Canadian October home sales dip, latest sign of cooling

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TORONTO (Reuters) – Sales of existing homes in Canada fell in October from September and year-over-year sales were down as well, the Canadian Real Estate Association said on Thursday in the latest signal that the housing market is slowing.


The industry group for Canadian real estate agents said sales were down 0.1 percent in October from September. Actual sales for October, not seasonally adjusted, were down 0.8 percent from a year earlier.













The housing market, which roared higher in 2011 and the first half of 2012, started to slow after the government tightened rules on mortgage lending in July in a bid to cool the market and prevent home buyers from taking on too much debt.


“Housing market trends in Canada for 2012 can be characterized as before and after regulatory changes,” TD Economics senior economist Sonya Gulati said in a research note.


“In the first half of the year, sales and price gains were modest, but positive. More stringent mortgage rules and tighter mortgage underwriting rules have ‘purposely’ knocked the wind out of the housing market sails,” she said.


The home sales data showed diverging paths in Canadian housing depending on location. In Toronto and Vancouver, where sales and price gains were red hot in 2011 and early in 2012, the market has been cooling. But markets in the resource-rich western provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta have been gaining strength.


“Opinions differ about how sharply sales have slowed depending on the local housing market,” Gregory Klump, CREA’s chief economist, said in a statement.


Led by Calgary, sales in October were up from a year earlier in almost two-thirds of local markets. Sales remained blow year-earlier levels in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal, CREA said.


“These results suggest that the Canadian housing market overall has returned to a more sustainable pace,” Klump said.


CREA’s Home Price Index rose 3.6 percent in October from a year earlier, the sixth consecutive month in which gains in prices slowed, and the slowest rate of increase since May 2011.


While tighter mortgage rules have worked to slow the market, TD’s Gulati said the big question is what will happen when that temporary cooling effect wears off in early 2013.


“What happens thereafter is less certain. The low interest rate environment could pull homeowners back onto the market, causing home prices to once again trek upwards. Alternatively, an absence of pent-up demand may leave the market in a bit of a lull until interest rate hikes resume in late 2013,” she wrote.


“Under either scenario, it is safe to say that there is a low probability of out-sized home price gains over the near-term.”


A total of 402,322 homes traded hands via Canadian MLS systems over the first 10 months of 2012, up 0.8 percent from the same period last year and 0.4 percent below the 10-year average for the period, the data showed.


The number of newly listed homes fell 3.8 percent in October following a jump in September. Monthly declines were reported in almost two-thirds of local markets, with Toronto and Vancouver exerting a large influence on the national trend.


Nationally, there were 6.5 months of inventory at the end of October, little changed from the reading of 6.4 months at the end of September.


(Editing by Peter Galloway)


Canada News Headlines – Yahoo! News



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RIM to spice BlackBerry 10 AppWorld with local flavors

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WATERLOO, Ontario (Reuters) – Research In Motion is pushing for app quality, not quantity, with its make-or-break BlackBerry 10 devices set for launch on January 30, and targeting applications to customers in various regions.


RIM’s projected 100,000 apps – a record for any new platform at launch – will still be a fraction of those available on Apple Inc or Google Inc devices.













But it is a stronger showing than RIM’s PlayBook tablet computer which was slammed at its 2011 launch for a dearth of apps and incomplete software.


In an interview with Reuters on Wednesday, RIM Chief Executive Thorsten Heins admitted that app libraries play a crucial role in the success or failure of smartphones. But he said the game is not just about numbers.


“The tactic we are deploying is by country and by region. We are aiming to have the most important 200 to 400 apps available, because many applications are regional and they really do have a regional flavor,” Heins said.


RIM says it aims to offer both the most popular applications in the market, and also those most relevant to Blackberry aficionados – people Heins described as hyper-connected multi-taskers who need to get things done.


RIM’s ultra-secure BlackBerry was once the smartphone of choice for government and corporate elites. But rivals have taken giant bites out of RIM’s market share, especially in North America, and the company’s stock has slumped. The BlackBerry remains popular in many emerging markets, partly for its popular BBM messaging system.


With this in mind, RIM has hosted events with developers across the globe.


“We’ve done 30 jam conferences in various cities all around the world, to get the bucket filled with meaningful local apps and not just a huge bunch of applications that you collect and throw at your audience,” he said. “It is a very, very targeted approach.”


Heins, who has met with customers and carriers in a series of whirlwind global tours, came across as relaxed and confident in the interview, in RIM’s Waterloo headquarters.


Speaking rapid fire English with just a hint of an accent from his native Germany, he acknowledged that RIM’s fate may depend on the success of BB10, but he said feedback from clients has been very encouraging.


RIM hopes its new line of BB10 smartphones will help it claw back market share from Apple’s iPhone and devices powered by Google’s Android operating system. Developers say like what they see, but analysts are not convinced that RIM’s gamble on BB10 will succeed.


BIG NAME DRAWS


In terms of numbers, RIM’s app offering will remain far behind the Apple and Google app stores, each of which boast over 700,000 apps. But Heins said he was not worried.


“In my view it is really short-sighted to say, you have 600,000, you have 400,000 and you only have 100,000 apps, so you are not good,” he said.


“Look at how many actually get downloaded. … BlackBerry App World today is still the most profitable portal for application developers – it has the highest number of paid for downloads.”


In a small dig at his rivals, he added: “We don’t have 1,500 Solitaire apps. That is not what Blackberry is about.”


RIM has already said it plans business focused apps from the likes of Cisco WebEx, Box, SAP and Blackboard, as well as music and movie apps like TuneIn, Nobex and Popcornflix and gaming apps from developers like Gameloft, Halfbrick and Paw Print Games.


Heins has said social networks such as LinkedIn, Foursquare, Twitter and Facebook will all have apps for BB10 at launch. But he declined to name any of the other big name apps that RIM will have on board come launch day.


“Allow me to talk to you about this on January 30, otherwise I’m losing a lot of thunder,” he said.


(Editing by Janet Guttsman and Richard Chang)


Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News



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Final “Twilight” dawns with $30 million from late-night shows

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LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Bella and Edward’s big-screen farewell lit up box offices with $ 30.4 million in late-night ticket sales for the finale of the blockbuster “Twilight” vampire series, production studio Summit Entertainment said on Friday.


The U.S. and Canadian box office receipts for “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 2″ beat initial sales for each of the previous four films in the franchise, though the final installment got a boost from late Thursday night previews.













Last year’s “Breaking Dawn, Part 1″ kicked off with $ 30.3 million from shows just after midnight on the Friday that it debuted, according to figures from Hollywood.com. Summit, a unit of Lions Gate Entertainment Corp, did not provide Friday-only numbers for “Breaking Dawn, Part 2.”


The record for opening-night sales belongs to “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2,” the finale in the boy-wizard series that grabbed $ 43.5 million when it debuted in July 2011.


Box office watchers say the “Twilight” finale has a shot at setting the franchise record for opening weekend sales when receipts through Sunday are tallied. “The Twilight Saga: New Moon,” released in November 2009, now ranks as the biggest opening in the series, with $ 142.8 million in sales over the first three days after its release in November 2009.


“Breaking Dawn – Part 2″ stars Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner in the conclusion of angst-ridden vampire and werewolf love triangle created by author Stephenie Meyer in a series of young adult books. In the final film, wedded vampires Bella and Edward must protect their daughter from an ancient vampire clan.


Opening weekend will get a lift from fans who rush out to see the movie because it is the last film in the popular series, said Paul Dergarabedian, president of the box office division of Hollywood.com. He projects domestic three-day sales will reach $ 145 million to $ 150 million.


“Like ‘Potter,’ the final installment of this will benefit from the cachet of being the last one,” he said.


(Reporting By Lisa Richwine; editing by Andrew Hay)


Movies News Headlines – Yahoo! News



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Tulsa Town Hall: Nutrition a valuable tool in health care

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Weil spoke as part of the Tulsa Town Hall series of speakers.













The United States has an expensive health-care system that doesn’t produce good results, he said.


“Something is very wrong with this picture,” he said. “We’re spending more and more and we have less and less to show for it.”


Changes in diet can be an effective treatment for many conditions, but American physicians are functionally illiterate in nutrition, he said.


“The whole subject of nutrition is omitted in medical education,” he said.


There are many ways of managing diseases other than drugs, he said. Integrative medicine, which can include dietary supplements and practices like meditation, is the future of health care, he said.


The health system is resistant to change because of entrenched vested interests. That includes pharmaceutical companies that do direct-to-consumer advertising, which should be stopped, he said.


“As dysfunctional as our health-care system is at the moment – and it is very dysfunctional – it is generating rivers of money,” he said. “That money is going into very few pockets.”


Weil has developed an anti-inflammatory diet based on the Mediterranean diet but with Asian influences.


Inflammation is associated with some heart disease, Alzheimer’s disease and some cancers, he said. And as a result, people should be eating real, unprocessed foods and whole grains. They should stay away from sugar-sweetened beverages, including fruit juice, he said.


“The new research that’s being done on sugar is not very comforting,” he said.


The aging process can’t be avoided, but age-related diseases can be avoided by proper care, he said.


“The goal should be to live long and well with a big drop off at the end,” he said.


Weil is the director of the University of Arizona’s Center for Integrative Medicine.


Tickets to the Tulsa Town Hall series are sold as a $ 75 subscription and cover five lectures. Tickets for individual lectures are not available.


To subscribe, visit tulsaworld.com/tulsatownhall, call 918-749-5965 or write to: Tulsa Town Hall, Box 52266, Tulsa, OK 74152.


Future speakers include journalist Ann Compton on Feb. 8; author James B. Stewart on April 5; historian and cinematographer Rex Ziak on May 10.


Original Print Headline: Speaker highlights nutrition


Shannon Muchmore 918-581-8378
shannon.muchmore@tulsaworld.com3ed48 basic Tulsa Town Hall: Nutrition a valuable tool in health care
Diseases/Conditions News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Israel launches scores of airstrikes into Gaza

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GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israel bombarded the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip with nearly 200 airstrikes early Saturday, the military said, widening a blistering assault on Gaza rocket operations to include the prime minister's headquarters, a police compound and a vast network of smuggling tunnels.

The new attacks, which Gaza officials say left 10 dead, followed an unprecedented rocket strike aimed at the contested holy city of Jerusalem that raised the stakes in Israel's violent confrontation with Palestinian militants and extended the battlefield.

Israeli aircraft also kept pounding their original targets, the militants' weapons storage facilities and underground rocket launching sites. They also went after rocket squads more aggressively. The military has called up thousands of reservists and massed troops, tanks and other armored vehicles along the border with Gaza, signaling a ground invasion could be imminent.

Militants, undaunted by the heavy damage the Israeli attacks have inflicted, have unleashed some 500 rockets against the Jewish state, including new, longer-range weapons turned for the first time this week against Jerusalem and the Tel Aviv heartland. Following those attacks, the military deployed an Iron Dome rocket defense battery in central Israel on Saturday. The system, devised precisely to deflect the Gaza rocket threat, was deployed two months earlier than planned, the Defense Ministry said.

Ten people, including eight militants, were killed and dozens were wounded in the various attacks early Saturday, Gaza health official Ashraf al-Kidra said. In all, 40 Palestinians including 13 civilians and three Israeli civilians have been killed since the Israeli operation began.

The violence has widened the instability gripping the Mideast. At the same time, revolts against entrenched regional regimes have opened up new possibilities for Hamas. Islamists across the Mideast have been strengthened, bringing newfound recognition to Hamas, shunned by the international community because of its refusal to recognize Israel and renounce violence.

A high-level Tunisian delegation, led by Foreign Minister Rafik Abdessalem, drove that point home with a visit to Gaza on Saturday. The foreign minister's first stop was the still-smoldering ruins of the three-story office building of Gaza's prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas.

"Israel has to understand that there is an international law and it has to respect the international law to stop the aggression against the Palestinian people," Abdessalem told The Associated Press during a tour of Gaza's main hospital, Shifa, later Saturday. He said his country was doing whatever it can to promote a cease-fire, but did not elaborate.

It was the first official Tunisian visit since Hamas's violent 2007 takeover of the territory. Egypt's prime minister visited Friday and a Moroccan delegation is due on Sunday, following a landmark visit by Qatar's leader last month that implied political recognition.

Israel had been incrementally expanding its operation beyond military targets but before dawn on Saturday it ramped that up dramatically, hitting Hamas symbols of power. Israeli defense officials, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss confidential decisions, said military chief Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz personally ordered the scope of the airstrikes to be increased.

Haniyeh's three-story office building was flattened by an airstrike that blew out windows in neighboring homes. He was not inside the building at the time.

The building's security chief said Hamas scored points despite Israel's military superiority.

"Hamas responded to the Zionist aggression and hit them in the depth of their land," he said, referring to rockets aimed Friday at Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

Another airstrike brought down the three-story home of a Hamas commander in the Jebaliya refugee camp near Gaza City, critically wounding him and injuring other residents of the building, medics said.

Missiles smashed into two small security facilities and the massive Hamas police headquarters in Gaza City, setting off a huge blaze that engulfed nearby houses and civilian cars parked outside, the Interior Ministry reported. No one was inside the buildings.

The Interior Ministry said a government compound was also hit while devout Muslims streamed to the area for early morning prayers, although it did not report any casualties from that attack.

Air attacks knocked out five electricity transformers, cutting off power to more than 400,000 people in southern Gaza, according to the Gaza electricity distribution company. People switched on backup generators for limited electrical supplies.

In southern Gaza, aircraft went after underground tunnels militants use to smuggle in weapons and other contraband from Egypt, residents reported. A huge explosion in the area sent buildings shuddering in the Egyptian city of El-Arish, 45 kilometers (30 miles) away, an Associated Press correspondent there reported.

The Israeli military said more than 800 targets have been struck since the operation began.

The widened scope of targets brings the scale of fighting closer to that of the war the two groups waged four years ago. Hamas was badly bruised during that conflict, but has since restocked its arsenal with more and better weapons, and has been under pressure from smaller, more militant groups to prove its commitment to fighting Israel.

The attack aimed at Jerusalem on Friday and two strikes on metropolitan Tel Aviv showcased the militants' new capabilities, including a locally made rocket that appears to have taken Israeli defense officials by surprise. Both areas had remained outside the gunmen's reach before.

Just a few years ago, Palestinian rockets were limited to crude devices manufactured in Gaza. But in recent years, Israeli officials say, Hamas and other armed groups have smuggled in sophisticated, longer-range rockets from Iran and Libya.

Israeli leaders have threatened to widen the operation even further if the rocket fire doesn't halt. Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said options included the possible assassination of Haniyeh, the prime minister.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met in emergency session with Cabinet ministers Friday and they approved mobilizing up to 75,000 reservists, more than doubling the number authorized earlier this week. That would be the largest call-up in a decade. At a parking lot in central Israel, uniformed reservists waited to board buses. One prayed, covered in a Jewish prayer shawl.

Lt. Col. Avital Leibovich, a military spokeswoman, said 16,000 reservists were called to duty on Friday and others could soon follow.

She said no decision had been made on a ground offensive but all options are on the table.

President Barack Obama spoke separately to Israeli and Egyptian leaders Friday as the violence in Gaza intensified. In a conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he reiterated U.S. support for Israel's right to self-defense. To Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi, he praised Egypt's efforts to ease regional tensions.

___

Teibel reported from Jerusalem. Associated Press writers Karin Laub in Gaza City and Matthew Daly in Washington contributed reporting.

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RIM to spice BlackBerry 10 AppWorld with local flavors

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WATERLOO, Ontario (Reuters) – Research In Motion is pushing for app quality, not quantity, with its make-or-break BlackBerry 10 devices set for launch on January 30, and targeting applications to customers in various regions.


RIM’s projected 100,000 apps – a record for any new platform at launch – will still be a fraction of those available on Apple Inc or Google Inc devices.













But it is a stronger showing than RIM’s PlayBook tablet computer which was slammed at its 2011 launch for a dearth of apps and incomplete software.


In an interview with Reuters on Wednesday, RIM Chief Executive Thorsten Heins admitted that app libraries play a crucial role in the success or failure of smartphones. But he said the game is not just about numbers.


“The tactic we are deploying is by country and by region. We are aiming to have the most important 200 to 400 apps available, because many applications are regional and they really do have a regional flavor,” Heins said.


RIM says it aims to offer both the most popular applications in the market, and also those most relevant to Blackberry aficionados – people Heins described as hyper-connected multi-taskers who need to get things done.


RIM’s ultra-secure BlackBerry was once the smartphone of choice for government and corporate elites. But rivals have taken giant bites out of RIM’s market share, especially in North America, and the company’s stock has slumped. The BlackBerry remains popular in many emerging markets, partly for its popular BBM messaging system.


With this in mind, RIM has hosted events with developers across the globe.


“We’ve done 30 jam conferences in various cities all around the world, to get the bucket filled with meaningful local apps and not just a huge bunch of applications that you collect and throw at your audience,” he said. “It is a very, very targeted approach.”


Heins, who has met with customers and carriers in a series of whirlwind global tours, came across as relaxed and confident in the interview, in RIM’s Waterloo headquarters.


Speaking rapid fire English with just a hint of an accent from his native Germany, he acknowledged that RIM’s fate may depend on the success of BB10, but he said feedback from clients has been very encouraging.


RIM hopes its new line of BB10 smartphones will help it claw back market share from Apple’s iPhone and devices powered by Google’s Android operating system. Developers say like what they see, but analysts are not convinced that RIM’s gamble on BB10 will succeed.


BIG NAME DRAWS


In terms of numbers, RIM’s app offering will remain far behind the Apple and Google app stores, each of which boast over 700,000 apps. But Heins said he was not worried.


“In my view it is really short-sighted to say, you have 600,000, you have 400,000 and you only have 100,000 apps, so you are not good,” he said.


“Look at how many actually get downloaded. … BlackBerry App World today is still the most profitable portal for application developers – it has the highest number of paid for downloads.”


In a small dig at his rivals, he added: “We don’t have 1,500 Solitaire apps. That is not what Blackberry is about.”


RIM has already said it plans business focused apps from the likes of Cisco WebEx, Box, SAP and Blackboard, as well as music and movie apps like TuneIn, Nobex and Popcornflix and gaming apps from developers like Gameloft, Halfbrick and Paw Print Games.


Heins has said social networks such as LinkedIn, Foursquare, Twitter and Facebook will all have apps for BB10 at launch. But he declined to name any of the other big name apps that RIM will have on board come launch day.


“Allow me to talk to you about this on January 30, otherwise I’m losing a lot of thunder,” he said.


(Editing by Janet Guttsman and Richard Chang)


Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News



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Canadian October home sales dip, latest sign of cooling

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TORONTO (Reuters) – Sales of existing homes in Canada fell in October from September and year-over-year sales were down as well, the Canadian Real Estate Association said on Thursday in the latest signal that the housing market is slowing.


The industry group for Canadian real estate agents said sales were down 0.1 percent in October from September. Actual sales for October, not seasonally adjusted, were down 0.8 percent from a year earlier.













The housing market, which roared higher in 2011 and the first half of 2012, started to slow after the government tightened rules on mortgage lending in July in a bid to cool the market and prevent home buyers from taking on too much debt.


“Housing market trends in Canada for 2012 can be characterized as before and after regulatory changes,” TD Economics senior economist Sonya Gulati said in a research note.


“In the first half of the year, sales and price gains were modest, but positive. More stringent mortgage rules and tighter mortgage underwriting rules have ‘purposely’ knocked the wind out of the housing market sails,” she said.


The home sales data showed diverging paths in Canadian housing depending on location. In Toronto and Vancouver, where sales and price gains were red hot in 2011 and early in 2012, the market has been cooling. But markets in the resource-rich western provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta have been gaining strength.


“Opinions differ about how sharply sales have slowed depending on the local housing market,” Gregory Klump, CREA’s chief economist, said in a statement.


Led by Calgary, sales in October were up from a year earlier in almost two-thirds of local markets. Sales remained blow year-earlier levels in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal, CREA said.


“These results suggest that the Canadian housing market overall has returned to a more sustainable pace,” Klump said.


CREA’s Home Price Index rose 3.6 percent in October from a year earlier, the sixth consecutive month in which gains in prices slowed, and the slowest rate of increase since May 2011.


While tighter mortgage rules have worked to slow the market, TD’s Gulati said the big question is what will happen when that temporary cooling effect wears off in early 2013.


“What happens thereafter is less certain. The low interest rate environment could pull homeowners back onto the market, causing home prices to once again trek upwards. Alternatively, an absence of pent-up demand may leave the market in a bit of a lull until interest rate hikes resume in late 2013,” she wrote.


“Under either scenario, it is safe to say that there is a low probability of out-sized home price gains over the near-term.”


A total of 402,322 homes traded hands via Canadian MLS systems over the first 10 months of 2012, up 0.8 percent from the same period last year and 0.4 percent below the 10-year average for the period, the data showed.


The number of newly listed homes fell 3.8 percent in October following a jump in September. Monthly declines were reported in almost two-thirds of local markets, with Toronto and Vancouver exerting a large influence on the national trend.


Nationally, there were 6.5 months of inventory at the end of October, little changed from the reading of 6.4 months at the end of September.


(Editing by Peter Galloway)


Canada News Headlines – Yahoo! News



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Tulsa Town Hall: Nutrition a valuable tool in health care

Label:
















Weil spoke as part of the Tulsa Town Hall series of speakers.













The United States has an expensive health-care system that doesn’t produce good results, he said.


“Something is very wrong with this picture,” he said. “We’re spending more and more and we have less and less to show for it.”


Changes in diet can be an effective treatment for many conditions, but American physicians are functionally illiterate in nutrition, he said.


“The whole subject of nutrition is omitted in medical education,” he said.


There are many ways of managing diseases other than drugs, he said. Integrative medicine, which can include dietary supplements and practices like meditation, is the future of health care, he said.


The health system is resistant to change because of entrenched vested interests. That includes pharmaceutical companies that do direct-to-consumer advertising, which should be stopped, he said.


“As dysfunctional as our health-care system is at the moment – and it is very dysfunctional – it is generating rivers of money,” he said. “That money is going into very few pockets.”


Weil has developed an anti-inflammatory diet based on the Mediterranean diet but with Asian influences.


Inflammation is associated with some heart disease, Alzheimer’s disease and some cancers, he said. And as a result, people should be eating real, unprocessed foods and whole grains. They should stay away from sugar-sweetened beverages, including fruit juice, he said.


“The new research that’s being done on sugar is not very comforting,” he said.


The aging process can’t be avoided, but age-related diseases can be avoided by proper care, he said.


“The goal should be to live long and well with a big drop off at the end,” he said.


Weil is the director of the University of Arizona’s Center for Integrative Medicine.


Tickets to the Tulsa Town Hall series are sold as a $ 75 subscription and cover five lectures. Tickets for individual lectures are not available.


To subscribe, visit tulsaworld.com/tulsatownhall, call 918-749-5965 or write to: Tulsa Town Hall, Box 52266, Tulsa, OK 74152.


Future speakers include journalist Ann Compton on Feb. 8; author James B. Stewart on April 5; historian and cinematographer Rex Ziak on May 10.


Original Print Headline: Speaker highlights nutrition


Shannon Muchmore 918-581-8378
shannon.muchmore@tulsaworld.com3ed48 basic Tulsa Town Hall: Nutrition a valuable tool in health care
Diseases/Conditions News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Lindsay Lohan pushed for Elizabeth Taylor TV role

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LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Lindsay Lohan so wanted to play Elizabeth Taylor in the upcoming film “Liz & Dick” that she cut out the middle man and went straight to the producer herself, the tabloid-favorite star said in an interview on Friday.


Lohan, 26, plays Taylor in an upcoming television movie that dramatizes the long love affair between the late Hollywood legend and actor Richard Burton.













“It’s a funny story, actually. I had seen that they were going to be making the movie and I got the producers’ numbers and started harassing (producer) Larry Thompson,” Lohan said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”


“I didn’t even care if my agents were going to do it or not, I just did it myself, too,” the “Mean Girls” actress said. “Because I was like, ‘No one else is going to play this role, I have to do this.’”


Early reviews of “Liz & Dick,” which premieres on U.S. cable channel Lifetime on November 25, have ranged from middling to poor. But TV critics noted the similarities between Lohan and Taylor, both often-troubled actresses who started life as child stars.


“‘Liz & Dick’ truly drags,” said the Hollywood Reporter. “Luckily, you can’t take your eyes off of Lohan playing Taylor, which the producers clearly thought would work because they share similar back stories.”


Lohan’s acting alongside New Zealand’s Grant Bowler as Burton was described by Variety on Friday as “adequate, barring a few awkward moments, thanks largely to the fabulous frocks and makeup … she gets to model.”


Lohan’s reputation, much like Taylor’s, has been built from her tabloid persona more than on-screen performance.


In and out of legal trouble, jail and rehab since 2007, Lohan faced media blow-back this week after canceling an in-depth interview with ABC’s Barbara Walters, who said she suspected the actress’ publicity team pulled the plug knowing Walters would ask tough questions.


(Reporting by Eric Kelsey; editing by Jill Serjeant and Matthew Lewis)


Celebrity News Headlines – Yahoo! News



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Israel hits Hamas government buildings, reservists mobilized

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GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli aircraft bombed Hamas government buildings in Gaza on Saturday, including the prime minister's office, after Israel's cabinet authorized the mobilization of up to 75,000 reservists, preparing for a possible ground invasion.


Israeli planes shattered the office building of Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh - where he had met on Friday with the Egyptian prime minister - and struck the Interior Ministry.


Loud explosions regularly rocked the densely populated Palestinian territory, sending plumes of smoke billowing into the sky. The occasional hiss of outgoing rocket fire showed Islamist militants were pursuing their defiance of the assault.


Despite the violence, Tunisia's foreign minister arrived in the coastal enclave on Saturday in a show of solidarity, denouncing the Israeli attacks as illegitimate and unacceptable.


Officials in Gaza said 41 Palestinians, among them 20 civilians including eight children and a pregnant woman, had been killed in Gaza since Israel began operations four days ago. Three Israeli civilians were killed by a rocket on Thursday.


Israel's military said its air force had hit at least 180 targets since midnight, including a police headquarters, government buildings, rocket launching squads and a Hamas training facility in the impoverished territory.


A three-storey house belonging to Hamas official Abu Hassan Salah was also hit and completely destroyed early on Saturday. Rescuers said at least 30 people were pulled from the rubble.


"What Israel is doing is not legitimate and is not acceptable at all," Tunisian Foreign Minister Rafik Abdesslem said as he visited Haniyeh's wrecked headquarters. "It does not have total immunity and is not above international law."


Israel launched a massive air campaign on Wednesday with the declared aim of deterring Hamas from launching cross-border rocket salvoes that have plagued southern Israel for years.


The Palestinians have fired hundreds of rockets out of Gaza, including one at Jerusalem and three at Tel Aviv - Israel's commercial centre. Jerusalem had not been targeted in such a way since 1970, and Tel Aviv since 1991.


Although there were no reports of casualties or damage in either city, the long-range attacks came as a shock and advanced the prospect of an Israeli ground invasion into Gaza


"This will last as long as is needed; we have not limited ourselves in means or in time," Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman told Israel's Channel One television on Saturday.


Hamas says it is committed to continued confrontation with Israel and is eager not to seem any less resolute than smaller, more radical groups that have emerged in Gaza in recent years.


The Islamist Hamas has ruled Gaza since 2007. Israel pulled settlers out of Gaza in 2005 but has maintained a blockade of the territory.


EGYPTIAN PEACE EFFORTS


Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a four-hour strategy session late on Friday with a clutch of senior ministers on widening the military campaign, while other cabinet members were polled by telephone on increasing mobilization.


Political sources said they decided to more than double the current reserve troop quota set for the Gaza offensive to 75,000. It did not necessarily mean all would be called up.


Three soldiers were lightly hurt by fire from the Gaza Strip on Saturday, the army said.


Egyptian Prime Minister Hisham Kandil paid a high-profile visit to Gaza on Friday, denouncing what he described as Israeli aggression and saying Cairo was prepared to mediate a ceasefire.


Egypt's Islamist government, which took power after free elections following an uprising that ousted veteran autocrat Hosni Mubarak, is allied with Hamas but also party to a 1979 peace treaty with Israel.


"Egypt will spare no effort ... to stop the aggression and to achieve a truce," Kandil said.


A Palestinian official with knowledge of Cairo's mediation efforts said on Saturday that Egypt was pursuing a truce.


"Egyptian mediators are continuing their mediation efforts and these will intensify in the coming hours," he told Reuters.


In a further sign Netanyahu might be clearing the way for a ground operation, Israel's armed forces decreed a highway leading to the territory and two roads bordering the enclave of 1.7 million Palestinians off-limits to civilian traffic.


Tanks and self-propelled guns were seen near the sandy border zone on Saturday, and around 16,000 reservists have already been called to active duty.


The Israeli military said some 367 rockets fired from Gaza had hit Israel since Wednesday and at least 222 more were intercepted by its Iron Dome anti-missile system.


Four Iron Domes were deployed initially and a fifth was rushed into action on Saturday, weeks ahead of schedule. The army said it was placed in the Tel Aviv area, showing Israel's concern for the safety of its heavily populated coastline.


Netanyahu is favored to win a January election, but further rocket strikes against Tel Aviv, a free-wheeling city Israelis equate with New York, and Jerusalem, which Israel regards as its capital, could be political poison for the conservative leader.


OBAMA REGRET


U.S. President Barack Obama commended Egypt's efforts to help calm the Gaza violence in a call to Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi on Friday, the White House said, and underscored his hope of restoring stability.


In a call with Netanyahu, Obama discussed options for "de-escalating" the situation, the White House added.


Obama "reiterated U.S. support for Israel's right to defend itself, and expressed regret over the loss of Israeli and Palestinian civilian lives," a statement on the call said.


Israel Radio's military affairs correspondent said the army's Homefront Command had told municipal officials to make civil defense preparations for the possibility that fighting could drag on for seven weeks. An Israeli military spokeswoman declined to comment on the report.


The Gaza conflagration has stirred the pot of a Middle East already boiling from two years of Arab revolutions and a civil war in Syria that threatens to spread across borders.


"Israel should understand that many things have changed and that lots of water has run in the Arab river," Tunisia's Abdesslem told reporters in Gaza.


It is the stiffest challenge yet for Mursi, a veteran politician from the Muslim Brotherhood who was elected this year after protests ended Mubarak's 30-year rule in 2011.


Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood are spiritual mentors of Hamas, yet Mursi has also pledged to respect Cairo's peace accord with Israel, which is seen in the West as the foundation of regional security. Egypt and Israel both receive billions of dollars in U.S. military aid to underwrite their treaty.


Hamas fighters are no match for the Israeli military. The last Gaza war, involving a three-week long Israeli air blitz and ground invasion over the New Year period of 2008-2009, killed more than 1,400 Palestinians, mostly civilians. Thirteen Israelis died.


U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is expected to visit Israel and Egypt next week to push for an end to the fighting in Gaza, U.N. diplomats said on Friday.


Hamas refuses to recognize Israel's right to exist. By contrast, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who rules in the nearby West Bank, does recognize Israel, but peace talks between the two sides have been frozen since 2010.


Abbas' supporters say they will push ahead with a plan to have Palestine declared an "observer state" rather than a mere "entity", at the United Nations later this month.


(Additional reporting by Maayan Lubell and Ori Lewis in Jerusalem; Writing by Crispian Balmer and Jeffrey Heller; Editing by)


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Jamaica to abolish slavery-era flogging law

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KINGSTON, Jamaica (AP) — Jamaica is preparing to abolish a slavery-era law allowing flogging and whipping as means of punishing prisoners, the Caribbean country’s justice ministry said Thursday.


The ministry said the punishment hasn’t been ordered by a court since 2004 but the statutes remain in the island’s penal code. It was administered with strokes from a tamarind-tree switch or a cat o’nine tails, a whip made of nine, knotted cords.













Justice Minister Mark Golding says the “degrading” punishment is an anachronism which violates Jamaica’s international obligations and is preventing Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller‘s government from ratifying the U.N. convention against torture.


“The time has come to regularize this situation by getting these colonial-era laws off our books once and for all,” Golding said in a Thursday statement.


The Cabinet has already approved repealing the flogging law and amendments to other laws in the former British colony, where plantation slavery was particularly brutal.


The announcement was welcomed by human rights activists who view the flogging law as a barbaric throwback in a nation populated mostly by the descendants of slaves.


“We don’t really see that (the flogging law) has any part in the approach of dealing with crime in a modern democracy,” said group spokeswoman Susan Goffe.


But there are no shortage of crime-weary Jamaicans who feel that authorities should not drop the old statutes but instead enforce them, arguing that thieves who steal livestock or violent criminals who harm innocent people should receive a whipping to teach them a lesson.


“The worst criminals need strong punishing or else they’ll do crimes over and over,” said Chris Drummond, a Kingston man with three school-age children. “Getting locked up is not always enough.”


The last to suffer the punishment in Jamaica was Errol Pryce, who was sentenced to four years in prison and six lashes in 1994 for stabbing his mother-in-law.


Pryce was flogged the day before being released from prison in 1997 and later complained to the U.N. Human Rights Committee, which ruled in 2004 that the form of corporal punishment was cruel, inhuman and degrading and violated his rights. Jamaican courts then stopped ordering whipping or flogging.


Latin America News Headlines – Yahoo! News



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Juanes, Jesse & Joy take home top Latin Grammys

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LAS VEGAS (Reuters) – Colombian rocker Juanes and the Mexican brother and sister pop duo Jesse & Joy took home the top Latin Grammys on Thursday in Las Vegas on a night in which the contemporary triumphed over the traditional.


Juanes, one of the most well known Latin American stars worldwide, won the coveted album of the year with his “MTV Unplugged,” which also won best long-form video. Dominican singer and songwriter Juan Luis Guerra won producer of the year for Juanes‘ album.













“Here’s to the maestro Juan Luis Guerra for making this possible,” said Juanes, 40, who now has won 19 Latin Grammys, tying him with reggaeton group Calle 13 for the most awards.


Guerra, who made the romantic Bachata music famous and is known to sweep the awards from the Latin Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, led the nominations with six nods this year. But he lost out on the big awards for record and song of the year with his “En El Cielo No Hay Hospital” (In Heaven There Is No Hospital).


Those two awards went to “Corre!” (Run!) by Jesse & Joy, the duo from Mexico City who won best new artists in the same Las Vegas venue in 2007. Their third studio album Con Quien Se Queda El Perro? (Who Is The Dog Staying With?) lost out on album of the year, but won best contemporary pop vocal album.


“Viva Mexico!,” said Jesse upon accepting record of the year, a phrase repeated several times by winners at the 13th edition of the Latin Grammys Thursday night.


Like Jesse & Joy five years earlier, Mexican pop group 3BallMTY won best new artists with their musical style known as “tribal guarachero,” a mix of Mexican cumbia and electronic dance music.


The trio, barely beyond their teenage years, found success on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border with their debut album “Intentalo” (Try It). They dedicated their Latin Grammy to Mexican DJs.


Mexico’s Carla Morrison won best alternative music album with “Dejenme Llorar” (Let Me Cry). Wearing a red dress and sporting multiple tattoos on her arms, she let loose an expletive on the live broadcast after crying out “Viva Mexico!”


Among the top performances of the night were Juanes playing with veteran guitarrist Carlos Santana. The show opened with Miami-born rapper Pitbull, who sings in both English and Spanish.


Brazilian singer and songwriter Caetano Veloso was honored as the Latin Recording Academy‘s person of the year in a ceremony on Wednesday. A founder of the 1960s musical movement known as Tropicalia, Veloso continues to to be one of Brazil’s most popular and innovative artists at 70 years of age.


(Writing by Mary Milliken; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)


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Pfizer’s once-daily Lyrica trial fails to meet goal

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(Reuters) – Pfizer Inc said on Friday a late-stage trial of a once-a-day formulation of its drug pregabalin did not significantly reduce the frequency of some types of seizures in patients with epilepsy.


The drug, sold under the brand name Lyrica, is currently used to treat epilepsy when given several times a day in combination with other drugs.













Pfizer said the lack of a statistically significant improvement may have been due to a higher-than-expected response among patients taking the placebo.


The trial was the first of three trials testing the drug as a once-a-day therapy. The company is also testing it in patients with fibromyalgia and some types of nerve pain, for which it is also approved in its immediate-release formulation.


(Reporting By Toni Clarke; Editing by Gerald E. McCormick)


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Curtains for Rice's State hopes?

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By Walter Shapiro

Before the initials CIA came to stand for Covert Intimate Affairs, the battle over the next secretary of state would have been the main event of post-election November. Normally, it doesn’t get better than a brand-name Washington struggle pitting the newly reelected president against the Republican senator he defeated in 2008 over filling the Cabinet post soon to be vacated by an ex-president’s wife. 

Barack Obama’s ill-camouflaged inclination to name Susan Rice, the ambassador to the United Nations, as Hillary Clinton’s successor would normally be about as contentious as, well, a confirmation hearing for David Petraeus in 2011. Rice, an undersecretary of state in the Clinton administration, has by most accounts performed well in a job that pivots around the micro-wording of Security Council resolutions rather than grand geopolitical visions.

But all that good will evaporated when Rice, drawing the short straw as Obama’s designated foreign-policy spinner, dutifully made the rounds of the Sunday shows on Sept. 16, five days after the Libyan attacks. Repeating the White House line, Rice argued that, based on “the best information,” a “spontaneous protest” outside the American consulate in Benghazi attracted heavily armed “extremist elements” who murdered Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans. 

In John McCain’s splenetic view, Rice’s TV commentary smacks of a White House cover-up, since subsequent reporting has shown that initial accounts of a triggering protest were incorrect. As McCain put it Wednesday on Fox News, threatening to filibuster the nomination, “Susan Rice should have known better and if she didn’t know better, she is not qualified.”

At Obama’s first press conference since (gasp) June, the president displayed uncharacteristic moxie in his defense of Rice, who was a key foreign-policy supporter during his 2008 primary campaign against Hillary Clinton. Obama called the attacks on Rice “outrageous” Wednesday and said that if the Republicans “think she’s an easy target, then they’ve got a problem with me.”

All this posturing could be moot if Obama taps John Kerry for secretary of state, although the 2004 Democratic nominee now seems more likely to be headed to the Pentagon to replace Leon Panetta. (The secretary of defense has become one of the last remaining white-men-only jobs in government).

And even though one of the great political novels, “Advise and Consent” by Allen Drury, is built around a confirmation fight over a would-be secretary of state, this has always been one job that the Senate has given a president wide discretion in filling. For all the Iraq-war bluster over the appointment of Condoleezza Rice, Senate Democrats mustered only 13 votes against her in 2005, the highest number of votes against a secretary of state nomination since the early 19th century.

What makes all of this relevant now – before Obama has named a Hillary Clinton replacement – is that it underscores the illogic of most Senate confirmation fights. There may be hidden but valid strategic reasons to oppose a Rice Stuff nomination at State. But it represents a blame-the-messenger stretch even by Washington standards to ensnare Rice in the aftermath of Benghazi.

As should be obvious, the U.N. ambassador has nothing directly to do with embassy security, American covert operations in the Middle East or the flow of intelligence about terrorism. All Rice was doing in her television appearances on September 16 was reciting from talking points presumably prepared by the White House national security team based on information provided by the CIA and other agencies. According to reporting by Washington Post national security columnist David Ignatius, the CIA was still clinging to its belief that the Benghazi attacks began with a spontaneous protest when Rice made her ill-fated rounds of the Sunday shows.

This is not to deny the mysteries that are swirling around the Obama administration’s response to Benghazi. All roads lead to Libya may be the unified field theory linking all current Washington scandals. The Wall Street Journal suggested in a front-page article Thursday that a major reason why Petraeus’ resignation was accepted with such alacrity was the CIA director’s determination to shield the spy agency from blame over Benghazi. The CIA’s release of its Benghazi timeline reportedly angered National Intelligence Director James Clapper, who then used the revelation of Petraeus’ affair as a cudgel to drive him out of government.

Most likely the Republican fury over Benghazi is over-wrought, but it is also easy to grasp. The often secretive Obama administration may be tempted to try to keep everything under wraps, aside from a few sanitized disclosures, in the name of national security. But while there are presumably intelligence risks that would accompany full disclosure, the alternative is letting (probably outlandish) conspiracy theories fester.

The confusion surrounding Benghazi may be attributable to the fog of war – or the fog of a presidential election campaign. In any case, the American people deserve to know what happened and whether the root causes were bad intelligence, bad luck or just bad public explanations.

Otherwise, at the most promising bring-us-together moment of his presidency, the newly reelected Obama will find himself endlessly battling over Benghazi as he attempts to forge a second-term national security team.

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Sina banks on Weibo but weak fourth quarter guidance spooks investors

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(Reuters) – Chinese Internet company Sina Corp said its fourth quarter will be hit by a softer economy and posted weaker-than-expected sales guidance, despite a stronger revenue contribution from its hot microblogging platform Weibo.


Shares in Sina fell 7 percent after it forecast adjusted net revenue of $ 132 million to $ 136 million in the current quarter, below analysts’ expectations for $ 151.9 million according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.













Sina, which makes most of its revenue from online advertising both on its website and Weibo, is facing stiff headwinds as firms slash advertising budgets due to a worsening economic outlook.


“We are going to see a weaker quarter for advertising overall in the fourth quarter,” said Charles Chao, Sina’s chief executive on an earnings conference call. The firm forecast Q4 advertising revenues would rise 6-8 percent from a year earlier.


Chao said Weibo contributed 16 percent to total revenue in the third quarter, up from 10 percent in the previous quarter. The platform, which is very popular with white-collar workers, university students and celebrities, had 424 million registered users at the end of the quarter, up from 368 million three months earlier.


Advertisers, like luxury brands, that traditionally don’t advertise with Sina’s main portal website flocked to Weibo to test out the social platform, Chao said.


There were about 230,000 Weibo advertising accounts in the quarter, and Sina was in the process of rolling out a online payment system and new Weibo advertising product to increase monetization at the end of the fourth quarter.


“We believe a ‘promoted feed advertising’ will become one of the major forms of (Weibo) advertising going forward,” said Chao, adding that the product will be effective also on mobile platforms, allowing Sina to tap into Weibo’s growth on mobile devices.


Q3 PROFIT BEAT


For the third quarter, Sina’s net profit was $ 9.9 million compared with a loss of $ 336.3 million a year earlier, and slighly ahead of analysts’ expectations of $ 7.5 million.


Sina’s quarterly advertising revenue rose 19 percent to $ 120.6 million, while non-advertising revenue rose 9 percent to $ 31.8 million.


The company started monetizing Weibo by offering special services to business accounts and selling VIP memberships to regular users earlier this year.


For its mobile-value-added-services business, Sina said it expects revenue to continue to decline due to new regulatory policies.


The company was also affected by a spat between Japan and China over islands in the East China Sea as Japanese automakers cut back on advertising in China. Chao said he expected the impact to last into the fourth quarter.


“It did have an impact on our third quarter as well as our fourth quarter. We did see cancellations from customers related to Japanese automobiles in the month of September and it impacted the fourth quarter (too),” Chao said.


Sina shares fell 6.74 percent to $ 49.52 in extended trading. They closed at $ 53.10 on the Nasdaq on Thursday.


(Additional reporting by Aurindom Mukherjee in Bangalore; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila and Richard Pullin)


Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News



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Jamaica to abolish slavery-era flogging law

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KINGSTON, Jamaica (AP) — Jamaica is preparing to abolish a slavery-era law allowing flogging and whipping as means of punishing prisoners, the Caribbean country’s justice ministry said Thursday.


The ministry said the punishment hasn’t been ordered by a court since 2004 but the statutes remain in the island’s penal code. It was administered with strokes from a tamarind-tree switch or a cat o’nine tails, a whip made of nine, knotted cords.













Justice Minister Mark Golding says the “degrading” punishment is an anachronism which violates Jamaica’s international obligations and is preventing Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller‘s government from ratifying the U.N. convention against torture.


“The time has come to regularize this situation by getting these colonial-era laws off our books once and for all,” Golding said in a Thursday statement.


The Cabinet has already approved repealing the flogging law and amendments to other laws in the former British colony, where plantation slavery was particularly brutal.


The announcement was welcomed by human rights activists who view the flogging law as a barbaric throwback in a nation populated mostly by the descendants of slaves.


“We don’t really see that (the flogging law) has any part in the approach of dealing with crime in a modern democracy,” said group spokeswoman Susan Goffe.


But there are no shortage of crime-weary Jamaicans who feel that authorities should not drop the old statutes but instead enforce them, arguing that thieves who steal livestock or violent criminals who harm innocent people should receive a whipping to teach them a lesson.


“The worst criminals need strong punishing or else they’ll do crimes over and over,” said Chris Drummond, a Kingston man with three school-age children. “Getting locked up is not always enough.”


The last to suffer the punishment in Jamaica was Errol Pryce, who was sentenced to four years in prison and six lashes in 1994 for stabbing his mother-in-law.


Pryce was flogged the day before being released from prison in 1997 and later complained to the U.N. Human Rights Committee, which ruled in 2004 that the form of corporal punishment was cruel, inhuman and degrading and violated his rights. Jamaican courts then stopped ordering whipping or flogging.


Latin America News Headlines – Yahoo! News



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Reckitt trumps Bayer with $1.4 billion bid for Schiff

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NEW YORK/LONDON (Reuters) – Reckitt Benckiser Group Plc has trumped Bayer AG‘s agreed deal to buy Schiff Nutrition International Inc with a higher offer of $ 1.4 billion for the U.S. vitamin maker.


The bid, which tops Bayer’s $ 1.2 billion price, opens up a potential bidding war for Schiff, whose portfolio of vitamins and nutritional supplements, such as MegaRed for heart care and Move Free for joints, is appealing to companies seeking stable sources of growth.













Reckitt, the British consumer products group behind Cillit Bang cleaner and Durex condoms, said late on Thursday it would offer $ 42 for each Schiff share, a 23.5 percent premium over the $ 34 per share that Bayer, Germany’s biggest drugmaker, agreed to pay on October 30.


Shares of Schiff Nutrition surged nearly 30 percent to $ 44 in after-hours trading on the New York Stock Exchange, above Reckitt’s offer and indicating some investors expect the bidding to go higher still.


Reckitt’s offer values Schiff at about 3.6 times its forecast 2013 annual sales, which is around the top end of deal multiples in the non-prescription drugs industry.


But it would get Reckitt into the $ 30 billion global market for vitamins and supplements for the first time, complementing its existing strength in other areas of consumer health.


“When this offer was made by Bayer – which was a bilateral agreement and not a public auction process – we knew that this was an area we would be very interested in,” Reckitt Chief Executive Officer Rakesh Kapoor told Reuters.


“That’s why we started to work and look at it once again to see whether this would be attractive to our shareholders. Based on our due diligence, we believe it is and that’s why we’ve come up with a strong offer.”


Analyst Andrew Wood at brokerage Bernstein said the deal made good strategic sense for Reckitt.


“This is particularly true given (Reckitt’s) … excellent M&A track record and its ability to quickly extract big synergies from acquired companies,” he said.


Its past deals in the health sector include buying Boots’ over-the-counter business in 2006 for 1.9 billion pounds ($ 3.0 billion), cough medicines company Adams in 2008 for $ 2.3 billion and Durex condoms group SSL for 2.5 billion pounds in 2010.


$ 22 MLN BREAKUP FEE


Reckitt said it expected the deal to boost earnings immediately on an adjusted basis and Bernstein’s Wood predicted an uplift of about 1 to 2 percent in 2013 earnings per share.


A Bayer spokesman declined to comment and representatives for Schiff could not be immediately reached for comment.


While Bayer may bide its time before reacting to Reckitt’s move, its management will be under pressure to salvage a deal that was well received by investors.


“A bidding war cannot be ruled out. Bayer probably has to match the Reckitt offer. This would result in an acquisition price which might get unattractive for Bayer,” DZ Bank analyst Peter Spengler said in a research note.


Bayer shares were 0.6 percent higher by 1145 GMT, while Reckitt dipped 0.8 percent.


Under the terms of its deal with Bayer, Schiff is allowed to entertain superior offers made in writing before November 28. If it decides to go with another offer, it would have to pay a relatively modest $ 22 million breakup fee to Bayer.


With Schiff now in play, analysts said the situation could also attract interest from other parties – in particular Johnson & Johnson , the only other leading consumer health player lacking a presence in vitamins and supplements.


Schiff Chairman Eric Weider and private equity firm TPG Capital controlled 85 percent of the company’s voting power, as of the end of October.


For Bayer, the planned acquisition of Schiff represents part of a strategy to expand into steadier, albeit less profitable, areas as a counterweight to prescription medicines, where there are high risks of clinical trial failures and patent expiries.


Reckitt, meanwhile, is keen to build up its healthcare business, which already includes painkillers, anti-acne creams and condoms. It also makes a range of household and personal care products.


Morgan Stanley is acting as financial adviser to Reckitt, while Houlihan Lokey is advising Schiff alongside Rothschild. Bayer is being advised by Bank of America Merrill Lynch. ($ 1 = 0.6300 British pounds)


(Additional reporting by Ludwig Burger in Frankfurt, Anjuli Davies in London and Zeba Siddiqui in Bangalore; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila and David Holmes)


Health News Headlines – Yahoo! News



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NBC to replace “Today Show” producer, source says

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(Reuters) – NBC is expected to name Alexandra Wallace, a senior vice president of the network’s news division, as the executive in charge of “The Today Show,” the latest reshuffling of the show’s personnel after it slipped to second in ratings this year behind “Good Morning America.”


Wallace, who would be the first woman in charge of the long-running NBC show that pioneered early morning TV in the United States, will be named along with a producer to replace Jim Bell, according to a person familiar with the decision.













Bell, who has headed the show since 2005, was blamed this year for the controversial firing of Ann Curry as anchor alongside Matt Lauer.


Curry was replaced by Savannah Guthrie in June.


“Good Morning America” or GMA, produced by Walt Disney‘s ABC unit, closed the gap with “Today.”


“Today,” the top-rated morning show for 16 consecutive years, started the current TV season number two. In late October, NBC drew 7,000 more viewers than GMA among 25 to 54 year-old viewers, the age group advertisers most want to reach, its first lead since September 10. GMA still led among overall viewers.


The first two hours of “The Today Show,” from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m., collected $ 485 million in ad revenues in 2011, up 6.6 percent from 2010, according to Kantar Media, which provides data to advertisers. GMA took in $ 299 million last year.


It is unclear when the changes at “The Today Show” will take effect, according to The New York Times, which first reported the shakeup.


Bell this summer produced NBC’s Summer Olympics coverage and is expected to become the full-time executive producer of the network’s ongoing Olympic coverage.


NBC, a unit of Comcast Corp., is also in the midst of layoffs at its entertainment unit, shedding 500 positions primarily at its cable channels. Jay Leno’s late night TV show cut about two dozen of its crew members about two months ago.


(Reporting By Ronald Grover)


TV News Headlines – Yahoo! News



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Egypt presses truce as violence escalates

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GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — Egypt's prime minister rushed to the aid of the Gaza Strip's Hamas rulers Friday in the midst of an Israeli offensive there, calling for an end to the operation. Palestinian militants took advantage of an Israeli halt in fire during the visit to rain rockets on Israel, including a strike on the bustling metropolis of Tel Aviv for a second straight day.

Three days of fierce fighting between Israel and Gaza militants has widened the instability gripping the region, straining already frayed Israel-Egypt relations. The Islamist Cairo government recalled its ambassador in protest and dispatched Prime Minister Hesham Kandil to the Palestinian territory Friday in a show of solidarity with Hamas.

Israel, meanwhile, showed signs it was preparing to widen the offensive. After days of battering militant targets with airstrikes, Israeli forces were massing along the border in preparation for a possible ground invasion.

The operation began Wednesday with the assassination of Hamas' military chief and dozens of airstrikes on rocket launching sites. While Israel claims to have inflicted heavy damage, militants have fired hundreds of rockets into southern Israel, bringing the entire region to a standstill. At least 21 Palestinians and three Israelis have been killed, according to medical officials on both sides.

Israel, at Egypt's request, suspended its attacks during the Egyptian official's brief visit, but Palestinians brushed aside this first possible break in the escalating conflict with a wide-ranging rocket barrage. Hamas officials claimed Israel carried out several airstrikes during the visit — a claim that Israel rejected.

Israel promised to "hold its fire" during Kandil's visit "on the condition that during that period, there won't be hostile fire from Gaza into Israel," an Israeli official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to disclose the decision. The official also said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu remained committed to maintaining the historic 1979 peace treaty with Egypt.

But militant factions rejected the gesture and the Israeli military said Gaza militants fired off 60 rockets after Kandil crossed into Gaza from Egypt, heavily guarded by Egyptian security personnel wearing flak jackets and carrying assault rifles.

Kandil was greeted by Gaza's Hamas prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, who was making his first public appearance since Israel launched the offensive. The two visited wounded Palestinians at Shifa hospital in Gaza City, where medics had brought in the lifeless body of a 4-year-old boy.

Tears streaming from his eyes, Kandil claimed afterward that the boy was killed in an Israeli airstrike, and called for an end to the operation.

"What I saw today in the hospital, the wounded and the martyrs, the boy, the martyr Mohammad Yasser, whose blood is still on my hands and clothes, is something that we cannot keep silent about," he said.

Neighbors said the boy was killed in a blast around 8:30 am, around the time Kandil was entering the territory.

Israel, which ordinarily confirms strikes, vociferously denied carrying out any form of attack in the area since the previous night.

Kandil's visit came after a night of fierce exchanges and signals that Israel might be preparing to invade Gaza. Overnight, the military said it targeted about 150 of the sites Gaza gunmen use to fire rockets at Israel, as well as ammunition warehouses, bringing to 450 the number of sites struck since the operation began Wednesday.

Israeli troops, tanks and armored personnel carriers massed near the Palestinian territory, signaling a ground invasion might be imminent.

Militants unleashed dozens of rocket barrages overnight, setting off air-raid sirens throughout an area that is home to some 1 million Israelis.

One rocket, fired Friday afternoon, set off air raid sirens and an explosion in Tel Aviv, Israel's bustling cultural and commercial capital. Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said no one was injured and it appears the rocket landed in the Mediterranean.

It was the second straight day that rockets have reached the Tel Aviv area, marking a significant improvement in the militants' capabilities. Gaza militants have never before managed to strike the city.

Israel considers an attack on the city to be a major escalation. The rocket attacks on Tel Aviv appear to be raising the likelihood of an Israeli ground invasion of Gaza.

___

Teibel reported from Jerusalem.

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Canada’s Carney says rate hikes “less imminent”

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TORONTO (Reuters) – Interest rate hikes have become less imminent than the Bank of Canada once expected, although rates are still likely to rise, central bank Governor Mark Carney said in an interview published on Saturday.


“Over time, rates are likely to increase somewhat, but over time, so a less imminent timing relative to our expectation,” Carney said in an interview with the National Post newspaper.













Canada’s economy rebounded better than most from the global economic recession, and the Bank of Canada is the only central bank in the Group of Seven leading industrialized nations that is currently hinting at higher interest rates.


But Carney has also made clear that there will be no rate rise for a while, despite high domestic borrowing rates that he sees as a major risk to a still fragile economy.


“We’ve been very clear in terms of lines of defense in addressing financial vulnerabilities,” he said in the interview. “And the most prominent one, obviously, in Canada, is household debt.”


He said the bank was monitoring the impact of four successive government moves to tighten mortgage lending, which aimed to take the froth out of a hot housing market without causing a damaging crash in prices.


A Reuters poll published on Friday showed the majority of 20 forecasters believe the government has done enough to rein in runaway prices, preventing the type of crash that devastated the U.S. market.


The experts expect Canadian housing prices to fall 10 percent over the next several years, but they do not expect the recent property boom to end in a U.S.-style collapse.


(Reporting by Janet Guttsman; Editing by Vicki Allen)


Canada News Headlines – Yahoo! News



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“Twilight Saga” ends with movie love letter to fans

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LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – “Twilight” fans bid an emotional farewell this week to Bella, Edward and Jacob in “Breaking Dawn-Part 2,” the romantic book and movie franchise that ignited a pop culture infatuation with blood-sucking vampires and werewolves.


The tumultuous love triangle between human girl Bella Swan, vampire Edward Cullen and werewolf Jacob Black, that has gripped avid fans known as “Twi-hards” for seven years, comes to a tantalizing end as “Breaking Dawn-Part 2″ hits movie theaters around the world.













The “Twilight” film franchise, based on a series of novels by Stephenie Meyer, rocketed the three main stars, Kristen Stewart (Bella), Robert Pattinson (Edward) and Taylor Lautner (Jacob), into the spotlight and the first four films have grossed more than $ 2.5 billion at the worldwide box office.


For director Bill Condon, who shot both parts of “Breaking Dawn” together and split into two movies post-production, the fifth and final film was all about the fans – who get a surprise twist to the ending.


“The real challenge was to make sure it was a satisfying climax,” Condon told reporters. “The film opens with an overture of all the main scenes from all five movies, and at the end, I…brought (it) back to the spirit of the old movies.”


The movie pays homage to the angst-ridden teenage romance between Bella and Edward that was underscored by the off-screen real-life romance between Stewart, 22, and Pattinson, 26.


“Breaking Dawn-Part 2″ shifts the action from a love story to a family story, as the Cullen clan recruit their extended vampire family to protect Bella and Edward’s daughter Renesmee from an ancient vampire coven.


“I think it’s very sweet, especially the ending of it, I think it’s very close to the book as well. It seems to be that it’s really made for the fans,” Pattinson told Reuters.


GOING OFF BOOK


While the past four films have stayed true to the books, author Meyer and screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg came up with a plot twist that adds a major scene that may surprise movie-goers.


“(The action) is off screen in the novel because we only see what Bella sees, and this was just a way of making visual what some of the other characters might have seen,” Meyer told reporters.


“It does feel very surprising. There’s something new to see but to me it doesn’t seem like it’s going hugely off the page,” she added.


While the fourth film saw Bella’s human life draw to a conclusion when she died giving birth to a human-vampire hybrid baby with new husband Edward, “Breaking Dawn-Part 2,” sees Bella as a mother and a newly-transformed vampire.


“The coolest thing about vampire Bella is that I got to play her as a human for so long, and the special parts of each vampire are always informed by the great things that they were as a human and so I got to walk in those shoes,” Stewart told Reuters.


“Everything made total sense to me. I waited for so long (to play a vampire), once I finally got it, it was so comfortable, I couldn’t wait,” the actress added.


“The Twilight Saga,” first published in 2005, kicked off a wave of vampire or supernatural-themes books, films and TV shows including HBO’s “True Blood,” the CW TV network’s “The Vampire Diaries” and Richelle Mead’s “Vampire Academy” series of young adult novels.


As the sun sets on the franchise Meyer brought to life, the author said that while she didn’t rule out the possibility of finding more stories in the vampire-werewolf universe, she had closed the chapter on the Cullens.


“I don’t know if I’ll ever get back to these (stories). Someday I’ll write down what was going to happen next. It’s sad knowing I don’t have another party with the kids again, I really hope I have a chance to at least see my friends again,” she told Reuters.


(Reporting by Piya Sinha-Roy, editing by Jill Serjeant and Marguerita Choy)


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Multibillion-dollar health fund fires watchdog

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GENEVA (AP) — The board of a $ 23 billion health fund trying to restore its image fired its top internal watchdog, whose office has been uncovering financial losses.


The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria said in a statement Thursday that its board had terminated the employment of Inspector General John Parsons “after a careful review of his performance, which was found to be unsatisfactory.” It said this was based on performance and independent peer reviews and a report by the board committee that oversees Parsons’ office.













The board said it would soon name an interim inspector-general and expects to find a permanent replacement within six months.


The fund also is selecting a new executive director Thursday from among four finalists. The previous director resigned because of a review panel that the fund created after Associated Press articles last year about financial losses. The articles led some donors to withhold funding, and the fund scaled back spending.


Those losses were uncovered by the office that Parsons had headed since 2007. The office — whose teams of auditors and investigators are supposed to function independently — was created in 2005 at the urging of the fund’s biggest donor, the United States.


Before joining the Global Fund, Parsons, a British citizen, had gained more than 35 years of experience in audits, investigations and evaluations and had served as a director at U.N. agencies UNESCO and UNICEF. He headed Britain’s National Audit Office from 1989 to 1996.


Parsons could not immediately be reached for comment Thursday.


Health News Headlines – Yahoo! News



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Sources: BP to pay record fine for Gulf Coast disaster

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HOUSTON/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - BP Plc is expected to pay a record U.S. criminal penalty and plead guilty to criminal misconduct in the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster through a plea deal reached with the Department of Justice that may be announced as soon as Thursday, according to sources familiar with discussions.


Three sources, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity, said BP would plead guilty in exchange for a waiver of future prosecution on the charges.


BP confirmed it was in "advanced discussions" with the Department of Justice (DoJ) and the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC).


The talks were about "proposed resolutions of all U.S. federal government criminal and SEC claims against BP in connection with the Deepwater Horizon incident," it said in a statement on Thursday, but added that no final agreements had been reached.


The discussion do not cover federal civil claims, both BP and the sources said.


London-based oil giant BP has been locked in months-long negotiations with the U.S. government and Gulf Coast states to settle billions of dollars of potential civil and criminal liability claims resulting from the April 20, 2010, explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon rig.


The sources did not disclose the amount of BP's payment, but one said it would be the largest criminal penalty in U.S. history. That record is now held by Pfizer Inc, which paid a $1.3 billion fine in 2009 for marketing fraud related to its Bextra pain medicine.


The DoJ declined to comment.


The deal could resolve a significant share of the liability that BP faces after the explosion killed 11 workers and fouled the shorelines of four Gulf Coast states in the worst offshore spill in U.S. history. BP, which saw its market value plummet and replaced its CEO in the aftermath of the spill, still faces economic and environmental damage claims sought by U.S. Gulf Coast states and other private plaintiffs.


The fine would far outstrip BP's last major settlement with the DoJ in 2007, when it payed about $373 million to resolve three separate probes into a deadly 2005 Texas refinery explosion, an Alaska oil pipeline leak and fraud for conspiring to corner the U.S. propane market.


The massive settlement, which comes a week after the U.S. presidential election, could ignite a debate in Congress about how funds would be shared with Gulf Coast states, depending on how the deal is structured. Congress passed a law last year that would earmark 80 percent of BP penalties paid under the Clean Water Act to the spill-hit states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida and Texas.


POTENTIAL LIABILITY


In an August filing, the DoJ said "reckless management" of the Macondo well "constituted gross negligence and willful misconduct" which it intended to prove at a civil trial set to begin in New Orleans in February 2013. The U.S. government has not yet filed any criminal charges in the case.


Given that the deal will not resolve any civil charges brought by the Justice Department, it is also unclear how large a financial penalty BP might pay to resolve the charges, or other punishments that BP might face.


Negligence is a central issue to BP's potential liability. A gross negligence finding could nearly quadruple the civil damages owed by BP under the Clean Water Act to $21 billion in a straight-line calculation.


Still unresolved is potential liability faced by Swiss-based Transocean Ltd, owner of the Deepwater Horizon vessel, and Halliburton Co, which provided cementing work on the well that U.S. investigators say was flawed. Both companies were not immediately available for comment.


According to the Justice Department, errors made by BP and Transocean in deciphering a pressure test of the Macondo well are a clear indication of gross negligence.


"That such a simple, yet fundamental and safety-critical test could have been so stunningly, blindingly botched in so many ways, by so many people, demonstrates gross negligence," the government said in its August filing.


Transocean in September disclosed it is in discussions with the Justice Department to pay $1.5 billion to resolve civil and criminal claims.


The mile-deep Macondo well spewed 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico over a period of 87 days. The torrent fouled shorelines from Texas to Florida and eclipsed in severity the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska.


BP has already announced an uncapped class-action settlement with private plaintiffs that the company estimates will cost $7.8 billion to resolve litigation brought by over 100,000 individuals and businesses claiming economic and medical damages from the spill.


(Additional reporting by Andrew Callus in London; Editing by Edward Tobin and David Stamp)

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