US rabbi says jailed American in good health

HAVANA (AP) — A prominent New York rabbi and physician visited an American subcontractor serving a long jail term in Cuba and said the man is in good health, despite his family’s concerns about a growth on his right shoulder.

Rabbi Elie Abadie, who is also a gastroenterologist, told The Associated Press in an exclusive interview following Tuesday’s 2 1/2-hour visit at a military hospital in Havana that he personally examined Alan Gross and received a lengthy briefing from a team of Cuban physicians who have attended him.

He said the 1 1/2-inch growth on Gross’s shoulder appeared to be a non-cancerous hematoma that should clear up by itself.

“Alan Gross does not have any cancerous growth at this time, at least based on the studies I was shown and based on the examination, and I think he understands that also,” Abadie said.

Abadie said the hematoma, basically internal bleeding linked to the rupture of muscle fiber, was likely caused by exercise Gross does in jail. He said the growth ought to eventually disappear on its own.

Gross’s plight has put already chilly relations between Cuba and the United States in a deep freeze. The Maryland native was arrested in December 2009 while on a USAID-funded democracy building program and later sentenced to 15 years in jail for crimes against the state.

He claims he was only trying to help the island’s small Jewish community gain Internet access.

Gross’s health has been an ongoing issue during his incarceration. The 63-year-old, who was obese when arrested, has lost more than 100 pounds while in jail.

Abadie, a rabbi at New York’s Edmund J. Safra Synagogue, said Gross’s weight is appropriate for a man his age and height.

Photos that Abadie and a colleague provided to AP of Tuesday’s meeting with Gross showed him looking thin, but generally appearing to be in good spirits.

In one photo, Gross holds up a handwritten note that says “Hi Mom.”

“He definitely feels strong. He is in good spirits. He feels fit, to quote him, physically. But of course, like any other person who is incarcerated or in prison, he wants to be free. He wants to be able to go back home,” Abadie said.

Gross’s family has repeatedly appealed for his release on humanitarian grounds, noting his health problems and the fact that his adult daughter and elderly mother have both been battling cancer.

Jared Genser, counsel to Alan Gross, said late Tuesday that Rabbi Abadie is not Gross’s physician and he would like an oncologist of his choosing to evaluate him.

“While we are grateful Rabbi Abadie was able to see Alan, we have asked an oncologist to review the test results to determine if they are sufficient to rule out cancer. More importantly, if Alan is so healthy, we cannot understand why the Cuban government has repeatedly denied him an independent medical examination by a doctor of his choosing as is required by international law,” said Genser.

Gross and his wife recently filed a $ 60 million lawsuit against his former Maryland employer and the U.S. government, saying they didn’t adequately train him or disclose risks he was undertaking by doing development work on the Communist-run island.

They filed another lawsuit against an insurance company they say has reneged on commitments to pay compensation in case of his wrongful detention.

Separately, a lawyer for Gross has written the United Nations’ anti-torture expert, saying Cuban officials’ treatment of his client “will surely amount to torture” if he continues to be denied medical care.

Rumors have been swirling in U.S. media that Cuba might soon release Gross as a gesture of good will or in the hopes of winning concessions from the administration of President Barack Obama, but Abadie said that those reports appeared to be false.

“As far as I know there is no truth to it,” he said.

Abadie said he met with senior Cuban officials who expressed their desire to resolve the case “as quickly as possible,” but would not say specifically who he spoke with or what they offered.

“They claim that they are more than willing to sit at the table,” he said.

Cuban officials have strongly implied they hope to trade Gross for five Cuban agents sentenced to long jail terms in the United States, one of whom is already free on bail.

Abadie said Gross made clear that he does not want his case linked to that of the agents, known in Cuba as “The Five Heroes,” because he does not believe he is guilty of espionage.

But Abadie said Gross is hoping for a “constructive and productive” dialogue between U.S. and Cuban officials to resolve his case.

___

Follow Paul Haven on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/paulhaven.

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Van Gogh, John Lennon letters coming to NY auction

NEW YORK (AP) — An upcoming auction of over 300 historical documents includes rare letters written by Vincent van Gogh, George Washington, John Lennon and other iconic figures.

The property of an anonymous American collector is being offered by Profiles in History in an online and phone auction on Dec. 18.

Among the highlights is a two-page letter from Washington to an Anglican clergyman.

Another top item is a signed van Gogh letter, written in 1890, to Joseph and Marie Ginoux, who were proprietors of the Cafe de la Gare in Arles, France, where the Dutch post-impressionist artist lived for a time.

Each of those letters is estimated to bring $ 200,000 to $ 300,000.

A handwritten letter from John Lennon to Eric Clapton has a pre-sale estimate of $ 20,000 to $ 30,000.

The collection will be exhibited Dec. 3-9 at Douglas Elliman’s Madison Avenue art gallery.

Washington‘s letter was written on Aug. 15, 1798, to the Rev. Jonathan Boucher, amid an undeclared naval war with France. Washington thanks Boucher for sending him his “View of the Causes and Consequences of the American Revolution,” a book of 13 discourses Boucher preached.

“Peace, with all the world is my sincere wish, I am sure it is our true policy — and am persuaded it is the ardent desire of the Government,” the former president and Founding Father wrote.

In a Jan. 20, 1890, four-page letter, handwritten in French to his friends Monsieur and Madame Ginoux, van Gogh wishes the ailing proprietress a speedy recovery.

“Illnesses are there to make us remember again that we are not made of wood,” the artist wrote. “That’s what seems the good side of all this to me. Then afterwards one goes back to one’s everyday work less fearful of the annoyances, with a new store of serenity.” Van Gogh died less than seven months later.

He suffered from acute anxiety and bouts of depression throughout his life. Madame Ginoux and the cafe were frequent subjects of his work.

The eight-page letter from Lennon is a draft he wrote to Clapton on Sept. 29, 1971, and signed “John and Yoko.” The whereabouts of the final version is unknown.

Lennon writes candidly about his admiration for the great British guitarist and suggests forming a “‘nucleus’ group (Plastic Ono Band) . — and of course had YOU!!! In mind as soon as we decided.” He writes that drummer Jim Kelnter, artist Klaus Voormann, pianist Nicky Hopkins and producer Phil Spector “all agreed so far” to join.

“Anyway, the point is, after missing the Bangla-Desh concert, we began to feel more and more like going on the road, but not the way I used with the Beatles — night after night of torture. We mean to enjoy ourselves, take it easy, and maybe even see some of the places we go to! We have many ‘revolutionary’ ideas for presenting shows that completely involve the audience .”

Other luminaries whose papers will be sold include Lou Gehrig, Louis Pasteur, Sigmund Freud, Charles Darwin, Marie Curie, Giuseppe Verdi, Peter Tchaikovsky, Cole Porter, King Henry II and Napoleon I.

The December auction is the first of several sales that will be held over two years. The entire collection contains 3,000 items.

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Online:

Information on how to bid is available on www.profilesinhistory.com.

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Flu Can Kill Quickly, Taking Lives of Healthy Children

In just eight months at his new school in Rifle, Colo., Austin Booth made a name for himself as a star athlete, honor student and a popular classmate with a promising future.

But within six days after he contracted the flu last January, Austin was dead. He was 17. His parents had never even considered giving a flu shot to their otherwise healthy teen.

“It was flu season and we knew other kids who were sick and we didn’t think that much about it,” said his mother, Regina Booth, 42. “He was a healthy teenager.”

“He was just one of those kids that excelled at everything,” she said. “And he was the type of kid who made friends instantly.”

“It was pretty tough — and it seems like just yesterday,” said Booth, who is 38 weeks pregnant and now annually immunizes her four other children, aged 3 to 16.

“Now that we are expecting a new baby, it protects us and the baby,” she said.

Debunking Four of the Most Common Flu Shot Myths

Between 3,000 and 49,000 Americans die of influenza each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.More than 200,000 are hospitalized annually with flu-related complications like pneumonia.

In the past four years, the CDC has changed its recommendations and now urges all Americans six months and older get a flu shot. Children under the age of 9, who are getting immunized for the first time, should get two doses, one month apart.

Booth said she still cannot believe how sudden her son’s death was. On Tuesday night, he had started and played a full basketball game. By Wednesday night, he was coughing up blood and was rushed to the hospital with pneumonia.

“They intubated him as he struggled to breathe,” said his mother. “It was the last time I talked to him.”

His father Carl, who worked on an oil rig and couldn’t be reached, was never able to see his son conscious again. Austin was airlifted to St. Mary’s Hospital in Grand Junction and at first, doctors thought he would survive.

But soon, his condition got worse — even on “every antibiotic in the world” — and Austin had to be taken off the ventilator and manually “bagged.” Tests showed the teen positive for the virulent infection MRSA.

“Doctor’s said it was a perfect storm of pneumonia and MRSA,” said Booth. “He fought Thursday until Monday, but it was more than his body could handle.”

Hundreds of Austin’s new friends showed up for his funeral. The basketball team retired his #2 jersey and Austin was recognized with a school bench and a memory stone.

“We had never gotten the flu shot — not any of us,” she said. “We thought, we don’t need it, we are healthy. If we get the shot it will make us sick.”

Dr. William Schaffner, professor and chairman of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, said that people are fooled into thinking that influenza, a serious respiratory infection, is just like a cold.

“People use the word ‘flu‘ very casually to refer to a whole variety of winter illnesses, including a stuffy nose, and that tends to trivialize it,” said Schaffner. “It is a serious viral infection — it wreaks havoc on all the body’s systems.”

“Although it can be mild and often is, it is often very, very serious and can strike an otherwise normal child and put them in intensive care, usually within 48 hours.”

The most serious complications occur among older people, but each year children die of the disease — and “it’s potentially preventable,” according to Schaffner.

“While it is an imperfect vaccine, it is the best influenza vaccine at the present time,” he said. Though it does not always prevent infection, because viruses change each year, it can “turn a more serious flu into a milder one, so you won’t die.”

With 120 million doses given each year in the U.S. alone, it is a “wonderfully safe” vaccine, whose only side effects can be a sore arm or, rarely, a day of fever. It cannot give a person the flu. “That’s an urban myth,” said Schaffner.

The vaccine is covered by insurance carriers and only costs about $ 30 out of pocket. But only about half of all children are immunized.

Advocacy efforts by the nonprofit organization Families Fighting the Flu were part the gradual change of the CDC recommendation toward universal immunization.

About 100 American children die each year from the flu, according to its executive director, Laura Scott. “It’s devastating.”

“The more people who get vaccinated, the less disease there is that spreads,” said Scott. “You can build a cocoon around your family. Even if you don’t have the infant vaccinated, you still have to vaccinate everyone around that baby.”

Julie Moise of Kansas City, Mo., lost her 7-month-old son Ian to the flu in 2003. He got sick just 10 days after he had received his first of two flu shots. Her other children had full doses of the vaccine and never got sick.

Moise, a 41-year-old flight attendant, said she was initially “unconcerned” when Ian was diagnosed with the flu by his pediatrician. But by the end of the first day, he was “panting.” The doctor reassured her that was normal in a child with a fever.

“His panting turned into more of a sigh and I thought that was a good thing,” said Moise. “But later the doctor told me that happens when people’s organs are shutting down.”

Moise, too, was bedridden with the flu and called her husband to come home from work and help. She called the doctor’s office again.

“Glen walks in the door and the phone rings — it’s the nurse,” she said. “He told her, ‘I don’t like his coloring, let’s take him to the emergency room.’ Then Ian stopped breathing.”

Moise, who is trained in CPR, attempted to save Ian while they rushed to the ER. They stopped at a nearby fire station and rescue workers also tried unsuccessfully to revive the baby. He died that afternoon at the hospital.

“The message is: First of all, take the flu seriously,” she said. “We didn’t think healthy children die of the flu. It’s a preventable disease … And it doesn’t discriminate. It can hit anyone.”

After their son’s death, the Moises founded Ian’s Rainbow Flu Foundation to raise awareness.

Those who have survived influenza say its effects can be devastating.

Luke Duvall, now 20, came down with the flu in October 2009, and it took him a whole year to recover fully.

One-third of his Atkins, Ark., high school was hit hard with that strain of the flu.

Duvall was rushed to the hospital by ambulance. He nearly collapsed in the shower because he couldn’t breathe.

“My blood pressure was so low that they couldn’t draw blood and I almost crashed in the ambulance on the road,” he said. “They had to pull over and stabilize me.”

The next morning he was flown to Little Rock, where he stayed for 34 days, much of the time in a coma and on a respirator. “At one time, they had 20 IVs pumping all kinds of things into me,” he said.

Duvall spent 17 days in rehab because he had lost 36 of his 157 pounds. “I had to relearn how to walk and how to drink and eat,” he said. “I had to relearn daily functions like dressing myself.”

All this, according to Duvall, because one student who boarded a football bus for a game had the flu and infected the entire team.

“He was a star athlete,” he said. “If he had just had the vaccine, all of this would have stopped. It would have ended there. You don’t just get it for yourself, but for those around you. It’s a cycle that keeps going.”

ABC News information specialist Nicholas Tucker contributed to this report.

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U.S. for-profit colleges spend big on marketing while slashing other costs

(Reuters) – Google‘s biggest advertiser is neither a bank nor a retailer.

It’s the for-profit University of Phoenix, which has recently been spending nearly $ 400,000 a day on ads, more than any financial firm or retailer, the traditional big spenders on online advertising, according to search analytics firm SpyFu.

That kind of spending may seem surprising coming from a college, but marketing has become vital for the university and its for-profit rivals as enrollments plummet and they fight back against a host of criticisms, including low job-placement rates.

Colleges such as University of Phoenix, the industry leader owned by Apollo Group Inc, will not only have to boost enrollments to reverse their fortunes, analysts say. They will also need to consider cutting tuition fees as well as continue to slash costs and take market share from rivals.

“I have witnessed several versions of this cycle but none as extreme as this,” said Trace Urdan, an analyst with Wells Fargo Securities, who has been covering the U.S. for-profit education industry for about 15 years.

“We are going to see more pointed efforts at marketing and more price competition in an effort to try to capture more market share both from each other as well as from traditional schools,” Urdan said.

Operators of other for-profit colleges, whose ranks include the Washington Post Co’s Kaplan business, DeVry Inc and ITT Educational Services Inc, are also boosting their spending on marketing and are among the 25 biggest advertisers on Google.

But no one is spending like the University of Phoenix, which doubled its spending on Google ads to about $ 380,000 per day on average between October 12 and November 12, compared with $ 170,000 a day in the previous month, according to SpyFu.

Increased marketing alone will not be enough to fatten fast-shrinking profit margins and increase enrollments, however. Lower tuition fees and increased specialization of the type of programs offered, along with further streamlining of operations, will also be necessary, analysts say.

Industry bellwether University of Phoenix, which offers courses at about 230 campuses as well as online, announced plans last month to shut about half its locations and cut 800 jobs in order to save about $ 300 million a year by 2014.

New enrollments in the Apollo system are down nearly 50 percent in the past two years. As of August 31, enrollment totaled about 328,000.

Career Education Corp, which owns American InterContinental University and the Le Cordon Bleu colleges, and Lincoln Educational Services Corp have also announced closures.

LOW-COST MODEL

The $ 25 billion industry, which typically serves adults looking for a career change or a program to enhance job skills, is reeling after government investigations revealed fraud related to financial aid, worryingly high student debt loads and low rates of graduation and job placement.

“Many for-profit colleges make decisions that prioritize their bottom line, even when those decisions limit their students’ opportunities for academic success,” a U.S. Senate report said earlier this year.

Tuition fees, and therefore profits, is one area under pressure as potential students need to be convinced to take out loans in an uncertain job market.

Apollo, whose stock has lost about 65 percent of its value this year, implemented a tuition freeze earlier this year and promised students it will not increase prices through the course of their programs.

Apollo is also looking at different cost models, with a view to serving segments of the population that it cannot serve with current University of Phoenix tuition prices.

“We have certainly seen a lot more competition at the lower end of the price scale, and that’s something we are focusing on,” Apollo spokesman Mark Brennar said, while declining to offer specifics.

Wells Fargo’s Urdan said it is likely that Apollo wants to compete in the low-cost end of the market by building a second brand, which it would likely do by acquiring another college rather than starting from scratch.

As colleges lower their revenue base by cutting tuition fees even as they spend more on marketing, lower margins could become the norm, analysts say. That has spooked investors already worried about sliding enrollments.

The S&P 1500 Education Services index has lost three-quarters of its value since April 2010, including a 50 percent decline in 2012.

Some for-profit colleges already differentiate themselves in the crowded higher-education market by offering programs in a particular field or by targeting students of a particular background, and that trend could accelerate.

American Public Education, for example, is known for enrolling those who work in the military and public services, while Universal Technical Institute offers programs related to the automotive industry.

For-profit colleges play up their links to employers to attract students who may otherwise opt for traditional or community colleges, said Rob Lytle, head of the education practice at advisory firm Parthenon Group.

“They are about getting people workforce employability skills, and I think they are going to be focusing tighter on that,” said Lytle.

(Reporting by A. Ananthalakshmi in Bangalore; Editing by Ted Kerr)

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US rabbi says jailed American in good health

HAVANA (AP) — A prominent New York rabbi and physician visited an American subcontractor serving a long jail term in Cuba and said the man is in good health, despite his family’s concerns about a growth on his right shoulder.

Rabbi Elie Abadie, who is also a gastroenterologist, told The Associated Press in an exclusive interview following Tuesday’s 2 1/2-hour visit at a military hospital in Havana that he personally examined Alan Gross and received a lengthy briefing from a team of Cuban physicians who have attended him.

He said the 1 1/2-inch growth on Gross’s shoulder appeared to be a non-cancerous hematoma that should clear up by itself.

“Alan Gross does not have any cancerous growth at this time, at least based on the studies I was shown and based on the examination, and I think he understands that also,” Abadie said.

Abadie said the hematoma, basically internal bleeding linked to the rupture of muscle fiber, was likely caused by exercise Gross does in jail. He said the growth ought to eventually disappear on its own.

Gross’s plight has put already chilly relations between Cuba and the United States in a deep freeze. The Maryland native was arrested in December 2009 while on a USAID-funded democracy building program and later sentenced to 15 years in jail for crimes against the state.

He claims he was only trying to help the island’s small Jewish community gain Internet access.

Gross’s health has been an ongoing issue during his incarceration. The 63-year-old, who was obese when arrested, has lost more than 100 pounds while in jail.

Abadie, a rabbi at New York’s Edmund J. Safra Synagogue, said Gross’s weight is appropriate for a man his age and height.

Photos that Abadie and a colleague provided to AP of Tuesday’s meeting with Gross showed him looking thin, but generally appearing to be in good spirits.

In one photo, Gross holds up a handwritten note that says “Hi Mom.”

“He definitely feels strong. He is in good spirits. He feels fit, to quote him, physically. But of course, like any other person who is incarcerated or in prison, he wants to be free. He wants to be able to go back home,” Abadie said.

Gross’s family has repeatedly appealed for his release on humanitarian grounds, noting his health problems and the fact that his adult daughter and elderly mother have both been battling cancer.

Jared Genser, counsel to Alan Gross, said late Tuesday that Rabbi Abadie is not Gross’s physician and he would like an oncologist of his choosing to evaluate him.

“While we are grateful Rabbi Abadie was able to see Alan, we have asked an oncologist to review the test results to determine if they are sufficient to rule out cancer. More importantly, if Alan is so healthy, we cannot understand why the Cuban government has repeatedly denied him an independent medical examination by a doctor of his choosing as is required by international law,” said Genser.

Gross and his wife recently filed a $ 60 million lawsuit against his former Maryland employer and the U.S. government, saying they didn’t adequately train him or disclose risks he was undertaking by doing development work on the Communist-run island.

They filed another lawsuit against an insurance company they say has reneged on commitments to pay compensation in case of his wrongful detention.

Separately, a lawyer for Gross has written the United Nations’ anti-torture expert, saying Cuban officials’ treatment of his client “will surely amount to torture” if he continues to be denied medical care.

Rumors have been swirling in U.S. media that Cuba might soon release Gross as a gesture of good will or in the hopes of winning concessions from the administration of President Barack Obama, but Abadie said that those reports appeared to be false.

“As far as I know there is no truth to it,” he said.

Abadie said he met with senior Cuban officials who expressed their desire to resolve the case “as quickly as possible,” but would not say specifically who he spoke with or what they offered.

“They claim that they are more than willing to sit at the table,” he said.

Cuban officials have strongly implied they hope to trade Gross for five Cuban agents sentenced to long jail terms in the United States, one of whom is already free on bail.

Abadie said Gross made clear that he does not want his case linked to that of the agents, known in Cuba as “The Five Heroes,” because he does not believe he is guilty of espionage.

But Abadie said Gross is hoping for a “constructive and productive” dialogue between U.S. and Cuban officials to resolve his case.

___

Follow Paul Haven on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/paulhaven.

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Soy unlikely to help hot flashes

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Women who eat a lot of soy-based foods or fiber don’t seem to have fewer menopause symptoms, according to a new study.

The findings add to other studies that have found no benefits from eating extra amounts of soy, a food abundant in dietary estrogen.

“It might be a dead end,” said William Wong, a professor at Baylor College of Medicine who has studied the effects of soy protein on menopause symptoms.

Plant-based estrogens, also called phytoestrogens, are found in foods such as seeds, nuts and soybeans. Their chemical structure is similar to human estrogens.

Hormone replacement therapy, based on estrogen among other hormones, is effective in reducing hot flashes and other menopause symptoms, but carries some risks of heart disease and cancer, a large federally funded study released a decade ago found.

Researchers have been testing whether plant estrogens can offer benefits, perhaps without the risks.

“Many women can’t or don’t want to take hormones,” making dietary estrogen an appealing alternative, said Ellen Gold, the lead author of the study and a professor at the University of California Davis School of Medicine.

But studies on plant estrogens have been mixed.

A review of 17 studies on soy supplements has found that the pills can reduce the frequency and severity of hot flashes, while some individual trials on soy protein pills have found no benefits (see Reuters Health reports of April 27, 2012 http://reut.rs/K95gLr and August 8, 2011 http://reut.rs/prmTwt).

To see if women who choose to eat more phytoestrogens have an easier time through menopause, Gold and her colleagues tracked 1,651 women for 10 years.

At the beginning of the study, none of the women had gone through menopause.

Each year the researchers followed up with them to gather any reports of hot flashes or night sweats, and every few years the women filled out a food survey.

By the end of the study, Gold’s team could find no consistent pattern between the amount of phytoestrogens eaten and how often or how severely women experienced hot flashes and night sweats.

The same was true for how much fiber the women ate.

In some cases, the researchers did see a relationship between one type of dietary estrogen and menopause symptoms, but it didn’t always carry through when they examined women of different ethnicities or looked at different points in time.

Those apparent results, they write in the journal Menopause, may have been due to chance.

Gold said it’s possible that for some subsets of women, plant estrogens might have a benefit, but they weren’t able to tease that out in this study.

“I think the more promising avenue for us in the future is to see if there are some women who might benefit,” she told Reuters Health.

Wong, who was not part of the study, is less optimistic because of the negative results seen in long term studies of women taking soy protein supplements.

“After looking at our own clinical trial data and others, we don’t see it,” he told Reuters Health. “I think we should move on.”

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/Uq77iV Menopause, October 29, 2012.

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Leads, director of Motown musical visit Hitsville

DETROIT (AP) — The stars of the upcoming Broadway musical about Motown Records have read pretty much every book about and listened to every song from that golden era of American music.

The research only took them so far, so they decided to come and see Hitsville, U.S.A., for themselves.

Brandon Victor Dixon, who portrays the label’s founder, Berry Gordy, and Valisia LeKae, who plays its signature songstress, Diana Ross, visited the Motown Museum on Tuesday, taking a lengthy tour of the two-level home that produced the soundtrack of a generation.

“I’m trying not to get emotional,” LeKae said as she methodically inspected the hundreds of mementos — posters, gold records, clothing and more — on display at the Motown Museum.

LeKae, a Broadway veteran who has appeared in “The Book of Mormon” and “Ragtime” among others, worried about losing her composure when it came time to visit Studio A, the famed space in which Gordy and his army of artists, writers, producers and engineers signed, sealed and delivered hit after hit throughout the 1960s.

And she succeeded, descending a small flight of stairs into the square, smallish room and calmly checking out the famed studio affectionately called the “Snake Pit.” LeKae marveled at an oversized black-and-white snapshot on the wall of Ross singing with a smiling Gordy looking on.

It wasn’t until later, while visiting the home’s upstairs, that LeKae’s emotions kicked in.

Standing underneath the “echo chamber,” a hole cut in the upper level’s ceiling designed to create unique sounds for the recording process, LeKae belted out the first few lines of the Supremes’ “Where Did Our Love Go.”

“Baby, baby / Baby, don’t leave me,” she wailed, before the tears began to well up and she had to stop singing.

“This is, like, amazing,” she said.

LeKae and Dixon, who earned a Tony nomination for his work in “The Color Purple” and bears more than a passing resemblance to a Motown-era Gordy, will be front and center when the show debuts this spring.

“Motown: The Musical” begins its run of preview performances March 11 ahead of the official opening on April 14 at New York’s Lunt-Fontanne Theatre.

That gives Dixon, LeKae, Gordy (who’s producing and writing the book) and director Charles Randolph-Wright four months to bring the show to the stage.

To that end, Randolph-Wright also was at Hitsville on Tuesday, seeing prospective actors during a callback session in Studio A. He’s still looking for understudies and others to play smaller parts.

It wasn’t Randolph-Wright’s first visit to Motown’s birthplace as it was for his two leads, but for the 56-year-old who proclaims that “Motown’s in my DNA,” it was no less special.

“What a joy to be a part of (the Motown) movement and what a responsibility to try and place that in the world,” Randolph-Wright said, sitting on a piano bench in Studio A. “So, I’ve been very careful about trying to do that the right way.”

And he has, working for the past three years on “Motown: The Musical,” holding a nationwide casting call and working with Gordy and the other producers to identify which of the overwhelming number of songs from the Motown catalog to include on stage.

“The show is 15 hours,” Randolph-Wright joked.

The first version had 100 songs in it, he said, and “I wanted every song.”

While he said the show’s decision-makers are still deliberating about which songs make the final cut, one thing is certain about the musical selections: A few numbers in the show will be Gordy originals, written specifically for it.

“It’s so interesting to see him go back to being a songwriter after all these years,” said Randolph-Wright, who described one Gordy-penned song as having “all the textures of what Motown is and was, but it’s new.”

As for the man playing the man, Dixon spent his Tuesday walking through the halls of the Motown Museum, taking in every word tour guide Eric Harp and the other docents offered and, as he put it, “soaking it all in.”

At one point, he kneeled down and softly touched the cushion of a red-orange couch upstairs on which Marvin Gaye would take the occasional slumber.

Dixon burst out laughing, then leaped up and continued the tour.

Asked what was so funny, he quickly responded: “Because Marvin Gaye slept on this couch!”

All three of the Hitsville visitors spoke of their great respect and admiration for Gordy and the history of Motown and how important they felt it was to do it justice on stage.

“There’s an energy here that is palpable still,” Randolph-Wright said. “And it remains in this space. I think more than anything, the second I walked in here, it told me that I have to be honest” in telling the Motown story.

The first time he visited the museum, Randolph-Wright remembered walking into the gift shop, where he “bought everything,” including a Temptations T-shirt that read: “Live It Again.”

“I love that, because that’s what we’re doing,” he said.

___

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http://www.motownthemusical.com

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Powerball fever sweeps the nation, fuels jackpot

The allure of the record $500 million Powerball jackpot has led to long lines across the nation at local mini-marts and gas stations, with Americans hoping their champagne and caviar dreams become a reality when the numbers are drawn tonight.

The jackpot was boosted Tuesday from $425 million to the now historic $500 million sum, which is expected to get sweeter as millions of Americans rush to the store for their last chance to purchase a ticket and become a multi-millionaire overnight.

Powerball officials tell ABC News they expect to sell more than 105,000 tickets every minute before the drawing. When the dust settles, more than 189 million tickets would have been sold for the half a billion-dollar jackpot. That's more than double the number sold for Saturday's $325 jackpot that nobody won.

ABC News was allowed access to the Powerball studios in Tallahassee, Fla., where the 11 p.m. ET drawing will take place. The closely guarded machines and balls are locked in a vault before the numbers are drawn and only a select few are allowed inside the room during the actual broadcast.

Anyone who enters or leaves the vault is documented and workers who handle the lottery balls wear gloves, worried that human touch might change what numbers are randomly drawn.

Cameras are located in every nook and cranny of the Powerball studio, spying on workers as they ready the machines for the big moment. Lottery officials in several states will be watching those feeds in real time to monitor the proceedings.

Not everyone has Powerball fever in the country as tickets for tonight's jackpot are not offered in eight states. But that has not stopped many Californians and Nevadans who have flocked to Arizona to get in on the action.

"I'd say the line has to be like three, three and a half hours," one person told ABC News while waiting online to purchase tickets Tuesday.

Still, the long lines have not deterred those who hope to dramatically change their lifestyle and make their wildest dreams become a reality.

"I'm going to the Bahamas and enjoying myself on an island," said one Powerball hopeful.

Chuck Strutt, executive director of the Des Moines, Iowa-based Multi-State Lottery Association, said the chance of getting a winner tonight is approaching 60 percent.

"We call it the redneck retirement fund cause sooner or later, somebody is going to," said one man.

There has been no Powerball winner since Oct. 6 – that's 16 consecutive drawings without a winner. It's the second-highest jackpot in US lottery history, behind only the $656 million Mega Millions prize in March.

Powerball tickets doubled in price in January to $2, and while the number of tickets sold initially dropped, sales revenue has increased by about 35 percent over 2011, according to the Associated Press.

Lottery officials put the odds of winning Wednesday's Powerball pot at one in 175 million. With so many people plaything this time around, some are worried it may hurt their odds.

"Your odds of being a winner are still the same. With so many people playing, it does mean are more likely to split the jackpot if you want," said Scott Norris, math professor at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

Everyone who lines up with cash in their hand and dreams in their head seems to have a strategy in picking the winning combination of numbers. Or, do you simply let the computer pick for you?

"It doesn't matter. Your odds of winning are actually the same no matter who picks it," said Norris.
Norris says the only real advantage that can help someone is buying more tickets.

"Your odds increase directly proportional to the number of tickets you buy. So if you buy 100, your odds are 1 in 7 million, but still astronomically small," he said.

With odds so small in a game where just about anyone who plays is a loser, there is some hope for those living in Illinois and New Jersey. Both states have sold three winning tickets for jackpots worth at least $300 million.

A single winner choosing the lump sum cash option would take home more than $327 million before taxes.

ABC News' Steve Osunsami and Ryan Owens contributed to this report.

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Mexican beauty queen killed in shootout

CULIACAN, Mexico (AP) — A 20-year-old state beauty queen died in a gun battle between soldiers and the alleged gang of drug traffickers she was traveling with in a scene befitting the hit movie “Miss Bala,” or “Miss Bullet,” about Mexico’s not uncommon ties between narcos and beautiful pageant contestants.

The body of Maria Susana Flores Gamez was found Saturday lying near an assault rifle on a rural road in a mountainous area of the drug-plagued state of Sinaloa, the chief state prosecutor said Monday. It was unclear if she had used the weapon.

“She was with the gang of criminals, but we cannot say whether she participated in the shootout,” state prosecutor Marco Antonio Higuera said. “That’s what we’re going to have to investigate.”

The slender, 5-foot-7-inch brunette was voted the 2012 Woman of Sinaloa in a beauty pageant in February. In June, the model competed with other seven contestants for the more prestigious state beauty contest, Our Beauty Sinaloa, but didn’t win. The Our Beauty state winners compete for the Miss Mexico title, whose holder represents the country in the international Miss Universe.

Higuera said Flores Gamez was traveling in one of the vehicles that engaged soldiers in an hours-long chase and running gun battle on Saturday near her native city of Guamuchil in the state of Sinaloa, home to Mexico’s most powerful drug cartel. Higuera said two other members of the drug gang were killed and four were detained.

The shootout began when the gunmen opened fire on a Mexican army patrol. Soldiers gave chase and cornered the gang at a safe house in the town of Mocorito. The other men escaped, and the gunbattle continued along a nearby roadway, where the gang’s vehicles were eventually stopped. Six vehicles, drugs and weapons were seized following the confrontation.

It was at least the third instance in which a beauty queen or pageant contestants have been linked to Mexico’s violent drug gangs, a theme so common it was the subject of a critically acclaimed 2011 movie.

In “Miss Bala,” Mexico’s official submission to the Best Foreign Language Film category of this year’s Academy Awards, a young woman competing for Miss Baja California becomes an unwilling participant in a drug-running ring, finally getting arrested for deeds she was forced into performing.

In real life, former Miss Sinaloa Laura Zuniga was stripped of her 2008 crown in the Hispanoamerican Queen pageant after she was detained on suspicion of drug and weapons violations. She was later released without charges.

Zuniga was detained in western Mexico in late 2010 along with seven men, some of them suspected drug traffickers. Authorities found a large stash of weapons, ammunition and $ 53,300 with them inside a vehicle.

In 2011, a Colombian former model and pageant contestant was detained along with Jose Jorge Balderas, an accused drug trafficker and suspect in the 2010 bar shooting of Salvador Cabanas, a former star for Paraguay‘s national football team and Mexico’s Club America. She was also later released.

Higuera said Flores Gamez’s body has been turned over to relatives for burial.

“This is a sad situation,” Higuera told a local radio station. She had been enrolled in media courses at a local university, and had been modeling and in pageants since at least 2009.

Javier Valdez, the author of a 2009 book about narco ties to beauty pageants entitled “Miss Narco,” said “this is a recurrent story.”

“There is a relationship, sometimes pleasant and sometimes tragic, between organized crime and the beauty queens, the pageants, the beauty industry itself,” Valdez said.

“It is a question of privilege, power, money, but also a question of need,” said Valdez. “For a lot of these young women, it is easy to get involved with organized crime, in a country that doesn’t offer many opportunities for young people.”

Sometimes drug traffickers seek out beauty queens, but sometimes the models themselves look for narco boyfriends, Valdez said.

“I once wrote about a girl I knew of who was desperate to get a narco boyfriend,” he said. “She practically took out a classified ad saying ‘Looking for a Narco’.”

The stories seldom end well. In the best of cases, a beautiful woman with a tear-stained face is marched before the press in handcuffs. In the worst of cases, they simply disappear.

“They are disposable objects, the lowest link in the chain of criminal organizations, the young men recruited as gunmen and the pretty young women who are tossed away in two or three years, or are turned into police or killed,” Valdez said.

___

Associated Press Writer E. Eduardo Castillo contributed to this report

Latin America News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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