Top Canada court upholds anti-terrorism law in unanimous ruling

OTTAWA (Reuters) – Canada‘s Supreme Court on Friday upheld an anti-terrorism law enacted after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, ruling unanimously that those who choose to engage in terrorism must “pay a very heavy price.”

The law’s constitutionality was challenged by Mohammad Momin Khawaja, convicted in Canada of terrorism for involvement with a British group that had plotted unsuccessfully to set off bombs in London.

It was also challenged by two men accused of terrorism by the United States for trying to buy missiles or weapons technology for the Sri Lankan Tamil Tigers.

The court rejected arguments that the law’s definition of terrorism was overly broad. It upheld Khawaja’s life sentence and confirmed the orders to extradite the other two to the United States.

Khawaja, a Canadian of Pakistani descent, was the first to be convicted under the law. He was sentenced in 2008 to 10-1/2 years in prison, and his sentence was then extended to life after appeal by the government.

The trial judge noted that Khawaja referred to Osama Bin Laden as “the most beloved person to me in the … whole world, after Allah.” He was found to have participated in a terrorism training camp in Pakistan and to have designed a device dubbed the “hi fi digimonster” for detonating bombs.

“The appellant was a willing participant in a terrorist group,” Supreme Court Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin wrote in the 7-0 decision, adding that he was “apparently remorseless.”

“He was committed to bringing death on all those opposed to his extremist ideology and took many steps to provide support to the group. The bomb detonators he attempted to build would have killed many civilians had his plans succeeded.”

The law applies to any act committed for a political, religious or ideological purpose with the intention of intimidating the public by causing death or serious bodily harm, or substantial property damage, or causing serious interference with an essential service.

The court also ruled that Canada can proceed to extradite two men the United States has accused of involvement with the Tamil Tigers, which waged a bloody war for independence in Sri Lanka and is considered a terrorist organization by Washington and Ottawa.

The Canadian government declined to comment on when they would be extradited.

Piratheepan Nadarajah was alleged to have tried to purchase surface-to-air missiles and AK-47 assault rifles for the Tamil Tigers from an undercover officer posing as a black-market arms dealer on Long Island, New York.

The other man, Suresh Sriskandarajah, was alleged to have helped Tamil Tigers get electronic equipment, submarine and warship design software and communications equipment.

They surrendered to the government ahead of the court decision, their lawyers said.

BEYOND ‘LEGITIMATE EXPRESSION’

The court disagreed that the federal law’s terrorism provisions had put a chilling effect on Canadians’ freedom of expression and was disproportionately broad.

“Only individuals who go well beyond the legitimate expression of a political, religious or ideological thought, belief or opinion, and instead engage in one of the serious forms of violence – or threaten one of the serious forms of violence – listed (in the law) need fear liability under the terrorism provisions of the Criminal Code,” McLachlin wrote.

She quoted with approval the appeals court decision in the Khawaja case that faulted the Ottawa trial judge’s sentence for failing to send a “clear and unmistakable message that terrorism is reprehensible and those who choose to engage in it will pay a very heavy price.”

The original sentence of 10-1/2 years does “not approach an adequate sentence for such acts,” she concluded.

Khawaja’s lawyer, Lawrence Greenspon, said it was a “terrible day” for his client and said too often people were investigated or prosecuted for their religious or political beliefs.

“It’s a … very unfortunate ruling for minorities in this country, and we’re extremely disappointed with the result,” he told reporters in the foyer of the Supreme Court.

Justice Minister Rob Nicholson said the decision was important as Canada was not immune to the threat of terrorism. “The court sent a strong message that terrorism will not be treated leniently in Canada,” he said.

The cases are Mohammad Momin Khawaja v. Her Majesty the Queen. (Ont) (34103); Suresh Sriskandarajah v. United States of America, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada (34009), Piratheepan Nadarajah v. United States of America, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada (34013).

(Additional reporting by Louise Egan; Editing by Jackie Frank and Xavier Briand)

Canada News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Valve Confirms New Game Console on Its Way

In an interview with Kotaku’s Jason Schreier at the Spike TV Video Game Awards, Valve co-founder Gabe Newell confirmed that a “living-room-friendly PC package,” designed to “compete with next-gen consoles from companies like Microsoft and Sony,” will be available for purchase starting next year.

What makes a PC a PC

Most of the machines Newell described, which he expected “companies” would “start selling” next year, would be powered by Microsoft Windows like normal PCs. However, they would be more like home theater PCs than regular computers; they would be designed to fit in the living room and plug into an HDTV, and they would use a much-simplified interface which eschews pointing and clicking in favor of using a game controller.

Getting the (Big) Picture

That interface is Steam’s Big Picture mode, launched last week as a free upgrade to the Steam digital store. Gamers can click a button on the Steam window to be taken to a screen much like an Xbox 360′s dashboard or PlayStation 3′s XMB, where they can use a game controller to buy things from the store and play their installed games.

Games which can be played using only a controller get special branding and status in Big Picture mode. Steam held an enormous sale to promote such games when Big Picture mode launched, including titles like Sonic Generations which are also available on game consoles.

Steam-powered penguins?

Besides Big Picture mode, Valve’s other big project as of late has been porting Steam to Linux, starting with the popular Ubuntu version. The Linux version of Steam, currently in beta, also supports Big Picture mode. Newell said in the interview that a working Linux version would “give Valve more flexibility when developing their own hardware,” and dozens of games are already available for Linux gamers on Steam.

What will this hardware look like?

Newell’s talk of “companies” making computers like this suggests a Valve-created standard, like the Intel ultrabook or like Google’s requirements for Android devices, which PC manufacturers would have to adhere to. He also talked about Valve making its own hardware, which might be similar to Google’s Nexus lineup of tablets and smartphones.

Besides that, these game console style PCs won’t be as “malleable” as a normal computer, according to Newell. Like with today’s laptops, it may be difficult or impossible to get at the internals and upgrade parts, the way dedicated PC gamers like to do with their machines.

How much will these machines cost?

Newell’s statement that they will compete with “next-gen” consoles from Sony and Microsoft, which probably means the long-awaited new PlayStation and Xbox consoles expected next year, implies that they will be cost-competitive in some way. Gaming PCs typically have prices starting at $ 600 – $ 800 at the very lowest, while the PlayStation 3′s $ 599 USD launch price made it a pariah of the game console world for years. A Steam-powered game console may have to invent its own price bracket.

However, the original Xbox was basically an Intel Celeron PC with a custom-made case. So it’s possible that Steam has a similar plan in mind.

Jared Spurbeck is an open-source software enthusiast, who uses an Android phone and an Ubuntu laptop PC. He has been writing about technology and electronics since 2008.
Linux/Open Source News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Amanda Bynes enters settlement in hit-and-run case

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Actress Amanda Bynes has resolved a misdemeanor hit-and-run case after entering into a civil settlement with other drivers.

Court records show Bynes entered a civil compromise to end the case and her attorney informed a Los Angeles court on Thursday. Bynes was charged with leaving the scene of accidents in April and August without providing the proper information.

Defendants in certain California misdemeanor cases are allowed to enter civil settlements to resolve criminal cases.

City Attorney’s spokesman Frank Mateljan (mah-tell-JIN’) says prosecutors objected to the dismissal, noting other instances in which Bynes has been cited for driving without a license and her pending driving under the influence case.

Bynes rose to fame starring in Nickelodeon’s “All That” and has also starred in several films, including 2010′s “Easy A.”

Entertainment News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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President’s pot comments prompts call for policy

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Medical marijuana advocates are taking some solace from President Obama‘s statement that prosecuting individual users in Colorado and Washington is not a priority, but they want assurances that federal crackdowns on big pot dispensaries will end in California and other states.

Local and state officials, meanwhile, called on the administration to clarify its enforcement policy in states with marijuana laws.

Obama said federal authorities would leave alone individual users in Colorado and Washington, states that legalized recreational marijuana use.

Still, federal officials said they will continue to try to shut down big commercial pot operations, whether they operate under state medical marijuana laws or not. The federal government is planning to soon release policies for dealing with marijuana in Colorado and Washington, where pot is now legal under state law.

Health News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Police, world wonder about Conn. shooting motive

NEWTOWN, Conn. (AP) — The massacre of 26 children and adults at a Connecticut elementary school elicited horror and soul-searching around the world even as it raised more basic questions about why the gunman, a 20-year-old described as brilliant but remote, would have been driven to such a crime and how he chose his victims.

Investigators were trying to learn more about the gunman, Adam Lanza, and questioned his older brother, who is not believed to have been involved in the rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary. Police shed no light on the motive for the nation's second-deadliest school shooting.

In tight-knit Newtown on Friday night, hundreds of people packed St. Rose of Lima church and stood outside in a vigil for the 28 dead — 20 children and six adults at the school, the gunman's mother at home, and the gunman himself, who committed suicide. People held hands, lit candles and sang "Silent Night."

"These 20 children were just beautiful, beautiful children," Monsignor Robert Weiss said. "These 20 children lit up this community better than all these Christmas lights we have. ... There are a lot brighter stars up there tonight because of these kids."

Lanza is believed to have suffered from a personality disorder and lived with his mother, said a law enforcement official who was briefed on the investigation.

Lanza shot his mother, Nancy Lanza, drove to the school in her car with at least three guns, including a high-powered rifle that he apparently left in the back of the vehicle, and shot up two classrooms around 9:30 a.m. Friday, law enforcement officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

A custodian ran through the halls, warning of a gunman, and someone switched on the intercom, perhaps saving many lives by letting them hear the chaos in the school office, a teacher said. Teachers locked their doors and ordered children to huddle in a corner or hide in closets as shots echoed through the building.

The well-liked principal, Dawn Hochsprung, was believed to be among the dead. A woman who worked at the school was wounded. An update on victims' identities was possible Saturday morning, state police Lt. Paul Vance said Friday evening.

A law enforcement official speaking on condition of anonymity said investigators believe Lanza attended the school several years ago but appeared to have no recent connection to it.

At least one parent said Lanza's mother was a substitute teacher there. But her name did not appear on a staff list. And the official said investigators were unable to establish any connection so far between her and the school.

Lanza's older brother, 24-year-old Ryan Lanza, of Hoboken, N.J., was questioned, but a law enforcement official said he was not believed to have had a role in the rampage. Investigators were searching his computers and phone records, but he told law enforcement he had not been in touch with his brother since about 2010.

The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the unfolding investigation.

At one point, a law enforcement official mistakenly identified the gunman as Ryan Lanza. Brett Wilshe, a friend of Ryan Lanza's, said Lanza told him the gunman may have had his identification. Ryan Lanza apparently posted Facebook page updates Friday afternoon that read, "It wasn't me" and "I was at work."

For about two hours late Friday and early Saturday, clergy members and emergency vehicles moved steadily to and from the school. The state medical examiner's office said bodies of the victims would be taken there eventually for autopsies.

At least three guns were found — a Glock and a Sig Sauer, both pistols, inside the school, and a .223-caliber rifle in the back of a car, authorities said. A law enforcement official speaking on condition of anonymity said some of the guns used in the attack may have belonged to Lanza's family. His mother had legally registered four weapons, his father two.

Authorities also recovered three other guns — a Henry repeating rifle, an Enfield rifle and a shotgun. It was not clear exactly where those weapons were found.

Adam Lanza and his mother lived in a well-to-do part of prosperous Newtown, about 60 miles northeast of New York City, where neighbors are doctors or hold white-collar positions at companies such as General Electric, Pepsi and IBM.

Lanza's parents filed for divorce in 2008, according to court records. His father, Peter Lanza, lives in Stamford, Conn., and works as a tax director for General Electric.

The gunman's aunt Marsha Lanza, of Crystal Lake, Ill., said her nephew was raised by kind, nurturing parents who would not have hesitated to seek mental help for him if he needed it.

"Nancy wasn't one to deny reality," Marsha Lanza said, adding her husband had seen Adam as recently as June and recalled nothing out of the ordinary.

Catherine Urso, of Newtown, said her college-age son knew the killer and remembered him for his alternative style. "He just said he was very thin, very remote and was one of the goths," she said.

Adam Lanza attended Newtown High School, and several news clippings from recent years mention his name among the honor roll students.

Joshua Milas, who graduated from Newtown High in 2009 and belonged to the school technology club with him, said Adam Lanza was generally a happy person but that he hadn't seen him in a few years.

"We would hang out, and he was a good kid. He was smart," Joshua Milas said. "He was probably one of the smartest kids I know. He was probably a genius."

An official who spoke on condition of anonymity said it was not clear that Adam Lanza had a job, and there was no indication of law enforcement interviews or search warrants at a place of business.

The mass shooting is one of the deadliest in U.S. history, and among school attacks is second in victims only to the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre, which left 33 people dead, including the gunman. Reaction was swift and emotional in Newtown, a picturesque New England community of 27,000 people, as well as across the country and around the world.

"It has to stop, these senseless deaths," said Frank DeAngelis, principal of Colorado's Columbine High School, where a massacre in 1999 killed 15 people.

In Washington, the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence organized a vigil at the White House, with some protesters chanting, "Today IS the day" to take steps to curb gun violence. In New York's Times Square, a few dozen people held tea lights in plastic cups, with one woman holding a sign that read: "Take a moment and candle to remember the victims of the Newtown shooting."

President Barack Obama's comments on the tragedy amounted to one of the most outwardly emotional moments of his presidency.

"The majority of those who died were children — beautiful little kids between the ages of 5 and 10 years old," Obama said at a White House news briefing. He paused for several seconds to keep his composure as he teared up and wiped an eye. Nearby, two aides cried and held hands.

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard described the attack as a "senseless and incomprehensible act of evil."

"Like President Obama and his fellow Americans, our hearts too are broken," Gillard said in a statement.

In Japan, where guns are severely restricted and there are extremely few gun-related crimes, the attack led the news two days before nationwide parliamentary elections. In China, which has seen several knife rampages at schools in recent years, the attack quickly consumed public discussion.

At the Newtown vigil, Anthony Bloss, whose three daughters survived, said they are doing better than he. "I'm numb. I'm completely numb," he said.

Panicked parents looking for their children had raced earlier in the day to Sandy Hook, a kindergarten-through-fourth-grade school where police told youngsters to close their eyes as they were led from the building so that they wouldn't see the blood and broken glass.

Schoolchildren — some crying, many looking frightened — were escorted through a parking lot in a line, hands on one another's shoulders.

Robert Licata said his 6-year-old son was in class when the gunman burst in and shot the teacher. "That's when my son grabbed a bunch of his friends and ran out the door," he said. "He was very brave. He waited for his friends."

He said the shooter didn't utter a word.

Kaitlin Roig, a teacher at the school, said she implored her students to be quiet.

"I told them we had to be absolutely quiet. Because I was just so afraid if he did come in, then he would hear us and just start shooting the door. I said we have to be absolutely quiet. And I said there are bad guys out there now and we need to wait for the good guys to come get us out," Roig told ABC News.

"If they started crying, I would take their face and say it's going to be OK. Show me your smile," she said. "They said, we want to go home for Christmas. Yes, yeah. I just want to hug my mom, things like that, that were just heartbreaking."

___

Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Pat Eaton-Robb and Matt Apuzzo and videographer Robert Ray in Newtown; Bridget Murphy in Boston; Samantha Henry in Newark, N.J.; Pete Yost in Washington; Michael Melia in Hartford; and the AP News Research Center in New York.

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UPDATE 3-Cricket-Hughes shines as Australia reach 299-4

* Hughes falls just short of century

* Clarke and Hussey combine for 101

* Welegedera takes 3-99 (Adds quotes)

HOBART, Dec 14 (Reuters) – Phil Hughes made a solid 86 on his return to test cricket before Michael Clarke and Mike Hussey took up the running and steered Australia to 299 for four at close of play on the first day of the first test against Sri Lanka on Friday.

Hughes was the only batsmen to fall in the final session, lasting only a couple of overs after lunch before being bowled through the gate by Chanaka Welegedera, giving the Sri Lankan seamer his third wicket of the day.

Clarke, who had made 70 not out, and Hussey, unbeaten on 37, batted through the remainder of the day and if the evidence of their prolific partnerships in the recent series against South Africa is anything to go by, will take some shifting.

“Overall, 299 for four puts the ball in our court,” said Hughes. “I thought we were outstanding today. It really gives us momentum going into tomorrow.”

Sri Lanka’s bowlers, dubbed this week as the worst pace attack ever to tour Australia by former test bowler Rodney Hogg, made life uncomfortable for the batsmen at times but struggled for any real penetration under cloudy skies at Bellerive Oval.

“I think we showed we can put Australia under pressure and hopefully the bowlers will be fresh in the morning and we can get them out for less than 100 additional runs,” said Welegedera, who finished with 3-99 on his return after nine months out injured.

Clarke, who passed 1,400 runs for the year, has now put on 731 runs in partnerships with Hussey in the last four tests and will be looking to plunder a few more on Saturday despite taking a couple of painful knocks to his legs.

Friday, however, belonged to Hughes.

The lefthander was recalled to the side on the back of good domestic form following the retirement of Ricky Ponting at the end of the series against the Proteas.

The 24-year-old reached his fourth test half century with a square drive for three runs and then initially accelerated towards a century, most notably with an ugly but effective slog for six off spinner Rangana Herath.

CALAMITOUS RUNOUT

On the ground where his second spell as a test batsman ended amid questions about his technique after two failures against New Zealand last year, Hughes scored eight fours and one six in his 166-ball knock before Welegedera struck with a superb ball.

“It was nice to get a few,” he said. “It would have been nice to get a few more and get into three figures.”

Australia had lost openers Ed Cowan (four) and David Warner in the opening session, the latter run out for 57 on the stroke of lunch after a calamitous misunderstanding with Hughes.

Shane Watson, dropping down to fourth in the batting order to allow Hughes to come in at number three, followed them to the pavilion for 30 shortly before tea, the victim of an exceptional diving catch in the slips by skipper Mahela Jayawardene.

That was a second wicket for Welegedera and a measure of redemption for the bowler after he had Hughes caught behind for 77 only for the umpire to call a no ball.

Welegedera had also made the early breakthrough for the tourists when Cowan tried to pull a short delivery only for the ball to catch him high on the bat and carry to mid-on where Shaminda Eranga took a simple catch.

It could have been even better for the Sri Lankans, who were only centimetres away from the perfect start to the morning after Clarke had won the toss and elected to bat.

Cowan edged the second delivery of the day from Nuwan Kulasekara to the slips but Angelo Mathews was just unable to get his hands to it, despite an athletic dive. (Editing by Peter Rutherford)

Australia / Antarctica News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Sweet and Lowe: How a captivating Twitter feed sealed Rob Lowe’s comeback

By Virginia Heffernan

@RobLowe follows 135 people on Twitter. Among them is not @HilaryASwank, the Oscar-winning ex-wife of his brother, @ichadlowe.

@RobLowe does, however, follow @ikimlowe, the new wife of his brother, who helpfully identifies herself on the site as “wife of @ichadlowe.” Would @HilaryASwank, a formidable actor who does not use Twitter very often, have consented to live in her lesser-known husband’s Twitter shadow? Perhaps not. Perhaps that’s why they div—

But what am I doing? This is where Twitter can lead a person: to deranged, speculative pointless nosiness. To mindlessly customizing a version of Us Weekly magazine by reading between the Twitter lines of who follows whom, who tags whom, who seeks whose attention with tags and hashtags.

So forget that. I’m just going to keep following @RobLowe. His Twitter feed is one for the ages, and he’s on a tear, having just hit half a million followers. And I swear I follow Rob Lowe for the epigrams and jokes—why else?—though, yes, I once had a poster of the matinee idol from “St. Elmo’s Fire” on my wall. (But only because I learned that science had proven that he and Jaclyn Smith were the most perfectly symmetrical, beautiful humans ever to exist—and who ever would exist. It was a duty of citizenship in the human race to have a poster!)

Not long after “St. Elmo’s Fire,” @RobLowe, the record reflects, had a speedy fall after an early-adopter DIY sex tape (1988! Paris Hilton’s was not ’til 2003!). As Lowe’s first-rate autobiography reports, this was part of a bigger personal unraveling into promiscuity and dissipation on an NBA/Lohan scale. Eventually Lowe found deliverance in sobriety (which he names as one of his interests on Twitter) and the love of a good woman, @Sheryl_Lowe (business) or @Sheryllowe61 (personal).

Lowe also evidently found something in Twitter. As his career has done more than rebound—it has fully realized itself, with his comic-stilted-earnest-inimitable performances on “The West Wing,” “Brothers & Sisters” and, now, “Parks and Recreation”—he has built a sturdy and complementary Twitter feed.

Lowe’s Twitter presence seals his comeback. It is freewheeling, wide-ranging and among his best work. The onetime incorrigible gadfly, who might have died outside the Viper Room like River Phoenix or been left howling at the moon like Charlie Sheen, now knows who he is, has a gift for observational humor and lives his life with something that looks like joy.

Lowe recently retweeted this observation from the Telegraph’s Damian Thompson:

More:

Another Lowe tweet:

Which of us–especially those of us who were born in the 1960s–doesn’t feel like saying that aloud every year?

And speaking of Lowe’s vintage, it’s appealing that he’s not afraid to use our generation’s corny locutions on young-skewing Twitter. As he put it recently:

The merciless “pumped” kills me. Do people never leave the slang (or bands?) of their 20s? Lowe is big on “dude,” too.

At the same time, Lowe seems to enjoy aging:

He wrote this last month, referring to Chris Traeger, his character on “Parks and Recreation,” who exercises without cease, gunning for eternal life. In Traeger’s intense specificity—his needs in beverages, for example, are so idiosyncratic as to require paragraphs of instructions—he is a perfect new-sitcom archetype. One thing he is not is cool.

And neither is Lowe cool in his Twitter feed. Often he is sending out blessings to his followers or his family, or reveling in mere existence, with the hashtag #LoveLife. Lowe’s autobiography makes clear that the Handsome Man, a cultural slot in which he found himself early on, invites way too much resentment if he doesn’t start spoofing himself with gusto. It’s imperative he find the joke in life, and the dignity in himself, or he’ll yield to prettiness and silliness, as well as drugs and sex tapes.

Look on that @RobLowe Twitter feed, and learn from it, ye handsome millennials!

Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Tolkien class at Wis. university proves popular

MILWAUKEE (AP) — The vast collection of J.R.R. Tolkien manuscripts initially sold senior Joe Kirchoff on Marquette University, so when the school offered its first course devoted exclusively to the English author, Kirchoff wanted in. The only problem: It was full and he wasn’t on the literature track.

Undaunted, the 22-year-old political science and history major lobbied the English department and others starting last spring and through the summer and “kind of just made myself a problem,” he said. His persistence paid off.

“It’s a fantastic course,” said Kirchoff, a Chicago native. “It’s a great way to look at something that’s such a creative work of genius in such a way you really come to understand the man behind it.”

He and the 31 other students can now boast of their authority about the author who influenced much of today’s high fantasy writing. The course was taught for the first time this fall as part of the university’s celebration of the 75th anniversary of “The Hobbit” being published. And class wrapped up just before the film, “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,” was released Friday.

The class, which filled up fast with mostly seniors who had first dibs, looked at Tolkien as a whole, not just the popular “Lord of the Rings” and “The Hobbit.” Students took their final exam this week, and the course was so well received, Marquette is considering more in the future.

“It’s the best class I’ve had in 27 years here … for student preparation, interest and enthusiasm,” said English professor Tim Machan. “And I can throw out any topic and they will have read the material and they want to talk about the material.”

Marquette is one of the main repositories of Tolkien’s drafts, drawings and other writings — more than 11,000 pages. It has the manuscripts for “The Lord of the Rings” and “The Hobbit,” as well as his lesser-known “Farmer Giles of Ham” and his children’s book “Mr. Bliss.” Marquette was the first institution to ask Tolkien for the manuscripts in 1956 and paid him about $ 5,000. He died in 1973.

Other significant collections are at the Bodleian Library at Oxford University in England and Wheaton College in Illinois.

Though Tolkien classes aren’t unusual nationwide, Marquette students had the added bonus of being able to visit Tolkien’s revisions, notes, detailed calendars, maps and watercolors on site at the school’s archive. And they got a lesson from the school’s archivist Bill Fliss.

“One of the things we wanted to impress upon the students was the fact that Tolkien was a fanatical reviser,” said Fliss said. “He never really did anything once and was finished with it.”

Chrissy Wabiszewski, a senior English major, described Tolkien’s manuscripts as art.

“When you get down and look at just his script and his artwork in general, it all kind of flows together in this really beautiful, like, cumulative form,” Wabiszewski said. “It’s cool. It is just really cool to have it here.”

The class also looked at Tolkien’s poetry, academic articles and translations of medieval poems; talked about the importance of his writers’ group, the Inklings; and explored what it meant to be a writer at that time.

“We’ve … tried to think about continuities that ran through everything he did,” Machan said. His students were also required to go to three lectures that were part of Marquette’s commemoration.

“The Hobbit,” a tale of homebody Bilbo Baggins’ journey, is set in Tolkien’s fictional realm of Middle-earth and takes place 60 years before “The Lord of the Rings.” The movie released Friday is the first of the trilogy, with “The Hobbit: There and Back Again” set for release on Dec. 13, 2013, and a third film to come out in the summer of 2014.

Most of the students were just finishing elementary school when the first “Lord of the Rings” film was released 11 years ago.

Kirchoff said he started reading “The Hobbit” and the “Lord of the Rings” when he was in fourth grade, before the movies came out. He said the movies have introduced others to Tolkien’s ideas, making his love for Tolkien’s fantasy worlds more socially acceptable.

“The movies were fantastic enough and engaging enough to coexist in my mind with the literature I really do love,” he said.

Wabiszewski said it’s clear her classmates weren’t just taking the class as a filler.

“I definitely expected the enthusiasm from everybody but just the knowledge that everybody brought into the class, it’s cool,” she said. “We really have a smart group of people in that class who have a lot to offer.”

Entertainment News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Fewer health care options for illegal immigrants

ALAMO, Texas (AP) — For years, Sonia Limas would drag her daughters to the emergency room whenever they fell sick. As an illegal immigrant, she had no health insurance, and the only place she knew to seek treatment was the hospital — the most expensive setting for those covering the cost.

The family’s options improved somewhat a decade ago with the expansion of community health clinics, which offered free or low-cost care with help from the federal government. But President Barack Obama‘s health care overhaul threatens to roll back some of those services if clinics and hospitals are overwhelmed with newly insured patients and can’t afford to care for as many poor families.

To be clear, Obama’s law was never intended to help Limas and an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants like her. Instead, it envisions that 32 million uninsured Americans will get access to coverage by 2019. Because that should mean fewer uninsured patients showing up at hospitals, the Obama program slashed the federal reimbursement for uncompensated care.

But in states with large illegal immigrant populations, the math may not work, especially if lawmakers don’t expand Medicaid, the joint state-federal health program for the poor and disabled.

When the reform has been fully implemented, illegal immigrants will make up the nation’s second-largest population of uninsured, or about 25 percent. The only larger group will be people who qualify for insurance but fail to enroll, according to a 2012 study by the Washington-based Urban Institute.

And since about two-thirds of illegal immigrants live in just eight states, those areas will have a disproportionate share of the uninsured to care for.

In communities “where the number of undocumented immigrants is greatest, the strain has reached the breaking point,” Rich Umbdenstock, president of the American Hospital Association, wrote last year in a letter to Obama, asking him to keep in mind the uncompensated care hospitals gave to that group. “In response, many hospitals have had to curtail services, delay implementing services, or close beds.”

The federal government has offered to expand Medicaid, but states must decide whether to take the deal. And in some of those eight states — including Texas, Florida and New Jersey — hospitals are scrambling to determine whether they will still have enough money to treat the remaining uninsured.

Without a Medicaid expansion, the influx of new patients and the looming cuts in federal funding could inflict “a double whammy” in Texas, said David Lopez, CEO of the Harris Health System in Houston, which spends 10 to 15 percent of its $ 1.2 billion annual budget to care for illegal immigrants.

Realistically, taxpayers are already paying for some of the treatment provided to illegal immigrants because hospitals are required by law to stabilize and treat any patients that arrive in an emergency room, regardless of their ability to pay. The money to cover the costs typically comes from federal, state and local taxes.

A solid accounting of money spent treating illegal immigrants is elusive because most hospitals do not ask for immigration status. But some states have tried.

California, which is home to the nation’s largest population of illegal immigrants, spent an estimated $ 1.2 billion last year through Medicaid to care for 822,500 illegal immigrants.

The New Jersey Hospital Association in 2010 estimated that it cost between $ 600 million and $ 650 million annually to treat 550,000 illegal immigrants.

And in Texas, a 2010 analysis by the Health and Human Services Commission found that the agency had provided $ 96 million in benefits to illegal immigrants, up from $ 81 million two years earlier. The state’s public hospital districts spent an additional $ 717 million in uncompensated care to treat that population.

If large states such as Florida and Texas make good on their intention to forgo federal money to expand Medicaid, the decision “basically eviscerates” the effects of the health care overhaul in those areas because of “who lives there and what they’re eligible for,” said Lisa Clemans-Cope, a senior researcher at the Urban Institute.

Seeking to curb expenses, hospitals might change what qualifies as an emergency or cap the number of uninsured patients they treat. And although it’s believed states with the most illegal immigrants will face a smaller cut, they will still lose money.

The potential impacts of reform are a hot topic at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. In addition to offering its own charity care, some MD Anderson oncologists volunteer at a county-funded clinic at Lyndon B. Johnson General Hospital that largely treats the uninsured.

“In a sense we’ve been in the worst-case scenario in Texas for a long time,” said Lewis Foxhall, MD Anderson’s vice president of health policy in Houston. “The large number of uninsured and the large low-income population creates a very difficult problem for us.”

Community clinics are a key part of the reform plan and were supposed to take up some of the slack for hospitals. Clinics received $ 11 billion in new funding over five years so they could expand to help care for a swell of newly insured who might otherwise overwhelm doctors’ offices. But in the first year, $ 600 million was cut from the centers’ usual allocation, leaving many to use the money to fill gaps rather than expand.

There is concern that clinics could themselves be inundated with newly insured patients, forcing many illegal immigrants back to emergency rooms.

Limas, 44, moved to the border town of Alamo 13 years ago with her husband and three daughters. Now single, she supports the family by teaching a citizenship class in Spanish at the local community center and selling cookies and cakes she whips up in her trailer. Soon, she hopes to seek a work permit of her own.

For now, the clinic helps with basic health care needs. If necessary, Limas will return to the emergency room, where the attendants help her fill out paperwork to ensure the government covers the bills she cannot afford.

“They always attended to me,” she said, “even though it’s slow.”

___

Sherman can be followed on Twitter at https://twitter.com/chrisshermanAP .

Plushnick-Masti can be followed on Twitter at https://twitter.com/RamitMastiAP .

Health News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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U.S. to send missiles, troops to Turkey

INCIRLIK AIR BASE, Turkey (Reuters) - U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta signed an order on Friday to send two Patriot missile batteries to Turkey with 400 American personnel to operate them, in a move by NATO members to bolster Turkey's defenses against the threat of Syrian missiles.

The order was signed shortly before Panetta arrived on an unannounced visit to Turkey to meet American troops stationed at the Incirlik Air Base, the last stop on a week-long trip that took him to Afghanistan and Kuwait.

"The purpose of this deployment is to signal very strongly that the United States, working closely with our NATO allies, is going to support the defense of Turkey, especially with potential threats emanating from Syria," spokesman George Little said.

NATO-member Turkey has repeatedly scrambled jets along the countries' joint frontier and responded in kind when shells from the Syrian conflict came down inside its borders, fanning fears that the civil war could spread to destabilize the region.

The widely expected U.S. move follows similar steps by Germany and the Netherlands, which also said they will send two Patriot batteries. The three countries are the only NATO nations with the most modern type of Patriots.

Little declined to say where the U.S. batteries would be located and said the systems would be deployed to Turkey for an unspecified amount of time.

"We expect them to be deployed in the coming weeks," Little said.

NATO approved Turkey's request for air defense batteries on December 4, in a move meant to calm its fears of coming under missile attack, possibly with chemical weapons, from Syria.

The Patriot system is designed to intercept aircraft or missiles. NATO says the measure is purely defensive, but Russia, Syria and Iran have criticized the decision, saying it increases regional instability.

(Reporting by Phil Stewart; Editing by Nick Tattersall; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

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Aides: Chavez in tough fight, may miss swearing-in

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Somber confidants of President Hugo Chavez say he is going through a difficult recovery after cancer surgery in Cuba, and one close ally is warning Venezuelans that their leader may not make it back for his swearing-in next month.

Information Minister Ernesto Villegas said Wednesday night that Chavez was in “stable condition” and was with close relatives in Havana. Reading a statement, he said the government invites people to “accompany President Chavez in this new test with their prayers.”

Villegas expressed hope about the president returning home for his Jan. 10 swearing-in for a new six-year term, but said in a written message on a government website that if Chavez doesn’t make it, “our people should be prepared to understand it.”

Villegas said it would be irresponsible to hide news about the “delicateness of the current moment and the days to come.” He asked Venezuelans to see Chavez’s condition as “when we have a sick father, in a delicate situation after four surgeries in a year and a half.”

Moving to prepare the public for the possibility of more bad news, Vice President Nicolas Maduro looked grim when he acknowledged that Chavez faced a “complex and hard” process after his latest surgery.

At the same time, officials sought to show a united front amid the growing worries about Chavez’s health and Venezuela’s future. Key leaders of Chavez’s party and military officers appeared together on television as Maduro gave updates on Chavez’s condition.

“We’re more united than ever,” said Maduro, who was flanked by National Assembly President Diosdado Cabello and Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez, both key members of Chavez’s inner circle. “We’re united in loyalty to Chavez.”

Analysts say Maduro could eventually face challenges in trying to hold together the president’s diverse “Chavismo” movement, which includes groups from radical leftists to moderates, as well as military factions.

Tapped by the 58-year-old president over the weekend as his chosen political heir, Maduro is considered to be a member of radical left wing of Chavez’s movement that is closely aligned with Cuba’s communist government.

Cabello, a former military officer who also wields power within Chavez’s movement, shared the spotlight with Maduro by speaking at a Mass for Chavez’s health at a military base.

Just returned from being with Chavez for the operation, Cabello called the president “invincible” but said “that man who is in Havana … is fighting a battle for his life.”

After Chavez’s six-hour operation Tuesday, Venezuelan television broadcast religious services where people prayed for Chavez, interspersed with campaign rallies for upcoming gubernatorial elections.

On the streets of Caracas, people on both sides of the country’s deep political divide voiced concerns about Chavez’s condition and what might happen if he died.

At campaign rallies ahead of Sunday’s gubernatorial elections, Chavez’s candidates urged Venezuelans to vote for pro-government candidates while they also called for the president to get well.

“Onward, Commander!” gubernatorial candidate Elias Jaua shouted to a crowd of supporters at a rally Wednesday. Many observers said it was likely Chavez’s candidates could get a boost from their supporters’ outpouring of sympathy for Chavez.

Opposition leader Henrique Capriles, who lost to Chavez in the October presidential election and is running against Jaua, complained Wednesday that Chavez’s allies are taking advantage of the president’s health problems to try to rally support. He took issue with Jaua’s statement to supporters that “we have to vote so that the president recovers.”

Maduro looked sad as he spoke on television, his voice hoarse and cracked at times after meeting in the pre-dawn hours with Cabello and Ramirez. The pair returned to Venezuela about 3 a.m. after accompanying Chavez to Cuba for his surgery.

“It was a complex, difficult, delicate operation,” Maduro said. “The post-operative process is also going to be a complex and hard process.”

Without giving details, Maduro reiterated Chavez’s recent remarks that the surgery presented risks and that people should be prepared for any “difficult scenarios.”

The constitution says presidents should be sworn in before the National Assembly, and if that’s not possible then before the Supreme Court.

Former Supreme Court magistrate Roman Duque Corredor said a president cannot delegate the swearing-in to anyone else and cannot take the oath of office outside Venezuela. A president could still be sworn in even if temporarily incapacitated, but would need to be conscious and in Venezuela, Duque told The Associated Press.

If a president-elect is declared incapacitated by lawmakers and is unable to be sworn in, the National Assembly president would temporarily take charge of the government and a new presidential vote must be held within 30 days, Duque said.

Chavez said Saturday that if an election had to be held, Maduro should be elected president.

The dramatic events of this week, with Chavez suddenly taking a turn for the worse, had some Venezuelans wondering whether they were being told the truth because just a few months ago the president was running for his fourth presidential term and had said he was free of cancer.

Lawyer Maria Alicia Altuve, who was out in bustling crowds in a shopping district of downtown Caracas, said it seemed odd how Maduro wept at a political rally while talking about Chavez.

“He cries on television to set up a drama, so that people go vote for poor Chavez,” Altuve said. “So we don’t know if this illness is for that, or if it’s that this man is truly sick.”

Some Chavez supporters said they found it hard to think about losing the president and worried about the future. His admirers held prayer vigils in Caracas and other cities this week, holding pictures and singing hymns.

Chavez has undergone four cancer-related surgeries since June 2011. He has also undergone months of chemotherapy and radiation treatments. Throughout his treatments, Chavez has kept secret some details of his illness, including the exact location and type of the tumors.

Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa wished his close ally the best, while also acknowledging the possibility that cancer might end his presidency. “Chavez is very important for Latin America, but if he can’t continue at the head of Venezuela, the processes of change have to continue,” Correa said at a news conference in Quito.

___

Associated Press writer Christopher Toothaker contributed to this report.

Latin America News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Google Maps finally comes to iOS. Again [updated]

Apple has had quite a bumpy car ride so far with it’s mapping product. That all ends in just a couple hours, however, because late Wednesday evening Google is planning on bringing Maps back to iOS with the release of the company’s own software. AllThingsD is reporting that Google’s app will be available for download in the App Store shortly, and we’ll provide some initial thoughts on it soon after.

UPDATE: Google Maps is now available on Apple’s App Store for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.

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“The Voice” finale taps Rihanna, Kelly Clarkson, Bruno Mars and the Killers

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – The season finale of “The Voice” has enlisted some high-profile talent to help send the show’s third cycle off with a bang.

Rihanna, Kelly Clarkson, Bruno Mars and The Killers have been tapped to perform on the two-hour extravaganza, which will culminate with the crowning of a new champion, NBC said Wednesday.

An additional special guest will be named at a later date, the network added.

Rihanna will perform her song “Diamonds,” while “American Idol” alum Clarkson – who has served as a guest mentor on the show, as well as hosting the rival singing competition “Duets” – is set to sing “Catch My Breath.”

The Killers, meanwhile, will play their single “Runaways,” and Mars will debut the song “When I Was Your Man” from his sophomore album “Unorthodox Jukebox,” which was released Tuesday.

The season finale of “The Voice” will air live on December 18 at 8 p.m.

Music News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Dozens sue pharmacy, but compensation uncertain

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Dennis O’Brien rubs his head as he details ailments triggered by the fungal meningitis he developed after a series of steroid shots in his neck: nausea, vomiting, dizziness, drowsiness, blurred vision, exhaustion and trouble with his speech and attention.

He estimates the disease has cost him and his wife thousands of dollars in out-of-pocket expenses and her lost wages, including time spent on 6-hour round trip weekly visits to the hospital. They’ve filed a lawsuit seeking $ 4 million in damages from the Massachusetts pharmacy that supplied the steroid injections, but it could take years for them to get any money back and they may never get enough to cover their expenses. The same is true for dozens of others who have sued the New England Compounding Center.

“I don’t have a life anymore. My life is a meningitis life,” the 59-year-old former school teacher said, adding that he’s grateful he survived.

His is one of at least 50 federal lawsuits in nine states that have been filed against NECC, and more are being filed in state courts every day. More than 500 people have gotten sick after receiving injections prepared by the pharmacy.

The lawsuits allege that NECC negligently produced a defective and dangerous product and seek millions to repay families for the death of spouses, physically painful recoveries, lost wages and mental and emotional suffering. Thirty-seven people have died in the outbreak.

“The truth is the chance of recovering damages from NECC is extremely low,” said John Day, a Nashville attorney who represents several patients who have been sickened by fungal meningitis.

To streamline the process, attorneys on both sides are asking to have a single judge preside over the pretrial and discovery phases for all of the federal lawsuits.

This approach, called multidistrict litigation, would prevent inconsistent pretrial rulings and conserve resources of all parties. But unlike a class-action case, those lawsuits would eventually be returned to judges in their original district for trial, according to Brian Fitzpatrick, a law professor at Vanderbilt University Law School in Nashville.

Even with this approach, Fitzpatrick noted that federal litigation is very slow, and gathering all the evidence, records and depositions during the discovery phase could take months or years.

“Most of the time what happens is once they are consolidated for pretrial proceedings, there is a settlement, a global settlement between all the lawyers and the defendants before anything is shipped back for trial,” he said.

A lawyer representing NECC, Frederick H. Fern, described the consolidation process as an important step.

“A Boston venue is probably the best scenario,” Fern said in an email. “That’s where the parties, witnesses and documents are located, and where the acts subject to these complaints occurred.”

Complicating efforts to recover damages, attorneys for the patients said, NECC is a small private company that has now recalled all its products and laid off its workers. The company’s pharmacy licenses have been surrendered, and it’s unclear whether NECC had adequate liability insurance.

Fern said NECC has insurance, but they were still determining what the policy covers.

But Day says, “It’s clear to me that at the end of the day, NECC is not going to have sufficient assets to compensate any of these people, not even 1 percent.”

As a result, many attorneys are seeking compensation from other parties. Among the additional defendants named in lawsuits are NECC pharmacist and co-founder Barry Cadden; co-founder Greg Conigliaro; sister company Ameridose and its marketing and support arm, Medical Sales Management.

Founded in 2006 by Cadden and Conigliaro, Ameridose would eventually report annual revenue of $ 100 million. An NECC spokesman didn’t respond to a request for the pharmacy’s revenue.

While Federal Drug Administration regulators have also found contamination issues at Westborough, Mass.-based Ameridose, the FDA has said it has not connected Ameridose drugs to infection or illness.

Under tort law, a lawsuit has to prove a defendant has a potential liability, which in this case could be anyone involved in the medical procedure. However, any such suit could take years and ultimately may not be successful.

“I would not be surprised if doctors, hospitals, people that actually injected the drugs, the people that bought the drugs from the compounding company, many of those people will also be sued,” said Fitzpatrick.

Plaintiffs’ attorneys said they’re considering that option but want more information on the relationships between the compounding pharmacy and the hundreds of hospitals and clinics that received its products.

Day, the attorney in Tennessee, said the clinics and doctors that purchase their drugs from compounding pharmacies or manufacturers could be held liable for negligence because they are in a better position to determine the safety of the medicine than the patients.

“Did they use due care in determining from whom to buy these drugs?” Day said.

Terry Dawes, a Michigan attorney who has filed at least 10 federal lawsuits in the case, said in traditional product liability cases, a pharmaceutical distributor could be liable.

“We are looking at any conceivable sources of recovery for our clients including pharmaceutical supply places that may have dealt with this company in the past,” he said.

Ten years ago, seven fungal meningitis illnesses and deaths were linked to injectable steroid from a South Carolina compounding pharmacy. That resulted in fewer than a dozen lawsuits, a scale much smaller than the litigations mounting up against NECC.

Two companies that insured the South Carolina pharmacy and its operators tried unsuccessfully to deny payouts. An appellate court ruled against their argument that the pharmacy willfully violated state regulations by making multiple vials of the drug without specific prescriptions, but the opinion was unpublished and doesn’t set a precedent for the current litigation.

The lawsuits represent a way for patients and their families recover expenses, but also to hold the pharmacy and others accountable for the incalculable emotional and physical toll of the disease.

A binder of snapshots shows what life is like in the O’Briens’ rural Fentress County, Tenn., home: Dennis hooked up to an IV, Dennis in an antibiotics stupor, bruises on his body from injections and blood tests. He’s had three spinal taps. His 11-day stay in the hospital cost over $ 100,000, which was covered by health insurance.

His wife said she sometimes quietly checks at night to see whether her husband of 35 years is still breathing.

“In my mind, I thought we were going to fight this and get over it. But we are not ever going to get over it,” said Kaye O’Brien.

Marjorie Norwood, a 59-year-old grandmother of three who lives in Ethridge, Tenn., has spent just shy of two months total in the hospital in Nashville battling fungal meningitis after receiving a steroid injection in her back. She was allowed to come home for almost a week around Thanksgiving, but was readmitted after her symptoms worsened.

Family members are still dealing with much uncertainty about her recovery, but they have not filed a lawsuit, said their attorney Mark Chalos. He said Norwood will likely be sent to a rehabilitation facility after her second stay in the hospital rather than return home again.

Marjorie Norwood’s husband, an autoworker, has taken time off work to care for her and they depend on his income and insurance.

“It doesn’t just change her life, it changes everyone else’s life around her because we care about her and want her to be happy and well and have everything that she needs,” said her daughter, Melanie Norwood.

Medications/Drugs News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Why more didn't die in Ore. mall shooting

Citizens' coolheadedness and individual preparation for coping with gunfire in public settings may have curtailed the casualty count from Tuesday's shooting at a Portland, Ore., shopping mall, law officers suggested on the day after the tragedy.

Two people died and one was critically wounded before the shooter, 22-year-old Jacob Tyler Roberts of Portland, killed himself a few minutes after running into the food court at the Clackamas Town Center mall. Officials say Mr. Roberts, wearing camouflage and a white hockey mask, had methodically fired "multiple" rounds from an assault-style rifle at random shoppers.

Most of the 10,000 Christmas shoppers at the mall appeared nearly as ready and able as police to deal with a gunman appearing suddenly in their midst, Clackamas County Sheriff Craig Roberts said on Wednesday.

"Many people have asked me why there were so few victims during this incident," said Sheriff Roberts. He listed the fact that Mr. Roberts's AR-15 semiautomatic rifle intermittently jammed and noted a well-practiced mall lockdown procedure. But he also credited "10,000 people in the mall who at one time kept a level head, got themselves out of the mall, helped others get out, secured themselves in stores.… It was really about a whole group of people coming together to make a difference."

RECOMMENDED: A Second Amendment quiz

Law officers said during a Wednesday press conference that they did not know whether any member of the public carrying a concealed weapon had counterattacked Roberts. But they said they are certain that Roberts died by his own hand after fleeing down a stairwell from the mall's upper level.

The death rate from mass shootings has ticked up slightly in recent years, even as deaths in single-victim incidents have decreased, according to a recent analysis of FBI crime data by the Huffington Post. The worst recent mass shooting came in July in Aurora, Colo., where a gunman killed 12 people and injured 58 during a midnight screening of a new "Batman" movie.

Gun-control advocates seized on the mall shooting as a possible result of the expiration in 2004 of a national ban on assault weapons.

"Santa Claus could have been shot in the mall," said Penny Okamoto, executive director of Ceasefire Oregon, in an interview with the Portland Tribune. "If you're sick of this, you should call your legislators to tell them to fix the laws so that assault weapons don't end up in the hands of felons."

Many versions of the AR-15 were banned under the assault weapons law, but it's not known if the gun used in the Clackamas mall shooting was one of them.

Police said Roberts had no criminal record and had stolen the AR-15 from "someone he knew."

Does the collected response by shoppers at the Clackamas Town Center indicate that Americans are becoming less daunted by senseless violence and, perhaps, better ready to react? Those who back broad gun rights under the Constitution's Second Amendment suggest a shift may be under way in people's readiness to respond.

In blocking Illinois's ban on concealed weapons, the last such law in the nation, Seventh US Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Richard Posner on Tuesday implied that self-defense readiness in public is not only protected by the US Constitution, but may be good social policy. An awareness "that many law-abiding citizens are walking the streets armed may make criminals timid," he wrote in his ruling.

"As far as a social shift, I think people are getting more intelligent and appropriate in their reactions to shooters," says Dave Kopel, research director at the Independence Institute, a libertarian-leaning think tank in Golden, Colo. "Police training has changed in significant ways since the Columbine [High School] shooting [in 1999], where they no longer wait for the SWAT team to arrive but go in immediately with … the army they have. There's also an awareness [among police and the public] that if you're trying to stop a gangster from robbing a liquor store, you may have a [heck] of a fight on your hands, but that these publicity-seeking guys with mental illness, they basically crumble at first opposition."

The upshot, says Mr. Kopel: "Lying down and cowering doesn't seem to work very well, so law enforcement has gotten smarter and civilians have gotten smarter."

In Clackamas County, Sheriff Roberts said local law-enforcement personnel had trained earlier this year for a shooting scenario at Clackamas Town Center, an exercise that involved both police and retailers. On Tuesday, arriving police, in keeping with evolving police tactics nationwide, formed small teams and quickly entered the mall to pursue the shooter. Police could not say Wednesday whether any officers saw the shooter before he killed himself.

Dennis Curtis, the mall's general manager, noted that police officers told him that they were amazed "how many stores were secured and people were locked in place" upon entering the mall to look for the shooter.

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North Korea’s new leader burnishes credentials with rocket

SEOUL/TOKYO (Reuters) – North Korea successfully launched a rocket on Wednesday, boosting the credentials of its new leader and stepping up the threat the isolated and impoverished state poses to its opponents.

The rocket, which North Korea says put a weather satellite into orbit, has been labeled by the United States, South Korea and Japan as a test of technology that could one day deliver a nuclear warhead capable of hitting targets as far as the continental United States.

“The satellite has entered the planned orbit,” a North Korean television news-reader clad in traditional Korean garb triumphantly announced, after which the station played patriotic songs with the lyrics “Chosun (Korea) does what it says”.

The rocket was launched just before 10 a.m. Korea time (9 p.m. ET on Tuesday), according to defense officials in South Korea and Japan, and easily surpassed a failed April launch that flew for less than two minutes.

The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) said that it “deployed an object that appeared to achieve orbit”, the first time an independent body has verified North Korean claims.

North Korea followed what it said was a similar successful launch in 2009 with a nuclear test that prompted the United Nations Security Council to stiffen sanctions that it originally imposed in 2006 after the North’s first nuclear test.

The state is banned from developing nuclear and missile-related technology under U.N. resolutions, although Kim Jong-un, the youthful head of state who took power a year ago, is believed to have continued the state’s “military first” programs put into place by his deceased father Kim Jong-il.

North Korea lauded Wednesday’s launch as celebrating the prowess of all three Kims to rule since it was founded in 1948.

“At a time when great yearnings and reverence for Kim Jong-il pervade the whole country, its scientists and technicians brilliantly carried out his behests to launch a scientific and technological satellite in 2012, the year marking the 100th birth anniversary of President Kim Il Sung,” its KCNA news agency said.

Washington condemned Wednesday’s launch as a “provocative action” and breach of U.N. rules, while Japan’s U.N. envoy called for a Security Council meeting. However, diplomats say further tough sanctions are unlikely to be agreed at the body as China, the North’s only major ally, will oppose them.

“The international community must work in a concerted fashion to send North Korea a clear message that its violations of United Nations Security Council resolutions have consequences,” the White House said in a statement.

Japan’s likely next prime minister, Shinzo Abe, who is leading in opinion polls ahead of an election on December 16 and who is known as a North Korea hawk, called on the United Nations to adopt a resolution “strongly criticizing” Pyongyang.

BEIJING BLOCK

China had expressed “deep concern” prior to the launch which was announced a day after a top politburo member, representing new Chinese leader Xi Xinping, met Kim Jong-un in Pyongyang.

On Wednesday its tone was measured, regretting the launch but calling for restraint on possible counter-measures, in line with previous policy when it has effectively vetoed tougher sanctions.

“China believes the Security Council’s response should be cautious and moderate, protect the overall peaceful and stable situation on the Korean peninsula, and avoid an escalation of the situation,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei told journalists.

Bruce Klingner, a Korea expert at the Heritage Foundation, told a conference call: “China has been the stumbling block to firmer U.N. action and we’ll have to see if the new leadership is any different than its predecessors.”

A senior adviser to South Korea’s president said last week it was unlikely there would be action from the U.N. and that Seoul would expect its allies to tighten sanctions unilaterally.

Kim Jong-un, believed to be 29 years old, took power when his father died on December 17 last year and experts believe the launch was intended to commemorate the first anniversary of the death.

The April launch was timed for the centennial of the birth of Kim Il Sung, the grandfather of its current ruler.

Wednesday’s success puts the North ahead of the South which has not managed to get a rocket off the ground.

“This is a considerable boost in establishing the rule of Kim Jong-un,” said Cho Min, an expert at the Korea Institute of National Unification.

There have been few indications the secretive and impoverished state, where the United Nations estimates a third of the population is malnourished, has made any advances in opening up economically over the past year.

North Korea remains reliant on minerals exports to China and remittances from tens of thousands of its people working on labor projects overseas.

The 22 million population often needs handouts from defectors who have escaped to South Korea in order to afford basic medicines.

Given the puny size of its economy – per capita income is less than $ 2,000 a year – one of the few ways the North can attract world attention is by emphasizing its military threat.

Pyongyang wants the United States to resume aid and to recognize it diplomatically, although the April launch scuppered a planned food deal.

It is believed to be some years away from developing a functioning nuclear warhead although it may have enough plutonium for around half a dozen nuclear bombs, according to nuclear experts.

The North has also been enriching uranium, which would give it a second path to nuclear weapons as it sits on vast natural uranium reserves.

“A successful launch puts North Korea closer to the capability to deploy a weaponized missile,” said Denny Roy, a senior fellow at the East-West Center in Hawaii.

“But this would still require fitting a weapon to the missile and ensuring a reasonable degree of accuracy. The North Koreans probably do not yet have a nuclear weapon small enough for a missile to carry.”

Pyongyang says that its development is part of a civil nuclear program, but has also boasted of it being a “nuclear weapons power”.

(Additional reporting by Jumin Park and Yoo Choonsik in SEOUL; David Alexander, Matt Spetalnick and Paul Eckert in WASHINGTON; Linda Sieg in TOKYO; Sui-Lee Wee in BEIJING; Rosmarie Francisco in MANILA; Writing by David Chance; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)

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Pope Benedict offers blessings with his first tweet

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – After weeks of anticipation, Pope Benedict sent his first tweet on Wednesday.

“Dear friends, I am pleased to get in touch with you through Twitter. Thank you for your generous response. I bless all of you from my heart.”

The tweet was sent when the 85-year-old pope tapped on a touch screen at the end of his weekly general audience in the Vatican before thousands of people.

(Reporting By Philip Pullella, editing by Paul Casciato)

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Cardiome to pay $20 million, settle debt deal with Merck

(Reuters) – Cardiome Pharma Corp said it will pay former partner Merck & Co $ 20 million by March 31 to settle debt obligations related to a licensing deal for a heart drug.

Shares of Cardiome jumped as much as 51 percent to 37 Canadian cents on the Toronto Stock Exchange on Tuesday. Its U.S.-listed shares also rose 52 percent on the Nasdaq.

The company said in September that Merck returned the global marketing and development rights for intravenous and oral versions of their heart drug, six months after dropping the development of the oral version.

The drug vernakalant is an experimental treatment for chronic atrial fibrillation, a heart rhythm disorder that can lead to stroke and heart failure.

Cardiome, which had a cash balance of $ 53.6 million at the end of September, owed Merck $ 50 million. Merck had granted Cardiome an interest-bearing credit facility of up to $ 100 million.

The companies signed the collaboration and licensing agreement for vernakalant in April 2009.

“Complete resolution of our $ 50 million debt obligation to Merck removes a significant financial and operational overhang for Cardiome,” said William Hunter, interim CEO of Cardiome, which develops drugs for diseases of the heart and circulatory system.

The settlement will terminate the credit facility and will release and discharge the collateral security taken in respect of the advances under the line of credit, Cardiome said in a statement.

Brokerage firm Canaccord Genuity raised its price target on the stock to 40 cents from 35 cents.

(Reporting by Bhaswati Mukhopadhyay in Bangalore; Editing by Roshni Menon)

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Gunman kills 2, then self at Oregon mall

A masked gunman who opened fire in the crowded Clackamas Town Center mall in suburban Portland, Ore., killing two individuals and seriously injuring a third before killing himself, has been "tentatively" identified by police, though they have not yet released his name.

The shooter, wearing a white hockey mask, black clothing, and a bullet proof vest, tore through the mall around 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, entering through a Macy's store and proceeding to the food court and public areas spraying bullets, according to witness reports.

Police have not released the names of the deceased. Clackamas County Sheriff's Department Lt. James Rhodes said authorities are in the process of notifying victims' families.

The injured victim has been transported to a local hospital, according to Clackamas County Sheriff Craig Roberts.

PHOTOS: Oregon Mall Shooting

Nadia Telguz, who said she was a friend of the injured victim, told ABC News affiliate KATU-TV in Portland that the woman was expected to recover.

"My friend's sister got shot," Teleguz told KATU. "She's on her way to (Oregon Health and Science University hospital). They're saying she got shot in her side and so it's not life-threatening, so she'll be OK."

Witnesses from the shooting rampage said that a young man who appeared to be a teenager ran through the upper level of Macy's to the mall food court, firing multiple shots, one right after the other, with what is believed to be a black, semi-automatic rifle.

More than 10,000 shoppers were at the mall during the day, police said. Roberts said that officers responded to the scene of the shooting within minutes, and four SWAT teams swept the 1.4 million-square-foot building searching for the shooter. He was eventually found dead, an apparent suicide.

"I can confirm the shooter is dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound," Rhodes said. "By all accounts there were no rounds fired by law enforcement today in the mall."

Roberts said more than 100 law enforcement officers responded to the shooting, and at least four local agencies were working on the investigation, including the FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, which is working to trace the shooter's weapon.

READ: Guns in America: A Statistical Look

"For all of us, the mall is supposed to be a place where we can take our families, especially during the holiday season," Roberts said. "Things like this are not supposed to happen."

Roberts also said that shoppers, including two emergency room nurses and one physician who happened to be at the mall, provided medical assistance to victims who had been shot. Other shoppers helped escort individuals out of the mall and out of harm's way, he said.

"There were a huge amount of people running in different directions, and it was chaos for a lot of citizens, but true heroes were stepping up in this time of high stress," Roberts said. "E.R. nurses on the scene were providing medical care to those injured, a physician on the scene was helping provide care to the wounded."

Mall shopper Daniel Martinez told KATU that he had just sat down at a Jamba Juice inside the mall when he heard rapid gunfire. He turned and saw the masked gunman, dressed in all black, about 10 feet away from him.

"I just saw him (the gunman) and thought, 'I need to go somewhere,'" Martinez said. "It was so fast, and at that time, everyone was moving around."

Martinez said he ran to the nearest clothing store. As he ran, he motioned for another woman to follow; several others ran to the store as well, hiding in a fitting room. They stayed there for an hour and a half until SWAT teams told them it was safe to leave the mall.

Witness Amber Tate said she was in the parking lot of the mall when she saw the shooter run by, wearing a mask and carrying a machine gun, headed for the Macy's.

"He looked like a teenager wearing a gun, like a bullet proof vest and he had a machine, like an assault rifle and a white mask and he looked at me," she said.

Other witnesses described the shooter as being on a mission and determined, looking straight ahead. He then seemed to walk through the mall toward the other end of the building, shooting along the way, according to witness reports.

Witnesses told KATU they heard "pops" and then saw the mall Santa fall to the ground. The man dressed as Santa, who did not give his name, told KATU that he wasn't concerned at first by what sounded like balloons popping.

"Then when I heard about 18 more shots, I decided it was a semi-automatic and I hit the floor and my employees must have just scattered and got out of there because when I got up there was nobody there but me," he said.

Others interviewed said that Macy's shoppers and store employees huddled in a dressing room to avoid being found.

"I was helping a customer in the middle of the store, her and her granddaughter and while we were looking at sweatshirts we heard five to seven shots from a machine gun fire just outside my store," Jacob Rogers, a store clerk, told KATU.

"We moved everyone into the back room where there's no access to outside but where there's a camera so we can monitor what's going on out front," Rogers said.

Evan Walters, an employee of a store in the mall, told ABC News Radio that he was locked in a store for his safety and he saw two people shot and heard multiple gunshots.

"It was over 20, and it was kind of surreal because we hear pops and loud noises," he said. "We're next to the food court here and we hear pops and loud noises all the time, but we don't -- nothing like that. It was very definite gunshots."

Former FBI agent and ABC News contributor Brad Garrett said the shooter's mask is typical for mass shooters, who often dress up in costume or wear something other than their regular clothes when they open fire in public.

"The biggest thing for a mass shooter is the control and empowerment for the shooting," he said. "It isn't uncommon for shooter to wear a costume, or sometimes simply to dress in black. In this case, apparently, he wore a hockey mask. He went there being someone other than who he is in reality because it gives him power."

Garrett called the shooting today one of the worst scenarios for law enforcement, as malls are more crowded than ever during the holiday shopping season.

"The thing about mass shooters is that they almost always are premeditated. They are planned," Garrett said. "This shooter I'm sure went through some period of steps before he actually reached going to mall, and there'll be signs or systems either through friends, online, through relatives that will play into understanding why he committed this act."

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Australian prank call radio to donate profits to nurse’s family

CANBERRA (Reuters) – The Australian radio station behind a prank call to a British hospital will donate its advertising revenue until the end of the year to a fund for the family of the nurse who apparently took her own life after the stunt, the company said on Tuesday.

Southern Cross Austereo, parent company of Sydney radio station 2Day FM, said it would donate all advertising revenue, with a minimum contribution of A$ 500,000 ($ 525,000), to a memorial fund for the nurse, Jacintha Saldanha, who answered the telephone at the hospital treating Prince William’s pregnant wife, Kate.

The company has suspended the Sydney-based announcers, Mel Greig and Michael Christian, scrapped their “Hot 30″ programme and suspended advertising on the station in the wake of the Saldanha’s death. Southern Cross said it would resume advertising on its station from Thursday.

“It is a terrible tragedy and our thoughts continue to be with the family,” Southern Cross Chief Executive Officer Rhys Holleran said in a statement.

“We hope that by contributing to a memorial fund we can help to provide the Saldanha family with the support they need at this very difficult time.”

(Reporting by James Grubel; Editing by Robert Birsel)

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Recent hacking of U.N. nuclear agency not first attempt: IAEA

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A recently announced hacking of the U.N. nuclear agency’s computer servers was not the first time an attempt had been made to break into the organization’s computer system, the head of the agency said on Thursday.

Yukiya Amano, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said that a few months ago a group broke into the agency’s computer system and stole personal information of scientists working on peaceful uses of nuclear energy.

In response to questions at a Council on Foreign Relations event in Washington, Amano repeated what he said last week after the hacking was revealed: no sensitive information about the IAEA‘s nuclear inspections had been stolen.

The IAEA has shut down the server that had been hacked and is continuing an investigation, Amano said. But he also said it wasn’t the first attempt to break into the system.

“If you ask if this is the only case? I would say there have been some other tries but we are doing our best to protect our system,” Amano said.

The hackers – a group using an Iranian-sounding name – have posted scores of email addresses of experts who have been working with the U.N. agency on a website, and have urged the IAEA to investigate Israel’s nuclear activity.

Israel, which has an undeclared nuclear arsenal, and the United States accuse Iran of seeking to develop a nuclear weapons capability. Tehran denies such ambitions.

Amano would not say if he believed Iran was behind the attacks on the IAEA, whose missions include preventing the spread of nuclear weapons and which is investigating Iran’s disputed nuclear activities.

“The group … they have what looks like an Iranian name. But that does not mean that the origin is Iran,” he said.

There has been an increase in suspected Iranian cyber attacks this year, coinciding with a deepening standoff with the West over Tehran’s nuclear program.

(Reporting by Deborah Charles. Editing by Warren Strobel and Doina Chiacu)

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Elijah Wood, Aaron Paul rally fans to save north Hollywood taco joint

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Elijah Wood and Aaron Paul are on a mission to save a North Hollywood taco stand.

The actors are rallying fans around Henry‘s Tacos, which has been on the corner of Tujunga and Moorpark for 51 years and is closing December 31 due to a conflict with the building’s landlord.

In an announcement posted on Facebook, the stand’s owner, Janis Hood, said that running the restaurant is too much of a burden for her – but the landlord, Mehran Ebrahimpour, isn’t allowing “prospective buyers committed to continuing the tradition” to take over the lease.

The reason, Hood believes, is because she “unwittingly” angered him by nominating Henry’s to become for a Historic Cultural Monument a year ago. Ultimately, the city council never voted on her request, but the damage was done.

Once loyal customer Wood heard the news, he immediately took to Twitter: “Los Angeles institution, Henry’s Tacos to shut,” Wood tweeted. “Please retweet. Very sad situation.”

Over 250 followers and counting have heard his cry, including a few famous friends like Aaron Paul, Colin Hanks and “Bridesmaids” director Paul Feig.

“This can’t happen. Save LA history,” Feig added, after retweeting Wood’s words.

But instead of just wishing for a Christmas miracle, Paul has a plan – not to mention a cool opportunity for his fans. The “Breaking Bad” star is asking “the masses” to join him for lunch this coming Sunday.

“We must save @HenrysTacos from closing,” he tweeted. “Come join me for lunch this Sunday at 2pm!! Join the masses and eat some tacos!! Tell your friends.”

While he may bring Henry’s some extra business before serving its last burrito, owner Hood makes it seem like the chances of changing Henry’s fate are slim.

“The current prospective buyers have agreed to all the landlord’s terms, but he has ceased communicating with them,” she wrote. “Therefore, I have given my notice and it has been accepted by the landlord.”

Neither Hood nor Ebrahimpour immediately responded to TheWrap’s request for comment.

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New tests could hamper food outbreak detection

WASHINGTON (AP) — It’s about to get faster and easier to diagnose food poisoning, but that progress for individual patients comes with a downside: It could hurt the nation’s ability to spot and solve dangerous outbreaks.

Next-generation tests that promise to shave a few days off the time needed to tell whether E. coli, salmonella or other foodborne bacteria caused a patient’s illness could reach medical laboratories as early as next year. That could allow doctors to treat sometimes deadly diseases much more quickly — an exciting development.

The problem: These new tests can’t detect crucial differences between different subtypes of bacteria, as current tests can. And that fingerprint is what states and the federal government use to match sick people to a contaminated food. The older tests might be replaced by the new, more efficient ones.

“It’s like a forensics lab. If somebody says a shot was fired, without the bullet you don’t know where it came from,” explained E. coli expert Dr. Phillip Tarr of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns that losing the ability to literally take a germ’s fingerprint could hamper efforts to keep food safe, and the agency is searching for solutions. According to CDC estimates, 1 in 6 Americans gets sick from foodborne illnesses each year, and 3,000 die.

“These improved tests for diagnosing patients could have the unintended consequence of reducing our ability to detect and investigate outbreaks, ultimately causing more people to become sick,” said Dr. John Besser of the CDC.

That means outbreaks like the salmonella illnesses linked this fall to a variety of Trader Joe’s peanut butter might not be identified that quickly — or at all.

It all comes down to what’s called a bacterial culture — whether labs grow a sample of a patient’s bacteria in an old-fashioned petri dish, or skip that step because the new tests don’t require it.

Here’s the way it works now: Someone with serious diarrhea visits the doctor, who gets a stool sample and sends it to a private testing laboratory. The lab cultures the sample, growing larger batches of any lurking bacteria to identify what’s there. If disease-causing germs such as E. coli O157 or salmonella are found, they may be sent on to a public health laboratory for more sophisticated analysis to uncover their unique DNA patterns — their fingerprints.

Those fingerprints are posted to a national database, called PulseNet, that the CDC and state health officials use to look for food poisoning trends.

There are lots of garden-variety cases of salmonella every year, from runny eggs to a picnic lunch that sat out too long. But if a few people in, say, Baltimore have salmonella with the same molecular signature as some sick people in Cleveland, it’s time to investigate, because scientists might be able narrow the outbreak to a particular food or company.

But culture-based testing takes time — as long as two to four days after the sample reaches the lab, which makes for a long wait if you’re a sick patient.

What’s in the pipeline? Tests that could detect many kinds of germs simultaneously instead of hunting one at a time — and within hours of reaching the lab — without first having to grow a culture. Those tests are expected to be approved as early as next year.

This isn’t just a science debate, said Shari Shea, food safety director at the Association of Public Health Laboratories.

If you were the patient, “you’d want to know how you got sick,” she said.

PulseNet has greatly improved the ability of regulators and the food industry to solve those mysteries since it was launched in the mid-1990s, helping to spot major outbreaks in ground beef, spinach, eggs and cantaloupe in recent years. Just this fall, PulseNet matched 42 different salmonella illnesses in 20 different states that were eventually traced to a variety of Trader Joe’s peanut butter.

Food and Drug Administration officials who visited the plant where the peanut butter was made found salmonella contamination all over the facility, with several of the plant samples matching the fingerprint of the salmonella that made people sick. A New Mexico-based company, Sunland Inc., recalled hundreds of products that were shipped to large retailers all over the country, including Target, Safeway and other large grocery chains.

The source of those illnesses probably would have remained a mystery without the national database, since there weren’t very many illnesses in any individual state.

To ensure that kind of crucial detective work isn’t lost, the CDC is asking the medical community to send samples to labs to be cultured even when they perform a new, non-culture test.

But it’s not clear who would pay for that extra step. Private labs only can perform the tests that a doctor orders, noted Dr. Jay M. Lieberman of Quest Diagnostics, one of the country’s largest testing labs.

A few first-generation non-culture tests are already available. When private labs in Wisconsin use them, they frequently ship leftover samples to the state lab, which grows the bacteria itself. But as more private labs switch over after the next-generation rapid tests arrive, the Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene will be hard-pressed to keep up with that extra work before it can do its main job — fingerprinting the bugs, said deputy director Dr. Dave Warshauer.

Stay tuned: Research is beginning to look for solutions that one day might allow rapid and in-depth looks at food poisoning causes in the same test.

“As molecular techniques evolve, you may be able to get the information you want from non-culture techniques,” Lieberman said.

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Follow Mary Clare Jalonick on Twitter at http://twitter.com/mcjalonick

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