| ROME (Reuters) - Thousands of people holding candles turned out at Rome's Colosseum to see Pope Francis mark the first Good Friday of his pontificate with a traditional "Way of the Cross" procession around the ancient amphitheatre. Francis, who was elected on March 13, sat under a red canopy on Rome's Palatine Hill as representatives of the faithful from around the world alternated carrying a wooden cross on the day Christians commemorated Jesus's death by crucifixion. "Sometimes it may seem as though God does not react to evil, as if he is silent," the Argentine pope said, speaking slowly in Italian and in a somber voice at the end of the evening service. "And yet, God has spoken, he has replied, and his answer is the Cross of Christ: a word which is love, mercy, forgiveness. It is also reveals a judgment, namely that God, in judging us, loves us," he said. "Christians must respond to evil with good," he said, urging them to beware "the evil that continues to work in us and around us". The meditations for the 14 "stations of the cross" which commemorate events in the last hours of Jesus's life - from when Pontius Pilate condemned him to death to his burial in a rock tomb - were written by young people from Lebanon. The wooden cross was passed from one group and person to another - including a person in a wheelchair. Those who carried it came from Italy, India, China, Nigeria, Syria, Lebanon and Brazil. Several of the meditations, read by actors, referred to conflict in the Middle East and the suffering of its people. One meditation called the Middle East "a land lacerated by injustice and violence". Francis praised those Lebanese Christians and Muslims who tried to live together and who, he said, in doing so gave a sign of hope to the world. Prayers were read out for exploited and abused children, refugees, the homeless and victims of religious intolerance, war, violence, terrorism, poverty, injustice and drug addiction. There were also prayers against abortion and euthanasia. Good Friday is the second of four hectic days leading up to Easter Sunday, the most important day in the Christian liturgical calendar. On Holy Thursday, two young women were among 12 people whose feet the pope washed and kissed at a traditional ceremony in a Rome youth prison, the first time a pontiff has included females in the rite. After celebrating an Easter eve service, on Easter Sunday he will deliver his first "Urbi et Orbi" (to the city and the world) message in St. Peter's Square. |
Pope leads traditional Good Friday rite at Rome Colosseum
Virtual reality, goggles and all, attempts return
| The virtual reality headset, the gizmo that was supposed to seamlessly transport wearers to three-dimensional virtual worlds, has made a remarkable return at this year's Game Developers Conference, an annual gathering of video game makers in San Francisco. After drumming up hype over the past year and banking $2.4 million from crowdfunding, the Irvine, Calif.-based company Oculus VR captured the conference's attention this week with the Oculus Rift, its VR headset that's more like a pair of ski goggles than those bulky gaming helmets of the 1990s that usually left users with headaches. "Developers who start working on VR games now are going to be able to do cool things," said Oculus VR founder Palmer Luckey. "This is the first time when the technology, software, community and rendering power is all really there." While VR technology has successfully been employed in recent years for military and medical training purposes, it's been too expensive, clunky or just plain bad for most at-home gamers. Oculus VR's headset is armed with stereoscopic 3-D, low-latency head tracking and a 110-degree field of view, and the company expects it to cost just a few hundred bucks. A line at the conference snaked around the expo floor with attendees waiting for a chance to plop the glasses on their head and play a few minutes of "Hawken," an upcoming first-person shooter that puts players inside levitating war machines. Attendance was also at capacity for a Thursday talk called "Virtual Reality: The Holy Grail of Gaming" led by Luckey. When he asked the crowd who'd ordered development prototypes of the technology, dozens of hands shot into the air. "There's been a lot of promise over several decades with the VR helmet idea, but I think a lot of us feel like Oculus and other devices like it are starting to get it right," said Simon Carless, executive vice president at UBM Tech Game Network, which organizes the Game Developers Conference. "We may have a competitive and interesting-to-use device, which you could strap to your head and have really immersive gaming as a result." Sony Corp. and Microsoft Corp. are reportedly working on similar peripherals, as are other companies. Luckey contends that the innovations Nintendo Co. made with its Wii U, Sony is planning with its upcoming PlayStation 4, and Microsoft is likely tinkering with for its successor to the Xbox 360 don't seem like enough. "We're seeing better graphics and social networks, but those aren't things that are going to fundamentally change the kind of experiences that gamers can have," said Luckey. A growing list of high-profile game makers have sung the device's praises, including Atari founder Nolan Bushnell, "Minecraft" mastermind Markus Persson, id Software's John Carmack, "Gears of War" chief Cliff Bleszinski and Valve boss Gabe Newell. Valve is planning to release a VR version of its first-person shooter "Team Fortress 2" for the Rift, but Luckey is hoping that designers in attendance at this week's conference begin creating games especially for the doodad. "The doors are already open," noted Luckey. "People are already telling us things they want to do with the Rift that they can't do with traditional games." Luckey said prototype versions of the technology are being distributed to developers now, and he anticipates releasing a version for consumers by next year. |
Monroe, Eisenhower letters to be auctioned
| NEW YORK (AP) — Marilyn Monroe's letter of despair to mentor Lee Strasberg, and Dwight D. Eisenhower's heartfelt missives to his wife during World War II are among hundreds of historical documents being offered in an online auction. Monroe's handwritten, undated letter to the famed acting teacher is expected to fetch $30,000 to $50,000 in the May 30 sale. "My will is weak but I can't stand anything. I sound crazy but I think I'm going crazy," Monroe wrote on Hotel Bel-Air letterhead stationery. "It's just that I get before a camera and my concentration and everything I'm trying to learn leaves me. Then I feel like I'm not existing in the human race at all." The 58 Eisenhower letters, handwritten between 1942 and 1945, range from news of the war to the Allied commander's devotion to his wife, Mamie. They are believed to be among the largest group of Eisenhower letters to survive intact and could bring up to $120,000, said Joseph Maddalena, whose Profiles in History is auctioning the items. They are among 250 letters and documents being sold by an anonymous American collector. Selected items will be exhibited April 8-16 at Douglas Elliman's Madison Avenue art gallery. Also included is a typed, undated draft letter from John Lennon to Linda and Paul McCartney that reflects the deep animosity between the two Beatles around the time of the foursome's formal 1971 breakup. The two-page letter is unsigned and contains corrections. A photographic logo on the stationery shows Lennon and his wife Yoko Ono within a circle with their lips almost touching. "Do you really think most of today's art came about because of the Beatles? I don't believe you're that insane — Paul — do you believe that? When you stop believing it you might wake up!" Lennon writes. It's expected to fetch $40,000 to $60,000. Other highlights include two large photo albums that Adolph Hitler and Benito Mussolini exchanged prior to War World II. "When Mussolini and Hitler visited each other before the war, they would each have their photographers document their trips," Maddalena said. "They really documented the regalia, the flags, the uniforms, tanks and all the pomp and circumstance, and them speaking and reviewing the troops." The leather-bound albums, containing hundreds of images, have a pre-sale estimate of up to $50,000. The sale is the second of several planned online auctions of the anonymous collector's artifacts. The entire collection contains 3,000 items. |
'Lost in Thailand' clicked with modern focus
| HONG KONG (AP) — The director of China's biggest box-office hit says "Lost in Thailand" succeeded by showing a rarely seen subject: modern Chinese life. The historical epic, fantasy, action and thriller genres have long filled China's domestic movie screens. But "Lost in Thailand" was a low-budget and light-hearted road-trip tale about an ambitious executive who goes to Thailand to get his boss's approval for a business deal. Along the way he's pursued by a rival co-worker and encounters a wacky tourist who helps him rethink his priorities. "There is hunger from the audience for movies that talk about the real-life situation in China. That's why the movie rocked," said Xu Zheng, the film's director, writer and star. "There is a lack of films that talk about things that are related to the life of ordinary people" in China, he added. Unusually for a Chinese release, the movie was a moral comedy whose characters reflect stressed-out, overworked, wealth-obsessed China. Xu said his character, businessman Xu Lang, "represented the majority of the people, who are chasing after fame and desire, then becoming successful. That's what most of us do." The movie starts with the executive hardened by cutthroat business competition and worn out by family troubles. He and a wacky tourist, co-star Wang Baoqiang, experience a series of capers and mishaps in scenes heavy with slapstick humor. In the end, Xu Lang realizes he's had his priorities all wrong. "Lost in Thailand" smashed domestic box-office records, raking in 1.26 billion yuan ($200 million) last year, an especially surprising tally since it was not released until December. It edged out "Avatar" to become the biggest-grossing Chinese movie ever as China became the world's second-biggest movie market last year. Most other Chinese-made hits last year were in traditional categories, such as Jackie Chan's action flick "CZ12," which was the second-highest-grossing Chinese movie in 2012. The blockbuster success of "Lost in Thailand" may spur a wave of copycats. Xu has no plan yet for a sequel, but the state-run Xinhua News Agency has reported studios are lining up to "chase the craze" and a burst of such films could hit Chinese screens this year. With such a huge return from its $2.2 million budget, "some filmmakers have begun pondering how to replicate the film's box office miracle," Xinhua said. It did not mention any specific projects, but other Chinese news sites have been buzzing about Raymond Yip's upcoming film about two brothers on a road trip. Yip directed 2010's "Lost on Journey," a sort of prequel to "Lost in Thailand" also starring Xu and Wang. The plot of his new film, "Along Crazy All The Way," which has a different cast, is being kept under wraps. But a hint can be found in the title, which is the same as one of two Chinese names given to "Planes, Trains and Automobiles," the 1987 Hollywood comedy starring Steve Martin and John Candy about a man trying to get home for Thanksgiving accompanied by an obnoxious salesman. Xu has acted in more than a dozen movies, but "Lost in Thailand" is his directorial debut. He said the film was greatly influenced by a few of his favorite Hollywood movies. "I did a lot of research before making the film and I used some films as reference, such as 'Rain Man,' (the Belgian film) 'The Eighth Day' and 'Midnight Run,'" Xu said. "These are movies about two people becoming friends along the way on a journey." Xu cited "Midnight Run" in particular as one of his favorites, and the parallels to his own film are evident. The 1998 film stars Robert DeNiro as a bounty hunter taking an ex-mob accountant played by Charles Grodin from New York to Los Angeles to collect a payment and trying to avoid the Mafia and the FBI along the way. Xu said he hasn't yet decided what his next project will be. He said he's had some offers to remake his movie but for now his priority will be on Chinese audiences. He might return to acting but is taking his time before making any decisions. |
SKorea cuts growth forecast, plans stimulus
| South Korea's government cut its forecast for growth in Asia's fourth-largest economy this year as exports stumble due to muted global demand and a weaker yen. The finance ministry said Thursday that South Korea's economy will expand 2.3 percent this year. Three months ago it forecast 3 percent growth for 2013. South Korean manufacturers are struggling with weak overseas demand and increased competition from Japan where a new government has talked down the value of the yen, giving a boost to its exporting powerhouses such as Toyota Motor Corp. The ministry said it will aid an economic recovery with a stimulus plan and spending more than 60 percent of the annual budget during the first half of the year. Details of the stimulus spending will be announced next month, it said. Hyundai Research Institute estimates that South Korea needs 11 trillion won ($9.9 billion) of extra government spending to add half a percentage point to growth. South Korea's economy grew 2 percent last year, the slowest pace in three years. The country's small domestic market means it is reliant on exporting to major economies such as China, Europe and the United States. None of those countries has fully recovered from the global recession in 2009. "A full-scale recovery is being delayed," the finance ministry said in a statement. The government estimates South Korea's exports were nearly flat during the first three months of 2013 over a year earlier, after a meager 0.3 percent growth in the final three months of 2012. It attributed the slow improvement in exports to the uncertain economic situations in the U.S. and Europe, as well as the weak yen that made South Korean products less competitive in key overseas markets than Japanese goods. The bleak economic picture adds to the challenges facing President Park Geun-hye during her first year in office. Park took office in Feb. 25 promising hefty welfare spending, more jobs and an increase of the country's middle class to 70 percent of the population from around 60 percent. The finance ministry said it needs a bigger budget to aid recovery, to create jobs and to carry out Park's policies and welfare programs during her five year, single term. However, it estimated tax revenues will be lower than expected because of slower growth. The ministry also pared its job market forecast. South Korea will add only 250,000 new jobs this year, 70,000 less than its previous estimate. It forecast the surplus in the current account, which is a broad measure of trade and investment balances with the rest of the world, to fall to $29 billion from $43 billion last year. Inflation pressure will be lower as consumer prices will likely increase 2.3 percent, not 2.7 percent. |
Comedian Anderson still hurting from diving mishap
| Comedian Louie Anderson says he's been in pain all week from a recent diving mishap during a taping of the ABC celebrity diving show "Splash." Anderson, who weighs more than 400 pounds, was trying to do a flip from the 5-meter board when he slammed into the water, landing on his face and chest. "If I were lying down right now, you would have to help me up," the 60-year-old Anderson said Wednesday. "It's been almost a week and it still hurts almost as much." Anderson, who skipped diving practice Tuesday night to take the stage in Sioux Falls, S.D., for a show benefiting the Brennan Rock & Roll Academy, said he asked the "Splash" staff after the accident if he was suffering internal bleeding or damage but was told no. "They said, 'That's your abs. You've never worked them,'" Anderson joked. "The last time I worked them was when I was struggling to get out of my mother. That was it, and I haven't worked them since." The American version of "Splash," a surprise hit that originated in Europe, has Olympic gold medalist Greg Louganis coaching a diverse cast of celebrities that includes Detroit Lions lineman Ndamukong Suh, 2012 Miss Alabama Katherine Webb, basketball great Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and former Baywatch star Nicole Eggert. Anderson said he's not alone coming away with some bumps and bruises. "Ndamukong Suh hit his nose. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar sprained his neck," he said. "Nicole was up on a handstand and she slammed her chest and stomach into the 5-meter board and then fell into the water — and then, two hours later, had to do the dive on TV." Anderson, who just learned how to swim five years ago, said he decided to give the show a try after producers showed him a clip of the Netherlands version. He said it's the most exciting thing he's ever done. "I'm at 23 feet, diving into 17 feet of water. I'm over 400 pounds," he said. "Who doesn't want to see that? I do. I'm always shocked that I can do it." The stand-up comedian said he's glad the show is catching on with viewers. "I didn't have any idea if it would be a hit or not," he said. "I was either going to be inspirational or a laughingstock. So I'm lucky that some people thought I did a good job." Anderson said he's having a lot of fun, but he's also trying to win. "I know people don't think I have a chance, but that's how I think," he said. "Why do it if you don't do it great?" |
For China Mobile, 4G and next iPhone are key to unlocking Apple demand
| China Mobile Ltd hopes to tap pent-up demand for Apple Inc smartphones by rolling out new 4G technology this year and having an iPhone model that will finally run on it. The world's largest mobile carrier - with more than twice as many subscribers as there are people in the United States - already has more than 10 million of its customers owning an iPhone even though the gadget doesn't properly work with the Chinese firm's homegrown TD-SCDMA 3G technology, which is not compatible with global technologies. That inferior technology, and the failure to offer customers an iPhone contract - which its main rivals do - has been a key reason for China Mobile's slowing profit growth. The company, valued at $220 billion or half an Apple, is expected to say on Thursday that its net income rose just 1.2 percent last year to 127.4 billion yuan ($20.5 billion), according to a Reuters poll of 13 analysts - the slowest growth since profits actually fell in 1999. While many of China Mobile's iPhone users have found clever ways around some of the carrier's limitations, the company wants to close the gap with its two smaller rivals - China Unicom and China Telecom - which already offer iPhone compatible technology. Industry experts expect Apple's next iPhone will support China Mobile's TD-LTE 4G technology, even though this will be less widely used than the FDD-LTE standard. "Apple's iPhones will be like a killer app for China Mobile once it gets its 4G up and running," said Huang Leping, an analyst at Nomura International in Hong Kong. "That will definitely boost user numbers, though it will weigh on the bottomline in the first year or so as China Mobile will most probably have to provide heavy handset subsidies for the iPhone." China Telecom, which signed up to sell the iPhone last year, increased its spending on handset subsidies by 50 percent in the first half of last year, and has seen its profits fall in the last three quarters on higher marketing and subsidy costs. NO-FRILLS Most of China Mobile's 715 million subscribers are no-frills users attracted to its wide network coverage across the vast country. Only a small number are premium, tech-savvy consumers. Just 13 percent of its users are on 3G, compared with one third at China Unicom and 44 percent at China Telecom, which use other variants of CDMA 3G technologies developed by global players such as Japan's NTT Docomo and Qualcomm Inc. Using the iPhone on China Mobile's homegrown 3G network can be as sluggish as being hooked up to a 2G network, but many users take advantage of the carrier's many wi-fi hot-spots for heavier data-crunching applications such as playing games and downloading software. Demand for the iPhone has spawned a cottage industry, with some local phone vendors selling SIM card cutters that act like a hole-punch to trim bigger cards to fit the smaller iPhone slots. Some China Mobile sales outlets offer on-the-spot SIM-trimming services as well as wi-fi cards that iPhone users can use in most hot-spots. China Mobile is aggressively pushing for 4G to improve the user experience in a market where chatting on Tencent Holdings Ltd's WeChat and checking microblogs on Sina Corp's Weibo are the norm among smartphone users. Analysts expect China Mobile to spend $3 billion this year on developing its 4G network, from a total capex budget of around $35 billion. The company's chairman Xi Guohua said at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this year that the carrier planned to build a TD-LTE 4G network with 200,000 base stations to cover more than 100 Chinese cities, home to 500 million potential users. While Beijing is likely to grant 4G licenses as early as the second half of this year, it will take at least 18 months for the technology and the handset market to be mature enough for large-scale commercialization, SWS Research analyst Jim Tang wrote in a recent report. |
Marvel, circus producer to team up on live show
| The people who bring you The Greatest Show on Earth will be taking Spider-Man, the Hulk, Thor and the Fantastic Four on a worldwide road show. Feld Entertainment Inc., which produces the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey circus, along with a host of other live shows such as Disney on Ice, is announcing a partnership Wednesday with Marvel Entertainment to produce a live arena show featuring the Marvel universe of characters. Exact financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. But Kenneth Feld, CEO of Vienna, Va.-based Feld Entertainment, said he expects the show to open in July 2014, and tour arenas domestically and internationally, as the company's other shows do. Production costs will likely exceed $10 million, Feld told The Associated Press in announcing the partnership. Feld Entertainment has expanded in recent years to acquire several motor sports and monster truck shows aimed at expanding its appeal beyond the young children who go to the circus and girls who flock to the Disney shows. Feld expects the Marvel shows to appeal to older boys, comic book fans and family audiences. Marvel's chief creative officer, Joe Quesada, said dozens of people have approached Marvel about doing a live show of some sort over the years. The partnership with Feld Entertainment was the first with which he felt comfortable. "You always have those questions — how are you going to keep it from being goofy, or silly, or unbelievable?" Quesada said. But the level of showmanship in Feld Entertainment's other shows made an impression. "They're already doing feats that are superhuman to begin with," Quesada said of the performers that Feld Entertainment recruits for its circus and other shows. Feld said his company's long-standing partnership with Burbank, Calif.-based The Walt Disney Co., which acquired Marvel in 2009, helped establish a level of trust between Feld and the Marvel executives. The show is in the early stages of development in a new training center that Feld runs in Ellenton, Fla. Feld and Marvel said there is close collaboration to ensure the characters act in ways consistent with fans' understanding. Quesada said the director — veteran choreographer Shanda Sawyer, who has directed various iterations of the Ringling circus and won Emmy awards for her television work, took a deep dive into Marvel mythology that took him aback. "We had to pull her back," Quesada said. "I told her, 'I think you're even geeking me out.'" Trying to bring superhuman characters to life in a live show can be daunting and even dangerous, as evidence by the difficulties suffered in launching the Broadway musical "Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark." Several performers suffered injuries ranging from concussions to fractured skulls in what became the most expensive show in Broadway history. The $75 million show has since become one of Broadway's top earners. "What they tried to do was new for them, but it's the stuff we do all the time in a lot of our businesses," Feld said. The Marvel universe has thousands of characters — some household names and others known only to the most devoted fans. Feld said a live show provides an opportunity to present a wide variety of Marvel characters in a way that will appeal to even casual fans. "There's so much mythology and lore with all of these characters — it's like going into this treasure chest of unbelievable gems," Feld said. "There are almost unlimited stories and shows we can create off these properties and characters." While details of the show remain either under wraps or under development, Feld said the basic plotline is a no-brainer: "The world will be in jeopardy, and the Marvel superheroes will save the world." |
BlackBerry shares rally on AT&T launch, takeover hopes
| BlackBerry shares rose 14 percent on Monday, fueled by takeover speculation and news that AT&T Inc will start selling the new BlackBerry Z10 touchscreen smartphone in the United States on March 22. The speculation was sparked by a comment from the head of China's Lenovo Group Ltd, who told a French newspaper on Monday that the personal computer maker might consider an acquisition of Canada's BlackBerry at some point in the future. "External growth remains a question of opportunities," said Yang Yuanqing, Lenovo's CEO, in an interview with Les Échos. "As for BlackBerry, the file could eventually make sense, but I must first analyze the market and understand the exact weight of this company," he said in response to a question about whether Lenovo would make a move on the smartphone maker. BlackBerry, a one-time smartphone pioneer, has bled market share to Apple Inc's iPhone, Samsung Electronics Co Ltd's Galaxy line and other devices powered by Google's market-leading Android operating system. In a make-or-break move to regain market share and return to profit, BlackBerry introduced the new smartphone to much fanfare in January, and said it was abandoning its old name, Research In Motion, and renaming itself BlackBerry. Analysts however poured cold water on the speculation that the Chinese technology giant would make a move on BlackBerry. "We believe a takeout of BlackBerry is unlikely, especially in the near term, nor is our investment thesis or 'outperform' rating predicated on such an event," said Wells Fargo analyst Maynard Um, in a note to clients. A spokesman for Lenovo in Canada also downplayed the CEO's comment, saying, "in no way was this an indication of activity or strategic direction." Another Lenovo executive had made a similar comment when asked about BlackBerry in January. That remark had also sparked a rally in BlackBerry shares, but Lenovo said at the time that the executive was only speaking broadly about M&A strategy. Analysts are also skeptical that the Canadian government, which in 2010 blocked mining giant BHP Billiton's $39 billion bid for Potash Corp, will easily approve a Chinese acquisition of BlackBerry. "An acquisition might be difficult," said Morningstar Inc analyst Brian Colello. "My understanding is that Canada treats the company and its patents as a bit of a crown jewel and would not rule lightly on a takeover." BlackBerry shares ended the day up 14.1 percent at $14.90 on the Nasdaq on Monday, while the Toronto-listed shares closed up 13.8 percent at C$15.29. AT&T LAUNCH BlackBerry is hoping the new devices, already on sale in Canada, Britain and more than 20 other countries, will help it win back market share in the United States, which was once a stronghold for the smartphone industry pioneer. The U.S. launch of the new devices has been delayed due to a longer carrier-testing phase in the country. AT&T said pre-sales of the devices will begin on Tuesday. BlackBerry says sales of its new smartphone have been outpacing its expectations so far, but investors are keen to see how it fares in the United States. As expected, AT&T said it would sell the devices for $199.99 with a two-year contract. T-Mobile USA said on Friday it planned to start selling the BlackBerry Z10 to its business customers in the United States on Monday. Verizon Inc, the biggest U.S. wireless carrier, has yet to say when it will start selling the Z10. The Z10 and the soon-to-be-launched Q10, which will come with BlackBerry's traditional physical keyboard, are powered by the new BlackBerry 10, or BB10 operating system. "We believe the Street is pricing in such a weak fiscal 2014 that BB10 does not need to be an outstanding success to surprise," Scotiabank analyst Gus Papageorgiou said in a note to clients on Monday. Papageorgiou, who has a "sector outperform" rating on the stock, said he expects the company sold about 1 million BlackBerry 10 devices in the quarter ended March 2. "Gross margins should begin to move higher as more Z10s enter the mix," he said. "Next quarter will be the true test as BB10 launches in the U.S." ($1 = 1.027 Canadian) |
Florida Medicaid expansion rejected by state Senate panel
| Florida Governor Rick Scott's plan to expand Medicaid coverage to cover about 1 million more poor people suffered a potential death blow on Monday when the proposal failed to make it out of a key state legislative committee. The Senate Select Committee on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act voted 7-4 to reject the expansion, with all of the committee's Republican members voting against the plan championed by Scott. A House legislative committee rejected the expansion last week, with the Senate committee's vote its final rejection unless political leaders agree to present a new compromise bill later in the current legislative session. "I am confident that the legislature will do the right thing and find a way to protect taxpayers and the uninsured in our state while the new healthcare law provides 100 percent federal funding," Scott said in a statement issued by his office after Monday's vote. Scott, a Republican who bitterly fought President Barack Obama's national healthcare plan as a candidate and in his first two years as governor, did not elaborate. But the backlash from Republican legislative majorities in Tallahassee was not unexpected. Scott stunned many conservative supporters on February 20 when he endorsed a three-year expansion of Medicaid, provided the federal government picked up the full cost for the first three years as promised. Other Republican governors, including Jan Brewer in Arizona and John Kasich in Ohio, have also battled to get Medicaid expansion approved by their state legislatures. Florida's Republican lawmakers had been openly hostile to the expansion of Medicaid - the federal and state program that provides healthcare to poor and disabled people - and pledged to oppose it as they went about drawing up a budget for the next fiscal year. The expansion has been fully backed by Florida's publicly owned hospitals, however, and is seen as a lifeline for many in the nation's fourth most populous state. Florida Democratic Party Chairwoman Allison Tant called the Senate committee's rejection of the expansion a "stunning rebuke of Gov. Rick Scott and the common-sense policy that ensures more Floridians have access to the health insurance coverage they need." But some political analysts said a revival of the expansion bill was still possible, especially since the powerful Florida Chamber of Commerce gave a qualified endorsement of Scott's proposal on Friday. "I don't think the door is totally closed, but there's only a toe left keeping it open right now," said Susan MacManus, a Tampa-based political scientist at the University of South Florida. |
Sheryl Sandberg: On a mission to elevate women
| Sheryl Sandberg is not backing down. The Facebook chief operating officer's book "Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead" goes on sale Monday amid criticism that she's too successful and rich to lead a movement. But Sandberg says her focus remains on spurring action and progress among women. "The conversation, the debate is all good, because where we were before was stagnation — and stagnation is bad," she said in an interview with The Associated Press. "And sometimes it takes real heated debate to wake people up and find a solution." With "Lean In," Sandberg aims to arm women with the tools and guidance they need to keep moving forward in the workforce. The book's release is coupled with the launch of Sandberg's LeanIn.org a nonprofit that will receive all of the book's proceeds. The book isn't just for women. It calls on men to lend support, both at home and in the office. "This is about who we are as people," Sandberg says. "Who we can be as individuals and as a society." In the book, Sandberg illuminates facts about the dearth of women in positions of power and offers real-world solutions. Women, Sandberg writes, make up only 14 percent of executive officers, 18 percent of elected congressional officials and 22 of 197 heads of state. What's worse, Sandberg says, is that women have not made true progress in corporate America over the past decade. Boardrooms are still as overwhelmingly male as they were 10 years ago. "While women continue to outpace men in educational achievement, we have ceased making real progress at the top of any industry," she writes in "Lean In." ''This means that when it comes to making the decisions that most affect our world, the voices of women are not heard equally." Sandberg, 43, has worked at Facebook as its No. 2 executive since 2008. CEO Mark Zuckerberg lured her away from Google to help run what has since become a social networking powerhouse and formidable Google rival. Sandberg says it's only been in the last few years that she's started thinking seriously about the issues affecting working women. As recently as three years ago, Sandberg says, she would not have spoken the words "women in the workforce." "You never say the word 'woman' as a working woman because if you do, the person on the other side of the table is going to say you are asking for special treatment," she says. But seeing women stall in their quest for corporate success bothered her more and more. In 2010, she was asked to speak at the newly minted TEDWomen, an arm of the annual TED conference which showcases "ideas worth spreading." Her speech was titled "Why we have too few women leaders." The video became wildly popular. It has been viewed more than 2 million times on TED's website. Yet before she gave speech, Sandberg says "a whole bunch of people told me not to." And although she'd given hundreds of talks on Facebook and social media and exactly one on women, after her speech people would ask her "is this your thing now?'" "That was really the first time I spoke up," she says. Since then, Sandberg has come to call herself "a proud feminist." Sandberg says it was the flood of responses that she received following the speech that got her thinking about writing a book. Some women wrote to her and said the speech encouraged them to ask for a raise. Others said it motivated them to ask for more family-friendly work hours. LeanIn.org grew out of the book with the help of co-founder Gina Bianchini, who was inspired by a course she took at Stanford University's Clayman Institute for Gender Research called "Voice & Influence." Its mission — "to empower women and men to be as effective as possible and to create organizations where all people can thrive" — is at the core of LeanIn.org. LEanIn.org hopes to reach as many people as possible by offering materials and easy-to-replicate guidelines online, for free. Sandberg calls it a platform, which, in the technology world means something that others can take, change and make their own. "We are a startup," Sandberg says. "We are going to see what happens, and what companies do with our platform." |
Lucas says 'Star Wars' trio returning for new film
| It appears the Force is still strong with Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher. In an interview posted online Thursday, George Lucas said the trio from the original "Star Wars" trilogy will reprise their iconic roles of Hans Solo, Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia in the new "Star Wars" film.
Lucas told Bloomberg Businessweek that all three were signed for the new "Episode VII" film in advance of Lucasfilm's $4 billion purchase by Disney. "We had already signed Mark and Carrie and Harrison — or were pretty much in the final stages of negotiation," Lucas said. He added: "Maybe I'm not supposed to say that. I think they want to announce that with some big whoop-de-do." In an interview posted Wednesday with Florida's Palm Beach Illustrated, Fisher said that she'll be coming back as Princess Leia. Disney's Lucasfilm was coy in response. In a statement, a spokesperson for the company said, "George couldn't say whether they were signed or not and neither can we. As Yoda said, 'Always in motion is the future.' Stay tuned." The Walt Disney Co. is producing a new "Star Wars" trilogy to take place after Lucas' original three space epics. J.J. Abrams is directing the first film. The 70-year-old Ford, the 61-year-old Hamill and the 56-year-old Fisher are expected to play smaller, supporting roles. A representative for Ford declined to comment. Hamill's representatives didn't immediately return requests for comment. |
Antibiotic resistance a "catastrophic threat": UK medical chief
| Antibiotic resistance poses a catastrophic threat to medicine and could mean patients having minor surgery risk dying from infections that can no longer be treated, Britain's top health official said on Monday. Sally Davies, the chief medical officer for England, said global action is needed to fight antibiotic, or antimicrobial, resistance and fill a drug "discovery void" by researching and developing new medicines to treat emerging, mutating infections. Only a handful of new antibiotics have been developed and brought to market in the past few decades, and it is a race against time to find more, as bacterial infections increasingly evolve into "superbugs" resistant to existing drugs. "Antimicrobial resistance poses a catastrophic threat. If we don't act now, any one of us could go into hospital in 20 years for minor surgery and die because of an ordinary infection that can't be treated by antibiotics," Davies told reporters as she published a report on infectious disease. "And routine operations like hip replacements or organ transplants could be deadly because of the risk of infection." One of the best known superbugs, MRSA, is alone estimated to kill around 19,000 people every year in the United States - far more than HIV and AIDS - and a similar number in Europe. And others are spreading. Cases of totally drug resistant tuberculosis have appeared in recent years and a new wave of "super superbugs" with a mutation called NDM 1, which first emerged in India, has now turned up all over the world, from Britain to New Zealand. Last year the WHO said untreatable superbug strains of gonorrhea were spreading across the world. Laura Piddock, a professor of microbiology at Birmingham University and director of the campaign group Antibiotic Action, welcomed Davies' efforts to raise awareness of the problem. "There are an increasing number of infections for which there are virtually no therapeutic options, and we desperately need new discovery, research and development," she said. Davies called on governments and organizations across the world, including the World Health Organization and the G8, to take the threat seriously and work to encourage more innovation and investment into the development of antibiotics. "Over the past two decades there has been a discovery void around antibiotics, meaning diseases have evolved faster than the drugs to treat them," she said. Davies called for more cooperation between the healthcare and pharmaceutical industries to preserve the existing arsenal of antibiotics, and more focus on developing new ones. Increasing surveillance to keep track of drug-resistant superbugs, prescribing fewer antibiotics and making sure they are only prescribed when needed, and ensuring better hygiene to keep infections to a minimum were equally important, she said. Nigel Brown, president of the Society for General Microbiology, agreed the issues demanded urgent action and said its members would work hard to better understand infectious diseases, reduce transmission of antibiotic resistance, and help develop new antibiotics. "The techniques of microbiology and new developments such as synthetic biology will be crucial in achieving this," he said. |
How Arctic Ice May Have Influenced Superstorm Sandy
| The sea ice covering the Arctic Ocean may not seem to be connected to a hurricane like Superstorm Sandy, but a group of scientists is suggesting the record lack of ice last summer could have set up the atmospheric pattern that sent Sandy barreling into the Northeast. The potential link is just one of many ways that human activities can, and in some cases already seem to be affecting Earth's weather and driving it toward extremes, be they droughts, megafloods or superstorms like Sandy. "Extreme weather of all sorts has been increasing around the Northern Hemisphere. When Sandy hit such a high-impact and vulnerable part of the East Coast, many reporters and local people have asked us whether climate change played a role," said Jennifer Francis of Rutgers University in New Jersey, one of the scientists who looked at the link. "It's the question on everyone's mind." Sandy's start Sandy began its life as a "classic late-season hurricane" over the Caribbean in mid-October, as the National Hurricane Center put it in its summary of the storm. It tore across Haiti, Jamaica, Cuba and the Bahamas, killing at least 67 people and causing enormous damage. While Sandy weakened over the Bahamas, it also ballooned in size, giving its wind field an enormous footprint; then, like many storms that form when and where it did, it curved northward, paralleling the U.S. East Coast, driven by the prevailing currents in the atmosphere. As it skirted the coast, moving over the warm waters of the Gulf Stream, it also regained strength. [On the Ground: Hurricane Sandy in Images] The storm weakened again as it moved farther north over colder waters, but never lost its extreme size. And as it continued on its path, a mass of high-pressure air sitting over Greenland kept it from simply curving out to sea. Not only that, noted Francis and her colleagues in their article, but it also caused the storm to do "something never observed before in records going back to 1851 — it took a sharp turn to the west and toward the most populated area along the eastern seaboard." That's where the Arctic sea ice comes in. Sea ice and Sandy The extent of sea ice covering the Arctic waxes and wanes with the seasons, reaching its high point near the end of the Northern Hemisphere winter, and its low point near the end of summer. But as Earth's average temperature has risen with global warming, the Arctic has been warming at two to three times the rate of the rest of the globe, Francis explained. This accelerated Arctic warming has fueled ice melt beyond normal summertime levels, which reinforces the warming because open ocean waters absorb the sun's rays, while ice reflects it. [8 Ways Global Warming Is Already Changing the World] As the Arctic warms, the temperature difference between the poles and lower latitudes is reduced, which influences flow patterns in the atmosphere, because "that temperature difference is what drives the jet stream," Francis said. The jet stream is what moves weather systems from west to east across the midlatitudes. When the temperature difference decreases, the jet stream slows down, and the kinks, or waves, in it hang around longer, as do the weather systems associated with them. In the case of Superstorm Sandy, a large northward excursion of the jet stream hung around over Greenland, giving Sandy nowhere to go but west. (As it did so, it converged with another low-pressure system, becoming a hybrid extratropical cyclone-nor'easter, which fueled its destructiveness.) "Our research suggests that these northward swings in the jet stream are happening more frequently now, especially in the North Atlantic, just like the situation that was in place when Sandy came along," Francis told OurAmazingPlanet in an email. In particular last year, the sea-ice extent (or area covered) in the Arctic reached a record low in September, just over a month before Sandy made its ominous turn toward the coast. What's expected in a warming world Right now, as with other individual weather events and climate change, a direct link can't be made between that record sea-ice low and Sandy's path. "We can't say that the record sea-ice loss last summer definitely created or enhanced the block that affected Sandy, but it's the kind of situation we'd expect to see more of as greenhouse gases continue to build up in the atmosphere and sea ice continues to dwindle," Francis said. Francis added that it is possible to investigate the statistical likelihood that this record low played a part in Sandy's story. "Numerical weather prediction computer models can be used to assess this question," she said. "They can be run with and without the various factors related to climate change to see how the storm would have developed in an environment before climate change really got going." While Francis doesn't have funding ("yet," she said) to study Sandy, she expects many other scientists to delve into the conditions that led to the superstorm. "I'm sure there will be a flurry of studies coming out over the next couple of years," she said. Follow Andrea Thompson @AndreaTOAP, Pinterestand Google+. Follow OurAmazingPlanet @OAPlanet, Facebook and Google+.
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Targus CityGear 320 Capacity CD/DVD Album Case TDP019US (Black with Grey Contrasting)
Targus CityGear 320 Capacity CD/DVD Album Case TDP019US (Black with Grey Contrasting)
* Features durable softsleeves fabricated from quality non-woven material combined with heat-resistant polypropylene to help prevent damage to media * Designed to fit 320 CD or DVDs * Black with grey contrasting * Limited Lifetime Warranty The Targus CityGear 320 Capacity CD/DVD Case is designed with 320 CD/DVD pockets to accommodate the increasing demand for media storage. The CityGear line of media cases incorporates the same stylish design and high-quality material featured on the successful CityGear line of Targus notebook cases. These cases are fabricated of durable, dual textured nylon with grey contrast stitching. A robust nylon zipper provides added security for valuable contents and the durable metal zipper pulls help prevent breakage. Both compact and functional, the CityGear CD/DVD media case provides the ideal way to protect your media from scratches either at home or on the go |
GS Yuasa says working closely with Boeing to get 787 flying
| TOKYO (Reuters) - GS Yuasa Corp , the Japanese maker of lithium-ion battery cells used in Boeing Co's 787 Dreamliner, said it is working closely with the U.S. company, lead battery contractor Thales SA of France and regulators to get the 787 back into the air. Its statement comes after a report in the Wall Street Journal on Thursday said the company disagreed with Boeing about what should be included in a package of measures aimed at getting the airliner back in the air. "Workers involved in design, production and quality control are working 24 hours a day using all their technical skill and knowledge to uncover the cause and make the battery safer," GS Yuasa said. One battery caught fire onboard a Japan Airlines Co plane in Boston while another forced an All Nippon Airways Co plane to make an emergency landing in western Japan in January, prompting regulators in the U.S., Japan and elsewhere to ground all 50 Dreamliners in operation. (Reporting by Tim Kelly; Editing by Edwina Gibbs) |
