Israel hits Hamas buildings, shoots down Tel Aviv-bound rocket

GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli aircraft bombed Hamas government buildings in Gaza, and the “Iron Dome” defense system shot down a Tel Aviv-bound rocket on Saturday as Israel geared up for a possible ground invasion.

Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist group that runs the Gaza Strip, said Israeli missiles wrecked the office building of Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh – where he had met on Friday with the Egyptian prime minister – and struck a police headquarters.

Along the Tel Aviv beachfront, volleyball games came to an abrupt halt and people crouched as sirens sounded. Two interceptor rockets streaked into the sky. A flash and an explosion followed as Iron Dome, deployed only hours earlier near the city, destroyed the incoming projectile in mid-air.

With Israeli tanks and artillery positioned along the Gaza border and no end in sight to hostilities now in their fourth day, Tunisia’s foreign minister travelled to the enclave in a show of Arab solidarity.

In Cairo, a presidential source said Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi would hold four-way talks with the Qatari emir, the prime minister of Turkey and Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal in the Egyptian capital on Saturday to discuss the Gaza crisis.

Egypt has been working to reinstate calm between Israel and Hamas after an informal ceasefire brokered by Cairo unraveled over the past few weeks. Meshaal, who lives in exile, has already held a round of talks with Egyptian security officials.

Officials in Gaza said 43 Palestinians, nearly half of them civilians including eight children, had been killed since Israel began its air strikes. Three Israeli civilians were killed by a rocket on Thursday.

Israel unleashed its massive air campaign on Wednesday with the declared goal of deterring Hamas from launching rockets that have plagued its southern communities for years.

The Israeli army said it had zeroed in on a number of government buildings during the night, including Haniyeh’s office, the Hamas Interior Ministry and a police compound.

Taher al-Nono, a spokesman for the Hamas government, held a news conference near the rubble of the prime minister’s office and pledged: “We will declare victory from here.”

Hamas‘s armed wing claimed responsibility for Saturday’s rocket attack on Tel Aviv, the third against the city since Wednesday. It said it fired an Iranian-designed Fajr-5 at the coastal metropolis, some 70 km (43 miles) north of Gaza.

“Well that wasn’t such a big deal,” said one woman, who had watched the interception while clinging for protection to the trunk of a baby palm tree on a traffic island.

In the Israeli Mediterranean port of Ashdod, a rocket ripped into several balconies. Police said five people were hurt.

Among those killed in airstrikes on Gaza on Saturday were at least four suspected militants riding on motorcycles.

Israel’s operation has drawn Western support for what U.S. and European leaders have called Israel’s right to self-defense, along with appeals to avoid civilian casualties.

Hamas, shunned by the West over its refusal to recognize Israel, says its cross-border attacks have come in response to Israeli strikes against Palestinian fighters in Gaza.

RESERVIST CALL-UP

At a late night session on Friday, Israeli cabinet ministers decided to more than double the current reserve troop quota set for the Gaza offensive to 75,000, political sources said, in a signal Israel was edging closer to an invasion.

Around 16,000 reservists have already been called up.

Asked by reporters whether a ground operation was possible, Major-General Tal Russo, commander of the Israeli forces on the Gaza frontier, said: “Definitely.”

“We have a plan … it will take time. We need to have patience. It won’t be a day or two,” he added.

A possible move into the densely populated Gaza Strip and the risk of major casualties it brings would be a significant gamble for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, favorite to win a January national election.

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 2008-09, killed over 1,400 Palestinians, mostly civilians. Thirteen Israelis died.

But the Gaza conflagration has stirred the pot of a Middle East already boiling from two years of Arab revolution and a civil war in Syria that threatens to spread beyond its borders.

“Israel should understand that many things have changed and that lots of water has run in the Arab river,” Tunisian Foreign Minister Rafik Abdesslem said as he surveyed the wreckage from a bomb-blast site in central Gaza.

One major change has been the election of an Islamist government in Cairo that is allied with Hamas, potentially narrowing Israel’s manoeuvering room in confronting the Palestinian group. Israel and Egypt made peace in 1979.

“DE-ESCALATION”

Netanyahu spoke late on Friday with U.S. President Barack Obama for the second time since the offensive began, the prime minister’s office said in a statement.

“(Netanyahu) expressed his deep appreciation for the U.S. position that Israel has a right to defend itself and thanked him for American aid in purchasing Iron Dome batteries,” the statement added.

The two leaders have had a testy relationship and have been at odds over how to curb Iran’s nuclear program.

A White House official said on Saturday Obama called Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan to discuss how the two countries could help bring an end to the Gaza conflict.

Ben Rhodes, White House deputy national security adviser, told reporters that Washington “wants the same thing as the Israelis want”, an end to rocket attacks from Gaza. He said the United States is emphasizing diplomacy and “de-escalation”.

In Berlin, a spokesman for German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she had spoken to Netanyahu and Egypt’s Mursi, stressing to the Israeli leader that Israel had a right to self-defense and that a ceasefire must be agreed as soon as possible to avoid more bloodshed.

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.

The Israeli military said 492 rockets fired from Gaza have hit Israel since the operation began. Iron Dome intercepted another 245.

In Jerusalem, targeted by a Palestinian rocket on Friday for the first time in 42 years, there was little outward sign on the Jewish Sabbath that the attack had any impact on the usually placid pace of life in the holy city.

Some families in Gaza have abandoned their homes – some of them damaged and others situated near potential Israeli targets – and packed into the houses of friends and relatives.

(Additional reporting by Dan Williams and Douglas Hamilton in Tel Aviv, Allyn Fisher-Ilan in Jerusalem, Jeff Mason aboard Air Force One, Writing by Jeffrey Heller; editing by Crispian Balmer)

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Tulsa Town Hall: Nutrition a valuable tool in health care

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

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Shannon Muchmore 918-581-8378
shannon.muchmore@tulsaworld.com
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Israel bombards Gaza Strip, shoots down rocket

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israel bombarded the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip with about 300 airstrikes Saturday and shot down a Palestinian rocket fired at Tel Aviv, the military said, widening a blistering assault to include the Hamas prime minister's headquarters, a police compound and a vast network of smuggling tunnels.

The intensified airstrikes came as Egyptian-led attempts to broker a cease-fire and end Israel's four-day-old Gaza offensive gained momentum. The leaders of Hamas and two key allies, Qatar and Turkey, were in Cairo for talks with Egyptian officials, and the Arab League was holding an emergency meeting.

The White House said President Barack Obama was also in touch with the Egyptian and Turkish leaders. The U.S. has solidly backed Israel so far.

Speaking on Air Force One, deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes said that the White House believes Israel "has the right to defend itself" against attack and that the Israelis will make their own decisions about their "military tactics and operations."

The Israeli attacks, which Gaza officials say left 12 dead, came as Palestinian militants fired more than 100 rockets toward Israel, including two aimed at the commercial and cultural center of Tel Aviv. Rocket attacks on Tel Aviv and Jerusalem this week mark the first time Gaza militants have managed to fire rockets toward the cities, raising the stakes in the confrontation.

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.

In a psychological boost for the Israelis, a sophisticated Israeli rocket-defense system known as "Iron Dome" knocked down one of the rockets headed toward Tel Aviv, eliciting cheers from relieved residents huddled in fear after air raid sirens sounded in the city.

Associated Press video showed a plume of smoke rising from a rocket-defense battery deployed near the city, followed by a burst of light overhead. The smoke trailed the intercepting missile.

Police said a second rocket also targeted Tel Aviv. It was not clear where it landed or whether it was shot down. No injuries were reported. It was the third straight day the city was targeted.

Israel says the Iron Dome system has shot down some 250 incoming rockets, most of them in southern Israel near Gaza.

Saturday's interception was the first time Iron Dome has been deployed in Tel Aviv. The battery was a new upgraded version that was only activated on Saturday, two months ahead of schedule, officials said.

Israel opened the offensive on Wednesday with a surprising airstrike that killed Hamas' military chief, then attacked dozens of rocket launchers and storage sites. It says the offensive is meant to halt months of rocket fire on southern Israel.

While Israel claims to be inflicting heavy damage on Gaza's Hamas rulers, it has failed to slow the rocket fire. In all, 42 Palestinians, including 13 civilians, have been killed, while three Israeli civilians have died.

Maj. Gen. Tal Russo, Israel's southern commander, said Saturday that Hamas had suffered a tough blow.

"Most of their capabilities have been destroyed," he told reporters. Asked whether Israel is ready to send ground troops into Gaza, he said: "Absolutely."

Israel has authorized the call-up of as many as 75,000 reservists ahead of a possible ground operation. Dozens of armored vehicles have massed along the border with Gaza in recent days.

Israeli officials say they have not yet decided whether to send in ground troops, a decision that would almost certainly lead to heavy casualties on both sides.

In Saturday's fighting, Israeli aircraft pounded militants' weapons storage facilities and underground rocket launching sites, and went after rocket squads more aggressively.

Militants, undaunted, have unleashed some 500 rockets against the Jewish state.

Hamas claims that Israeli intelligence is based on a network of collaborators in Gaza. Officials said two Palestinians have been executed by Hamas' military wing for allegedly providing Israel with sensitive information. One man was shot twice in the head. Another body was tossed into a garbage bin with a gunshot wound to the head.

The violence has threatened the Mideast with a new war. 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, which had previously been 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 AP during a tour of Gaza's main hospital. 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. The West Bank is governed by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Egypt's prime minister visited Gaza on Friday and a Moroccan delegation was due on Sunday, following a landmark visit by Qatar's leader last month.

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.

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 no casualties were reported.

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 950 targets have been struck since the operation began.

On Saturday, more than 120 rockets slammed into Israel, causing damage to houses. About 10 Israelis were injured lightly, among dozens of others wounded since the start of the operation.

Despite the violence, Egyptian-led diplomacy was underway to bring an end to the fighting.

Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi was meeting the leaders of Turkey and Qatar Saturday as well as Hamas leader Khaled Meshal to discuss details of a proposed cease-fire.

The Arab League also met Saturday to consider sending its chief Nabil Elaraby and a team of foreign ministers to Gaza in the coming two days to assess the situation and respond to humanitarian needs there, according to a draft memorandum obtained by the AP.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told reporters Saturday that during discussions with Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin late Friday, he suggested that Turkey, Egypt, the United States and Russia help broker a simultaneous cease-fire between Israel and Hamas.

"It would be good if we could work on it rapidly to solve the matter within 24 hours, because the death toll is mounting," he said.

___

Goldenberg reported from Jerusalem. Associated Press writers Karin Laub in Gaza City, Matthew Daly in Washington and Aya Batrawy in Cairo contributed reporting.

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“Sister” Director Tackles Taboo of Switzerland’s Class Divide With Her Oscar Contender

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Director Ursula Meier can hardly believe that her film “Sister” – which depicts tenements, poverty and a seemingly rigid class system in lovely Switzerland – has made it over the Alps to Hollywood for Academy consideration.

“It shows a not-very-usual aspect of Switzerland,” Meier told the audience at a showing of “Sister” Thursday night at the Landmark, part of TheWrap’s Academy Screening Series. “We don’t show the beautiful mountains and the green and the lush life … For me it was important to show another point of view on this country to the world. Because usually it’s Montblanc, chocolate, and Swatch.”

Indeed, with her second film, Meier has given international audiences something else to associate with Switzerland: larcenous snow urchins.

“Sister” centers mostly around 12-year-old Simon (Kacey Mottet Klein), who lives in a high-rise tenement in a not-so-snowy valley far below a ski resort and takes gondolas to the top to steal wealthy tourists’ skis right out from under their goggles.

Wily Simon is financing not just his own existence but that of Louise (Lea Seydoux), the title character, who just might be the worst parental figure or caretaker in a cinematic year that did, after all, include “Beasts of the Southern Wild.”

It would involve spoilers to explain why Simon’s older sis is not everything she’s cracked up to be. But there’s nothing misleading about this boy-crazy, substance-abusing twentysomething gal’s unfitness to watch over Simon, the breadwinner of their sad two-person family.

He has to empty out his cash drawer to bribe Louise into snuggling with him, and when he entrusts her with the mere task of waxing skis, she can’t even do that without spilling cigarette ashes on the stolen merchandise.

“It was important for me, when we were at the ski resort, to showing the back door of the restaurant, and the workers inside … And it’s just at the end, when it’s finished, when there is no more snow and the ski resort is closed, for the first time Simon looks at the landscape. And we can see how beautiful this place is, but it’s too late now.”

Meier worked with her young leading man on her first theatrical feature, 2009′s “Home,” where he played Isabella Huppert’s son when he was just 7. She’s emphatic that Klein is not the kind of child actor who has to be tricked into giving a performance.

“During the first casting, I ask him, ‘What do you like to do in your life, Kasey?’ And he told me, ‘Thinking.’ So I said ‘OK, think,’ and I turned on the camera, and he was amazing … He understands that acting is to be, not to look like. So I really wanted to write for him with this film, because it was such an amazing experience on my first film.”

The role of the severely neglectful “sister” was tougher to nail down, both for the director and her leading actress.

“This character was the challenge of the film,” Meier said. “Because Kacey’s character is a child, so for the spectator, of course he’s a victim. But with the character of Louise, for Lea as an actress, at the beginning for her it was very hard to find the fragility of the character. I showed her a lot of films like ‘Vagabond’ … I explained to her, you were 14 when you were pregnant; it was too young for a girl, and you stopped your studies and got bad jobs you cut with your family.”

Sometimes, she said, they’d fight because “she couldn’t find the fragility of the character, and suddenly, months later, wow – it was like we cut something open and all the emotion that came out from her was very deep. I was afraid of the spectators judging the character. It was not easy, in the writing, or in the directing with the actors, because I wanted that they would love these characters, even if they’re sometimes terrible. But I like terrible characters.”

Pond told Meier that when it came to supporting actress Gillian Anderson, of “X-Files” fame, “the first time I watched, I didn’t realize it was her till the end credits” – an experience probably shared by most of those in attendance at the screening.

“I’m very happy that you say that,” said Meier, “because if you recognize the actress, you think about the actress.” But the director did want Armstrong to provoke a where-have-I-seen-you-before vibe.

“I really wanted to be played by a star – not to have a star in my film, but because it was important for Simon to have a kind of phantasma this lady, of what he wants as a mother.

And as a spectator, you can have a phantasma on the star. So I like that she came from another country, and not speak French, because she’s almost an apparition.”

Meier admitted she was frightened before the Swiss premiere – before “Sister” went on to play various fests and win the special Golden Bear award at the Berlin Film Festival.

“When I had the first screening in Switzerland, a lady came back to me and was very moved by the film, because it’s usually a taboo to show poverty in Switzerland. She cried and told me, ‘I grew up in exactly the same place. My father was a worker in the factory we saw in the film, and as a child we never had the money to go up.’ I liked that she just said up.”

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How new Kindle Fire compares with rivals

Amazon.com Inc. started shipping a larger version of its Kindle Fire HD tablet computer on Thursday. Here’s a look at how it compares with the iPad and other tablets with similar screens.

Amazon.com Inc.‘s Kindle Fire HD 8.9″:

— Price: $ 299 for 16 gigabytes of storage, $ 369 for 32 GB.

— Screen size: 8.9 inches diagonally

— Screen resolution: 1920 by 1200 pixels, at 254 pixels per inch.

— Weight: 1.25 pounds.

— Cameras: Front-facing camera.

— Battery life: 10 hours.

— Operating system: Modified version of Google‘s Android

Pros: Cheap and portable. Convenient access to Amazon store. Dolby audio. Available with access to fast 4G wireless broadband networks, for $ 499 (starts shipping next Tuesday).

Cons: Small selection of third-party applications available from Amazon. No rear camera for taking video and photos.

Apple Inc.‘s iPad:

— Price: Starts at $ 499 for 16 gigabytes of storage, goes up to $ 699 for 64 gigabytes, more for versions with cellular data access. (Apple still sells the older, iPad 2 for $ 399.)

— Screen size: 9.7 inches diagonally

— Screen resolution: 2048 by 1536 pixels, at 264 pixels per inch.

— Weight: 1.44 pounds

— Cameras: 5-megapixel camera on back and a low-resolution camera on front, for videoconferencing

— Battery life: 10 hours.

— Operating system: Apple’s iOS

Pros: Unmatched access to third-party applications, high-quality Apple software and the iTunes store. Widest range of cases and accessories available. Available with access to fast 4G wireless broadband networks, starting at $ 629.

Cons: Data storage cannot be expanded with memory cards.

Google Inc.’s Nexus 10

— Price: $ 399 for 16 gigabytes of storage, $ 499 for 32 GB

— Screen size: 10.1 inches diagonally

— Screen resolution: 2560 by 1600 pixels, at 300 pixels per inch.

— Weight: 1.33 pounds.

— Cameras: 5-megapixel camera on back and a low-resolution camera on front, for videoconferencing

— Battery life: 9 hours for video playback, 7 hours for Web browsing.

— Operating system: Google‘s Android

Pros: Access to a variety of games, utilities and other software for Android devices, though not as extensive as apps available for iPad. Longer, narrower screen better suited to movies. Cheaper than newest full-size iPad.

Cons: Integrates with Google Play store, which is still new and isn’t as robust as Apple or Amazon’s stores. Data storage cannot be expanded with memory cards. No option for cellular wireless broadband.

Samsung Electronic Co.’s Galaxy Tab 2 10.1:

— Price: $ 399 for 16 gigabytes of storage

— Screen size: 10.1 inches diagonally

— Screen resolution: 1280 by 800 pixels, 149 pixels per inch

— Weight: 1.24 pounds

— Cameras: low-resolution front camera, 3-megapixel back.

— Battery life: 11 hours.

— Operating system: Google‘s Android

Pros: Storage is expandable with microSD memory cards. Can act as a universal remote control for an entertainment center. Option for wireless broadband starting in November.

Cons: Selection of third-party applications not as good as iPad’s, but wider than Kindle. Screen resolution lower than iPad’s.

Samsung Electronic Co.’s Galaxy Note 10.1:

— Price: $ 499 for 16 gigabytes of storage, $ 549 for 32 GB

— Screen size: 10.1 inches diagonally

— Screen resolution: 1280 by 800 pixels, 149 pixels per inch

— Weight: 1.3 pounds

— Cameras: low-resolution front camera, 5-megapixel back.

— Battery life: 9 hours.

— Operating system: Google‘s Android

Pros: Comes with a pen, for jotting notes and drawing on the screen. Slightly thinner and lighter than an iPad. Longer, narrower screen better suited to movies. Storage is expandable with microSD memory cards. Can act as a universal remote control for an entertainment center.

Cons: Selection of third-party applications not as good as iPad’s, but wider than Kindle. Screen resolution lower than iPad’s. No option for wireless broadband. Pen sensor slightly shortens battery life.

Barnes & Noble Inc.’s Nook HD+

— Price: $ 269 for 16 gigabytes of storage; $ 299 for 32 GB

— Screen size: 9 inches diagonally

— Screen resolution: 1920 x 1280 pixels, 256 pixels per inch

— Weight: 1.14 pounds

— Cameras: None.

— Battery life: 10 hours of reading, 9 hours of video

— Operating system: Modified version of Google‘s Android

Pros: Cheap and portable. Storage is expandable with microSD memory cards. Easy access to Barnes & Noble book store.

Cons: Selection of third-party applications is small. Barnes & Noble lacks wide range of content. Lacks cameras and option for wireless broadband.

Microsoft Corp.’s Surface:

— Price: $ 499 for 32 gigabytes of storage, $ 100 extra for keyboard cover. $ 699 for 64 GB version, includes keyboard cover.

— Screen size: 10.6 inches diagonally

— Screen resolution: 1366 by 768 pixels, 148 pixels per inch

— Weight: 1.5 pounds.

— Cameras: Front and back cameras

— Battery life: 8 hours.

— Operating system: Microsoft’s Windows RT.

Pros: Storage can be expanded with microSD memory cards. Comes with free Microsoft Office software. Models running full version of Windows 8 coming soon, offering compatibility with programs available for traditional Windows computers.

Cons: Operating system lacks good track record on tablets. Selection of tablet-adapted third-party applications small. No option for wireless broadband.

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Israel moves on reservists after rockets target cities

GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli ministers were on Friday asked to endorse the call-up of up to 75,000 reservists after Palestinian militants nearly hit Jerusalem with a rocket for the first time in decades and fired at Tel Aviv for a second day.

The rocket attacks were a challenge to Israel‘s Gaza offensive and came just hours after Egypt‘s prime minister, denouncing what he described as Israeli aggression, visited the enclave and said Cairo was prepared to mediate.

Israel’s armed forces announced that a highway leading to the Gaza Strip and two roads bordering the enclave would be off-limits to civilian traffic until further notice.

Tanks and self-propelled guns were seen near the border area on Friday, and the military said it had already called 16,000 reservists to active duty.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened senior cabinet ministers in Tel Aviv after the rockets struck to decide on widening the Gaza campaign.

Political sources said ministers were asked to approve the mobilization of up to 75,000 reservists, in what could be preparation for a possible ground operation.

No decision was immediately announced and some commentators speculated in the Israeli media the move could be psychological warfare against Gaza’s Hamas rulers. A quota of 30,000 reservists had been set earlier.

Israel began bombing Gaza on Wednesday with an attack that killed the Hamas military chief. It says its campaign is in response to Hamas missiles fired on its territory. Hamas stepped up rocket attacks in response.

Israeli police said a rocket fired from Gaza landed in the Jerusalem area, outside the city, on Friday.

It was the first Palestinian rocket since 1970 to reach the vicinity of the holy city, which Israel claims as its capital, and was likely to spur an escalation in its three-day old air war against militants in Gaza.

Rockets nearly hit Tel Aviv on Thursday for the first time since Saddam Hussein’s Iraq fired them during the 1991 Gulf War. An air raid siren rang out on Friday when the commercial centre was targeted again. Motorists crouched next to cars, many with their hands protecting their heads, while pedestrians scurried for cover in building stairwells.

The Jerusalem and Tel Aviv strikes have so far caused no casualties or damage, but could be political poison for Netanyahu, a conservative favored to win re-election in January on the strength of his ability to guarantee security.

“The Israel Defence Forces will continue to hit Hamas hard and are prepared to broaden the action inside Gaza,” Netanyahu said before the rocket attacks on the two cities.

Asked about Israel massing forces for a possible Gaza invasion, Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said: “The Israelis should be aware of the grave results of such a raid and they should bring their body bags.”

Officials in Gaza said 28 Palestinians had been killed in the enclave since Israel began the air offensive with the declared aim of stemming surges of rocket strikes that have disrupted life in southern Israeli towns.

The Palestinian dead include 12 militants and 16 civilians, among them eight children and a pregnant woman. Three Israelis were killed by a rocket on Thursday. A Hamas source said the Israeli air force launched an attack on the house of Hamas’s commander for southern Gaza which resulted in the death of two civilians, one a child.

SOLIDARITY VISIT

A solidarity visit to Gaza by Egyptian Prime Minister Hisham Kandil, whose Islamist government is allied with Hamas but also party to a 1979 peace treaty with Israel, had appeared to open a tiny window to emergency peace diplomacy.

Kandil said: “Egypt will spare no effort … to stop the aggression and to achieve a truce.”

But a three-hour truce that Israel declared for the duration of Kandil’s visit never took hold. Israel said 66 rockets launched from the Gaza Strip hit its territory on Friday and a further 99 were intercepted by the Iron Dome anti-missile system.

Israel denied Palestinian assertions that its aircraft struck while Kandil was in the enclave.

Israel Radio’s military affairs correspondent said the army’s Homefront Command had told municipal officials to make civil defence 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 stoked the flames of a Middle East already ablaze with two years of Arab revolution and a civil war in Syria that threatens to leap across borders.

It is the biggest test yet for Egypt’s new President Mohamed Mursi, a veteran Islamist politician from the Muslim Brotherhood who was elected this year after last year’s protests ousted military autocrat Hosni Mubarak.

Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood are spiritual mentors of Hamas, yet Mursi has also pledged to respect Cairo’s 1979 peace treaty with Israel, seen in the West as the cornerstone of regional security. Egypt and Israel both receive billions of dollars in U.S. military aid to underwrite their treaty.

Mursi has vocally denounced the Israeli military action while promoting Egypt as a mediator, a mission that his prime minister’s visit was intended to further.

A Palestinian official close to Egypt’s mediators told Reuters Kandil’s visit “was the beginning of a process to explore the possibility of reaching a truce. It is early to speak of any details or of how things will evolve”.

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.

Tunisia’s foreign minister was due to visit Gaza on Saturday “to provide all political support for Gaza” the spokesman for the Tunisian president, Moncef Marzouki, said in a statement.

The United States asked countries that have contact with Hamas to urge the Islamist movement to stop its rocket attacks.

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’s 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, Jeffrey Heller and Crispian Balmer in Jerusalem; Writing by Jeffrey Heller; Editing by Giles Elgood)

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Smoking in pregnancy tied to lower reading scores

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Babies exposed to their mother’s cigarette smoke in the womb later perform more poorly on reading comprehension tests, according to a new study.

“It’s not a little difference – it’s a big difference in accuracy and comprehension at a critical time when children are being assessed, and are getting a sense of what it means to be successful,” lead author Dr. Jeffrey Gruen of Yale University told Reuters Health.

In the study, researchers found that children born to mothers who smoked more than one pack per day struggled on tests specifically designed to measure how accurately a child reads aloud and if she understands what she read.

On average, children exposed to high levels of nicotine in utero — defined as the minimum amount in one pack of cigarettes per day — scored 21 percent lower in these areas than classmates born to non-smoking mothers. The difference remained even when researchers took other factors — such as if parents read books to their children, worked in lower-paying jobs or were married — into account.

Put another way, among students who share similar backgrounds and education, a child of a smoking mother will on average be ranked seven places lower in a class of 31 in reading accuracy and comprehension ability, said co-author Jan Frijters of Brock University in Ontario, Canada.

Previous studies have found smoking during pregnancy is linked to lower IQ scores and academic achievement, and more behavioral disorders. The authors found no reports so far that zeroed in on specific reading tasks like accuracy and comprehension in a large population.

The team, which published their results in The Journal of Pediatrics, pulled data from more than 5,000 children involved in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPC) study that began in the early 1990s in the UK. Only data from children with IQ scores of 76 and higher were used. An IQ score of 70 and below can be the sign of a mental disability.

UK researchers collected questionnaires from mothers before and after giving birth. This helps make the self-reported data more trustworthy, explained Sam Oh of the University of California, San Francisco, who wasn’t involved with the work. If mothers knew their child’s reading scores beforehand, they might subconsciously report more or less smoking.

“To me, this study suggests that the effects attributed to in utero smoking can in fact be attributed to the intrauterine environment, and not due to environmental differences that the children grow up in,” Oh told Reuters Health by email.

Large observational studies like this one call attention to patterns, but do not prove a direct cause-effect relationship between cigarette smoking and low reading scores.

Despite public health initiatives to discourage smoking, as many as one in six pregnant American women still light up, according to national surveys by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

“That is a lot of children,” Dr. Tomáš Paus of the University of Toronto told Reuters Health.

Paus added that the study tied the effects of low test scores to nicotine in cigarettes, which also produce other harmful chemicals and carbon dioxide. Either way, smoking while pregnant seems to put a baby at risk for negative health outcomes.

“We should not be happy with those rates. Smoking during pregnancy is preventable,” Paus said.

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/W7v2kM The Journal of Pediatrics, online November 5, 2012.

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Blast rocks Gulf oil rig, two missing

Ships and helicopters are searching for two oil rig workers who disappeared when an explosion rocked a gulf oil rig off the coast of Louisiana and set it on fire, Coast Guard officials said.

Eleven other crew members were flown to hospitals, and four of them are listed in critical condition. No one has been confirmed dead.

Earlier reports by the Coast Guard that as many as 15 people were unaccounted for were resolved as the workers were located.

Among the injured were four who were airlifted for medical treatment to the West Jefferson Medical Center, where they are in critical condition after suffering serious burns. All four are intubated and will be evacuated to Baton Rouge Burn Center when they are stabilized, according to West Jefferson spokesman Taslin Alfonzo.

Three helicopters and two rescue boats are scouring the water looking for the missing crew members, according to Ed Cubanski, chief of the U.S. Coast Guard response.

The Coast Guard said that a Black Elk Energy Co. oil and natural gas platform caught fire after workers using a torch cut a line that had 28 gallons of oil in it, causing an explosion.

Black Elk's CEO, John Hoffman, said that the wrong tool was used in cutting the line. Contract workers should have used a saw instead of a torch, which caught vapors and caused the blast. The workers were employees of Grand Isle Shipyard, not Black Elk, he said. All of the individuals were men.

The rig was offline for maintenance and was scheduled to go back online for production later this month.

There were 22 people on board at the time of the explosion, according to the Coast Guard.

An oil sheen a half mile long and 200 yards wide has spread over the water surrounding the platform, which sits in 56 feet of water. The platform was shut down for the work at the time of the accident, Cubanski said.

The platform was located about 20 nautical miles southeast of Grand Isle, La., when the explosion happened, Vega said.

The explosion and fire comes the day after BP agreed to a $4 billion settlement for the 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion in the gulf, triggering the worst offshore oil spill in the country's history.

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“30 Rock” character Liz Lemon to get her happy ending

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – “30 Rock” perpetual unlucky-in-love heroine Liz Lemon is finally getting her happy ending, as NBC invited fans on Thursday to watch her get married this month.

After a string of bad boyfriends and unsuccessful romances, Lemon, played by comedienne Tina Fey, finds her soul mate in budding entrepreneur Criss Chross, who owns an organic gourmet hotdog food truck, played by actor James Marsden on the show.

“Ms. Elizabeth Miervaldis Lemon presents herself to be married to Mr. Crisstopher Rick Chross…But not in a creepy way that perpetuates the idea that brides are virgins and women are property,” NBC said in a mock wedding announcement, true to Lemon‘s feminist principles.

The wedding episode will be aired on November 29, during the Emmy-winning show’s seventh and final season.

While Lemon, 42, has never made it down the aisle before, she has had a couple of doomed engagements in past seasons, including her British boyfriend Wesley Snipes (Michael Sheen), whom she almost settled for before finding love with pilot Carol Burnett (Matt Damon).

The hapless singleton has also endured eventful dates with celebrities such as actor James Franco (along with his Japanese body pillow) and Conan O’Brien.

“30 Rock,” created by Fey and inspired by her stint as head writer for “Saturday Night Live”, follows the day-to-day life of fictional NBC sketch comedy show “TGS with Tracy Jordan,” and also stars Alec Baldwin, Tracy Morgan and Jane Krakowski.

(Reporting By Piya Sinha-Roy, editing by Jill Serjeant)

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Smartphones, tablets spark “post-pie” Thanksgiving sales

(Reuters) – Retailers are targeting “post-pie” commerce, the jump in shopping created by the boom in smartphones and tablet computers which Thanksgiving diners grab as they collapse onto the couch after eating turkey and pumpkin pie.

While people relax with family and friends or watch football on TV, they are increasingly shopping online with these mobile gadgets, creating a surge in traffic and purchases that retailers are beginning to target for the first time this year.

“This is a new shoppable moment,” said Steve Yankovich, who heads the mobile business of eBay Inc, operator of the largest online marketplace.

Before the rise of smartphones and tablets, it was socially unacceptable to pull out a laptop after Thanksgiving dinner, or head to a home office to fire up a desktop computer, Yankovich explained.

“With a tablet or smartphone you don’t get that reaction,” he added.

EBay recently surveyed more than 1,000 shoppers in the United States about their holiday shopping plans. Almost two thirds said holiday sales should begin after Thanksgiving dinner and respondents said their meals would end, on average, at 5:23 p.m. EST.

Based on that feedback, eBay plans to launch 20 mobile-only deals through its eBay Mobile application at 5:23 p.m. EST this Thanksgiving. The company plans 20 more at 5:23 p.m. PST for West Coast shoppers.

Other retailers including Toys “R” Us, HSN Inc, Rue La La and ideeli are also targeting mobile shoppers this Thanksgiving in the evening.

“The iPad holiday sales season starts at the point of indigestion while you’re sitting on the couch after Thanksgiving dinner,” said Ben Fischman, chief executive of Rue La La, which specializes in online limited-time fashion sales events known as flash sales.

Post-pie commerce is the latest example of how mobile devices, in particular Apple Inc’s iPad and iPhone, are changing consumer behavior and forcing retailers to adapt quickly.

The holiday shopping season traditionally kicks off with Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving when shoppers use a day off from work to head to stores.

The following Monday became a big online shopping day known as Cyber Monday because people returned to the office and shopped using their office computers.

Now Thanksgiving is emerging as a big new shopping day online. The value of e-commerce transactions on Turkey Day has surged 128 percent to $ 479 million over the past five years, outpacing the growth of Black Friday, Cyber Monday and other big holiday shopping days, according to comScore Inc.

That’s a far cry from the $ 1.25 billion spent online on Cyber Monday last year, but the growth has caught retailers’ attention.

“It’s still a smaller day, but it is growing much faster,” said Andrew Lipsman of comScore. “We’re seeing a lot more talk about Thanksgiving becoming a more important shopping day.”

Several big retailers, including Target Corp, are opening physical stores on Thanksgiving to make sure they don’t lose sales to online rivals.

“Consumers that would rather shop than watch 12 hours of football on Thanksgiving Day should be given the chance to shop,” Marshal Cohen of The NPD Group wrote in a blog on Thursday. “If online is open, why should brick-and-mortar close just to give away those precious shopping hours to the competition?”

Thanksgiving evening is where the action is online. By 3 p.m. EST last year online sales were up about 20 percent compared to the same period in 2010, according to IBM Software Group, a unit of International Business Machines Corp.

But by midnight PST on Thanksgiving 2011, online sales were up 39 percent versus the same period the previous year, IBM data show. Overall, November 2011 online sales rose 15.6 percent compared to the year-earlier period.

“Post-pie shopping this year will be fueled mostly by tablet shoppers, especially iPad users,” said Jay Henderson, global strategy director for IBM’s enterprise marketing management business.

In September and October, the iPad accounted for at least 7.5 percent of all traffic to retailers’ websites, beating out the iPhone with about 6 percent and Android devices at just over 4 percent, IBM data show.

“This is the first time the iPad has shown sustained leadership over all other mobile devices,” Henderson said.

Last Thanksgiving, retailers were surprised by the surge in tablet traffic in the evening. They also did not expect the devices would be used to complete so many purchases, instead expecting them to be browsing devices mostly, according to Steve Tack, chief technology officer for APM Solutions, a unit of Compuware Corp.

“Tablet users are not waiting for Black Friday or Cyber Monday to purchase, they are doing it on Thursday night on the couch in front of the game,” he said. “This is a significant new shopping event.”

This year, retailers are more prepared, he added.

Rue La La will launch an online boutique called “The Holiday Dash” at 8 p.m. EST on Thanksgiving, “specifically to go after the shopper who will be sitting at home after dinner on the couch,” CEO Fischman said.

More than half of Rue La La‘s sales over Thanksgiving, Black Friday and the following weekend will come from mobile devices. Half of those mobile purchases will be on an iPad, he said.

Fischman said the conversion rate on an iPad is close to double the conversion rate on a smart phone, meaning shoppers are more than twice as likely to purchase using the tablet device.

“The tablet offers the luxury of a larger screen with the convenience and portability of the phone,” Fischman said. “It’s the killer e-commerce device.”

Ideeli, a rival to Rue La La, plans a “Think Fast” online sales event at 6 p.m. EST on Thanksgiving to target tablet shoppers. Ideeli usually runs sales at noon every day.

Toys “R” Us, the largest toy retailer, launched a new tablet-optimized website on Tuesday and the company plans to make all its Black Friday deals available online at 8 p.m. EST on Thanksgiving.

HSN, which runs the Home Shopping Network and has traditionally focused on TV sales, on Tuesday unveiled an online holiday gift guide designed for tablet shoppers.

The company plans to send discounted deals to mobile shoppers on Thanksgiving.

“When people are done with the holiday meal and go back into the screen world, we will have great products on sale,” said Jill Braff, executive vice president of Digital Commerce at HSN.

(Reporting by Alistair Barr in San Francisco; additional reporting by Lisa Baertlein in Los Angeles; Editing by Phil Berlowitz)

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France urges Mali to step up talks with rebels

PARIS (AP) — France‘s president called Thursday for stepped-up talks between Mali’s government and any leaders from its breakaway north “who reject terrorism,” even as African nations geared up for a possible military operation against Islamic extremists there.

President Francois Hollande‘s comments suggested a growing openness to dialogue with the extremists, but he remained committed to supporting the military planning effort.

Northern Mali fell to Islamic extremists in April, after coup leaders toppled the government in Bamako, Mali‘s capital. Fearing that northern Mali could become the latest hotbed of terrorism, France has been a driving force in international efforts to bolster Mali’s army to drive the Islamists from power.

Hollande spoke with interim Mali President Dioncounda Traore by phone on Thursday, partly to detail European efforts to help strengthen Mali’s army.

In recent days, representatives from the most moderate of three al-Qaida-linked groups that control northern Mali have been meeting with Burkina Faso‘s president, appointed as a mediator.

“France reiterates its wish that political dialogue will intensify between Malian authorities and representatives of northern populations who reject terrorism,” Hollande’s office said in a statement. “The acceleration of this dialogue must accompany the progress in African military-planning efforts.”

Earlier this week, the African Union approved a plan that calls for 3,300 African troops to be deployed in order to win back Mali’s north. European countries including France and Germany have expressed a willingness to provide military trainers and logistics support, but have stopped short of committing combat troops.

France, like many European countries, fears that the arid, northern Sahel region of Mali could become a breeding ground for terrorism, where al-Qaida and its allies could plot hostage-takings and attacks in Europe or beyond.

France has millions of people whose families hail from former French colonies in north and west Africa. Authorities have long been concerned that French-born militants could travel abroad for terrorism training and return home later to possibly carry out attacks.

French authorities are already investigating two French citizens who were arrested in Mali and neighboring Niger and are suspected of seeking to join up with the al-Qaida-linked extremists, a judicial official told The Associated Press.

Ibrahim Ouattara, a 24-year-old native of the northern Paris suburb of Aubervilliers who has dual French and Malian nationality, was arrested inside Mali this month and remains in custody there, the official said.

Separately, a 27-year-old Frenchman was arrested in August in Niger and has since been handed over to authorities in France, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to discuss terrorism cases publicly.

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GOP-led states start warming up to health care law

WASHINGTON (AP) — From the South to the heartland, cracks are appearing in the once-solid wall of Republican resistance to President Barack Obama‘s health care law.

Ahead of a federal deadline Friday for states to declare their intentions, Associated Press reporters interviewed governors and state officials around the country, finding surprising openness to the changes in some cases. Opposition persists in others, and there is a widespread, urgent desire for answers on key unresolved details.

The law that Republicans have derided as “Obamacare” was devised in Washington, but it’s in the states that Americans will find out if it works, delivering promised coverage to more than 30 million uninsured people.

States have a major role to play in two of the overhaul’s main components: new online insurance markets for individuals and small businesses to shop for subsidized private coverage, and an expanded Medicaid program for low-income people.

Friday is the day states must declare if they’ll build the new insurance markets, called exchanges, or let Washington do it for them. States can also opt for a partnership with the feds to run their exchanges, and they have until February to decide on that option.

Some glimpses of grudging acceptance across a shifting scene:

— One of the most visible opponents of Obama’s overhaul, Florida Republican Gov. Rick Scott, now says “if I can get to ‘yes,’ I want to get to ‘yes.’”

Florida was a leader in the failed effort to overturn the law in the Supreme Court, and a group formed by Scott ran TV ads opposing it before it passed Congress. But the governor told the AP this week he wants to negotiate with the federal government to try to help the nearly 4 million uninsured people in his state.

— In Iowa, GOP Gov. Terry Branstad says he is postponing a decision because Washington has not provided enough information about key details. But his spokesman, Tim Albrecht, said Iowa is exploring a partnership exchange that could include several states. Albrecht said they’re confident they can get to a state option if needed.

Ohio, like Florida and Iowa a state Obama carried in the election, is leaning toward a partnership with the federal government despite GOP officials’ continued misgivings about the law.

— In Mississippi, Republican insurance commissioner Mike Chaney formally notified Washington on Wednesday that his agency will proceed with a state-run exchange, disappointing GOP Gov. Phil Bryant, who remains staunchly opposed to Obama’s law.

Chaney, too, says he wishes the law could be repealed, but he worries that “if you default to the federal government, you forever give the keys to the state’s health insurance market to the federal government.”

As for trying to fight the feds, Chaney observed: “We tried that 150 years ago in the South, and it doesn’t work.”

— In New Mexico, the administration of Republican Gov. Susana Martinez had been quietly working to put the law into place as the political storm swirled. With a fifth of its population uninsured, the state is planning to run its own exchange.

“The party is over. The opposition is over,” New Mexico Human Services Secretary Sidonie Squier told the AP. “Whatever states didn’t think they were going to do it, I think they’re going to have to do it whether they like it or not. It’s a done deal now.”

Policy experts in Washington are noticing the shift.

“I think it’s a very practical decision for states now,” said Alan Weil, executive director of the nonpartisan National Academy for State Health Policy. “We are going to have a significant number of states running their own exchanges, a significant number where the federal government is running the exchange, and a significant number of partnerships. The bottom line is we are going to have to figure out how to make all three models work.”

Although the public remains divided about the health care law, the idea of states running the new insurance markets is popular, especially with Republicans and political independents. A recent AP poll found that 63 percent of Americans would prefer states to run the exchanges, with 32 percent favoring federal control.

The breakdown among Republicans was 81-17 in favor of state control, while independents lined up 65-28 for states taking the lead. Democrats were almost evenly divided, with a slim majority favoring state control.

There are several potential benefits to a state operating its own exchange, experts say.

The biggest advantage may be that states would be more closely involved in coordinating between the exchanges and Medicaid programs. Because many people are going to be going back and forth between Medicaid and private coverage in the exchanges, states would probably be better served by a hands-on role.

States can also decide whether to allow open access to all insurers, or work only with a panel of pre-screened companies that meet certain requirements.

Also, the exchanges will offer coverage to people buying in the individual and small business markets, areas that states have traditionally regulated. Without a state-run exchange, states could be dealing their own regulators out of the equation, as Mississippi’s insurance commissioner Chaney noted.

When the legislation was being considered in Congress, Democrats in the House wanted to have a national exchange administered by the federal government. But they lost the argument with their centrist Democratic counterparts in the Senate, who wanted state exchanges in order to preserve a state role.

Despite signs of movement toward going along with implementation of the overhaul, some major Republican-led states are holding fast. In Texas, the election results did not change any of the opposition to expanding Medicaid or to setting up insurance exchanges. The same holds for Louisiana, South Carolina, Missouri, Kansas and others.

“Adding more people to an already sinking ship with money that is either being borrowed from China or coming out of taxpayers’ pockets is bad policy and bad for Texans,” said Catherine Frazier, spokeswoman for Gov. Rick Perry. Twenty-seven percent of that state’s residents are uninsured, the largest percentage for any state.

Many Republican state officials complain that the Obama administration simply hasn’t given them enough information. Indeed, several major regulations affecting the exchanges have yet to be released. But that doesn’t seem to have stopped states that made an early decision to proceed.

Virginia, a Republican-led state that voted for Obama on Nov. 6 and also elected a Democratic U.S. senator, is among those defaulting to Washington. But a spokesman for Gov. Bob McDonnell said things may change.

“This is not a final decision,” said Jeff Caldwell. “The fact is, states still need far more information before any final decisions can be made on behalf of Virginia’s taxpayers.” The final call, he added, belongs to the state Legislature.

___

Associated Press writers Gary Fineout and Kelli Kennedy in Florida, Grant Schulte in Nebraska, Ann Sanner in Ohio, Jeff Amy and Emily Wagster Pettus in Mississippi, Barry Massey in New Mexico and Chris Tomlinson in Texas contributed to this report.

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A father's anguish in Gaza

Jihad Misharawi carries his son’s body at a Gaza hospital. (AP)

Jihad Misharawi, a BBC Arabic correspondent who lives in Gaza, tragically became part of the story he's been covering on Wednesday, when an Israeli airstrike killed his 11-month-old son.

A chilling photo showing Misharawi carrying his son's body through al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City was published by the Associated Press and printed on the front page of Thursday's Washington Post.

According to Paul Danahar, the BBC's Middle East bureau chief, Misharawi's sister-in-law was also killed in the the airstrike that hit his home in Gaza. Misharawi's brother was also seriously wounded, Danahar said.

"This is a particularly difficult moment for the whole bureau in Gaza," BBC World editor Jon Williams wrote in a memo to colleagues. "We're fortunate to have such a committed and courageous team there. It's a sobering reminder of the challenges facing many of our colleagues."

At least 10 Palestinians, including Hamas military chief Ahmed al-Jabari, were killed during the Israeli airstrikes on Wednesday, Palestinians officials said.

Israel launched the operation targeting militants in response to successive days of rocket fire coming out of Gaza. Hamas, meanwhile, warned Jabari's assassination "had opened the gates of hell."

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Stars honor Veloso as Latin Grammys person of year

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Juanes, Juan Luis Guerra, Nelly Furtado and Natalie Cole are among the artists who celebrated Brazilian musician Caetano Veloso at a ceremony honoring him as the Latin Recording Academy‘s Person of the Year.

Veloso’s influence as a composer and activist also was the subject of a video featuring Sting and Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodovar that was shown at the tribute Wednesday at the MGM Garden Arena in Las Vegas.

Veloso said in the video that he never decided to become a musician, but fate and the circumstances of life in Brazil moved him in that direction.

Considered among the most influential Brazilian artists of modern times, the 70-year-old entertainer has recorded more than 40 albums, and won eight Latin Grammys and two Grammy Awards. With his eponymous 1968 album, Veloso launched a new style of music, tropicalia, that saw his Brazilian musical roots mixed with other contemporary styles, including blues, psychedelic rock and the sounds of the Beatles.

The movement comprised a new generation of artists, including Gilberto Gil, Gal Costa and Maria Bethania, who openly expressed political opinion in their music.

In accepting the honor, Veloso said, “It’s too much.”

The Latin Grammy Awards are scheduled to be presented Thursday at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas. The show will be broadcast live on Univision.

___

Online:

www.latingrammy.com

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Belize prime minister says McAfee “bonkers,” should help in murder case

BELIZE CITY (Reuters) – Belize‘s prime minister on Wednesday urged anti-virus software pioneer John McAfee to help the country’s police with a murder inquiry, calling McAfee “bonkers” for recent media statements.

“I don’t want to be unkind, but he seems to be extremely paranoid – I would go so far as to say bonkers,” Prime Minister Dean Barrow said in Belize City. “He ought to man up and respect our laws and go in and talk to the police.”

Belizean police want to question McAfee, 67, about the murder of his neighbor and fellow U.S. citizen, Gregory Viant Faull, 52, with whom McAfee had quarreled.

Police have been unable to track down McAfee since finding Faull dead on Sunday in his house on Ambergris Caye, an island off the coast. In an interview on Tuesday, McAfee said he had gone into hiding because he believed Belizean authorities were trying to frame him for Faull’s murder.

“You can say I’m paranoid about it, but they will kill me, there is no question. They’ve been trying to get me for months,” Wired magazine’s website quoted McAfee as saying. “I am not well liked by the prime minister.

According to the magazine, which has published details of several interviews with the entrepreneur, McAfee says he has been riding in boats, hunkering down on the floorboards of taxis, and sleeping in a bed that he said was infested with lice.

Since he went into hiding, McAfee has repeatedly told Wired he had nothing to do with Faull’s death. Explaining his actions, McAfee said he does not want to give himself up because he is afraid the authorities will torture or kill him.

But McAfee said they would track him down in the end. On Wednesday, the magazine said that McAfee claimed to have dyed his hair, eyebrows, beard, and mustache jet black.

“I’ll probably look like a murderer, unfortunately,” it quoted him as saying.

PUBLIC SPOTLIGHT

Barrow called McAfee’s statements “nonsense,” noting he had “never met the man” and that the media attention McAfee had attracted was offering him “the best possible safeguard.”

“It’s not as if the police have said he is a suspect and certainly there is no question at this point of charges pending,” Barrow said. “The fact that this is smeared across international headlines means the police would have to act extremely cautiously in the full glare of the public spotlight.”

McAfee, who invented the anti-virus software that bears his name, has homes and businesses in Belize, and is believed to have settled around 2010 in the tiny Central American nation bordered by Mexico and Guatemala.

There is already a case pending in Belize against McAfee for possession of illegal firearms, and police previously suspected him of running a lab to make the synthetic drug crystal meth.

On Wednesday, Belizean police said they had charged McAfee’s British bodyguard William Mulligan, 29, and Mulligan’s wife, Stefanie, 22, for having unlicensed weapons and ammunition.

Barrow rejected statements made by McAfee and an associate that the software pioneer was being targeted for refusing to donate to Belize’s ruling United Democratic Party (UDP) to help fund its successful re-election bid in March.

“I know of no individual in the UDP who has spoken to McAfee about contributions,” Barrow said.

McAfee was one of Silicon Valley’s first entrepreneurs to build an Internet fortune. The ex-Lockheed systems consultant started McAfee Associates in 1989. He now has no relationship with the company, which was sold to Intel Corp.

(Writing by Gabriel Stargardter; Editing by Dave Graham and Eric Walsh)

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Egypt recalls envoy to Israel after Gaza strike

CAIRO (AP) — Egypt has recalled its ambassador to Israel after an Israeli airstrike killed the military commander of Gaza‘s ruling Hamas.

In a statement read on state TV late Wednesday, spokesman Yasser Ali said that President Mohammed Morsi recalled the ambassador and asked the Arab League‘s Secretary General to convene an emergency ministerial meeting in the wake of the Gaza violence.

Morsi also called for an immediate cease fire between Israel and Hamas, an offshoot of Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood. Israel says it struck in response to rocket attacks from Gaza.

Hours earlier, Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood group denounced the Israeli airstrike as a “crime that requires a quick Arab and international response to stem these massacres.”

Relations between Israel and Egypt have deteriorated since longtime President Hosni Mubarak was ousted last year.

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EU approves Bristol-Astra diabetes drug after U.S. rejection

(Reuters) – European regulators have approved the first in a new class of diabetes medicines that work independently of insulin to control blood sugar, the drug’s developers Bristol-Myers Squibb Co and AstraZeneca Plc said on Wednesday.

The approval of Forxiga by the European Commission stands in stark contrast to the rejection of the drug in January by U.S. regulators, who cited concerns about the risk of cancer and liver injury and asked for more clinical data on the once-daily tablets.

The European Medicines Agency in April said it was satisfied those issues had been addressed in the drug’s product label and via a risk management plan for the medicine. But many industry analysts believe the drug’s dim prospects in the larger U.S. market will sharply curtail its potential sales.

The European Commission on Wednesday approved Forxiga, which works by blocking a protein called SGLT2, or sodium-glucose cotransporter 2. It is meant to be used in combination with other treatments for type 2 diabetes, including insulin, or as a standalone treatment for patients who cannot tolerate the widely used oral treatment metformin.

Bristol-Myers and AstraZeneca said Forxiga in clinical trials was associated with a low risk of hypoglycemia, a side effect of many diabetes drugs in which blood sugar drops to levels that cause fainting and other dangerous complications.

Use of the drug in clinical trials was also associated with weight loss and declines in systolic blood pressure.

Johnson & Johnson is awaiting approval of its own SGLT2 inhibitor, canagliflozin. Like Forxiga, it blocks reabsorption of glucose by the kidney and increases glucose excretion in the urine to lower blood sugar, and is also associated with drops in body weight and blood pressure.

Shares of Bristol-Myers slipped 0.8 percent to $ 31.60, while AstraZeneca fell 0.6 percent, both on the New York Stock Exchange, amid similar declines for the broad stock market.

(Reporting By Ransdell Pierson; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)

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Obama warns GOP to lay off Rice attacks

President Barack Obama speaks at his first news conference since his reelection. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)President Barack Obama bluntly told John McCain and other Republicans to lay off their attacks against U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice over the Benghazi assault, telling lawmakers that if they go after her "then you have a problem with me." And Obama, speaking at his first post-election press conference, vowed that Republican opposition would not dissuade him from nominating Rice to replace departing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

"I don't think there's any debate in this country that when you have four Americans killed that's a problem," he told reporters in the East Room of the White House. "And we've go to get to the bottom of it, and there needs to be accountability, we've got to bring those who carried it out to justice --they won't get any debate from me on that."

"But when they go after the U.N. ambassador, apparently because they think she's an easy target, then they've got a problem with me," he warned.

McCain, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, and some other Republicans have signaled they will oppose Rice's confirmation if Obama nominates her. Their numbers thus far seem far short of the 40 needed to block it, and some Republican senators have signaled that she should get a fair hearing.

"Let me say specifically about Susan Rice: She has done exemplary work. She has represented the United States and our interests in the United Nations with skill, and professionalism, and toughness, and grace," Obama said.

"And should I choose, if I think that she would be the best person to serve America in the capacity of the State Department, then I will nominate her," he vowed. "That's not a determination that I've made yet."

Rice and Democratic Senator John Kerry, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, are seen as the front-runners in the race to succeed Clinton.

Conservatives have assailed Rice, who is close to Obama, ever since she made the rounds of the Sunday morning talk shows and said that American intelligence believed that the attack on the American compound in Benghazi, which claimed the lives of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans, grew out of demonstrations against an Internet video that ridicules Islam.

"As that unfolded, it seems to have been hijacked, let us say, by some individual clusters of extremists who came with heavier weapons, weapons that, as you know, in the wake of the revolution in Libya are quite common and accessible. And it then evolved from there," she told ABC.

Republicans have seized on some of her other comments suggesting that the attack grew out of a "spontaneous, not premeditated" demonstration in response to the Internet video -- there was no demonstration. White House aides have said that Rice was speaking based on the best available intelligence at the time.

"She made an appearance at the request of the White House in which she gave her best understanding of the intelligence provided to her," Obama said Wednesday. "If Senator McCain and Senator Graham want to go after somebody, they should go after me."

"But for them to go after the U.N. ambassador, who had nothing to do with Benghazi, and was simply making a presentation based on intelligence that she had received, and to besmirch her reputation is outrageous," he said.

"We're after an election now," he scolded. "I think it is important for us to find out exactly what happened in Benghazi, and I'm happy to cooperate in any ways that Congress wants. We have provided every bit of information that we have and we will continue to provide information and we've got a full-blown investigation. And all that information will be disgorged to Congress."

Graham, who represents South Carolina, hit back quickly.

"Mr. President, don't think for one minute I don't hold you ultimately responsible for Benghazi.  I think you failed as Commander in Chief before, during, and after the attack," he said in a statement released by his office.

"We owe it to the American people and the victims of this attack to have full, fair hearings and accountability be assigned where appropriate. Given what I know now, I have no intention of promoting anyone who is up to their eyeballs in the Benghazi debacle," Graham said.

Obama opened what was his first press conference in months — and first since the election that gave him a second term — with a vow to work with both parties in Congress to tackle the so-called "fiscal cliff" and revive the economy. He also said he had "no evidence" that the scandal that led David Petraeus to resign in disgrace from his job as CIA director had led to breaches in classified national security material.

"Right now our economy is still recovering from a very deep and damaging crisis, so our top priority has to be jobs and growth," Obama said in opening remarks in the East Room of the White House.

"Both parties can work together" to address the fiscal challenges "in a balanced and responsible way," he said, before pushing Republicans to sign on to his call for raising taxes on the richest Americans.

In response to the first question, regarding Petraeus, Obama said he had "no evidence at this point from what I've seen" that there had been any national security breaches. And the president praised the retired general, saying "we are safer because of the work Dave Petraeus has done."

Asked later for his appraisal of the FBI's work in bringing to light the marital infidelity that Petraeus cited in his resignation message, and why he learned of the probe only earlier this month, Obama said "I am withholding judgment" on that process but expressed "a lot of confidence generally in the FBI."

Turning to his tax battle with Republicans, Obama stuck by his vow to oppose any legislation that extends the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthiest two percent of Americans. The president, asked why he had agreed to extend them in the 2010 lame duck session of Congress, said that "was a one-time proposition" and that "we cannot afford" to do so again.

Obama said he would be willing to look at raising tax revenues by closing loopholes but said that "the math tends not to work" when it comes to making up that way for extending the tax rate reductions on income above $250,000. And he reiterated that he does not want a stopgap agreement with Congress.

"I want a big deal, I want a comprehensive deal," he said. "Fair-minded people can come to an agreement."

Obama, who won the Latino vote by a lopsided margin, also vowed to pursue comprehensive immigration reform in his second term.

"We need to seize the moment," he said, predicting that "we will have a bill introduced and we begin the process in Congress very soon after my inauguration."

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Clapton platinum watch nets $3.6 million at auction

GENEVA (Reuters) – An Asian collector bought a platinum chronograph Patek Philippe wristwatch owned by British rock guitarist Eric Clapton for 3.44 million Swiss francs ($ 3.63 million) at auction on Monday, Christie’s said.

The “ultra-rare” reference 2499/100 by the Swiss luxury watchmaker, one of only two cased in platinum, was acquired by Clapton some 10 years ago, it said.

It fetched a combined hammer price and commission that was in line with Christie’s pre-sale estimate of 2.5-4.0 million francs while also setting a world record price for this reference at auction, it said in a statement on its semi-annual Geneva sale.

“The Eric Clapton watch was bought by an Asian private collector,” Christie’s spokesman Cristiano de Lorenzo told Reuters, adding that the buyer had been in the room.

But the top lot at the seven-hour sale was another platinum chronograph Patek Philippe, reference 2458, made in 1952 for legendary American collector J.B. Champion. It fetched nearly 3.78 million Swiss francs and set a world record for a watch without complications, or features beyond the display of hours, minutes and seconds, it said.

Precious Time, an investment watch fund launched by Luxembourg-based Elite Advisers, was the buyer, Christie’s said in a statement.

In all, 96 percent of the 315 lots on offer found new owners, netting 27.04 million Swiss francs ($ 28.52 million), the auction house owned by French billionaire Francois Pinault said.

Clapton’s Patek Philippe, made in the Swiss city in 1987, has a perpetual calendar with moon phases, as well as windows for day and month and dials for seconds and minutes.

Most experts would rank it among the world’s 10 most significant wristwatches that stand out for historical importance, mechanical complexity, beauty, original condition, rarity and superior provenance, Aurel Bacs, international head of Christie’s watch department, said before conducting the sale.

Clapton, the former Cream musician, last year sold more than 70 of his guitars at a charity auction in New York, raising $ 2.15 million for the Crossroads Centre drug and alcohol rehabilitation centre that he founded in Antigua.

Last month in London he sold an abstract painting by German artist Gerhard Richter at rival Sotheby’s for $ 34.2 million, setting a new record for the price paid at auction for the work of a living artist.

Antiquorum’s sale of modern and vintage timepieces, held in Geneva on Sunday evening, netted 8.63 million Swiss francs ($ 9.10 million) for 485 lots sold out of 613 on offer, it said in a statement issued on Monday,

The top lot was a Rolex Single Red Prototype, known as the Sea Dweller Submariner, one of only six produced in 1967 for use by divers. It sold for 490,900 Swiss francs — four time its pre-sale estimate – in its first appearance at auction.

“It is the highest price ever paid for a Rolex sport watch and for a Sea Dweller,” Antiquorum said.

($ 1 = 0.9482 Swiss francs)

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; editing by Patricia Reaney)

Music News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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