Instead, each blow adds to an attack meter; build up enough energy and you can unleash three levels of truly deadly moves. There’s a little more strategy, but most players won’t find it too complicated.

The solo campaign is awfully skimpy, but “All-Stars” makes for a lively party when you have a few friends over. Two-and-a-half stars out of four.

— Sony’s burlap-clad goofball Sackboy is part of the “All-Stars” lineup, but he takes center stage in “LittleBigPlanet Karting” ($ 59.99).

Yes, it’s a go-kart racer — a genre that has already made room for Mario, Donkey Kong and Sonic the Hedgehog — but Sony freshens it up by giving you the ability to build your own racetracks and share them online. By exploring the game’s built-in courses, you can find hundreds of elements to add to your own, and they all share the homespun “arts-and-crafts” aesthetic of the original “LittleBigPlanet.”

Unfortunately, “LBP Karting” also revives the weird, floaty physics of its parent. That worked fine in the two-dimensional fantasy world of “LBP,” but it’s annoying when you’re behind the wheel. The tracks are filled with the power-ups, obstacles and gravity-defying leaps you’d expect in a kart racer, but the vehicles themselves feel sluggish and unresponsive. Two stars.

—Insomniac Games’ popular “lombax”-robot buddies are celebrating their 10th anniversary, both in “All-Stars” and their own “Ratchet & Clank: Full Frontal Assault” ($ 19.99). The latter game, however, is a big disappointment, stripping away most of what made the team so endearing.

It’s a “base defense” game, meaning you’re plopped down on a planet and then have to protect your turf from waves of invading enemies. That eliminates the exploration and discovery that made most of the “R&C” games so absorbing, replacing it with a tiresome cycle of building fortifications, having them destroyed, then rebuilding them. Instead of the comedy that was once this series’ trademark, you get drudgery. One star.

___

Follow Lou Kesten on Twitter at http://twitter.com/lkesten

Gaming News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Lindsey Vonn Reveals Depression Battle

Photo Exclusive

By Elizabeth Leonard

12/13/2012 at 12:45 PM EST

Lindsey Vonn seems to have it all.

As the most decorated skier in U.S. history, Vonn's easy smile and record-decimating athletic career have made her a fixture on podiums, magazine covers and multi-million dollar endorsement deals. But life off the slopes wasn't always so rosy.

In an exclusive interview with PEOPLE, the Olympic gold medalist, 28, discloses that she's quietly suffered from depression for many years and currently takes an anti-depressant to help manage her symptoms.

"Everything about my life seemed so perfect to people. But I struggle like everyone else," Vonn confesses.

At one point in 2008, she says, "I couldn't get out of bed anymore. I felt hopeless, empty, like a zombie."

But these days, Vonn is happier than she's been in a long time. "I feel like I just needed to get everything off my chest," says the ski racer, who filed for divorce late last year from her husband Thomas Vonn, also her longtime manager and coach.

With the winter race season underway – Vonn nabbed her 57th World Cup win on Dec. 8 in St. Moritz, Switzerland – she's hit a new groove.

"All the parts of my life are finally in sync," she says. "I accept who I am, and I'm moving forward."

For the star athlete's exclusive interview and photo shoot, pick up PEOPLE magazine, on newsstands Friday

Read More..

Study: People worldwide living longer, but sicker

LONDON (AP) — Nearly everywhere around the world, people are living longer and fewer children are dying. But increasingly, people are grappling with the diseases and disabilities of modern life, according to the most expansive global look so far at life expectancy and the biggest health threats.

The last comprehensive study was in 1990 and the top health problem then was the death of children under 5 — more than 10 million each year. Since then, campaigns to vaccinate kids against diseases like polio and measles have reduced the number of children dying to about 7 million.

Malnutrition was once the main health threat for children. Now, everywhere except Africa, they are much more likely to overeat than to starve.

With more children surviving, chronic illnesses and disabilities that strike later in life are taking a bigger toll, the research said. High blood pressure has become the leading health risk worldwide, followed by smoking and alcohol.

"The biggest contributor to the global health burden isn't premature (deaths), but chronic diseases, injuries, mental health conditions and all the bone and joint diseases," said one of the study leaders, Christopher Murray, director of the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.

In developed countries, such conditions now account for more than half of the health problems, fueled by an aging population. While life expectancy is climbing nearly everywhere, so too are the number of years people will live with things like vision or hearing loss and mental health issues like depression.

The research appears in seven papers published online Thursday by the journal Lancet. More than 480 researchers in 50 countries gathered data up to 2010 from surveys, censuses and past studies. They used statistical modeling to fill in the gaps for countries with little information. The series was mainly paid for by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

As in 1990, Japan topped the life expectancy list in 2010, with 79 for men and 86 for women. In the U.S. that year, life expectancy for men was 76 and for women, 81.

The research found wide variations in what's killing people around the world. Some of the most striking findings highlighted by the researchers: — Homicide is the No. 3 killer of men in Latin America; it ranks 20th worldwide. In the U.S., it is the 21st cause of death in men, and in Western Europe, 57th.

— While suicide ranks globally as the 21st leading killer, it is as high as the ninth top cause of death in women across Asia's "suicide belt," from India to China. Suicide ranks 14th in North America and 15th in Western Europe.

— In people aged 15-49, diabetes is a bigger killer in Africa than in Western Europe (8.8 deaths versus 1 death per 100,000).

— Central and Southeast Asia have the highest rates of fatal stroke in young adults at about 15 cases per 100,000 deaths. In North America, the rate is about 3 per 100,000.

Globally, heart disease and stroke remain the top killers. Reflecting an older population, lung cancer moved to the 5th cause of death globally, while other cancers including those of the liver, stomach and colon are also in the top 20. AIDS jumped from the 35th cause of death in 1990 to the sixth leading cause two decades later.

While chronic diseases are killing more people nearly everywhere, the overall trend is the opposite in Africa, where illnesses like AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis are still major threats. And experts warn again shifting too much of the focus away from those ailments.

"It's the nature of infectious disease epidemics that if you turn away from them, they will crop right back up," said Jennifer Cohn, a medical coordinator at Doctors Without Borders.

Still, she acknowledged the need to address the surge of other health problems across Africa. Cohn said the agency was considering ways to treat things like heart disease and diabetes. "The way we treat HIV could be a good model for chronic care," she said.

Others said more concrete information is needed before making any big changes to public health policies.

"We have to take this data with some grains of salt," said Sandy Cairncross, an epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

He said the information in some of the Lancet research was too thin and didn't fully consider all the relevant health risk factors.

"We're getting a better picture, but it's still incomplete," he said.

___

Online:

www.lancet.com

http://healthmetricsandevaluation.org

Read More..

Wall Street dips as "fiscal cliff" fears outweigh data

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks fell slightly on Thursday, pulling back from six straight days of gains despite a batch of positive economic releases as "fiscal cliff" negotiations in Washington weighed on sentiment.

Weekly claims for jobless benefits dropped near the lowest level since February 2008 and retail sales rose in November after an October decline, improving the picture for consumer spending.

Best Buy Co shares shot up more than 18 percent after a report that the company's founder is expected to offer to buy the consumer electronics retailer by the end of the week.

Trading was constrained by the drawn-out fiscal talks between Democrats and Republicans. Investors worry that tax hikes and spending cuts set to begin in 2013 if a deal is not reached in Washington will hurt growth. Republican House Speaker John Boehner accused President Barack Obama of "slow-walking" the economy off the fiscal cliff.

"There's a lot of confusion. Nobody knows what's going to happen with the cliff," said Tom Schrader, managing director of U.S. equity trading at Stifel Nicolaus Capital Markets in Baltimore.

Despite the overarching concerns, the S&P 500 has managed gains for six sessions, touching its highest level since October 22 on Wednesday.

"I don't know if there's a lot of anticipation that they're going to get anything done, but the market doesn't seem too worried about it," Schrader said.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was down 9.35 points, or 0.07 percent, at 13,236.10. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> lost 0.88 point, or 0.06 percent, at 1,427.60. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> rose 3.60 points, or 0.12 percent, at 3,017.41.

A day after the Federal Reserve announced a new round of stimulus for the economy, markets focused on Chairman Ben Bernanke's reiteration that monetary policy would not be sufficient to offset going over the fiscal cliff.

European Union finance ministers reached agreement to make the European Central Bank the bloc's top banking supervisor, which could boost confidence in EU leaders' ability to confront the euro zone's sovereign debt crisis.

CVS Caremark Corp gained 3.0 percent to $48.97 after saying it expects higher earnings in 2013.

Best Buy's stock was trading up $2.09 at $14.27 at midday.

Jobless claims dropped 29,000 to a seasonally adjusted 343,000, indicating healing in the labor market.

(Editing by Kenneth Barry)

Read More..

Facebook revises privacy controls in effort to make them more accessible, comprehensible

SAN FRANCISCO – Facebook is trying to make its privacy controls easier to find and understand in an effort to turn the world’s largest social network into a more discreet place.

The fine-tuning announced Wednesday will include several revisions that will start rolling out to Facebook Inc.‘s more than 1 billion users in the next few weeks.

The biggest change will be a new “privacy shortcuts” section that will appear as a tiny lock on the right-hand side at the top of people’s news feeds. This feature offers a drop-down box where users will be able to get answers to common questions such as “Who can see my stuff?”

Other updates will include a tool that will enable individuals to review all the publicly available pictures identifying them on Facebook.

Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Want Megan Fox's Killer Body? Harley Pasternak Shares Her Workout

Celebrity Blog

By Harley Pasternak

12/12/2012 at 12:25 PM EST

Megan Fox with Brian Austin Green while pregnant, and last week in L.A.

GSI; Jon Kopaloff/FilmMagic

Lately I've been getting a lot of questions about Megan Fox and how incredible she looks only weeks after giving birth to her son. Megan, and her husband Brian Austin Green, have been clients of mine for years and may just be the fittest couple in Hollywood.

This week, I sat down with PEOPLE to answer some of those questions and share secrets to Megan's fit pregnancy and killer post-baby body.

How did Megan stay healthy throughout her pregnancy?
We worked out throughout her entire pregnancy. She was a model of health through the whole process. She really educated herself big time and had a great relationship with her physician so she really understood the safe boundaries of how to exercise and eat well during pregnancy. As a result, she knew how active she could be and she was very consistent and didn't overdo it.

As she progressed from trimester to trimester, we'd modify things. As a result, she was so fit at the point of delivery that it actually went more easily and she was able to get medical clearance relatively quickly to come back and keep working out.

How long after giving birth did she start working out?
Definitely within a few weeks she was able to come back and workout. We didn't start at full speed – we eased into it.

How did she train post-baby?
We used the exact same exercises as we did pre-baby. We just focused more on the process and adjusted our program to suit her specific needs and limitations. The workouts we did are like all of my other Five Factor workouts. They are five phases: a minimum five minute cardio warm-up, a lower body sculpting exercise, an upper body toning exercise, then an abdominal sculpting exercise, and finally, a five minute cool down. We tried to have her do minimal impact. Post-baby there shouldn't be a lot of jumping up and down.

On the days when she doesn't want to leave her baby and come to the gym to see me, she does my video game Harley Pasternak's Hollywood Workout. I actually developed it for a lot of my new mom clients from Jessica Simpson to Hilary Duff, Megan and Milla Jovovich. It's a great, intense workout.

A Sample Workout

Warm-up: Five minutes on the bike or treadmill

Lower Body: Skater lunge
Cross your right leg behind your left leg as you bend your left knee into a half-squat position. Extend your left arm out to the side and swing your right arm across your hips. Hop a few feet directly to the right, switching the position of your legs and arms. Repeat on opposite side.

Upper Body: Supine (lying down) triceps extension
Lie face up on a bench with your arms raised straight above you, a weight in each hand; slowly lower them to the sides of your forehead and repeat.

Abdominal Sculpting: Superman
Lay on your stomach with your legs and arms fully extended. Slowly, contract your lower back and raise your legs and arms off the ground. Then lower them back down.

Cool-down: Five minutes on stationary bike.

We do 20 repetitions of each upper body, lower body, and abs and cycle through those three exercises non-stop, repeating that circuit four times. Each day of the week she would come in and we'd do different body parts at least three days a week.

Post-baby, which is more important, exercise or diet? 
What's more important in a car, the gas or the tires? You need both. Megan and Brian eat really well. They both cook and love using their blender. They love my smoothie recipes! Megan's favorite is the red smoothie, which is whatever berries are in season, Chai tea, a scoop of protein powder and little bit of almond milk.

Check back every Wednesday for more insider tips from celebrity trainer Harley Pasternak on Hollywood's hottest bodies – and learn how to get one yourself! Plus: follow Harley on Twitter at @harleypasternak

Read More..

Congress examines science behind HGH test for NFL

WASHINGTON (AP) — A congressional committee has opened a hearing to examine the science behind a human growth hormone test the NFL wants to start using on its players.

Nearly two full seasons have passed since the league and the players' union signed a labor deal that set the stage for HGH testing.

The NFL Players Association won't concede the validity of a test that's used by Olympic sports and Major League Baseball, and the sides haven't been able to agree on a scientist to help resolve that impasse.

Among the witnesses before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Wednesday is Pro Football Hall of Fame member Dick Butkus. In his prepared statement, Butkus writes: "Now, let's get on with it. The HGH testing process is proven to be reliable."

Read More..

Wall Street adds slight gains after Fed

DEAR ABBY: I have been married for 14 years to a man who had two failed marriages. I never felt insecure in my married life until I read his answers to a Yahoo Answers poll that asked, "Do you dream about the one that got away?" and, "Have you found the love of your life?"My husband responded that he thinks about her very often, especially on her birthday and Valentine's Day. To the other question he replied he had found the love of his life, but the relationship had ended in divorce, which he admitted was his fault.I know he was talking about his first wife. I feel so sad and insecure. ...

Read More..

IHT Rendezvous: Why Everyone Is So Certain About Hillary 2016

NEW YORK — The Hillary-in-2016 buzz has hit overdrive, and the political speculation game has gone viral. By ten o’clock Monday, I’d watched a variety of commentators on three cable news programs speculate, guess, opine and bet on the real and imaginary future of Hillary Rodham Clinton.

“Everyone’s in fear of Hillary,” said one anchor, announcing a “Hillary Watch.”

“Wait, it’s too early,” one female guest advised Hillary. “Don’t believe the hype.”

“There’s no limit to her potential,” crowed a partisan.

“It’s a coronation,” said another, meeting no contradiction.

A few hours of this chatter, and everyone is echoing each other, every segment similar to the one an hour earlier, but we keep listening, just in case something new drops in.

Some try to guess what brave soul in the currently down-at-the-mouth Republican Party would dare to come up against a world heroine like Hillary. (The secretary of state, who is leaving her job in January, has forged an incontestable global position, especially among women, as my latest Female Factor column attests.)

So who would face off against Hillary?

There’s Jeb Bush, the former governor of Florida who is known as “the good Bush,” a more people savvy and centrist politician than his brother, the former president. There’s Marco Rubio, the great Republican Hispanic hope, who may break ground as the first Latino presidential candidate. But can he beat Hillary? Really?

As for Vice President Joseph Biden, a onetime presidential candidate, few believe he would want to challenge her in a primary (a recent PPP poll said she would receive 58 percent of the vote in the Iowa Democratic caucuses, traditionally the first in the nation, while Mr. Biden trails far behind).

The way many Democrats and pundits see it is this: She declares her candidacy, and the waters part. That’s how far out they’re going on a limb.

Rampant guesswork — “she’s going to go off the grid” — is totally permissible, and fun. Being on a bandwagon like the one that’s off and roaring for Hillary is de rigueur. Pity the Republican (or clueless Democrat) who dares to suggest that she may not run at all. Buzz killer!

It’s a pretty diverse crew, this political class. There are serious, bespectacled veterans and graying pols and a raft of lilting-voiced, sharp-tongued and clip-talking thirty-somethings whose eyes are on the shining prize, a cable political show of their own. There are familiar bylines from major newspapers and magazines, and Washington authors and Beltway insiders.

Political chatter is an industry all its own. It is Washington’s obsession but it also infects power-mad New York, where politics meets fame, fashion and money.

An addictive parlor game, it’s played in front of millions of political fanatics, like me, who can’t resist tuning in and feasting on the dish. Like sports, politics offers plenty of opportunities to blow hard, to bet on the wrong team and to lose miserably.

But you can’t help playing the game, even when your speculation, usually tinged with certitude, is often dead wrong.

All the talk today about the 2016 election — a veritable thousand lifetimes away in politics — is a little crazy. But for political junkies this is the stuff of life. Not to know the latest on such a riveting and important figure like Hillary Clinton can prove embarrassing, not to say unforgivable, in a place like Washington that breathes that air and drinks that water.

So I’ve got to go. “Andrea Mitchell Reports” is coming on.

Read More..

Anne Hathaway Wears Bondage-Inspired Dress, Boots to Les Mis Premiere

Stylewatch
Style News Now

12/11/2012 at 11:00 AM ET

Rob Kim/FilmMagic

The lady is a vamp!

Anne Hathaway showed up to the Les Misérables premiere in New York City Monday night wearing what we can only call quite a dress. The black taffeta creation — reportedly by Tom Ford — featured a form-fitting front, sky-high slit (hello, Angelina!) and a parachute-like cape on the back.

The real showstopper, however, were Hathaway’s bondage-inspired boots, custom-made of faux leather because of the actress’s veganism, The Cut reports. The chain-like creations reached all the way to her thighs and featured tight paneling along the calves.

This look calls to mind the creativity of some of her other recent ensembles — her winged Givenchy Haute Couture dress and festooned navy gown — but with the severely slicked hair and dark lip, elevates her look to a new level.

We give Hathaway kudos for taking this look all the way to the edge, and can honestly say we can’t wait to see what she wears next. Tell us: What do you think of Hathaway’s look: hot or hot mess? Vote in our poll and leave your thoughts in the comments below! 

PHOTOS: SEE STARS’ DARING DRESSES FROM EVERY ANGLE!

Read More..

Surprise: New insurance fee in health overhaul law

WASHINGTON (AP) — Your medical plan is facing an unexpected expense, so you probably are, too. It's a new, $63-per-head fee to cushion the cost of covering people with pre-existing conditions under President Barack Obama's health care overhaul.

The charge, buried in a recent regulation, works out to tens of millions of dollars for the largest companies, employers say. Most of that is likely to be passed on to workers.

Employee benefits lawyer Chantel Sheaks calls it a "sleeper issue" with significant financial consequences, particularly for large employers.

"Especially at a time when we are facing economic uncertainty, (companies will) be hit with a multi-million dollar assessment without getting anything back for it," said Sheaks, a principal at Buck Consultants, a Xerox subsidiary.

Based on figures provided in the regulation, employer and individual health plans covering an estimated 190 million Americans could owe the per-person fee.

The Obama administration says it is a temporary assessment levied for three years starting in 2014, designed to raise $25 billion. It starts at $63 and then declines.

Most of the money will go into a fund administered by the Health and Human Services Department. It will be used to cushion health insurance companies from the initial hard-to-predict costs of covering uninsured people with medical problems. Under the law, insurers will be forbidden from turning away the sick as of Jan. 1, 2014.

The program "is intended to help millions of Americans purchase affordable health insurance, reduce unreimbursed usage of hospital and other medical facilities by the uninsured and thereby lower medical expenses and premiums for all," the Obama administration says in the regulation. An accompanying media fact sheet issued Nov. 30 referred to "contributions" without detailing the total cost and scope of the program.

Of the total pot, $5 billion will go directly to the U.S. Treasury, apparently to offset the cost of shoring up employer-sponsored coverage for early retirees.

The $25 billion fee is part of a bigger package of taxes and fees to finance Obama's expansion of coverage to the uninsured. It all comes to about $700 billion over 10 years, and includes higher Medicare taxes effective this Jan. 1 on individuals making more than $200,000 per year or couples making more than $250,000. People above those threshold amounts also face an additional 3.8 percent tax on their investment income.

But the insurance fee had been overlooked as employers focused on other costs in the law, including fines for medium and large firms that don't provide coverage.

"This kind of came out of the blue and was a surprisingly large amount," said Gretchen Young, senior vice president for health policy at the ERISA Industry Committee, a group that represents large employers on benefits issues.

Word started getting out in the spring, said Young, but hard cost estimates surfaced only recently with the new regulation. It set the per capita rate at $5.25 per month, which works out to $63 a year.

America's Health Insurance Plans, the major industry trade group for health insurers, says the fund is an important program that will help stabilize the market and mitigate cost increases for consumers as the changes in Obama's law take effect.

But employers already offering coverage to their workers don't see why they have to pony up for the stabilization fund, which mainly helps the individual insurance market. The redistribution puts the biggest companies on the hook for tens of millions of dollars.

"It just adds on to everything else that is expected to increase health care costs," said economist Paul Fronstin of the nonprofit Employee Benefit Research Institute.

The fee will be assessed on all "major medical" insurance plans, including those provided by employers and those purchased individually by consumers. Large employers will owe the fee directly. That's because major companies usually pay upfront for most of the health care costs of their employees. It may not be apparent to workers, but the insurance company they deal with is basically an agent administering the plan for their employer.

The fee will total $12 billion in 2014, $8 billion in 2015 and $5 billion in 2016. That means the per-head assessment would be smaller each year, around $40 in 2015 instead of $63.

It will phase out completely in 2017 — unless Congress, with lawmakers searching everywhere for revenue to reduce federal deficits — decides to extend it.

Read More..

Tech shares, optimism on "cliff" propel Wall Street higher

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Technology shares led a 1 percent rise in major stock indexes on Tuesday, pushing the S&P 500 to its best levels since mid-October and erasing all of the post-election selloff.

The Nasdaq was lifted by a 3 percent gain in Apple Inc's stock to $545.37. The company's shares had dropped last week as investors took profits before a possible tax rise next year. Coming into Tuesday's trading, Apple shares had lost 25 percent from an all-time intraday high hit in September.

Other large tech stocks also rallied. Texas Instruments gained 3.5 percent to $30.88 after bumping up its profit target late Monday. That helped other chipmakers rally, with the PHLX Semiconductor index <.sox> up 1.9 percent.

"I see a lot of buying in tech, and that's taking the whole market up with it," said Tom Donino, co-head of trading at First New York Securities in New York.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> rose 126.66 points, or 0.96 percent, at 13,296.54. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was up 14.55 points, or 1.03 percent, at 1,433.10. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> gained 44.40 points, or 1.49 percent, at 3,031.37.

Traders voiced cautious optimism as the pace of negotiations over the "fiscal cliff" quickened. However, representatives from both parties cautioned that an agreement remains uncertain.

"I guess in our own dysfunctional way, there is progress," said Frank Davis, director of sales and trading at LEK Securities in New York.

"Since conversations are occurring, it clarifies at least they are taking some action. My personal gut is they'll jostle this into the holiday week and try to do a last minute push."

Lawmakers worked toward a deal to avoid a series of automatic tax hikes and spending cuts that would hurt U.S. economic growth next year.

The lack of demonstrable progress has kept investors from making aggressive bets in recent weeks.

But stocks have steadily marched higher on thin volume. The S&P 500 surpassed 1433.38 on Tuesday, retracing losses in the first seven sessions after President Barack Obama's re-election.

A positive report from Goldman Sachs Equity Research pushed up shares in some retailers. Luggage maker Tumi Holding Inc. was up 4.8 percent to $21.94 and Michael Kors Holding gained 4 percent to $51.76.

The U.S. Treasury is selling its remaining stake in insurer American International Group Inc . AIG's shares were up 4.1 percent at $34.74.

Unexpected improvement in data out of Europe set the positive tone early. In Germany, analyst and investor sentiment rose sharply in December, entering positive territory for the first time since May, a leading survey showed.

The Fed began a policy-setting meeting on Tuesday. The central bank is expected to announce a new round of Treasury bond purchases when the meeting ends on Wednesday to replace its "Operation Twist" stimulus which expires at the end of the year.

(Editing by Kenneth Barry)

Read More..

Chávez Put Party Unity Before Another Cancer Surgery

LA PAZ, Bolivia — President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela has flown repeatedly to Cuba this year for cancer treatments, but the flight that took him back to Caracas on Friday may have been the most meaningful of all.

Mr. Chávez postponed emergency cancer surgery to return home, meet with his inner circle and announce on television on Saturday, for the first time, that he had picked the man he wanted to lead his socialist revolution when he is gone — something he seemed to suggest might come sooner than his millions of followers would hope.

He flew to Cuba again on Monday to prepare for surgery, news agencies reported. 

Mr. Chávez could well recover and remain a potent force, but on Saturday night he seemed intent on smoothing over factions within his party and solidifying support for the man he chose to succeed him, Vice President Nicolás Maduro.

Mr. Chávez, 58, spoke the word “unity” several times during Saturday’s somber, symbolically weighted appearance. To his left sat Mr. Maduro, and behind both of them viewers could see a bust of Mr. Chávez’s hero, the South American independence leader Simón Bolívar (who never realized his dream of unifying a fractious continent).

Mr. Chávez, a charismatic and polarizing leader who has crafted his own brand of socialist revolution in this oil-rich country, has been vague about the nature of his illness since it was first disclosed in June last year. Since then, he has had at least two operations, chemotherapy and radiation treatment. Yet he said on Saturday that doctors had once again found malignant cells, necessitating a new operation.

The fact that he chose to go home to put his political house in order and clear up the long-unresolved line of succession — rather than write about it on Twitter or report it by calling in to a government television show, as he so often has done with lesser policy decisions during his many medical absences — suggests that his doctors have told him that the news is not good.

“This is a huge passing of the torch,” said Javier Corrales, a political science professor at Amherst College.

Even if Mr. Chávez makes a strong recovery after his surgery, Mr. Corrales said, “there’s no question we are in the transition stage, and that’s always incredibly uncertain.”

Mr. Chávez, who has been president for nearly 14 years, was re-elected in October to another six years. His new term is to begin on Jan. 10.

But if he dies or cannot continue to govern before then, the Constitution states that the vice president, Mr. Maduro, would become president and finish out the last days of the current term.

If Mr. Chávez is unable to begin his new term, or if he leaves office within the first four years, then new elections would be called, according to the Constitution.

In that case, Mr. Chávez said on Saturday that he wanted Mr. Maduro to be his party’s candidate, and he asked his supporters to elect him.

“I ask it from my heart,” he said.

New elections could open the way for a new run by Henrique Capriles Radonski, a young state governor who opposed Mr. Chávez in October. Mr. Capriles received 44 percent of the vote and 6.5 million votes, far more than any previous candidate against Mr. Chávez.

But Mr. Capriles is now running a difficult race for re-election as governor of Miranda, which includes part of Caracas, the captial, and one of the country’s most populous states. The election is on Sunday.

He is being challenged by a former vice president, Elías Jaua, and the government and Mr. Chávez’s socialist party have made it a priority to defeat Mr. Capriles, hoping that it will weaken him politically and remove him as a threat.

“If Capriles loses, there will be a battle in the opposition, a struggle for power, and the leaders will call for a change,” said Luis Vicente León, a pollster close to the opposition.

Some polls taken earlier this year showed that Mr. Capriles could beat Mr. Maduro if they ran against each other.

But Mr. León said conditions had changed with Mr. Chávez’s endorsement of Mr. Maduro. If Mr. Chávez were to die or become too ill to continue in office, it could give Mr. Maduro’s candidacy an emotional boost, he said.

But Mr. Maduro, 50, will have difficulties of his own in having to rein in factions within Mr. Chávez’s party. That could include the military and former military officers to whom Mr. Chávez has given a major role in his government.

For the time being, Venezuelans can look forward to more uncertainty.

The country has been obsessed with Mr. Chávez’s illness since it was first revealed. It has been the source of endless speculation and conspiracy theories. Some people even insist that he is not sick and has invented the illness to throw his opponents off guard. His fiercest opponents see his cancer as a sign of hope that his days as president are numbered; his supporters insist that he will recover, and they condemn such grim speculation as necrophilia.

But the last announcement of his need for another surgery, coupled with his call to rally behind Mr. Maduro, takes the nervous focus on Mr. Chávez’s cancer and what it means for the country’s future to a new level.

Several hundred supporters of Mr. Chávez congregated on Sunday in Bolívar Plaza in central Caracas in what was an uncharacteristically subdued gathering, by the standards of his followers. But also on display was their quasi-religious connection with the president — and the refusal among many to acknowledge his mortality.

“He is going to overcome this difficult time,” said Israel Pérez, 32, a law student. “He will be with us forever.”

Nonetheless, would he support Mr. Maduro as Mr. Chávez’s replacement?

“Venezuelans would support any proposal the president asks them to,” Mr. Pérez said.

Andrew Rosati contributed reporting from Caracas, Venezuela.

Read More..

Miley Cyrus's Latest Look Will Definitely Shock You

Stylewatch
Style News Now

12/10/2012 at 11:30 AM ET

Michael Tran/FilmMagic

We’ve seen a lot of out-there ensembles on Miley Cyrus recently — denim jumpsuits, bra tops, visible lingerie — but the outfit she wore in Hollywood on Saturday night definitely trumped them all.

Performing with DJ/producer Borgore at Christmas Creampies concert at the Fonda Theatre, Cyrus opted for high-waisted pants and knee-high snakeskin boots, a peekaboo bra top and lots of gold accessories. She finished the look with an even shorter version of her bright blonde ‘do, which she originally debuted over the summer.

Cyrus’s style has evolved somewhat this year; she started 2012 in full-on glamour mode, looking grown-up and gorgeous at the Oscars. As time went on, she got a bit more revealing, showing some skin on the red carpet at The Hunger Games premiere and more famously, the Billboard Music Awards.

But once she got her haircut, Cyrus went retro, often opting for ’90s-inspired cut-off shorts, combat boots and crop tops. So after seeing Saturday’s outfit, we’re definitely interested to find out where Cyrus takes her sense of style next. Tell us: Are you into Miley’s outfit? Or is it too much? 

WEIGH IN ON INTERESTING STAR STYLES IN ‘OBSESSED OR HOT MESS?’

Read More..

Smokers celebrate as Wash. legalizes marijuana

SEATTLE (AP) — The crowds of happy people lighting joints under Seattle's Space Needle early Thursday morning with nary a police officer in sight bespoke the new reality: Marijuana is legal under Washington state law.

Hundreds gathered at Seattle Center for a New Year's Eve-style countdown to 12 a.m., when the legalization measure passed by voters last month took effect. When the clock struck, they cheered and sparked up in unison.

A few dozen people gathered on a sidewalk outside the north Seattle headquarters of the annual Hempfest celebration and did the same, offering joints to reporters and blowing smoke into television news cameras.

"I feel like a kid in a candy store!" shouted Hempfest volunteer Darby Hageman. "It's all becoming real now!"

Washington and Colorado became the first states to vote to decriminalize and regulate the possession of an ounce or less of marijuana by adults over 21. Both measures call for setting up state licensing schemes for pot growers, processors and retail stores. Colorado's law is set to take effect by Jan. 5.

Technically, Washington's new marijuana law still forbids smoking pot in public, which remains punishable by a fine, like drinking in public. But pot fans wanted a party, and Seattle police weren't about to write them any tickets.

In another sweeping change for Washington, Gov. Chris Gregoire on Wednesday signed into law a measure that legalizes same-sex marriage. The state joins several others that allow gay and lesbian couples to wed.

The mood was festive in Seattle as dozens of gay and lesbian couples got in line to pick up marriage licenses at the King County auditor's office early Thursday.

King County and Thurston County announced they would open their auditors' offices shortly after midnight Wednesday to accommodate those who wanted to be among the first to get their licenses.

Kelly Middleton and her partner Amanda Dollente got in line at 4 p.m. Wednesday.

Hours later, as the line grew, volunteers distributed roses and a group of men and women serenaded the waiting line to the tune of "Chapel of Love."

Because the state has a three-day waiting period, the earliest that weddings can take place is Sunday.

In dealing with marijuana, the Seattle Police Department told its 1,300 officers on Wednesday, just before legalization took hold, that until further notice they shall not issue citations for public marijuana use.

Officers will be advising people not to smoke in public, police spokesman Jonah Spangenthal-Lee wrote on the SPD Blotter. "The police department believes that, under state law, you may responsibly get baked, order some pizzas and enjoy a 'Lord of the Rings' marathon in the privacy of your own home, if you want to."

He offered a catchy new directive referring to the film "The Big Lebowski," popular with many marijuana fans: "The Dude abides, and says 'take it inside!'"

"This is a big day because all our lives we've been living under the iron curtain of prohibition," said Hempfest director Vivian McPeak. "The whole world sees that prohibition just took a body blow."

Washington's new law decriminalizes possession of up to an ounce for those over 21, but for now selling marijuana remains illegal. I-502 gives the state a year to come up with a system of state-licensed growers, processors and retail stores, with the marijuana taxed 25 percent at each stage. Analysts have estimated that a legal pot market could bring Washington hundreds of millions of dollars a year in new tax revenue for schools, health care and basic government functions.

But marijuana remains illegal under federal law. That means federal agents can still arrest people for it, and it's banned from federal properties, including military bases and national parks.

The Justice Department has not said whether it will sue to try to block the regulatory schemes in Washington and Colorado from taking effect.

"The department's responsibility to enforce the Controlled Substances Act remains unchanged," said a statement issued Wednesday by the Seattle U.S. attorney's office. "Neither states nor the executive branch can nullify a statute passed by Congress."

The legal question is whether the establishment of a regulated marijuana market would "frustrate the purpose" of the federal pot prohibition, and many constitutional law scholars say it very likely would.

That leaves the political question of whether the administration wants to try to block the regulatory system, even though it would remain legal to possess up to an ounce of marijuana.

Alison Holcomb is the drug policy director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington and served as the campaign manager for New Approach Washington, which led the legalization drive. She said the voters clearly showed they're done with marijuana prohibition.

"New Approach Washington sponsors and the ACLU look forward to working with state and federal officials and to ensure the law is fully and fairly implemented," she said.

___

Johnson can be reached at https://twitter.com/GeneAPseattle

Read More..

Wall Street gains on McDonald's and tech stocks

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks rose on Monday, aided by gains in McDonald's and technology stocks, but moves remained muted as investors looked for any signs of movement on the "fiscal cliff" front.

Developments in Europe also served to keep sentiment in check as Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti said he would resign once the 2013 budget is approved. The move added to uncertainty about progress being made to tackle the euro zone's debt problem and drove Italy's borrowing costs higher.

U.S. President Barack Obama met with Republican House Speaker John Boehner on Sunday to negotiate a deal for avoiding the "fiscal cliff" set to go into effect in the new year.

The two sides declined to provide details about the unannounced meeting. Obama is expected to make remarks at 2 p.m. (1900 GMT) from Michigan where he is touring an auto plant.

The fiscal cliff talks have kept markets on edge in the last month as investors worry that the scheduled tax hikes and budget cuts could send the U.S. economy into recession if politicians do not reach a deal.

But the heightened rhetoric and lack of substantial progress has also handcuffed the equities market. The benchmark S&P 500 index has yet to see a move greater than 0.5 percent in either direction for December, and hasn't moved more than 1 percent either way since November 23.

"What we have been seeing is any headline that emanates from anywhere in the world will drive the market pretty quickly one way or the other," said Keith Bliss, senior vice-president at Cuttone & Co, in New York.

"People are out of the market if they have already got their gains (for the year) and the other thing is anybody that is in the market is just kind of sitting around waiting."

The Dow got its biggest lift from McDonald's Corp , up 1.2 percent at $89.55. The fast-food chain's stronger-than-expected November sales marked a rebound after a decline in October.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> gained 34.89 points, or 0.27 percent, to 13,190.02. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> added 2.78 points, or 0.20 percent, to 1,420.85. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> advanced 12.79 points, or 0.43 percent, to 2,990.83.

Technology stocks were the S&P 500's best-performing sector, helped by a 3.6 percent climb in Hewlett-Packard Co to $14.30 on rumors that activist investor Carl Icahn is building a stake in the PC maker. The stock is down 44.5 percent for the year and ranks as the Dow's worst performer.

Cisco Systems also buoyed tech stocks. Cisco's shares rose 2 percent to $19.71 after the company, known for its Internet routers and switches, laid out its midterm growth strategy on Friday. Monday's rally put the stock on track for its fifth advance in the past six sessions.

Ingersoll-Rand Plc edged up 0.1 percent to $48.76 after the company said it will spin off its security division and announced a $2 billion share buyback.

(Editing by Jan Paschal)

Read More..

Changes to Agriculture Highlight Cuba’s Problems

HAVANA — Cuba’s liveliest experiment with capitalism unfolds every night in a dirt lot on the edge of the capital, where Truman-era trucks lugging fresh produce meet up with hundreds of buyers on creaking bicycle carts clutching wads of cash.

“This place, it feeds all of Havana,” said Misael Toledo, 37, who owns three small food stores in the city. “Before, you could only buy or sell in the markets of Fidel.”

The agriculture exchange, which sprang up last year after the Cuban government legalized a broader range of small businesses, is a vivid sign of both how much the country has changed, and of all the political and practical limitations that continue to hold it back.

President Raúl Castro has made agriculture priority No. 1 in his attempt to remake the country. He used his first major presidential address in 2007 to zero in on farming, describing weeds conquering fallow fields and the need to ensure that “anyone who wants can drink a glass of milk.”

No other industry has seen as much liberalization, with a steady rollout of incentives for farmers. And Mr. Castro has been explicit about his reasoning: increasing efficiency and food production to replace imports that cost Cuba hundreds of millions of dollars a year is a matter “of national security.”

Yet at this point, by most measures, the project has failed. Because of waste, poor management, policy constraints, transportation limits, theft and other problems, overall efficiency has dropped: many Cubans are actually seeing less food at private markets. That is the case despite an increase in the number of farmers and production gains for certain items. A recent study from the University of Havana showed that market prices jumped by nearly 20 percent in 2011 alone. And food imports increased to an estimated $1.7 billion last year, up from $1.4 billion in 2006.

“It’s the first instance of Cuba’s leader not being able to get done what he said he would,” said Jorge I. Domínguez, vice provost for international affairs at Harvard, who left Cuba as a boy. “The published statistical results are really very discouraging.”

A major cause: poor transportation, as trucks are in short supply, and the aging ones that exist often break down.

In 2009, hundreds of tons of tomatoes, part of a bumper crop that year, rotted because of a lack of transportation by the government agency charged with bringing food to processing centers.

“It’s worse when it rains,” said Javier González, 27, a farmer in Artemisa Province who described often seeing crops wilt and rot because they were not picked up.

Behind him were the 33 fertile, rent-free acres he had been granted as part of a program Mr. Castro introduced in 2008 to encourage rural residents to work the land. After clearing it himself and planting a variety of crops, Mr. Gonzalez said, he was doing relatively well and earned more last year than his father, who is a doctor, did.

But Cuba’s inefficiencies gnawed at him. Smart, strong, and ambitious, he had expansion plans in mind, even as in his hand he held a wrench. He was repairing a tractor part meant to be grading land. It was broken. Again.

The 1980s Soviet model tractor he bought from another farmer was as about good as it gets in Cuba. The Cuban government maintains a monopoly on selling anything new, and there simply is not enough of anything — fertilizer, or sometimes even machetes — to go around.

Government economists are aware of the problem. “If you give people land and no resources, it doesn’t matter what happens on the land,” said Joaquin Infante of the Havana-based Cuban National Association of Economists.

But Mr. Castro has refused to allow what many farmers and experts see as an obvious solution to the shortages of transportation and equipment: Let people import supplies on their own. “It’s about control,” said Philip Peters, a Cuba analyst with the Lexington Institute, a Virginia-based research group.

Other analysts agree, noting that though the agricultural reforms have gone farther than other changes — like those that allow for self-employment — they remain constrained by politics.

“The government is not ready to let go,” said Ted Henken, a Latin American studies professor at Baruch College. “They are sending the message that they want to let go, or are trying to let go, but what they have is still a mechanism of control.”

For many farmers, that explains why land leases last for 10 years with a chance to renew, not indefinitely or the 99 years offered to foreign developers. It is also why many farmers say they will not build homes on the land they lease, despite a concession this year to allow doing so.

Read More..

Software guru McAfee did not have heart attack: lawyer

GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) – Software pioneer John McAfee did not have a heart attack in Guatemala as originally thought, but is suffering from stress and hypertension, his lawyer Telesforo Guerra said on Thursday.

“He never had a heart attack. Nothing like that,” Guerra said in Guatemala City. “I’m not a doctor. I’m just telling you what the doctors told me. He was suffering from stress, hypertension and tachycardia (an abnormally rapid heartbeat).”

After being rushed to a hospital in an ambulance on Thursday, McAfee, 67, was later spirited out of the building out of sight of reporters and into a police patrol car, Guerra said.

McAfee, who is fighting deportation from Guatemala, was detained on Wednesday after crossing illegally into the country from neighboring Belize. Police in Belize want to question McAfee in connection with his neighbor’s murder.

Earlier, Guerra said McAfee had suffered two mild heart attacks in the morning.

(Reporting by Lomi Kriel; Editing by Stacey Joyce)

Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Holiday Drink Recipes: Seasonal Fruit Cocktails to Enjoy

Celebrity Diners Club

By Julia Haskins

12/09/2012 at 12:30 PM EST

Courtesy Appleton Estate Reserve

There's no better way to bask in the holiday season than using the best produce of the season. Crisp apples and pomegranates are delicious on their own, but even more satisfying in a refreshing or body-warming cocktail.

Make your evening complete by whipping up a mug of Appleton Estate's Hot Buttered Cider or a glass of PAMA's Champagne Dreams, and enjoy! 

Hot Buttered Cider

1.5 oz. Spiced rum 
2-3 oz. Unfiltered apple cider
1 Tbsp. butter
Garnish: grated nutmeg

Steam until butter dissolves, mix and serve in a festive mug.

Champagne Dreams

2 oz. Pomegranate liqueur 
2 oz. Champagne or sparkling wine
¼ oz. Orange liqueur
1 oz. Fresh orange juice

Combine all ingredients except Champagne in a shaker. Add ice and shake vigorously. Strain into chilled champagne glass and top with champagne. Garnish with orange or edible flower as desired.

Cheers!

Read More..