Egypt’s Mursi calls referendum as Islamists march

CAIRO (Reuters) – Egypt‘s President Mohamed Mursi called a December 15 referendum on a draft constitution on Saturday as at least 200,000 Islamists demonstrated in Cairo to back him after opposition fury over his newly expanded powers.

Speaking after receiving the final draft of the constitution from the Islamist-dominated assembly, Mursi urged a national dialogue as the country nears the end of the transition from Hosni Mubarak‘s rule.

“I renew my call for opening a serious national dialogue over the concerns of the nation, with all honesty and impartiality, to end the transitional period as soon as possible, in a way that guarantees the newly-born democracy,” Mursi said.

Mursi plunged Egypt into a new crisis last week when he gave himself extensive powers and put his decisions beyond judicial challenge, saying this was a temporary measure to speed Egypt’s democratic transition until the new constitution is in place.

His assertion of authority in a decree issued on November 22, a day after he won world praise for brokering a Gaza truce between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist Hamas movement, dismayed his opponents and widened divisions among Egypt’s 83 million people.

Two people have been killed and hundreds wounded in protests by disparate opposition forces drawn together and re-energized by a decree they see as a dictatorial power grab.

A demonstration in Cairo to back the president swelled through the afternoon, peaking in the early evening at least 200,000, said Reuters witnesses, basing their estimates on previous rallies in the capital. The authorities declined to give an estimate for the crowd size.

“The people want the implementation of God’s law,” chanted flag-waving demonstrators, many of them bussed in from the countryside, who choked streets leading to Cairo University, where Mursi’s Muslim Brotherhood had called the protest.

Tens of thousands of Egyptians had protested against Mursi on Friday. “The people want to bring down the regime,” they chanted in Cairo‘s Tahrir Square, echoing the trademark slogan of the revolts against Hosni Mubarak and Arab leaders elsewhere.

Rival demonstrators threw stones after dark in the northern city of Alexandria and a town in the Nile Delta. Similar clashes erupted again briefly in Alexandria on Saturday, state TV said.

“COMPLETE DEFEAT”

Mohamed Noshi, 23, a pharmacist from Mansoura, north of Cairo, said he had joined the rally in Cairo to support Mursi and his decree. “Those in Tahrir don’t represent everyone. Most people support Mursi and aren’t against the decree,” he said.

Mohamed Ibrahim, a hardline Salafi Islamist scholar and a member of the constituent assembly, said secular-minded Egyptians had been in a losing battle from the start.

“They will be sure of complete popular defeat today in a mass Egyptian protest that says ‘no to the conspiratorial minority, no to destructive directions and yes for stability and sharia (Islamic law)’,” he told Reuters.

Mursi has alienated many of the judges who must supervise the referendum. His decree nullified the ability of the courts, many of them staffed by Mubarak-era appointees, to strike down his measures, although says he respects judicial independence.

A source at the presidency said Mursi might rely on the minority of judges who support him to supervise the vote.

“Oh Mursi, go ahead and cleanse the judiciary, we are behind you,” shouted Islamist demonstrators in Cairo.

Mursi, once a senior Muslim Brotherhood figure, has put his liberal, leftist, Christian and other opponents in a bind. If they boycott the referendum, the constitution would pass anyway.

If they secured a “no” vote to defeat the draft, the president could retain the powers he has unilaterally assumed.

And Egypt’s quest to replace the basic law that underpinned Mubarak’s 30 years of army-backed one-man rule would also return to square one, creating more uncertainty in a nation in dire economic straits and seeking a $ 4.8 billion loan from the IMF.

“NO PLACE FOR DICTATORSHIP”

Mursi’s well-organized Muslim Brotherhood and its ultra-orthodox Salafi allies, however, are convinced they can win the referendum by mobilizing their own supporters and the millions of Egyptians weary of political turmoil and disruption.

“There is no place for dictatorship,” the president said on Thursday while the constituent assembly was still voting on a draft constitution which Islamists say enshrines Egypt’s new freedoms.

Human rights groups have voiced misgivings, especially about articles related to women’s rights and freedom of speech.

The text limits the president to two four-year terms, requires him to secure parliamentary approval for his choice of prime minister, and introduces a degree of civilian oversight over the military – though not enough for critics.

The draft constitution also contains vague, Islamist-flavored language that its opponents say could be used to whittle away human rights and stifle criticism.

For example, it forbids blasphemy and “insults to any person”, does not explicitly uphold women’s rights and demands respect for “religion, traditions and family values”.

The draft injects new Islamic references into Egypt’s system of government but retains the previous constitution’s reference to “the principles of sharia” as the main source of legislation.

“We fundamentally reject the referendum and constituent assembly because the assembly does not represent all sections of society,” said Sayed el-Erian, 43, a protester in Tahrir and member of a party set up by opposition figure Mohamed ElBaradei.

Several independent newspapers said they would not publish on Tuesday in protest. One of the papers also said three private satellite channels would halt broadcasts on Wednesday.

Egypt cannot hold a new parliamentary election until a new constitution is passed. The country has been without an elected legislature since the Supreme Constitutional Court ordered the dissolution of the Islamist-dominated lower house in June.

The court is due to meet on Sunday to discuss the legality of parliament’s upper house.

“We want stability. Every time, the constitutional court tears down institutions we elect,” said Yasser Taha, a 30-year-old demonstrator at the Islamist rally in Cairo.

(Additional reporting by Marwa Awad, Yasmine Saleh and Tom Perry; Editing by Myra MacDonald and Jason Webb)

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Sony’s radical PlayStation 4 controller concept: A motion-control device you can split in half

While Nintendo (NTDOY) has been busy innovating with unique controllers on the Wii and Wii U, Sony’s (SNE) DualShock controller for its PlayStation, PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 3 has remained virtually the same since 1997. A newly discovered patent reveals Sony might be planning on a radical overhaul of the DualShock for the PlayStation 4 that’s rumored to arrive next year. U.S. patent 20120302347A1 details a “hybrid separable motion controller” that resembles a DualShock controller with two PlayStation Move sensor balls attached to it. Much like how the Wii Remote and Nunchuk controller combo separated the left and right hand input, the Sony controller patent goes one step further by allowing the two halves to be split and combined at any time – all without reducing the amount of buttons available.

The patent also highlights the inclusion of a “connection sensor for determining whether the controller is in a connected configuration or a disconnected configuration.”

One of the PlayStation Move’s biggest disadvantages is that it’s a separate controller and not the default one. As a result, most developers either saw it as merely a Wii Remote clone or as a niche controller with a limited install base not worth programming special controls for. If Sony were to include proper 1:1 motion controls within the default PS4 controller without turning its back on the “core” controller, it could greatly appeal to casual and core gamers.

Such a controller can be considered a natural evolution of the current DualShock 3 controller that sports limited motion controls using its three-axis accelerometer and gyroscope.

Of course, the controller is only a patent that may never make it to market, so don’t get your hopes up if it doesn’t happen.

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Show sheds light on Handel’s hidden “Messiah” helper

LONDON (Reuters) – Anyone dusting off their copy of George Frederic Handel‘s “Messiah” in the run-up to Christmas this year might spare a thought for the unsung hero of the piece.

Without Charles Jennens, experts argue that the 18th century oratorio would never have been created, robbing Western choral music of one of its greatest works.

Handel House Museum, located in the cozy London home where the German-born composer spent much of his life, is seeking to put the record straight about a man who, for many reasons, has been passed over by history.

“The Messiah would not have been written without him,” said the museum’s director Sarah Bardwell of Jennens, who lived from 1700 to 1773.

For landowner and patron of the arts Jennens, the words to the Messiah were an expression of deeply held Protestant beliefs, and he was determined that Handel, a composer he had long championed, set it to music.

The words, famously opening with “Comfort ye”, are not Jennens’ own but carefully selected verses from the Bible as well as a small number of psalms from the Book of Common Prayer.

“If you listen to the words it’s all to do with your relationship with God as in the individual, there’s none of the big theological questions,” Bardwell told Reuters.

“Everyone can relate to the Messiah, even beyond Christianity on some level,” she added. “I think that’s why Jennens is so instrumental.”

FRIEND AND BENEFACTOR

Jennens, whose family fortune came from iron, was a friend of Handel and a major backer, subscribing to his music and providing the texts for “Saul”, “Belshazzar”, “L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato” and probably “Israel in Egypt”.

So important did Handel consider Jennens that he referred to “your oratorio Messiah” in a letter to the librettist and made a detour on his way home from its premiere in Dublin to visit Jennens and tell him of its success with audiences.

The exhibition, “The Man Behind Messiah”, includes Handel’s autographed score of Saul which Jennens also annotated, suggesting changes to the composer’s work including a different entry point for the words “impious wretch”.

Yet Jennens’ name never appeared on scores, helping to explain why his contribution is largely unknown. An intensely private man, Jennens had reasons for remaining anonymous.

As a “non-juror”, or someone who did not endorse the Hanoverian royal dynasty that succeeded the House of Stuart, he was effectively barred from holding positions of authority.

And when, late in life, he published groundbreaking single-volume editions of some of Shakespeare’s most famous plays, he was attacked by a rival, Shakespearean commentator George Steevens (Eds: correct), and, thus, once again overlooked.

“It’s another reason he becomes kind of cut out of history,” Bardwell explained. “It’s been a fascinating insight into how people can just be written out of history.”

Ironically, despite his fundamental role in the Messiah and some of Handel’s other great oratorios, Jennens was not the biggest fan of a work that took less than a month to compose.

“He just thought Handel maybe rushed it off too quickly,” said Bardwell. Ruth Smith, the curator of the exhibition, believes Handel had the manuscript for about 18 months before he started work on it.

“For it to be rattled off in three weeks, I think Jennens felt that maybe he hadn’t done himself justice.

“I don’t think he ever quite got over his opinion that it wasn’t as good as he had hoped it was going to be. I think that also doesn’t help his reputation. I’m not sure he ever quite recovered from that.”

The Man Behind Messiah runs until April 14, 2013.

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White)

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How Social and Emotional Learning Could Harm Our Kids

Editor’s note: The following is a critique of a social and emotional learning program called MindUP that I have covered in other blogs (see list below) and in a feature in Scientific American Mind (visit ” Schools Add Workouts for Attention, Grit and Emotional Control”). Please also read a response to this critique, posted separately, from MindUP‘s Rebecca Calos. I hope this debate provides food for thought about how to best encourage healthy social and emotional development in our children. By Tina Olesen“Self-regulation” is the latest buzz word in education, and the MindUP curriculum for schools, conceived by actor Goldie Hawn, capitalizes on it. MindUP is marketed to teachers as a means of helping children to develop self-regulation, which is another way of saying “self-control.” The program’s “core practice” involves teaching children focused breathing techniques while they also practice non-judgmental awareness of their thoughts, which is supposed to help them calm down and be less anxious. Hawn’s curriculum is also supposed to make children feel happier and more optimistic. This is all purported to help them to be better able to learn. The truth is that MindUP can interfere with a child’s innate self-regulator, the conscience, impeding his moral development and thus his ability to learn. Rather than help him develop self-control, it trains him to manipulate his mind and manipulate others to get pleasurable feelings for himself.The “core practice” taught in MindUP is akin to certain forms of Buddhist-style mindfulness meditation including Anapanasati and Samadhi. In MindUP, the teacher strikes a Zenergy chime, and students are generally asked to sit cross legged, palms up and eyes closed. They are to direct their attention to the sound of the chime and focus intently on their breathing. The chime can gradually evoke a conditioned response in the children, as similar tools do in Buddhist monks. Teachers are encouraged to use this core practice several times a day. Mindfulness meditation such as this can be a way of bringing the mind into an altered state of consciousness. Many people who practice meditation have encountered unexpected negative side effects such as a sensation of being disconnected from one’s body or from reality, among other frightening reactions. Teachers of MindUP are exposing children to these potential dangers.To teach a child to practice non-judgmental awareness is to risk interfering with the child’s ability to heed his sense of right and wrong. A child must make judgements to choose between right and wrong actions. When he acts in accordance with his sense of what is right, he grows in moral character, and develops greater self-control. While MindUP claims to be teaching non-judgmental awareness of thoughts and feelings, it actually teaches a child to judge any thought or feeling besides optimism and happiness as bad. It shows him how to escape the warnings of his conscience with pleasurable feelings–to make himself feel good even when he has done or experienced something that he ought to feel bad about. The program even encourages a child to do things for others with the motive of getting a pleasurable sensation, a dopamine high, for himself. Thus, rather than practicing self-control, children instead practice self-indulgence. They learn to escape from reality and difficult relationships, rather than working through them.The way to help the child develop real self-control is tried and true: a caring adult patiently and unflaggingly commits to the moral training of that child. Directing, warning, correcting and disciplining day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment, the adult encourages the child to do what is right, whether or not it feels good. When a child consistently chooses to act in accordance with what is right, he develops moral character. As he develops moral character, he becomes increasingly capable of governing himself and applying himself to his studies, and he develops the self-control required for learning. This can be a long and arduous process that requires self-sacrifice and much patience on the part of a parent or teacher. There are no short cuts. As Swiss philosopher Henri-Fr?d?ric Amiel once said, “The test of every religious, political or educational system is the man which it forms. If a system injures the intelligence it is bad. If it injures the character it is vicious. If it injures the conscience it is criminal.” As a society, we risk injury to our children’s consciences at our own peril.Tina Olesen is a school teacher on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada. She examined the MindUP curriculum after hearing about it in her local school district. For more on MindUP, see:

1. Goldie Hawn Plunges into Brain Science


2. The Education of Character: Teaching Control with a Cotton Ball [Video]


3. The Education of Character–Stoking Memory with Stones [Video]


4. The Education of Character: Your Brain in a Coke Bottle [Video]


5. The Education of Character: Jumping Jacks for the Mind [Video]


6. The Education of Character: Carefully Considering Craisins [Video]

Follow Scientific American on Twitter @SciAm and @SciamBlogs.Visit ScientificAmerican.com for the latest in science, health and technology news.
© 2012 ScientificAmerican.com. All rights reserved.
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Can Spanx Stores Fit Into America’s Malls?

Katy Perry says she feels fat without them. Gwyneth Paltrow famously doubled up after the birth of her first child. So Spanx, the “problem-solving” underwear brand, is definitely riding the celebrity train. But can it take on Victoria’s Secret?

Spanx founder Sara Blakely, a protégée of Sir Richard Branson, is gambling that women’s growing openness about their bodies will propel the undergarment company beyond department stores into dedicated storefronts. The first Spanx store, a 1,200-square-foot boutique, opened earlier this month in upscale Tysons Corner in McLean, Va. Others are coming soon to King of Prussia, Pa., and Paramus, N.J.

The stores will carry all of the brand’s 200-plus items, an advantage over department stores, which have limited space. That will allow Blakely to display her line of activewear (yoga pants, shorts, skirts) as well as the better-known bras and shapers; not to mention the Footless Body-Shaping Pantyhose that made Oprah’s “Favorite Things” list in 2000. Also included: Manx, also known as man-Spanx.

The sale here isn’t sexiness. Rather it’s about looking healthy and fit—even for those who are neither—and self-affirmation. “Cheer squads” and “transformation teams” greet customers, and the entire space is devoted to form and function. Shoppers will not be distracted by items that would look good only on an angel.

“That’s what we want women to feel when they walk in and out of our doors—stronger, happier, and better about themselves and their potential,” says Spanx Chief Executive Laurie Ann Goldman in the company’s Craigslist help-wanted ad. A personal trainer probably says the same thing but charges more and inflicts more pain.

Allen Adamson, a global brand expert from Landor Associates, says the appeal to body image could work. “Quick fixes work in this space. Anything that promises you’ll look five pounds thinner without having to do the work.”

Adamson compares Blakely with Martha Stewart, saying a CEO remaining out front as the face of the brand is more powerful than any advertising tool. “Momentum is everything in retail,” Adamson adds. “She has an advantage over Victoria’s Secret because she is the brand.”

Blakely, a former standup comedian, likes to say she “became notorious for lifting up my pant leg to every woman walking by.” But if her latest and boldest venture succeeds, it will be thanks to old-fashioned tireless marketing.

Katherine Davis is an online producer for Businessweek.com.

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Oliver Stone, Benicio del Toro visit Puerto Rico

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Benicio Del Toro didn’t wait long to collect on a favor that Oliver Stone owed him for working extra hours on the set of his most recent movie, “Savages”, released this year.

The favor? A trip to Del Toro‘s native Puerto Rico, which Stone hadn’t visited since the early 1960s.

“I told him, you owe me one,” Del Toro said with a smile as he recalled the conversation during a press conference Friday in the U.S. territory, where he and Stone are helping raise money for one of the island’s largest art museums.

Del Toro, wearing jeans, a black jacket and a black T-shirt emblazoned with the name of local reggaeton singer Tego Calderon, waved to the press as he was introduced.

“Hello, greetings. Is this a press conference?” he quipped as he and Stone awaited questions.

Both men praised each other’s work, saying they would like to work with each other again.

“I deeply admire him as an actor, the way he thinks, the way he expresses himself,” Stone said. “Of all the actors I’ve worked with, he’s the most interesting.”

Stone said Del Toro always delivers surprises while acting, even when it’s as something as subtle as certain gestures between dialogue.

“I think Benicio is the master of keeping you watching,” he said.

Stone said he enjoys meeting up with Del Toro off-set because he’s one of the few actors in Hollywood who can talk about something other than movies.

“He is very interested in the world around him,” Stone said, adding that the conversations sometimes center around politics and other topics.

Del Toro declined to answer when asked what he thought about Puerto Rico’s referendum earlier this month, which aimed to determine the future of the island’s political status. He said the results did not seem to point to a clear-cut outcome.

Del Toro then said he would like the island’s movie business to grow, especially in a way that would encourage learning.

“I’m talking about movies in an educational sense, as a way to discover other parts of the world,” he said. “Create a film class. You’ll see, kids won’t skip it.”

Del Toro also shared his thoughts on being a father after having a daughter with Kimberly Stewart in August 2011.

He said the girl is learning how to swim and is discovering the world around her.

“She has her own personality,” Del Toro said. “She’s not her mother. She’s not me.”

Both Del Toro and Stone are expected to remain in Puerto Rico through the weekend to raise money for the Art Museum of Puerto Rico, which is hosting its annual movie festival and will honor Stone’s movies.

Museum curator Juan Carlos Lopez Quintero said the money raised will be used to enhance the museum’s permanent collection, especially with Puerto Rican paintings from the 19th century and early 20th century.

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No charges against Chris Brown in Fla. phone grab

MIAMI (AP) — Grammy-winning singer Chris Brown won’t be charged with a crime after a woman claimed he snatched her cell phone when she tried to take his photo outside a Miami Beach club.

A memo released Friday by the Miami-Dade County State Attorney‘s office concludes there is no evidence that Brown intended to steal the phone in February or that he deleted the photo. One or the other is necessary for him to be charged.

Prosecutors say that Brown tossed the phone from his limo and that it was picked up by security.

A felony charge against the 24-year-old might have triggered a violation of his probation for his 2009 assault on singer Rihanna, who was his girlfriend at the time. The two have recently collaborated on a new duet.

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Study links relaxation method to reduced hot flashes

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Although studies of the effects of relaxation techniques on menopause symptoms have yielded mixed results so far, a new report from Sweden comes down in favor of the approach as an alternative to hormone therapy.

Postmenopausal women trained to relax before and during the onset of hot flashes cut the frequency of those events in half during the three-month trial, researchers say. Women in a comparison group that got no treatments experienced little change in their symptoms.

“The results tell you that, yes, this seems to work,” said Kim Innes of West Virginia University, who has studied mind-body therapies for menopause symptoms but was not involved in the new study. “This was a moderate-sized trial that yielded promising – although not definitive – findings regarding the efficacy of applied relaxation,” she told Reuters Health.

In a review of more than a dozen previous clinical trials involving mediation, yoga and Tai Chi therapies, Innes concluded that these techniques may hold promise for relieving menopause symptoms, but it’s too soon to tell.

In the years just before and after menopause, fluctuating hormone levels can generate a wide variety of symptoms, among the most bothersome are sudden flushing, night sweats and insomnia.

Hormone replacement therapy is thought to help by stabilizing the fluctuations, but not all women can take hormones because of other health conditions or risk factors, and many don’t want to because of possible risks from the hormones themselves.

“A lot of women in Sweden do not want to or cannot use hormone therapy due to side effects,” said lead author of the new study Lotta Lindh-Åstrand of Linköping University.

So Lindh-Åstrand’s team set out to test the effects on menopausal hot flashes and quality of life of a method called applied relaxation that was developed in Sweden in the 1980s, based on type of psychotherapy called cognitive behavioral therapy.

The researchers recruited 60 healthy Swedish women and randomly assigned a little more than half to practice applied relaxation and the rest to a comparison group that received no treatment. The women, mostly in their fifties, had all stopped menstruating a year or more earlier but still experienced hot flashes and night sweats.

The 33 women in the therapy group learned how to focus on breathing and releasing muscle tension before and during hot flashes.

For the first week, the women observed and recorded what they felt before and during a hot flash or other menopausal symptom. Next, the women were encouraged to spend 15 minutes twice a day tensing and relaxing muscles from head to toe. Gradually, women learned how to decrease the time needed to relax by focusing on controlled breathing and not tensing the muscles. Toward the end of the study, the women were instructed to practice relaxation 20 times a day in 30-second sessions. The final “homework” exercise required the women to use these breathing and relaxation skills to quickly relax during a hot flash situation.

At the beginning of the study, all the participants experienced an average of 10 hot flashes a day. After three months, researchers report in the journal Menopause, the applied relaxation group had an average of four flashes a day while the comparison group averaged eight.

The researchers also found modest improvements in quality of life measures, including sleep problems and aches and pains, among women in the relaxation group, while the comparison group reported no changes.

Innes and other researchers said the mechanism behind mind-body therapies and their effect on menopausal symptoms is not completely understood, but it could be linked to the sympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for “fight or flight” responses as well as basic functions like heart rate, blood pressure and sweating.

Lindh-Åstrand and her colleagues warned that the results were not final and more research is needed.

“The next step,” Innes said, “would be a larger randomized controlled trial” that includes an active comparison, for instance, between relaxation techniques and physical exercise.

Such a study could help build a stronger argument for applied relaxation as a treatment, experts agreed.

Lindh-Åstrand stressed that relaxation techniques are not for everyone, especially for women who suffer from severe depression or anxiety. Women with these conditions could paradoxically feel more tense under the treatment, she said.

But for many women, she added, “this gives them a tool for managing hot flashes.”

“Over time, the women can be more self-confident because they know they can do something when the problem appears,” Lindh-Åstrand said.

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/XWJkv5 Menopause, November 12, 2012.

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Why Jim Rogers Should Be Energy Secretary

In the middle of Superstorm Sandy, we provoked a little storm of our own with a cover story entitled, “It’s Global Warming, Stupid.”

We suggested, perhaps not quite as politely as we might have, that it is past time to take climate change seriously and get the debate restarted on a national level. Toward that end, here is a constructive suggestion for President Barack Obama: Nominate soon-to-be-available power guru Jim Rogers to be your second-term Secretary of Energy. It is widely assumed that Obama’s current energy chief, Steven Chu, will step down, along with many other members of the cabinet.

The most dynamic executive in his industry, Rogers, the chief executive of Charlotte-based Duke Energy (DUK), has spent a career building ever-bigger utilities. He knows coal, gas, nuclear, solar, wind. He’s done all of them. And he recognizes the need to forge a national energy policy that sharply reduces carbon emissions that contribute to global warming and the extreme weather it is increasingly visiting upon our little planet. In the past, Rogers has backed cap-and-trade legislation, facing down industry rivals who tried to isolate him as a pariah. He would be the perfect architect of and spokesman for a new, outside-the-box approach to reducing carbon. And would Republicans really oppose the appointment of an energy industry CEO?

Rogers is available for a turn at public service because of a baroque corporate boardroom power struggle last summer, which we chronicled here. The upshot of that fight—during which Rogers gave up his CEO job as part of Duke’s acquisition of rival Progress Energy, only to be reinstalled by legacy Duke directors—is that Rogers has just agreed (again) to step down, by the end of 2013, to mollify state regulators who were irritated by the earlier C-suite switcheroo.

So Rogers is available. Obama needs a strong voice on global warming and, more broadly, national energy policy. The Duke CEO could speed up his departure from the corporate realm and move from Charlotte to Washington in time to get a fresh start just after Obama gets sworn in for a second go-round. We’ve got word in to Rogers to see if he’s interested and will report back as soon as we hear.

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Noisy city: Cacophony in Caracas sparks complaints

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — This metropolis of 6 million people may be one of the world’s most intense, overwhelming cities, with tremendous levels of crime, traffic and social strife. The sounds of Caracas‘ streets live up to its reputation.

Stand on any downtown corner, and the cacophony can be overpowering: Deafening horns blast from oncoming buses, traffic police shrilly blow their whistles and sirens shriek atop ambulances stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic.

Air horns routinely used by bus drivers are so powerful they make pedestrians on crosswalks recoil, and can even leave their ears ringing. Loud salsa music blares from the windows of buses, trucks with old mufflers rumble past belching exhaust, and “moto-taxis” weave through traffic beeping high-pitched horns.

Growing numbers of Venezuelans are saying they’re fed up with the noise that they say is getting worse, and the numbers of complaints to the authorities have risen in recent years.

One affluent district, Chacao, put up signs along a main avenue reading: “A honk won’t make the traffic light change.”

“The noise is terrible. Sometimes it seems like it’s never going to end,” said Jose Santander, a street vendor who stands in the middle of a highway selling fried pork rinds and potato chips to commuters in traffic.

Prosecutor General Luisa Ortega recently told a news conference that officials have started “putting an increased emphasis on promoting peaceful coexistence” by punishing misdemeanors such as violations of anti-noise regulations and other minor crimes. That effort has translated into hundreds of noise-related cases in recent years.

Some violators are ordered to perform community service. For instance, two young musicians who were recently caught playing loud music near a subway station were sentenced to 120 hours of community service giving music lessons to students in public schools.

Others caught playing loud music on the street have been charged with disturbing the peace after complaints from neighbors. Fines can run as high as 9,000 bolivars, or $ 2,093.

On the streets of their capital, however, Venezuelans have grown used to living loudly. The noisescape adds to a general sense of anarchy, with many drivers ignoring red lights and blocking intersections along potholed streets strewn with trash.

“This is something that everybody does. Nobody should be complaining,” said Gregorio Hernandez, a 23-year-old college student, as he listened to Latin rock songs booming from his car stereo on a Saturday night in downtown Caracas. “We’re just having fun. We’re not hurting anybody.”

Adding to the mess is the country’s notoriously divisive politics, which regularly fill the streets with marches and demonstrations.

On many days, the shouts of protesters streaming through downtown can be heard from blocks away, demanding pay hikes or unpaid benefits.

And the sporadic crackling of gunfire in the slums can be confused for firecrackers tossed by boisterous partygoers.

It’s difficult to rank the world’s noisiest cities because many, including Venezuela’s capital, don’t take measurements of sound pollution, said Victor Rastelli, a mechanical engineering professor and sound pollution expert at Simon Bolivar University in Caracas. But Rastelli said he suspects Caracas is right up there among the noisiest, along with Sao Paulo, Mexico City and Mumbai.

Excessive noise can be more than simply an annoyance, Rastelli said. “This is a public health problem.”

Dr. Carmen Mijares, an audiologist at a private Caracas hospital, said she treats at least a dozen patients every month for hearing damage caused by prolonged exposure to loud noises.

“Many of them work in bars or night clubs, and their maladies usually include temporary hearing loss and headaches,” Mijares said. For others, she said, the day-to-day noise of traffic, car horns and loud music can exacerbate stress and sleeping disorders.

Several cities have successfully reduced noise pollution, said Stephen Stansfeld, a London psychiatry professor and coordinator of the European Network on Noise and Health.

One of the most noteworthy initiatives, Stansfeld said, was in Copenhagen, Denmark, where officials used sound walls, noise-reducing asphalt and other infrastructure as well as public awareness campaigns to fight noise pollution.

But such high-tech solutions seem like a remote possibility in Caracas, where streets are literally falling apart and aging overpasses regularly lack portions of their guard rails. Prosecutors, angry neighbors and others hoping to fight the noise will have to persuade Venezuelans to do nothing less than change their loud behavior.

For Carlos Pinto, however, making noise is practically a political right.

The 26-year-old law student and his friends danced at a recent street party to house music booming from woofers in his car’s open trunk, with neon lights on the speakers that pulsed to the beat.

When asked about the noise, he answered: “We will be heard.”

___

AP freelance video journalist Ricardo Nunes contributed to this report.

___

Christopher Toothaker on Twitter: http://twitter.com/ctoothaker

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Dear President Obama: My White House petition requires your magical powers

By Chris Wilson

Since President Barack Obama won reelection, the White House website for citizen petitions has received secession requests from all 50 states. In the case of Texas, more than 100,000 people have endured the inconvenience of entering their name and email address in order to support the state’s bid for autonomy. Apparently, in a sign of Americans’ growing distaste for physical activity, 2012 is the year when people stopped threatening to move to a foreign country if their candidate lost the presidency. Instead, they want foreign countries to move to them.

The forum-happy Internet activism crowd has never had a realistic sense of what happens when you to plug government directly into the Ethernet port. This is what happens: In addition to petitions for secession, you get ones calling for Bigfoot to be recognized as an endangered species, naturopathic medicine to be covered by Obamacare, and funding for a Death Star beginning in 2016.

The petition website, called We the People, is not very useful as a guide to what Americans really care about. But it is useful as a guide to how people think of what the government can do, down to the specific words the authors use in the petitions.

Of the 300 most recent petitions, only three request that the government “protect” something—states rights, email privacy, the planet—while seven request that it “recognize” something—same-sex marriage, hate groups, and so forth. Dozens ask that Obama “grant” or “allow” a certain privilege, while only a few suggest he “ban” an action or “prevent” an outcome.

The interactive below arranges the petitions into a tree structure by the principal verb in the title. When you click a blue dot, the tree expands to show all the petitions that begin with that verb. You can mouse over those branches to see the original wording of the petition and search for any word you like by typing a phrase into the box at the top.

 

Bigfoot aside, most of the petitions on the site are earnest. This does not mean they are all sane. About 37,000 people have signed a petition suggesting that it be illegal to offend the prophets of major religions. Another petition demands recognition that Israel is responsible for 9/11—that one with only some 600 signatories.

But many present very good ideas. There’s one for reforming the Electoral College and another that suggests all scientific papers based on taxpayer-funded research should be freely accessible online.

If there is one binding force behind the petitions, it is that most of them request that Obama intercede in matters that he has no authority over or rightful business meddling with, regardless of where one comes down on the subject of big government. While the site is technically designed to lobby the government, most petitions appear personally directed at Obama.

Even the petitions to secede are written in a tone of distinct obeisance: “Peacefully grant the state of Connecticut to withdraw from the United States of America and create its own new government.” Oregon’s petition is particularly careful to specify that there are no hard feelings: “Allow Oregon to vote on and leave the union peacefully and remain an ally to the nation.”

Secession always seemed to me to be something that, by definition, you did without asking permission. (Mutual breakups are as rare in history as they are in love.) But for all the rampant anti-government sentiment in America, many people still believe the president is an omnipotent force who can pass laws on a dime, ban unsavory behavior, manipulate foreign countries with precision, expel citizens at will and otherwise bend the world to his fancy.

This does not mean people love the government. We know they do not. But they still want it to fix their problems with as little trouble as possible.

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There are some great open-source tools, like Python’s Natural Language Toolkit, that can automatically identify verbs and objects in sentences with fairly high accuracy. But a lot of human intervention is still required to clean up the results. I posted the code for retrieving the petitions from the White House website on my Github page, and the White House offers the full code for the petitions website on its Github page. Questions or comments? Email me at [email protected]
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Womens’ stories dominate 2013 Sundance film lineup

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The Sundance Film Festival, the top U.S. film festival for independent cinema, on Wednesday unveiled its lineup for 2013, with films centered on female characters dominating the American fiction film competition.

The 113 feature length movies, including both narrative films and documentaries, cover a range of topics, but more than half of those chosen for the U.S. dramatic competition focus on stories about women, including several about females exploring sexual relationships.

That includes “May In The Summer,” director Cherien Dabis’s new film about a bride-to-be forced to re-evaluate her life when she reunites with her family in Jordan that is one of 16 films in the U.S. dramatic competition.

It will kick off Sundance on January 17 as one of four first-night screenings that will comprise of one feature and one documentary from each of the U.S. films and world cinema sections – movies made outside the United States.

Overall, 4,044 feature films from around the world were submitted for the festival that is backed by Robert Redford’s Sundance Institute for filmmaking and is the premiere U.S. event for movies made outside Hollywood’s major studios.

Indie films from Sundance festivals that have gone on to critical success include last year’s winner, “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” as well as “The Sessions,” and “Little Miss Sunshine” and “An Inconvenient Truth”.

Other features about female journeys include writer director Lynn Shelton’s “Touchy Feely,” about a massage therapist unable to do her job when she suddenly has an aversion to bodily contact.

“There are a lot of women’s stories, and interestingly enough, a lot of those stories exploring sexual relationships,” the festival’s program director Trevor Groth said in an interview, noting it was a natural extension of an increase in female directors.

“We have had some over the years that have been from a male gaze looking at sexual politics and sexual relationships, but this year we have got a wave of films doing that from a female perspective, which is intriguing and exciting.”

Those include “Afternoon Delight”, a dark comedy about a lost L.A. housewife who takes in a young stripper, “Concussion”, about a woman in a lesbian relationship who becomes a call girl, and “The Lifeguard”, about a reporter who quits her job in New York and moves back home to Connecticut.

Stories from the male perspective include “C.O.G.”, the first film adaptation of comic writer David Sedaris. Adapted from a short story from Sedaris’ best-selling 1997 essay collection, “Naked”, Sedaris has co-written the screenplay about a cocky man traveling to Oregon to work on an apple farm.

PUNK PRAYERS

Other “Day One” screenings include “Crystal Fairy”, about two strangers on a road trip in Chile, and the documentaries “Twenty Feet From Stardom”, about backup singers for some of the biggest bands in pop music and “Who Is Dayani Cristal?”, about the search for an anonymous body in the Arizona desert.

Nonfiction films from the world documentary section tackle subjects ranging from Russian punk protest band Pussy Riot in “Pussy Riot — A Punk Prayer”, to the 2008 Sichuan earthquake “Fallen City” to Google’s quest to build a giant digital library “Google and the World Brain”.

And returning to the United States, among American documentaries are an examination of the occupy Wall Street movement “99% – The Occupy Wall Street Collaborative Film”, “Dirty Wars” about America’s covert wars and “Manhunt” that looks inside the CIA’s conflict against Al Qaeda.

Festival director John Cooper noted the strength and “immediacy” of the documentary lineup and “the way these films explain and expose the issues of our time, like economic inequality, corporate corruption and greed, the problems and sometimes the solutions of living in this information age”.

Movies in the Premieres section, which unlike the competition sections feature more established directors, will be announced December 3.

Overall, this year’s festival will feature movies from 32 countries and 51 first-time filmmakers. The festival begins on January 17, 2012 and runs through January 27.

(Reporting By Christine Kearney, editing by Patricia Reaney)

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Voters Come Clean on Health Care

Nov 29, 2012 1:56pm

Reported by Dr. Nisha Nathan:

 Voters who backed President Obama and those who supported Mitt Romney just can’t seem to agree on key health care issues, a new study suggests. But they’ll have to compromise if they want change in Washington.

The study, which drew on the combined data of three pre-election and exit polls, found that Obama supporters were three times more likely to say that health care was the most important problem facing the country.

These polls are a “very good prediction of what positions administrators will take on, and what directions they will move, especially in health and social policy,” said Robert Blendon, a professor of health policy at Harvard University and lead author of the study published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine. But, Blendon added, “People’s views could change and shift and might not be as polarized as reflected in the polls.”

The majority of voters, according to the study, saw President Obama as better than Mitt Romney at handling key issues in health care and Medicare, but not as good as his Democratic predecessors in the three previous elections.  And while most Americans — 85 percent of Obama voters and 53 percent of Romney voters — agreed that the government should try to fix the health care system, how this fix should happen remained a point of contention.

Obama voters wanted the Affordable Care Act instituted and supported a more activist government that would intervene more directly in the U.S. health care system. They also opposed changing the structure of the Medicare and Medicaid programs.

Obama supporters also wanted the federal government to have more responsibility in health care reform, but they disagreed on how the the government should use this responsibility.  The party remains split between the market approach in which the government provides incentives for healthy competition between hospitals, doctors and health insurance companies, and increased regulation of what insurance companies, doctors and hospitals can charge.

Abortion is another controversial health issue in which the country remains strongly divided. Forty-five percent of Obama voters thought that abortion should be legal no matter what, while 57 percent of Romney followers wanted abortion to be illegal in most or all cases, according to the study. Blendon said the president would likely have to balance both parties’ views, a move that might pan out through Planned Parenthood funding and Supreme Court appointments.

While Obama’s narrow win would force a delicate balance in health policy decisions, Blendon predicted that Romney followers would still be slightly disappointed. “The Affordable Care Act is not going to be repealed, and it will go ahead,” he said. But with the Senate maintaining a Democratic majority and the House of Representatives staying Republican, there will have to be a lot of compromise when it comes to health care.

Expect push back, Blendon said. “In many parts of the country, this will not go ahead rapidly, even though the president won the election.”

SHOWS: World News

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UK banks ‘may need more capital’

29 November 2012 Last updated at 10:27 ET

Sir Mervyn King: “This problem is manageable, but it requires some action now”

Major UK banks may need to raise more capital as protection against possible future losses, the Bank of England’s Financial Policy Committee has said.

Bank governor Sir Mervyn King said there were “good reasons” to think current capital ratios did not give an accurate picture of financial health.

His comments came as he presented the Bank’s Financial Stability Report.

The report suggested that the ‘Big Four’ UK banks need £5bn-£35bn of new capital.

However, BBC business editor Robert Peston said, “the precision of this calculation is somewhat to be questioned because it is based on 2011 data and also because it excludes the banks’ huge financial trading activities”.

The main UK banks include HSBC, Barclays, Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds.

‘Immediate attention’ needed

Sir Mervyn said: “UK banks currently report substantial buffers over the minimum level allowed”.

Continue reading the main story

Sir Mervyn and his colleagues on the FPC may today have engineered yet another significant delay to the moment when taxpayers can celebrate severing the ties that bind us to Lloyds and RBS”

End Quote

“But, in judging whether banks are adequately capitalised, we need to ensure that reported capital ratios do in fact provide an accurate picture of banks’ health. At present there are good reasons to think that they do not.”

He said there were three reasons why the Bank of England thought that the banks were not strong enough.

“First, expected future credit losses may be understated. Second, costs arising from past failures of conduct may not be fully recognised. And third, the risk weights used by banks in calculating their capital ratios may be too optimistic”.

Sir Mervyn added: “The problem is manageable, and is already understood at least in part by markets. But it does warrant immediate attention.”

Mis-selling costs

Inadequately capitalised banks hold back economic recovery and undermine investor confidence, he added.

The Bank is being granted greater regulatory oversight over banks from next year when it takes over the Financial Services Authority. One of its primary roles will be to make sure UK banks have sufficient capital to support the economy, said Sir Mervyn.

Adequate capital levels are also needed in the face of rising costs related to banking scandals.

This year, HSBC and Barclays were respectively hit by penalties over money-laundering and the alleged rigging of the Libor rate.

Meanwhile the banks have set aside billions of pounds to cover claims for payment protection insurance (PPI) mis-selling.

“In recent years, UK banks have also underestimated and underprovisioned for costs for conduct redress, notably for payment protection insurance (PPI) mis-selling,” the stability report said.

“In 2012, the number of identified conduct issues has grown and it seems likely that banks could face additional sizable costs.”

BBC News – Business

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Rapper PSY wants Tom Cruise to go ‘Gangnam Style’

BANGKOK (AP) — The South Korean rapper behind YouTube’s most-viewed video ever has set what might be a “Mission: Impossible” for himself.

Asked which celebrity he would like to see go “Gangnam Style,” the singer PSY told The Associated Press: “Tom Cruise!”

Surrounded by screaming fans, he then chuckled at the idea of the American movie star doing his now famous horse-riding dance.

PSY’s comments Wednesday in Bangkok were his first public remarks since his viral smash video — with 838 million views — surpassed Justin Bieber‘s “Baby,” which until Saturday held the record with 803 million views.

“It’s amazing,” PSY told a news conference, saying he never set out to become an international star. “I made this video just for Korea, actually. And when I released this song — wow.”

The video has spawned hundreds of parodies and tribute videos and earned him a spotlight alongside a variety of superstars.

Earlier this month, Madonna invited PSY onstage and they danced to his song at one of her New York City concerts. MC Hammer introduced the Korean star at the American Music Awards as, “My Homeboy PSY!”

Even President Barack Obama is talking about him. Asked on Election Day if he could do the dance, Obama replied: “I think I can do that move,” but then concluded he might “do it privately for Michelle,” the first lady.

PSY was in Thailand to give a free concert Wednesday night organized as a tribute to the country’s revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who turns 85 next month. He paid respects to the king at a Bangkok shopping mall, signing his name in an autograph book placed beside a giant poster of the king. He then gave an outdoor press conference, as screaming fans nearby performed the pop star’s dance.

Determined not to be a one-hit wonder, PSY said he plans to release a worldwide album in March with dance moves that he thinks his international fans will like.

“I think I have plenty of dance moves left,” he said, in his trademark sunglasses and dark suit. “But I’m really concerned about the (next) music video.”

“How can I beat ‘Gangnam Style’?” he asked, smiling. “How can I beat 850 million views?”

___

Associated Press writer Thanyarat Doksone contributed to this report.

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Italian tax police probe Google Italy again

ROME (Reuters) – Italian police launched a new tax probe into Google Italy this week after earlier investigations found the group had failed to declare income and still owed sales tax, an economy ministry document showed on Wednesday.

The earlier probe, which was launched by Italian financial police in 2007, found that Google had developed a system to transfer profits from its Italian operations to Ireland so it could benefit from a more favorable tax regime.

The investigation is the Internet search giant’s latest entanglement with European tax authorities, following problems in France and Britain over its Irish strategy.

In Italy, investigations of the years 2002-2006 found that Google had failed to declare at least 240 million euros ($ 310 million) of income to authorities and owed more than 96 million euros in sales tax, according to the ministry’s response to questions in parliament.

It said police had launched a new probe on Monday to check the company was meeting its fiscal obligations in Italy.

Google said in a statement that it complies with tax law in every country in which it operates.

“We are confident we comply with Italian law,” a spokeswoman said, adding the firm would cooperate with authorities and answer any questions for the investigation.

Italian officials have stepped up tax surveillance and collection efforts in recent months as part of government efforts to bring Italy’s huge public debt under control.

Police have also been assessing the practices of other multinational online businesses who are managing to shift profits made in Italy into countries where they can pay less tax, the ministry said.

($ 1=0.7746 euros)

(Reporting By Danilo Masoni, Giuseppe Fonte and Catherine Hornby; Editing by Mike Nesbit)

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Sculptor Gormley wants us to get inside his head

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s foremost living sculptor Antony Gormley wants us to get inside his head with his latest work “Model”, a 100-tonne steel maze of cubes and squares, dark corners and splashes of light on show at the White Cube gallery in London.

The giant grey-black work, based on a human form lying down, is entered via the right “foot”, and combines the fun of an adventure playground with the unnerving quality of a labyrinth often plunged into darkness.

For the first time, the Turner Prize-winning artist who has always been preoccupied with the human form allows us to get inside, and draws parallels between the body and the architectural spaces we inhabit.

“I think we dwell first in this borrowed bit of the material world that we call the body,” Gormley told Reuters, standing beside the imposing structure made up of interlocking blocks.

“It has its own life that is unknowable. But the second place we dwell is the body of architecture, the built environment,” he added.

“We’re the most extraordinary species that decided to structure our habitat according to very, very abstract principles of horizontal and vertical planes.”

Model has plenty of surprises. The more nimble visitor can crawl through its left “arm”, which is a passage around three feet high, or clamber on to a roof bathed in light.

“There are places that you wouldn’t necessarily know are there,” Gormley said. As if to prove his point, he disappeared into a large raised “aperture” invisible in the darkness.

Sound also plays a part, with the resonance of voices and rumble of footsteps giving clues to the size of each space.

PLAYGROUND

The artist said he encouraged people to explore the work rather than just look, unlike most sculptures which are strictly off-limits.

“Psychological architecture suddenly starts to reverberate with human life,” he explained, adding that the sense of unease when entering the dark spaces was part of its appeal.

“I think creepiness is good,” he said in the pitch-black “head”. “I think it’s necessary to get under people’s skin. You don’t want them to easily ingest or accept something.”

Several times he referred to the Seagram murals of American painter Mark Rothko, works that inspired him as an artist and which he had in mind while making Model.

“Their surfaces give you this idea of space, or an invitation, they seat you at a threshold and allow you to dream of what exists beyond that threshold,” he said.

“You could say this is the literal version of that.”

Gormley, born in 1950, won the Turner Prize in 1994 and is probably best known for his 20-metre high public “Angel of the North” sculpture located near Newcastle in northern England.

He would not say what price the White Cube gallery had put on Model, and the gallery itself could not immediately provide a figure when asked, but Gormley has become one of the most sought-after British artists at auction.

A life-size iron maquette for Angel of the North fetched 3.4 million pounds ($ 5.4 million) at an auction at Christie’s in October last year.

Early critical reaction to Model was mixed.

“We think of the pyramids, of tombs in lightless spaces,” wrote Michael Glover in the Independent. “We have entered this space hoping for a visceral response of some kind, but it never quite happens.”

Model is on display at White Cube, Bermondsey, until February 10, 2013.

(This story has fixed typos in paragraph six)

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato)

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Flu Has Little to Do With Cold Weather

Although most children grow up hearing that they’ll catch the flu if they play in the snow without a scarf, weather has very little to do with which regions get more flu, doctors say.

“It’s actually not that predicable,” said Dr. Jon Abramson, who specializes in pediatric infectious diseases at Wake Forest Baptist Health in North Carolina.

Mississippi has had the most reported cases of influenza-like illness in the United States so far this season, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Even though Mississippi had an average temperature of 53.3 degrees this month, it is the only state in the country with a flu-like activity level of “high.” Louisiana and Alabama are right behind it with moderate activity levels. Most other states — with colder climates — have had lower levels.

Click here to read about flu facts and fiction.

Abramson said the flu season tends to start in October and last through April, mostly coinciding with the school year rather than the temperature. He said studies have shown that the flu spreads mostly from school-age children, who often have poorer hygiene and catch the virus because they are in close contact with one another. Then, they pass it along to adults.

Weather becomes a contributing factor mostly because it forces children indoors, where they mix together and spread germs, said Allison Aiello, a professor and epidemiologist at the University of Michigan’s School of Public Health.

Scarves, hats and gloves are useless if you come in contact with someone with the flu and either breath in their virus or touch a surface with the virus and touch your mouth, Aiello said.

“You can tell you mom it’s OK for you to go outside with no hat on,” she laughed, adding that even her own relatives remind her to put on a hat to avoid getting the flu. She said weather can perhaps make people more susceptible, but it can’t give them the virus.

Since Sept. 30, about 2,400 influenza cases have been reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, including 28 cases of H1N1. Despite its tropical temperatures, even Hawaii has reported flu cases this season.

Abramson said his North Carolina hospital has already had 25 influenza cases this season. In contrast, by the same time last year, the same hospital didn’t have a single case.

“This is the South. It’s fairly warm, so you wouldn’t expect it this early,” he said. “It doesn’t seem to behave exactly by the coldness.”

The flu can spread any time of year, Abramson said, citing this summer’s swine flu outbreak. The H3N2V strain jumped from 29 to 145 cases in less than a week in August of this year, with most of them in Indiana and Ohio.

The best way for families to protect themselves is to encourage hand-washing and get vaccinated.

Click here to read about other flu-fighters.

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New home sales stagnant, cast shadow on housing

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – New U.S. single-family home sales fell slightly in October and the prior month’s pace of sales was revised sharply lower, casting a faint shadow over one of the brighter spots in the U.S. economy.

The Commerce Department said on Wednesday sales dropped 0.3 percent last month to a 368,000-unit annual rate, while September’s sales pace was revised to 369,000 from 389,000.

The housing sector has been a point of relative strength this year in an economy beset by flagging business confidence and cooling demand from abroad.

A report last week showed a surprisingly sharp gain in home resales in October, while data this week showed prices for single-family homes have risen continuously since February.

Economists expect home construction to add to economic growth this year for the time since 2005.

Wednesday’s data did not change the view that housing is still in recovery mode, although the pace of new home sales in October was below the level of May, suggesting little upward momentum.

“It’s just that progress will be slow,” said Yelena Shulyatyeva, an economist at BNP Paribas in New York.

U.S. homebuilder stocks fell, even as broad market indexes rose slightly.

While weakness in business spending has been restraining growth, most recent data has suggested housing is gaining momentum. Consumer confidence has also been more bullish.

Wednesday’s report showed the median sales price for a new home in October was 5.7 percent higher than a year earlier, but the pace of year-over-year price gains slowed for a second straight month.

Some analysts suggested the decline in sales in October might be partially due to a mammoth storm that slammed into the U.S. East Coast at the end of October. New sales plunged 32.3 percent in the Northeast, which bore the brunt of the storm.

“Some of this could potentially be Hurricane Sandy,” said Megan McGrath, an analyst at MKM Partners in Stamford, Connecticut.

However, the Commerce Department said the storm did not affect data collection at all and its impact on the pace of sales was likely “minimal.”

Economists polled by Reuters had forecast sales rising to a 390,000-unit rate last month from September’s previously reported 389,000-unit rate.

To provide support for the housing market, the Federal Reserve has kept interest rates at rock-bottom levels since 2008. In September, it launched an open-ended program to buy mortgage-backed securities, driving mortgage rates to record lows.

In a separate report, data from the Mortgage Bankers Association showed an index for home purchase loans, a leading indicator of home sales, rose 2.6 percent last week to its highest level of the year.

(Additional reporting by Gabriel Debenedetti in New York; Editing by Andrea Ricci)

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Rugby-England add flyhalf Burns to squad for All Blacks’ test

LONDON, Nov 27 (Reuters) – England called up uncapped Gloucester flyhalf Freddie Burns on Tuesday to their squad for Saturday’s test against New Zealand in place of the injured Toby Flood.

Flood sustained ligament damage to a big toe during the 16-15 loss to South Africa at Twickenham last Saturday.

Owen Farrell, whose last start was in the first test in South Africa this year, is set to replace Flood in the starting XV against the world champions.

Lock Courtney Lawes, who missed England’s first three tests of the November series because of a knee injury, has also been included in the 23-man squad. Two other locks, Mouritz Botha and Tom Palmer, have been omitted.

After beating Fiji in their opening match, England have lost to Australia and the Springboks and now face a daunting match against the All Blacks who are unbeaten in 20 tests since the start of their victorious World Cup campaign last year.

“For those in Saturday’s squad the message is clear – last week we went toe to toe with the second best team in the world and felt we should have won,” England head coach Stuart Lancaster said in a statement.

“Now we have a chance to take on the number one side in front of a passionate Twickenham crowd, who have been fantastic throughout the Internationals, and it is a challenge we will meet head on.” (Reporting by John Mehaffey; Editing by Ken Ferris)

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Disney Channel to debut ‘Sofia the First’ Jan. 11

NEW YORK (AP) — Disney says its animated children‘s series “Sofia the First” will premiere Jan. 11 on the Disney Channel and Disney Junior networks.

Created for kids ages 2 to 7, “Sofia the First” is about a young girl who becomes a princess and learns that honesty, loyalty and compassion are what makes a person royal.

Sofia is voiced by “Modern Family” actress Ariel Winter, and her mother is played by “Grey’s Anatomy” star Sara Ramirez.

Last week’s premiere of the “Sofia the First” animated movie drew a total audience of more than 5 million viewers. It was the year’s top-rated cable TV telecast among kids ages 2 to 5.

In the series’ debut episode, Sofia strives to become the first princess to earn a spot on her school’s flying derby team.

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Infected and unaware: HIV hitting America’s youth

CHICAGO (Reuters) – More than half of young people in the United States who are infected with HIV are not aware of it, according to a new report by government health officials that zeroes in on one of the remaining hot spots of HIV infection in America.

Young people ages 13 to 24 account for 26 percent of all new HIV infections, according to the report by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which was released on Tuesday.

“Given everything we know about HIV and how to prevent it in 30 years of fighting the disease, it’s just unacceptable that young people are becoming infected at such high rates,” CDC Director Dr. Thomas Frieden said on a conference call with reporters.

Every month, 1,000 young people in America become infected with HIV, an incurable infection that costs $ 400,000 to treat over a lifetime, Frieden said. If left untreated, HIV infection leads to AIDS and early death.

“The data are stark and worrying,” Dr. Kevin Fenton, director of the National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD and TB Prevention at the CDC, said in a telephone interview.

In 2010, 72 percent of the estimated 12,000 new HIV infections in young people occurred in young men who have sex with men, and nearly half of new infections were among young, black males.

“We are particularly concerned about what is happening with HIV among young black and bisexual men,” Fenton said. “They account for 39 percent of all new infections among youth and more than half of new infections among young men who have sex with men.”

Fenton said the proportion of young people infected with HIV has remained relatively stable during the last few years, but infection rates appear to be increasing in these populations.

And because many of the newly infected gay or bisexual males are just beginning to explore their sexuality, stigma and homophobia are making HIV testing and treatment far more challenging.

Although the CDC and the American Academy of Pediatrics recommend routine screening for HIV starting in the early teens, “too few young people are getting tested,” Frieden said.

Only 13 percent of all high school students and only 22 percent of sexually active high school students have ever been tested for HIV, the CDC found.

The figures for young adults aged 18 to 24 are not much better, with only 35 percent of people in this age group reporting ever having been tested for HIV.

Frieden said one reason for the higher rates of infection among young gay and bisexual men of all races was a higher rate of risky behaviors compared with their heterosexual peers.

According to the report, a large analysis of risk behaviors among high school students revealed that gay and bisexual males are much more likely to have multiple sex partners, to inject illegal drugs and to use alcohol or drugs before sex. They are much less likely to use condoms.

And because so few get tested, HIV-infected people under age 25 are significantly less likely than those who are older to get and stay in care, and to have their virus controlled at a level that helps them stay healthy and reduce their risk of transmitting HIV to partners.

The CDC also found that many young men who have sex with men are less likely than others to have been taught about HIV or AIDS in school.

“We have to correct a lot of myths and misconceptions,” Frieden said. “It is astonishing the level of ignorance about basic physiology that may high school and middle school students have.”

To address some of the issues, the CDC is funding a program that targets both at-risk youths and the homophobia and stigma in the community that drives them underground.

In September, Georgia, a state where new HIV infections among those 13 to 24 years old exceed the national average – accounting for as many as one-third of all new HIV infections – won a grant as part of a pilot project to find better ways of targeting these at-risk youth.

“We think that it’s really critical that the discussions we have about HIV prevention and access to HIV become fully integrated into the social fabric of the youth culture,” Dr. Melanie Thompson, of the Georgia Department of Public Health, said in a telephone interview.

Care and Prevention in the United States, known as CAPUS, is a three-year program led by the CDC and other government agencies aimed at reducing HIV and AIDS among racial and ethnic minorities in the United States. It focuses on addressing social, economic, clinical and structural factors influencing HIV health outcomes.

“It is a huge challenge,” said Thompson, “but I think if we do this from the point of view of trying to end an epidemic that is decimating our young people, and do it in a way that is science-based, I think we can make progress.”

(Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen; Editing by Maureen Bavdek and Leslie Adler)

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From Wartime Technology Comes Hurricane Relief

A parking lot on Rockaway Beach Boulevard, in the heart of the Hurricane Sandy-ravaged New York coastline, has been serving as the base of operations for Team Rubicon, a volunteer organization staffed by military veterans who show up when disasters strike. The lot has many of the things you’d expect to see at a disaster-recovery site: stacks of hand tools, portable toilets, palettes of food, and water. What’s most interesting is the matte-green school bus parked in back.

Courtesy Team RubiconThat bus is a mobile command post, a place from which dispatchers can direct teams of volunteers to various addresses to assess damage, provide assistance, or call for supplies. To make that process more efficient, Team Rubicon employs software that is more commonly used on the battlefield but is now helping aid workers as they move from house to house.

The software comes from Palantir, a tech company in Silicon Valley that makes software used by the military, intelligence. and law-enforcement communities. Palantir’s software, which works on both laptops in the bus and on volunteers’ smartphones, allows dispatchers to see the volunteers’ locations, via their phones’ GPS function, along with the whereabouts of houses that need assistance. Aid workers can call up notes associated with a particular property and can add their own comments. They can also upload geo-tagged photos in case the address information is faulty and visual confirmation is more reliable.

Members of Team Rubicon and Palantir first met in August at the Classy Awards, a philanthropic awards ceremony held in San Diego. “The initial intent was to use Palantir to better understand their volunteer base,” says Jason Payne, who heads up Palantir’s “philanthropy engineering” team. The first plan was to more accurately match volunteers’ skills to needed tasks, but Sandy’s arrival forced a pivot to the more immediate concerns of recovery management. “It became an alpha or beta run to see how the platform could be applied to their activities on the ground,” Payne says.

Palantir’s software is designed to deal with large, disparate data sets, which can be useful in peacetime, as well as during conflicts. If you want to determine where to send aid, Payne explains, you would benefit by combining several layers of information: the status of neighborhood pharmacies and gas stations, demographic and census data, poverty rates, and other information. In the future, Payne says, such use of Palantir’s system could result in more accurate targeting of resources.

Team Rubicon began its efforts in the area on Oct. 29, and it plans to remain there until Dec. 3, at which point the group will hand over operations to longer-term recovery organizations. Its success with Palantir—the group has successfully managed more than 10,000 volunteers in the Rockaways—means that the software will likely be expanded to other aid groups. Payne mentions that such organizations as AmeriCorps, AmeriCares, and Points of Light have expressed interest in the platform.

Team Rubicon also plans to use the software again to make future relief campaigns faster and more efficient. “The Palantir software acts as a force-multiplier,” says Ford Sypher, a regional director of Team Rubicon who served as an Army Ranger in Iraq and Afghanistan. The software addresses a common problem in dispatching crews for disaster relief: lack of real-time communication. “You’d send people out to check a house, and you had no idea where they were or what they needed until they came back,” says Brendan Kraft, a volunteer who was an Army public health technician. “Now we can all share information as it comes in.”

“Before we had this,” Kraft adds, gesturing toward the satellite map imagery, overlaid with data points, “we had a pad and a pen.”

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Dog days in Cuba: from shih tzus to schnauzers

HAVANA (AP) — The Cuban capital has played host to political summits and art festivals, ballet tributes and international baseball competitions. Now dog lovers are getting their chance to take center stage.

Hundreds of people from all over Cuba and several other countries came to a scruffy field near Revolution Plaza this past week to preen and fuss over the shih tzus, beagles, schnauzers and cocker spaniels that are the annual Fall Canine Expo’s star attractions. There were even about a dozen bichon habaneros, a mid-sized dog bred on the island since the 17th century.

As dog lovers talked shop, the merely curious strolled the field, checking out the more than 50 breeds on display while carefully dodging the prodigious output of so many dogs.

The four-day competition, which ended Sunday, included competitions in several breeding categories, and judges were flown in from Nicaragua, Colombia and Mexico.

“This is a small, poor country, but Cubans love dogs,” said Miguel Calvo, the president of Cuba’s dog federation, which organized the show. “We make a great effort to breed purebred animals of quality.”

Winners don’t receive any trophy or prize money, but that doesn’t mean the competition is any less fierce.

Anabel Perez, owner of a cocker spaniel named Lisamineli after the U.S. actress, spent more than half an hour coifing the dog’s hair in preparation for the competition, while the owner of a shih tzu named Tiguer meticulously brushed his coat nearby.

“I’m a hairdresser for humans,” explained Tiguer’s owner, Miguel Lopez. “So it’s easy for me. I like shih tzus because they are a lot of work to keep well groomed.”

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Beyonce documentary premiering on HBO in February

NEW YORK (AP) — Beyonce is getting personal.

HBO announced Monday that a documentary about the Grammy-winning singer will debut Feb. 16, 2013. Beyonce is directing the film, which will include footage she shot herself with her laptop.

The network said the documentary will include “video that provides raw, unprecedented access to the private entertainment icon and high-voltage performances.” It will also feature home videos of her family and of the singer as a new mother and owner of her company, Parkwood Entertainment.

Beyonce said in a statement the untitled project was “personal” to her. She is married to Jay-Z. They had their first child, daughter Blue Ivy Carter, in January.

The 31-year-old will perform at the 2013 Super Bowl halftime show on Feb. 3, 13 days before the documentary airs.

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Obama spoke with House Speaker Boehner, others on “fiscal cliff”

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama spoke with House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner over the weekend on efforts to avert the looming “fiscal cliff” of budget cuts and tax rises that threatens to tip the U.S. economy back into recession.

A White House official said on Monday that Obama also spoke with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a fellow Democrat, and said discussions among staff members continued.

The president met with congressional leaders, including Boehner and Reid, 10 days ago seeking common ground following Obama’s re-election for another four-year term on November 6.

Boehner and fellow Republicans oppose the Democrats’ proposal to raise taxes on the very wealthy as part of arrangements to rein in the enormous U.S. budget deficits.

Starting on January 2, about $ 600 billion worth of tax increases and spending reductions, including $ 109 billion in cuts to domestic and defense programs, will begin to kick in if Congress cannot decide how to replace them with less extreme deficit-reduction measures.

(Reporting by Mark Felsenthal; Editing by David Storey)

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