Twitter to Start War on Instagram In Time for Christmas

Holidays seem to be Instagram‘s bread and butter, so it makes sense that Twitter would fire their first shot in the war on Instagram when the app is at its most vulnerable. 

RELATED: Why You Can’t See Instagram Photos on Twitter Anymore

If we learned anything from Thanksgiving, it’s that people love to Instagram their holidays. Turkeys, stuffing, table settings: you Amaro’d it all. It was the service’s best day ever. There were 10 million pictures Instagrammed on Thanksgiving. So it’s not a logistical stretch to imagine the holiday season – Hanukkah starts tonight! —  will be big business for Instagram, too. Christmas day will probably be especially big since it combines dinner, like Thanksgiving, and presents. (Also: check your Instagram feed right now and you’re sure to see at least 3 Christmas trees.)

RELATED: Meet the Parade of Greedy Crybabies Who Didn’t Get iPhones for Christmas

And so comes a report from AllThingsD’s Mike Isaac saying Twitter will launch its own photo filters on time for Christmas, likely to try and capitalize on that rush of OMG I got a cool thing! photo-sharing. Instagram stopped their photos from being shown on Twitter, because they want people on their site. The move makes enough sense, because Instagram is owned by Facebook and not Twitter, but it still sucks for the rest of us. The two companies are now in a budding rivalry over photo-sharing, so this is it, it’s war, we guess. 

RELATED: How to Get Over the Twitter-Instagram War on Photos

If you’re having trouble watching these two former friends fight, please read The Atlantic Wire’s Rebecca Greenfield’s guide to getting over it. The holidays is no place for rivalries. Didn’t Jingle All The Way teach you people anything? 

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“Freaks and Geeks” revisited: “Everybody was so talented and nobody knew it yet”

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Looking back on “Freaks and Geeks,” Linda Cardellini – who led the (now) star-studded cast as Lindsay Weir – sums up the short-lived NBC series in one simple sentence: “Everybody was so talented and nobody knew it yet.”

Thanks to Judd Apatow, the director of “Knocked Up” and sort-of-sequel “This Is 40,” everybody knows it now.

And Vanity Fair’s in-depth oral history of the coming-of-age comedy by the likes of Seth Rogen, James Franco and Jason Segel details just how hard they worked (even on the weekends) to develop that talent.

“We would get the script on a Friday, and Seth and James and I would get together at my house every Sunday, without fail, and do the scenes over and over and improve them and really think about them,” says Segel, who played Nick Andopolis. “We loved the show. And we took the opportunity really, really seriously.”

Franco – who admits he may have taken himself a bit “too seriously” as a young actor – went to such great lengths to capture the character of bad boy Daniel Desario, that he tracked down and visited the high school that creator Paul Feig (“Bridesmaids”) attended.

“I knew that Paul had grown up just outside of Detroit, and I found his high school,” Franco explains. “I saw all the kids at summer school, and there was this guy the teacher pointed out to me, this kind of rough-around-the-edges-looking kid. He had a kind face, but he looked like he’d been in a little bit of trouble. And I remember thinking, ‘Ah, there’s Daniel.’”

When the trio wasn’t studying “SCTV” alum Joe Flaherty (Mr. Weir) to perfect their improv techniques – a hallmark of the many Apatow comedies – they were working on their writing skills.

“I was interested in the writing,” Franco fondly remembers. “So after hounding Judd and Paul they said, ‘You want to see how it’s written?’ They took me into Judd’s office, and they wrote a scene right in front of me, just improvising as the characters out loud. That was really important for me.”

Apatow and Feig’s influence was, perhaps, more important for Rogen and Segel since writing proved to be a hobby that would eventually elevate their career to the next level. Segal broke through as a screenwriter with 2008′s “Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” but Rogen did it first with his own brand of raunchy, yet heartfelt humor in 2007′s “Superbad” – a movie he began writing when he wasn’t filming “Freaks” scenes as Ken Miller.

“I dropped out of high school when I started doing the show,” Rogen reminisces. “I told them I was doing correspondence school from Canada and just wrote ‘Superbad’ all day.”

They aren’t the only writers to graduate from McKinley High either. John Francis Daley, who portrayed 13-year-old Sam Weir, has written a number of movies currently in production since the success of 2011′s “Horrible Bosses.

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Venezuela’s Chavez to have another cancer operation

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Saturday he would undergo another cancer operation in the coming days after doctors in Cuba found a third recurrence of malignant cells in his pelvic area.

The news is a big blow for his supporters in South America’s biggest oil exporter, who elected him in October to a new six-year term in power. Chavez has twice said he was cured, and then had to return to Cuba for more surgery.

In a televised broadcast flanked by ministers at the Miraflores presidential palace, Chavez said that if anything happened to him and a new vote had to be held, his supporters should vote for Vice President Nicolas Maduro – the first time the socialist leader has named a successor.

Chavez returned to Venezuela on Friday from having medical treatment in Cuba, ending a three-week absence from public view.

“Unfortunately, during these exhaustive exams they found some malignant cells in the same area … . It is absolutely necessary, absolutely essential, that I have to undergo a new surgical intervention,” the 58-year-old said, looking resolute.

“With God’s will, like on the previous occasions, we will come out of this victorious.”

The president has already had three cancer operations in Cuba since the middle of last year. News of more surgery will likely raise new doubts about his future and the fate of his self-styled “revolution” in the OPEC nation.

Chavez, who has dominated Venezuelan politics since taking power 14 years ago, said he would return to Havana on Sunday.

Under Venezuela’s constitution, an election would have to be held within 30 days if Chavez were to leave office within the first four years of his next term, due to begin on January 10.

The president has been receiving treatment at the Cimeq hospital in Havana as a guest of his friend and political mentor, former Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

(Additional reporting by Eyanir Chinea and Diego Ore; Editing by Xavier Briand)

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Texas A&M freshman quarterback Manziel makes Heisman history

NEW YORK (AP) -- He's Johnny Best in Football now - and a freshman, at that.

Texas A&M quarterback Johnny Manziel became the first newcomer to win the Heisman Trophy, taking college football's top individual prize Saturday night after a record-breaking debut.

Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te'o finished a distant second in the voting and Kansas State quarterback Collin Klein was third. In a Heisman race with two nontraditional candidates, Manziel broke through the class ceiling and kept Te'o from becoming the first purely defensive player to win the award.

''That barrier's broken now,'' Manziel said. ''It's starting to become more of a trend that freshmen are coming in early and that they are ready to play. And they are really just taking the world by storm.''

None more than the guy they call Johnny Football.

Manziel drew 474 first-place votes and 2,029 points from the panel of media members and former winners. Te'o had 321 first-place votes and 1,706 points and Klein received 60 firsts and 894 points.

''I have been dreaming about this since I was a kid, running around the backyard pretending I was Doug Flutie, throwing Hail Marys to my dad,'' he said after hugging his parents and kid sister.

Flutie was one of many Heisman winners standing behind Manziel as he gave his speech on stage at the Best Buy Theater in Times Square.

''I always wanted to be in a fraternity,'' Manziel said later. ''Now I get to be in the most prestigious one in the entire world.''

Manziel was so nervous waiting for the winner to be announced, he wondered if the television cameras could see his heart pounding beneath his navy blue pinstripe suit. But he seemed incredibly calm after, hardly resembling the guy who dashes around the football field on Saturday. He simply bowed his head, and later gave the trophy a quick kiss.

''It's such an honor to represent Texas A&M, and my teammates here tonight. I wish they could be on the stage with me,'' he said with a wide smile, concluding his speech like any good Aggie: ''Gig' em.''

Just a few days after turning 20, Manziel proved times have truly changed in college football, and that experience can be really overrated.

For years, seniors dominated the award named after John Heisman, the pioneering Georgia Tech coach from the early 1900s. In the 1980s, juniors started becoming common winners. Tim Tebow became the first sophomore to win it in 2007, and two more won it in the next two seasons.

Adrian Peterson had come closest as a freshman, finishing second to Southern California quarterback Matt Leinart in 2004. But it took 78 years for a newbie to take home the big bronze statue.

''It doesn't matter anymore,'' he said.

Peterson was a true freshman for Oklahoma. As a redshirt freshmen, Manziel attended school and practiced with the team last year, but did not play in any games.

He's the second player from Texas A&M to win the Heisman, joining John David Crow from 1957, and did so without the slightest hint of preseason hype. Manziel didn't even win the starting job until two weeks before the season.

Who needs hype when you can fill-up a highlight reel the way Manziel can?

With daring runs and elusive improvisation, Manziel broke 2010 Heisman winner Cam Newton's Southeastern Conference record with 4,600 total yards, led the Aggies to a 10-2 in their first season in the SEC and orchestrated an upset at then-No. 1 Alabama in November that stamped him as legit.

He has thrown for 3,419 yards and 24 touchdowns and run for 1,181 yards and 19 more scores to become the first freshman, first SEC player and fifth player overall to throw for 3,000 yards and run for 1,000 in a season.

''You can put his numbers up against anybody who has ever played the game,'' Texas A&M coach Kevin Sumlin said.

Manziel has one more game this season, when the No. 10 Aggies play Oklahoma in the Cotton Bowl on Jan. 4.

As for the Heisman, Manziel said he'd like to keep it right next to his bed.

''But I'm in college. A lot of people come through the house. We live in a college neighborhood. It might not be a good idea. If I can get a case that's indestructible, locked and looks pretty good, we'll see where I keep it,'' he said.

The resume alone fails to capture the Johnny Football phenomena. At 6-foot-1 and 200 pounds, Manziel is master of the unexpected, darting here and there, turning plays seemingly doomed to failure into touchdowns.

Take, for example, what he did in the first quarter against the Crimson Tide. Manziel took a shotgun snap, stepped up in the pocket as if he was about to take off on another made scramble and ran into the back a lineman. On impact, Manziel bobbled the ball, caught it with his back to the line of scrimmage, turned, rolled the opposite direction and fired a touchdown pass - throwing across his body - to a wide-open receiver.

He might as well have been back in Kerrville, Texas, where he became a hill country star in high school.

His road to college stardom was anything but a clear path.

Manziel competed with two other quarterbacks to replace Ryan Tannehill as the starter this season, the Aggies' first in the SEC and first under Sumlin.

Manziel came out of spring practice as the backup, but became the starter in August.

Still, nobody was hailing him is the next big thing. Did Sumlin think he had a Heisman winner on his hands?

''No,'' he said emphatically, adding, ''Not this year.''

Then Manziel started playing and the numbers started piling up.

He also had some struggles against Florida in the season opener and in a home loss to LSU. The question was: Could he do his thing against a top-notch opponent?

The answer came in Tuscaloosa, Ala., on Nov. 10. Going into the matchup against the Crimson Tide, Manziel said he and his teammates heard a lot of doubters.

''You can't do this and you can't do that,'' he recalled Saturday at the podium

Manziel passed for 253 yards, ran for 92 and the Aggies beat the Tide 29-24. Klein had been the front-runner for most of the season, but Manziel surged after beating 'Bama.

Still, Manziel was still something of a mystery man. Sumlin's rules prohibit freshmen from being available to the media. Manziel was off-limits, but not exactly silent.

Manziel gave glimpses of himself on social media - including some memorable pictures of him dressed up as Scooby-Doo for Halloween with some scantily clad young women.

Before he became a celebrity, Manziel got himself into some serious trouble. In June, he was arrested in College Station after police said he was involved in a fight and produced a fake ID. He was charged with disorderly conduct and two other misdemeanors.

After the season, Texas A&M took the reins off Manziel and made him available for interviews, allowing him to tell his own tale.

Though in the end, his play said it all.

---

Follow Ralph D. Russo at www.Twitter.com/ralphdrussoap

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Protesters surge around Egypt’s presidential palace

CAIRO (Reuters) – Tens of thousands of Egyptian protesters surged around the presidential palace on Friday and the opposition rejected President Mohamed Mursi‘s call for dialogue to end a crisis that has polarized the nation and sparked deadly clashes.

The Islamist leader’s deputy said he could delay a December 15 referendum on a constitution that liberals opposed, although the concession only partly meets a list of opposition demands that include scrapping a decree that expanded Mursi‘s powers.

“The people want the downfall of the regime” and “Leave, leave,” crowds chanted after bursting through barbed wire barricades and climbing on tanks guarding the palace of Egypt‘s first freely elected president.

Their slogans echoed those used in a popular revolt that toppled Mursi’s predecessor Hosni Mubarak in February 2011.

Vice President Mahmoud Mekky said in a statement sent to local media that the president was prepared to postpone the referendum if that could be done without legal challenge.

The dialogue meeting was expected to go ahead on Saturday in the absence of most opposition factions. “Tomorrow everything will be on the table,” a presidential source said of the talks.

The opposition has demanded that Mursi rescind a November 22 decree giving himself wide powers and delay the vote set for December 15 on a constitution drafted by an Islamist-led assembly which they say fails to meet the aspirations of all Egyptians.

The state news agency reported that the election committee had postponed the start of voting for Egyptians abroad until Wednesday, instead of Saturday as planned. It did not say whether this would affect the timing of voting in Egypt.

Ahmed Said, leader of the liberal Free Egyptians Party, told Reuters that delaying expatriate voting was made to seem like a concession but would not change the opposition’s stance.

He said the core opposition demand was to freeze Mursi’s decree and “to reconsider the formation and structure of the constituent assembly”, not simply to postpone the referendum.

The opposition organized marches converging on the palace which elite Republican Guard units had ringed with tanks and barbed wire on Thursday after violence between supporters and opponents of Mursi killed seven people and wounded 350.

Islamists, who had obeyed a military order for demonstrators to leave the palace environs, held funerals on Friday at Cairo’s al-Azhar mosque for six Mursi partisans who were among the dead. “With our blood and souls, we sacrifice to Islam,” they chanted.

“ARM-TWISTING”

In a speech late on Thursday, Mursi had refused to retract his November 22 decree or cancel the referendum on the constitution, but offered talks on the way forward after the referendum.

The National Salvation Front, the main opposition coalition, said it would not join the dialogue. The Front’s coordinator, Mohamed ElBaradei, a Nobel peace laureate, dismissed the offer as “arm-twisting and imposition of a fait accompli”.

Murad Ali, spokesman of the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), said opposition reactions were sad: “What exit to this crisis do they have other than dialogue?” he asked.

Mursi’s decree giving himself extra powers sparked the worst political crisis since he took office in June and set off renewed unrest that is dimming Egypt’s hopes of stability and economic recovery after nearly two years of turmoil following the overthrow of Mubarak, a military-backed strongman.

The turmoil has exposed contrasting visions for Egypt, one held by Islamists, who were suppressed for decades by the army, and another by their rivals, who fear religious conservatives want to squeeze out other voices and restrict social freedoms.

Caught in the middle are many of Egypt’s 83 million people who are desperate for an end to political turbulence threatening their precarious livelihoods in an economy under severe strain.

“We are so tired, by God,” said Mohamed Ali, a laborer. “I did not vote for Mursi nor anyone else. I only care about bringing food to my family, but I haven’t had work for a week.”

ECONOMIC PAIN

A long political standoff will make it harder for Mursi’s government to tackle the crushing budget deficit and stave off a balance of payments crisis. Austerity measures, especially cuts in costly fuel subsidies, seem inevitable to meet the terms of a $ 4.8-billion IMF loan that Egypt hopes to clinch this month.

U.S. President Barack Obama told Mursi on Thursday of his “deep concern” about casualties in this week’s clashes and said “dialogue should occur without preconditions”.

The upheaval in the most populous Arab nation worries the United States, which has given billions of dollars in military and other aid since Egypt made peace with Israel in 1979.

The conflict between Islamists and opponents who each believe the other is twisting the democratic rules to thwart them has poisoned the political atmosphere in Egypt.

The Muslim Brotherhood’s spokesman, Mahmoud Ghozlan, told Reuters that if the opposition shunned the dialogue “it shows that their intention is to remove Mursi from the presidency and not to cancel the decree or the constitution as they claim”.

Ayman Mohamed, 29, a protester at the palace, said Mursi should scrap the draft constitution and heed popular demands.

“He is the president of the republic. He can’t just work for the Muslim Brotherhood,” Mohamed said of the eight-decade-old Islamist movement that propelled Mursi from obscurity to power.

(Additional reporting by Omar Fahmy; Writing by Edmund Blair and Alistair Lyon; Editing by Giles Elgood)

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Exclusive: Google to replace M&A chief

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Google Inc is replacing the head of its in-house mergers and acquisitions group, David Lawee, with one of its top lawyers, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Don Harrison, a high-ranking lawyer at Google, will replace Lawee as head of the Internet search company‘s corporate development group, which oversees mergers and acquisitions, said the source, who spoke anonymously because he was not authorized to speak publicly.

Google is also planning to create a new late-stage investment group that Lawee will oversee, the source said.

Google declined to comment. Lawee and Harrison could not immediately be reached for comment.

One of the Internet industry’s most prolific acquirers, Google has struck more than 160 deals to acquire companies and assets since 2010, according to regulatory filings. Many of Google’s most popular products, including its online maps and Android mobile software, were created by companies or are based on technology that Google acquired.

Harrison, Google’s deputy general counsel, will head up the M&A group at a time when the company is still in the process of integrating its largest acquisition, the $ 12.5 billion purchase of smartphone maker Motorola Mobility, which closed in May.

And he takes over at a time when the Internet search giant faces heightened regulatory scrutiny, with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and the European Commission conducting antitrust investigations into Google’s business practices. Several recent Google acquisitions have undergone months of regulatory review before receiving approval.

As deputy general counsel, Harrison has been deeply involved in the company’s regulatory issues and many of its acquisitions. He joined Google more than five years ago and has completed more than 70 deals at the company, according to biographical information on the Google Ventures website.

Harrison is an adviser to Google Ventures, the company’s nearly four-year old venture division which provides funding for start-up companies.

While most of Google’s acquisitions are small and mid-sized deals that do not meet the threshold for disclosure of financial terms, Google has a massive war chest of $ 45.7 billion in cash and marketable securities to fund acquisitions.

Lawee, who took over the M&A group in 2008, has had hits and misses during his tenure. Google shut down social media company Slide one year after acquiring it for $ 179 million, for example.

The planned late-stage investment group has not been finalized, the source said. The fund might operate separately from Google Ventures, according to the source.

“Think of it as a private equity fund inside of Google,” the source said.

The company recently said it would increase the cash it allocates to Google Ventures to $ 300 million a year, up from $ 200 million, potentially helping it invest in later-stage financing rounds.

Google finished Friday’s regular trading session down 1 percent, or $ 6.92, at $ 684.21.

(Reporting By Alexei Oreskovic; editing by Carol Bishopric and Jim Loney)

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Billionaire Aldi heir dies aged 58

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – German billionaire Berthold Albrecht, heir to the Aldi supermarket chain and one of Germany‘s richest men, has died aged 58, his family announced on Friday.

Together with his brother Theo Jr, Albrecht’s fortune was estimated at $ 17.8 billion, according to Forbes. That placed them at 32 in the list of Forbes billionaires and second for Germany.

“Berthold was a fighter, and full of hope to the end,” his wife, Babette, wrote in a full-page notice published in several German newspapers.

The notice from the notoriously reclusive family said that the funeral had taken place in November, but it did not give further details of the circumstances of his death.

Berthold was the son of Aldi co-founder Theo Albrecht, who died at the age of 88 in July 2010.

After the Second World War, Theo and his brother Karl turned the small grocery store their mother operated in Essen into one of the nation’s largest food retail chains, with a focus on a limited range of goods at bargain prices.

Aldi was split into two divisions covering north and south Germany in 1960. Theo took the north and Karl the south. Karl, aged 92, is classified by Forbes as the richest man in Germany with a fortune of $ 25.4 billion.

The Aldi empire, which has estimated worldwide annual turnover of about 50 billion euros ($ 65 billion), also owns the Trader Joe’s grocery chain in the United States. In Europe it competes with the likes of Tesco, Carrefour and Metro.

Berthold worked on the board of directors at Aldi North. ($ 1 = 0.7700 euros)

(Reporting by Victoria Bryan; Editing by David Goodman)

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November tax receipts grow, deficit higher: CBO

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Government tax receipts grew at a healthy 6 percent pace in November as employment and wages improved, the Congressional Budget Office said on Friday, but the month’s deficit still rose, largely because of benefit payment calendar shifts.

Should the revenue growth trend continue, it could buy the U.S. Treasury Department slightly more time before it runs out of borrowing capacity early next year.

An increase in the federal debt limit is tangled up in the negotiations between President Barack Obama and Congress over how to deal with the year-end “fiscal cliff” of automatic tax hikes and spending cuts. Obama has sought permanent authority to lift the debt cap, while congressional Republicans intend to use the debt limit as leverage in their demands for deep cuts to federal health and retirement benefit programs.

The Treasury is on track to hit the $ 16.4 trillion debt limit December 31 when more government payments are due. It has a number of emergency maneuvers it can employ to keep borrowing for several more weeks.

Louis Crandall, chief economist at Wrightson ICAP in Jersey City, New Jersey, said Treasury could announce the first of these measures, suspending the sale of securities to state and local governments, as early as next week.

The move to suspend the so-called “slugs”, which are used by state and local governments to temporarily park the proceeds of their municipal bond issues, would allow the Treasury to gain more accurate control over its debt issuance.

As of Wednesday, the Treasury was just $ 95 billion below the debt limit.

MORE PAYROLL WITHHOLDING

The nonpartisan CBO said that for the first two months of the fiscal year that started October 1, receipts are $ 30 billion — or 10 percent — ahead of last year.

Much of the growth is coming from withheld income and payroll taxes from individuals — a sign that declines in unemployment and growth of wages are bearing fruit. These receipts are up $ 23 billion for October and November, or 8 percent from a year earlier.

Receipts from corporate income taxes, normally low at this time of year, declined slightly, but other revenues rose by $ 7 billion, or 22 percent. The Federal Reserve accounted for $ 4 billion of that increase, as it earned higher yields on the debt securities it holds, while excise tax receipts grew $ 2 billion.

The combined October-November deficit totaled $ 292 billion, about $ 57 billion more than the year-earlier period, CBO said. But it attributed the increase partly to the shift of December Social Security and other benefit payments into November. Without these shifts, the two-month deficit would have declined by $ 8 billion from year ago levels.

The shifts will also have the effect of reducing December’s outlays and deficit.

CBO said November’s deficit totaled $ 172 billion, up $ 35 billion from a year earlier. The U.S. Treasury is expected to announce final budget data for the month next week.

Excluding calendar shifts, U.S. government outlays are growing at a slightly slower pace, 3.7 percent for the first two months of the fiscal year compared to the prior-year period.

The biggest gains in outlays came from the programs that Republicans want to cut deeply: 8 percent each for the Social Security and Medicare programs for the elderly, and 9 percent for Medicaid, which serves the poor.

Net interest costs were up $ 2 billion, or 5 percent, but spending on unemployment benefits fell by $ 4 billion, or 22 percent.

(Additional reporting by Rachelle Younglai. Editing by Fred Barbash and M.D. Golan)

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Toronto mayor to stay in power pending appeal of ouster

TORONTO (Reuters) – Toronto Mayor Rob Ford can stay in power pending an appeal of a conflict of interest ruling that ordered him out of his job as leader of Canada’s biggest city, a court ruled on Wednesday.

Madam Justice Gladys Pardu of the Ontario Divisional Court suspended a previous court ruling that said Ford should be ousted. Ford’s appeal of that ruling is set to be heard on January 7, but a decision on the appeal could take months.

Justice Pardu stressed that if she had not suspended the ruling, Ford would have been out of office by next week. “Significant uncertainty would result and needless expenses may be incurred if a by-election is called,” she said.

If Ford wins his appeal, he will get to keep his job until his term ends at the end of 2014. If he loses, the city council will either appoint a successor or call a special election, in which Ford is likely to run again.

“I can’t wait for the appeal, and I’m going to carry on doing what the people elected me to do,” Ford told reporters at City Hall following the decision.

Ford, a larger-than-life character who took power on a promise to “stop the gravy train” at City Hall, has argued that he did nothing wrong when he voted to overturn an order that he repay money that lobbyists had given to a charity he runs.

Superior Court Justice Charles Hackland disagreed, ruling last week that Ford acted with “willful blindness” in the case, and must leave office by December 10.

Ford was elected mayor in a landslide in 2010, but slashing costs without cutting services proved harder than he expected, and his popularity has fallen steeply.

He grabbed unwelcome headlines for reading while driving on a city expressway, for calling the police when a comedian tried to film part of a popular TV show outside his home, and after reports that city resources were used to help administer the high-school football team he coaches.

The conflict-of-interest drama began in 2010 when Ford, then a city councillor, used government letterhead to solicit donations for the football charity created in his name for underprivileged children.

Toronto’s integrity commissioner ordered Ford to repay the C$ 3,150 ($ 3,173) the charity received from lobbyists and companies that do business with the city.

Ford refused to repay the money, and in February 2012 he took part in a city council debate on the matter and then voted to remove the sanctions against him – despite being warned by the council speaker that voting would break the rules.

He pleaded not guilty in September, stating that he believed there was no conflict of interest as there was no financial benefit for the city. The judge dismissed that argument.

In a rare apology after last week’s court ruling, he said the matter began “because I love to help kids play football”.

Ford faces separate charges in a C$ 6 million libel case about remarks he made about corruption at City Hall, and is being audited for his campaign finances. The penalty in the audit case could also include removal from office.

(Reporting by Claire Sibonney; Editing by Janet Guttsman, Russ Blinch, Nick Zieminski; and Peter Galloway)

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George Zimmerman sues NBC and reporters

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — George Zimmerman sued NBC on Thursday, claiming he was defamed when the network edited his 911 call to police after the shooting of Trayvon Martin to make it sound like he was racist.

The former neighborhood watch volunteer filed the lawsuit seeking an undisclosed amount of money in Seminole County, outside Orlando. Also named in the complaint were three reporters covering the story for NBC or an NBC-owned television station.

The complaint said the airing of the edited call has inflicted emotional distress on Zimmerman, making him fear for his life and causing him to suffer nausea, insomnia and anxiety.

The lawsuit claims NBC edited his phone call to a dispatcher in February. In the call, Zimmerman describes following Martin in the gated community where he lived, just moments before he fatally shot the 17-year-old teen during a confrontation.

“NBC saw the death of Trayvon Martin not as a tragedy but as an opportunity to increase ratings, and so set about to create a myth that George Zimmerman was a racist and predatory villain,” the lawsuit claims.

NBC spokeswoman Kathy Kelly-Brown said the network strongly disagreed with the accusations made in the complaint.

“There was no intent to portray Mr. Zimmerman unfairly,” she said. “We intend to vigorously defend our position in court.”

Three employees of the network or its Miami affiliate lost their jobs because of the changes.

Zimmerman is charged with second-degree murder but has pleaded not guilty, claiming self-defense under Florida’s “stand your ground law.”

The call viewers heard was trimmed to suggest that Zimmerman volunteered to police, with no prompting, that Martin was black: “This guy looks like he’s up to no good. He looks black.”

But the portion of the tape that was deleted had the 911 dispatcher asking Zimmerman if the person who had raised his suspicion was “black, white or Hispanic,” to which Zimmerman responded, “He looks black.”

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10 Years of Tamoxifen Better Than Five: Are You Kidding Me?

FIRST PERSON | Results from a recent study called ATLAS (adjuvant tamoxifen longer against shorter) show that 10 years of tamoxifen therapy is better than the current treatment of five years. The findings will be presented at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium this week. A major drug manufacturer is one of the study’s sponsors.

Study is suspect

I find it interesting that one of the sponsors of the ATLAS study is drug manufacturer AstraZeneca. The company currently markets and manufactures Nolvadex, a brand-name version of the drug tamoxifen. Current guidelines for tamoxifen recommend that patients take the drug for five years. By doubling the number of years women take tamoxifen, AstraZeneca stands to make a lot more money. This fact makes me question the validity and objectivity of the research.

The ATLAS study suggests that taking tamoxifen for 10 years greatly increases a woman’s survival rate from estrogen-positive breast cancers. However, there was no difference in deaths or recurrences of breast cancer during the second five-year period. The increase in survival rates comes after women stop taking the drug. Trevor J. Powles of the Cancer Center in London told the New York Times that the benefits of tamoxifen far outweigh any side effects — I disagree.

Why I won’t take tamoxifen

Let me explain my situation. I have stage 2, estrogen-positive breast cancer. My oncologist recommended that I take tamoxifen for five years — I refused. This is why a study like ATLAS is so important to me.

I completely disagree with Trevor J. Powles’ statement about benefits outweighing the risks. Tamoxifen comes with some pretty serious side effects, including endometrial cancers, pulmonary embolisms, cataracts, increase in blood cholesterol, and bad interactions with many common drugs, including benedryl. The rate for endometrial cancers doubles in the second five years of taking the drug, to almost 4 percent.

Tamoxifen’s side effects are definitely something to consider before recommending that treatment be extended by an additional five years. In addition to serious side effects, 40 percent of the women taking tamoxifen in the ATLAS study stopped prior to completing the trials because of side effects.

Tamoxifen causes menopausal symptoms like night sweats, hot flashes and vaginal dryness. While not life threatening, these symptoms have a direct impact on quality of life. Bone pain is another side effect.

Tamoxifen does not work for approximately 1/3 of the women who take it. ATLAS does not address this issue.

Is ATLAS a study that truly looks to benefit women battling breast cancer or is it a way for a drug manufacturer to line their pockets? When you look at all the information, it seems like the latter is true. Apparently, AstraZeneca would rather increase their bottom line instead of increasing a breast cancer patient’s quality of life.

Lynda Altman was diagnosed with breast cancer in November 2011. She writes a series for Yahoo! Shine called “My Battle With Breast Cancer.”

Medications/Drugs News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Both sides hint at renewed 'fiscal cliff' talks

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - With little to show after a month of posturing, the White House and Republicans in Congress dropped hints on Thursday that they had resumed low-level private talks on breaking the stalemate over the "fiscal cliff" but refused to divulge details.

A day after a phone conversation between President Barack Obama and John Boehner, the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, appeared to kick-start communications, both sides used similar language to describe the state of negotiations but imposed a media blackout on developments.

"Lines of communication remain open," White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters when pressed on whether staff talks were taking place to avoid the steep tax hikes and budget cuts set for the first of next year unless the parties agree on a way to stop them.

Asked the same question, Boehner spokesman Michael Steel also said "lines of communication are open."

The acknowledgement, even without signs of anything approaching a breakthrough, passed for encouraging news after a week of public maneuvering on the fiscal cliff by both sides to gain the maximum political and public relations advantage.

Republicans have worried publicly and privately that they are losing the war of appearances in the battle over the cliff.

On Thursday, another poll showed Republicans may have reason to worry about public perception. A Quinnipiac University survey found respondents trust Obama and Democrats more than Republicans on the cliff talks by a wide margin - 53 percent to 36 percent.

In both public statements and private encounters, Obama has tried to encourage Republicans wavering from the position of the party leadership.

Republican Representative Tom Cole, who last week broke ranks with his party and agreed to accept higher tax rates on the richest Americans, said Obama took him aside at a White House Christmas party on Monday and joked about the criticism Cole had received from Republicans.

"The president pulled me over and he said, 'Cole, come closer, I want to see the bruises,'" Cole told Reuters. "He said, 'Seriously, I will go further on this thing than you guys think. I know we can get something done.'"

While other Republicans have questioned Obama's commitment, Cole said, "I take him at his word," adding: "The best is to get to that discussion as quickly as we can."

'SOLVABLE PROBLEM'

Obama, meanwhile, played to his strengths with the latest in a series of the sort of public events he has used against Republicans in the fiscal cliff fight: a visit with a family in the Virginia suburbs of Washington to illustrate how Republican tax proposals would hurt the middle class.

"The message that I think we all want to send to members of Congress is: this is a solvable problem," Obama said while visiting the home of a couple in Falls Church, Virginia. "We are in the midst of the Christmas season and I think the American people are counting on this getting solved."

Neither side in the showdown would characterize Wednesday's conversation between Boehner and Obama or suggest it opened up new area of compromise.

Obama and Democrats in Congress want the tax cuts set to expire at the end of the year to be extended for taxpayers with incomes below $250,000 a year but not for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans.

In exchange, the president has said he is willing to consider significant spending cuts wanted by Republicans to "entitlement" programs such as Medicare, the government health insurance plan for seniors.

Republicans have held out for an extension of all the tax cuts, but they have become increasingly divided about whether they can prevail in the face of Obama's firm stance and Republican control of only the House but not the U.S. Senate.

TANGLING OVER DEBT LIMIT

The debt ceiling issue - the same one that provoked a showdown in 2011 that led to a downgrading of the U.S. credit rating - has become a centerpiece of the fiscal cliff debate, thanks in part to Obama's insistence that Congress give him enhanced power to increase the debt limit, which needs to be raised again in the next few months.

"It ought to be done without delay and without drama," Carney, the White House spokesman, said of raising the debt ceiling.

That issue produced a largely partisan procedural scuffle on Thursday in the Senate when Republicans tried to provoke a vote on giving Obama the power to raise the debt ceiling on his own.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, who had argued that not even Democrats would support giving Obama greater flexibility, tried to prove it by pushing for a vote.

When Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid went ahead and scheduled it, confident he had enough support to win on a straight majority vote, the Republicans backed down, with McConnell demanding that 60 votes be required for passage, more than the Democrats can muster.

No new vote was scheduled. While the measure could come up again, it was dead for the moment.

"Senator McConnell took obstruction to new heights by filibustering his own bill," Reid said in a statement.

Democratic Senator Charles Schumer of New York told reporters that Republicans were losing the argument on raising top tax rates and "are trying to pivot away to other parts of the fiscal cliff in a desperate attempt to assert leverage and change the subject."

The exchange may be a taste of things to come as Congress moves toward the fiscal cliff deadline.

Economists have warned a plunge over the cliff could drive the economy back into a recession. Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics, told the congressional Joint Economic Committee that failure to strike a deal could have serious economic consequences relatively quickly.

"By mid-February you would be doing a lot of damage," Zandi said.

(Additional reporting by Margaret Chadbourn, Rachelle Younglai, David Lawder, Jason Lange; Writing by John Whitesides; Editing by Fred Barbash and Eric Beech)

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Death toll from Philippine typhoon nears 300

NEW BATAAN, Philippines (AP) — Stunned parents searching for missing children examined a row of mud-stained bodies covered with banana leaves while survivors dried their soaked belongings on roadsides Wednesday, a day after a powerful typhoon killed nearly 300 people in the southern Philippines.

Officials fear more bodies may be found as rescuers reach hard-hit areas that were isolated by landslides, floods and downed communications.

At least 151 people died in the worst-hit province of Compostela Valley when Typhoon Bopha lashed the region Tuesday, including 78 villagers and soldiers who perished in a flash flood that swamped two emergency shelters and a military camp, provincial spokeswoman Fe Maestre said.

Disaster-response agencies reported 284 dead in the region and 14 fatalities elsewhere from the typhoon, one of the strongest to hit the country this year.

About 80 people survived the deluge in New Bataan with injuries, and Interior Secretary Mar Roxas, who visited the town, said 319 others remained missing.

“These were whole families among the registered missing,” Roxas told the ABS-CBN TV network. “Entire families may have been washed away.”

The farming town of 45,000 people was a muddy wasteland of collapsed houses and coconut and banana trees felled by Bopha’s ferocious winds.

Bodies of victims were laid on the ground for viewing by people searching for missing relatives. Some were badly mangled after being dragged by raging flood waters over rocks and other debris. A man sprayed insecticide on the remains to keep away swarms of flies.

A father wept when he found the body of his child after lifting a plastic cover. A mother, meanwhile, went away in tears, unable to find her missing children. “I have three children,” she said repeatedly, flashing three fingers before a TV cameraman.

Two men carried the mud-caked body of an unidentified girl that was covered with coconut leaves on a makeshift stretcher made from a blanket and wooden poles.

Dionisia Requinto, 43, felt lucky to have survived with her husband and their eight children after swirling flood waters surrounded their home. She said they escaped and made their way up a hill to safety, bracing themselves against boulders and fallen trees as they climbed.

“The water rose so fast,” she told AP. “It was horrible. I thought it was going to be our end.”

In nearby Davao Oriental, the coastal province first struck by the typhoon as it blew from the Pacific Ocean, at least 115 people perished, mostly in three towns that were so battered that it was hard to find any buildings with roofs remaining, provincial officer Freddie Bendulo and other officials said.

“We had a problem where to take the evacuees. All the evacuation centers have lost their roofs,” Davao Oriental Gov. Corazon Malanyaon said.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies issued an urgent appeal for $ 4.8 million to help people directly affected by the typhoon.

The sun was shining brightly for most of the day Wednesday, prompting residents to lay their soaked clothes, books and other belongings out on roadsides to dry and revealing the extent of the damage to farmland. Thousands of banana trees in one Compostela Valley plantation were toppled by the wind, the young bananas still wrapped in blue plastic covers.

But as night fell, however, rain started pouring again over New Bataan, triggering panic among some residents who feared a repeat of the previous day’s flash floods. Some carried whatever belongings they could as they hurried to nearby towns or higher ground.

After slamming into Davao Oriental and Compostela Valley, Bopha roared quickly across the southern Mindanao and central regions, knocking out power in two entire provinces, triggering landslides and leaving houses and plantations damaged. More than 170,000 fled to evacuation centers.

As of Wednesday evening, the typhoon was over the South China Sea west of Palawan province. It was blowing northwestward and could be headed to Vietnam or southern China, according to government forecasters.

The deaths came despite efforts by President Benigno Aquino III’s government to force residents out of high-risk communities as the typhoon approached.

Some 20 typhoons and storms lash the northern and central Philippines each year, but they rarely hit the vast southern Mindanao region where sprawling export banana plantations have been planted over the decades because it seldom experiences strong winds that could blow down the trees.

A rare storm in the south last December killed more than 1,200 people and left many more homeless.

The United States extended its condolences and offered to help its Asian ally deal with the typhoon’s devastation. It praised government efforts to minimize the deaths and damage.

___

Associated Press writers Jim Gomez, Teresa Cerojano and Oliver Teves in Manila contributed to this report.

Asia News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Obama leads heads of state atop Forbes 2012 power list

NEW YORK (Reuters) – When it comes to power, politics trumps business, according to a new Forbes ranking on Wednesday that found heads of state occupying six of the top 10 spots among the world’s most powerful people, led by President Barack Obama.

The annual list selected what Forbes said were the world’s 71 most-powerful people from among the roughly 7.1 billion global populace, based on factors ranging from wealth to global influence.

Obama was joined in the top 10 by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Russian President Vladimir Putin, King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz al Saud of Saudi Arabia and British Prime Minister David Cameron.

The list’s highest-ranked businessman was Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates at No. 4. U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and European Central Bank President Mario Draghi, both public officials, also made the top 10.

“This year’s list reflects the changing of the guard in the world’s two most powerful countries: the United States and China,” Michael Noer, Forbes‘ executive editor, told Reuters in an email.

Noer noted that China’s President Hu Jintao, last year’s third most-powerful person, fell off the list as he is leaving power, and his successor, Xi Jinping, ranked ninth instead.

Both U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who have stated they will not be serving in Obama’s second term, were not in this year’s rankings.

While elected and appointed officials and business people made up the vast majority of Forbes’ most powerful, Pope Benedict XVI placed fifth in the rankings.

Among the oddities was Joaquin Guzman Loera at No. 63.

Loera, far from a household name, is a billionaire nicknamed “El Chapo” who as head of Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel is the world’s most powerful drug trafficker, according to Forbes.

Age was also not a barrier, with two of the youngest and oldest of this year’s most powerful — 28-year-old Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and 81-year-old News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch — back-to-back at numbers 25 and 26, respectively.

Forbes noted that Zuckerberg fell out of last year’s top 10 after Facebook’s IPO disappointed. A gainer, meanwhile, was Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, who moved up four spots to No. 18 despite being only halfway into her first term of office.

To create the rankings, which Forbes readily concedes bore a measure of subjectivity, editors graded candidates on four criteria for power and averaged the four grades:

– Power over many people

– Control over financial and other valuable resources

– Power in multiple spheres or arenas

– Active use of power

Some measures, such as power over many people, favored leaders such as the Pope, while the world’s richest man — Mexican telecom magnate Carlos Slim Hula, worth a reported $ 72 billion — placed 11th on the strength of his wealth.

Others, such as New York’s billionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg, scored high in all areas, placing him at No. 16.

Noer said that Elon Musk, one of the co-founders of Paypal and Tesla Motors, was “one of the more interesting newcomers” on the list due to his SpaceX company, a private space exploration venture.

“With NASA retiring the space shuttle fleet, private companies like SpaceX have been awarded huge contracts to do things like resupply the International Space Station. The commercialization of space is just beginning, but we expect it to be big business,” Noer said.

Former President Bill Clinton placed 50th, with editors noting that by hitting the campaign trail for Obama, Clinton “cemented his status as a kingmaker”, along with his nonpartisan Global Initiative raising more than $ 71 billion in commitments to fund charitable action worldwide.

Other high-ranking heads of state included French President Francois Hollande at No. 14, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at No. 19 and Iran’s Grand Ayatollah Ali Hoseini-Khamenei at No. 21.

Among businessmen in the top 20 were Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett at No. 15, Wal-Mart CEO Michael Duke at No. 17 and Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin at No. 20.

The entire list can be found at www.forbes.com/power as well as the December 24 issue of the magazine.

(Reporting by Chris Michaud, Editing by Piya Sinha-Roy and Andrew Hay)

Celebrity News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Republicans weigh swallowing tax hike on the wealthy

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – While Republican leaders in the House of Representatives insist that raising tax rates on the rich is an impossibility, some Republican lawmakers now see it as inevitable to avoiding the “fiscal cliff” of severe tax hikes and spending cuts set to start January 1.

Congressional aides, who asked not to be identified, said Republicans are losing the public relations battle over keeping low tax rates for the rich and are getting battered by President Barack Obama and his fellow Democrats in Congress following their November 6 election victories.

On Capitol Hill aides often play an important role of communicating what members are thinking but cannot say themselves. In recent days, increasing numbers are putting out word through news organizations that Republicans now feel they cannot win on tax cuts for the wealthy, at least not now.

Without a deal by December 31, $ 600 billion in across-the-board spending cuts and tax increases, which are so severe that they likely would shove the economy into recession, are scheduled to begin.

Republican Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee told reporters that his fellow Republicans are beginning to see a possible upside to giving in to Obama on tax rates so the party can then try to gain the upper hand in subsequent negotiations – maybe next year – to make savings in expensive “entitlement” programs such as Medicare healthcare for the elderly.

“If the House were to give that to him, where does the discussion then go? It goes to entitlements, which is where it ought to be in the first place,” said Corker, who added, “I’m hearing whispers of a light going off in some people’s minds.”

Conservative Republican Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma told MSNBC: “Personally I know we have to raise revenue. I don’t really care which way we do it. Actually, I would rather see the rates go up than do it the other way because it gives us a greater chance to reform the tax code and broaden the base in the future.”

Democrats on Wednesday kept up pressure on Republicans to allow votes on legislation to continue low tax rates on everyone with net incomes below $ 250,000 a year – an estimated 98 percent of taxpayers. Rates for the 2 percent above that threshold would snap back to pre-2001 levels of 35 percent and 39.6 percent under a Senate-approved bill.

“The first step, the most obvious step, is for the Republican House to take the 98 percent both sides agree on and pass our Senate bill and send it to the president for his signature,” Democratic Senator Patty Murray of Washington state said in excerpts to a speech she was to deliver on the Senate floor later on Wednesday.

A Senate Republican aide noted that Republicans “are in a very weak bargaining position” on maintaining low tax rates of 33 percent and 36 percent on the top two income brackets “and we all know we are going to get hell if we go off the cliff.”

The aide saw the possibility of Republicans and Democrats swapping a few more proposals that they know will be rejected, before moving to an end-game by mid-December or so.

One such Republican proposal, according to another Republican aide, would set forth a $ 1.6 trillion deficit-reduction plan, with half the savings coming from higher revenues and the other half from tough entitlement program cuts – meaning benefit reductions for the elderly and poor that Democrats undoubtedly would oppose, at least for now.

THE REAL DEAL?

But the real proposal – one that would be presented to the full House and Senate for passage this month – could involve letting tax rates rise on the highest income earners, although maybe not to as high a level as Obama is demanding, according to aides. It could be coupled with extending low estate taxes and protecting middle-income people from being thrown into a tax level intended for the rich.

The deal also would set up a framework, which has been widely discussed, to work on comprehensive tax and spending reforms next year that ultimately could reduce all tax rates while ending a broad swath of tax breaks.

The Senate Republican aide added that if there is no deal to avert the fiscal cliff by December 31, Republicans would find themselves in an even worse position in the new Congress convening in January.

Senate Democrats will have a larger majority next year, having picked up two more seats as a result of the November 6 elections. The party also has gained seats in the House.

“We know that if we wait until the new Congress, the 98 percent bill will get passed by the Senate and there will be more pressure in the House to do it by discharge,” the Senate Republican aide said.

“Discharge” refers to attempts already underway by House Democrats to get the Democratic bill extending tax cuts for everyone but the rich to the House floor through a “discharge petition” signed by a majority of the chamber’s members.

Even amid all the speculation of a Republican-Democratic deal in coming weeks, it is hard to find anyone who voices complete confidence in such an outcome, leaving open the possibility that the country can still go off the fiscal cliff on January 1.

(Additional reporting by Kim Dixon and Thomas Ferraro; Editing by Fred Barbash and Vicki Allen)

Seniors/Aging News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Syria loads chemical weapons, waits for green light

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton attends the "Friends of Syria" confernence in Paris. (AP)U.S. officials say the Syrian military has loaded active chemical weapons into bombs and is awaiting a final order from embattled President Bashar Assad to use the deadly weapons against its own people.

NBC News reports that on Wednesday the Syrian military loaded sarin gas into aerial bombs that could be deployed from dozens of aircraft.

The last large-scale use of sarin was in 1988, when former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's forces killed 5,000 Kurds in a single attack.

However, U.S. officials told NBC that the sarin bombs had not yet been loaded onto planes but added if Assad gives the final order, "there's little the outside world can do to stop it."

The Syrian government has previously insisted that it would not use chemical weapons against its own people.

For months, the Obama administration has described the Assad regime as being on the verge of collapse. If the Syrian government were to be toppled from outside forces or from within, it would be the first nation possessing weapons of mass destruction to do so.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has as recently as last week warned of the possibility that Assad could use chemical weapons against his own people. After meeting other NATO foreign ministers in Brussels last week, Clinton told the gathering, "Our concerns are that an increasingly desperate Assad regime might turn to chemical weapons, or might lose control of them to one of the many groups that are now operating within Syria."

"We have sent an unmistakable message that this would cross a red line and those responsible would be held to account," she said.

At the end of the meeting, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen backed up Clinton's threat, declaring that the international community could take military action against Assad and his forces.

"The possible use of chemical weapons would be completely unacceptable for the whole international community and if anybody resorts to these terrible weapons I would expect an immediate reaction from the international community," Rasmussen told reporters.

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WestJet embraces tech to woo business travelers

TORONTO (Reuters) – WestJet Airlines Ltd will use technological innovation, including a new Internet ticket booking system, to help it transform from a no-frills carrier to a lower-cost full-service airline courting lucrative corporate travelers, its chief executive said on Monday.

Canada’s second-biggest airline plans to launch a series of technology systems, most notably the new online booking engine, which will sell three tiers of tickets, in the next two months.

“Companies evolve or they die,” Chief Executive Gregg Saretsky told Reuters in a phone interview from the company’s Calgary head office.

“We’re 16 and going on 17 years old and we can’t stay just as we were 17 years ago. The world has changed. And we are changing to be more relevant for a broader segment of guests.”

The new Internet booking system, which WestJet hopes to launch in late January, will sell economy, mid-tier and premium tickets. That is a major shift from its current system, which sells only the lowest-priced ticket available.

Economy tickets under the new system will continue to sell the lowest available fare, but the cancellation fee for them will jump to C$ 75 ($ 75.48) from C$ 50. Mid-tier tickets will have a C$ 50 cancellation fee.

Premium tickets, unavailable until late March when WestJet finishes reconfiguring its 100 Boeing 737 planes to allow more leg room, will include priority screening and boarding, free cancellations and flexibility on ticket changes.

Pricing for those tickets, which may include free meals and drinks and an extra baggage allowance, has not yet been determined. Fares will be well below half the price for business class at WestJet’s bigger competitor, Air Canada, Saretsky said.

“It’s time for us to be more serious with respect to going after business travelers because frankly, they’re the ones who are booking last-minute and are happy to pay for the conveniences,” Saretsky said.

WestJet will launch its premium economy service with 24 seats per plane, but will consider expansion if it proves “wildly successful,” he added.

POISED FOR CHANGE

WestJet, which has spent about C$ 40 million over the past two years on technology projects, is poised for major changes in 2013 as it readies to launch a new regional airline, Encore.

Saretsky hopes that WestJet’s switch in coming weeks to a new Internet phone system will allow ticket reservation agents to work from home and help make room for Encore staff.

Some 750 reservation agents work at WestJet’s Calgary offices, which house about 2,400 staff. Space will be needed for Encore employees over the next 18 months while their office, hangars and maintenance stores are constructed at the WestJet campus.

Encore will be launch in the second half of 2013, “probably closer to July than December,” Saretsky said, with seven Bombardier Q400 planes.

While WestJet won’t announce Encore’s schedule until Jan 21, the carrier will initially serve only “a handful” of new cities, with ticket prices up to 50 percent below Air Canada’s, he added.

Over the next two months, WestJet will also roll out a guest notification system that alerts travelers via email about their flights, allowing them to check in remotely.

Such self-service technology will be critical as WestJet faces increasing labor costs, Saretsky said.

Wage and benefit costs, which represent about a third of operating costs, have climbed 50 percent since WestJet was founded in 1996.

“You can see that creates a little bit of drag on earnings,” Saretsky said. “We’ve got to find ways of reducing our component costs.”

If WestJet can increase self service options for travelers, that could limit the need for new employees, Saretsky said. Management also wants to improve attendance management, so that fewer employees book off sick around long weekends, and more quickly clean and process planes between flights, he said.

(Reporting By Susan Taylor; Editing by Peter Galloway)

(This story was corrected to show that WestJet is replacing its Internet booking engine, not entire reservation system, in the first and second paragraphs)

Canada News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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‘Dr. Phil”s stolen classic Chevy recovered

BURBANK, Calif. (AP) — Los Angeles police say they’ve recovered a stolen 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air Convertible that belongs to talk-show host Phil McGraw.

Detective Jess Corral said Tuesday that investigators recovered McGraw’s classic car, along with 13 others, after law enforcement began targeting auto theft rings.

McGraw is known as television’s “Dr. Phil. His car was stolen from the RODZ shop in Burbank in August, and was found with minor damage.

The car is worth at least $ 80,000.

Entertainment News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Chelsea’s hypotension drug fails to prove efficacy past week one

(Reuters) – Chelsea Therapeutics Inc said its experimental hypotension drug met the main goal of a study by significantly reducing dizziness in patients at week one, but results beyond that period were not statistically significant.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration declined to approve the drug, Northera, in March, and asked for data that proved it was effective over two to three months.

The company’s shares, which have lost about two-thirds of its value so far this year, fell 22 percent to $ 1.40 in extended trading after closing at $ 1.79 on Tuesday on the Nasdaq.

Chelsea said in August that it would modify the main goal of the ongoing 306B study, though the FDA had said the study was unlikely to provide sufficient data for a marketing application and had suggested the company conduct an additional trial.

The drugmaker said on Tuesday that preliminary data showed that beyond week one, dizziness/lightheadedness and standing blood pressure predominantly favored Northera-treated patients over placebo, although the results were not statistically significant.

The drug, known generically as droxidopa, is designed to treat symptomatic neurogenic orthostatic hypotension — a chronic and often debilitating drop in blood pressure on standing up that is most often associated with Parkinson’s disease.

(Reporting by Vidya P L Nathan in Bangalore; Editing by Anthony Kurian)

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100,000 protest at presidential palace

CAIRO (AP) — More than 100,000 Egyptians protested outside the presidential palace in Cairo on Tuesday, fueling tensions over Islamist leader Mohammed Morsi's seizure of nearly unrestricted powers and the adoption by his allies of a controversial draft constitution.

The outpouring of anger across the Egyptian capital, the Mediterranean port of Alexandria and a string of other cities pointed to a prolonged standoff between the president and a newly united opposition.

Morsi's opponents, long fractured by bickering and competing egos, have been re-energized since he announced decrees last month that place him above oversight of any kind, including by the courts, and provide immunity to two key bodies dominated by his allies: The 100-member panel drafting the constitution and parliament's upper chamber.

The decrees have led to charges that Morsi's powers turned him into a "new pharaoh."

The large turnout in Tuesday's protests — dubbed "The Last Warning" by organizers — signaled sustained momentum for the opposition, which brought out at least 200,000 protesters to Cairo's Tahrir Square a week ago and a comparable number on Friday to demand that Morsi rescind the decrees.

The huge scale of the protests have dealt a blow to the legitimacy of the new constitution, which Morsi's opponents contend allows religious authorities too much influence over legislation, threatens to restrict freedom of expression and opens the door to Islamist control over day-to-day life.

What the revived opposition has yet to make clear is what it will do next: campaign for a "no" vote on the draft constitution in a nationwide referendum set for Dec. 15, or call on Egyptians to boycott the vote.

Already, the country's powerful judges have said they will not take on their customary role of overseeing the vote, thus robbing it of much of its legitimacy.

Morsi was in the presidential palace conducting business as usual as the protesters gathered outside. He left for home through a back door as the crowds continued to swell, according to a presidential official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

The official said Morsi left on the advice of security officials to head off "possible dangers" and to calm the protesters. Morsi's spokesman, however, said the president left the palace at the end of his normal work day, through the door he routinely uses.

The protest was peaceful except for a brief outburst when police used tear gas to prevent demonstrators from removing a barricade topped with barbed wire and converging on the palace.

Soon after, with the president gone, the police abandoned their lines and the protesters surged ahead to reach the palace walls. But there were no attempts to storm the palace, guarded inside by the army's Republican Guard.

Protesters also commandeered two police vans, climbing atop the armored vehicles to jubilantly wave Egypt's red, white and black flag and chant against Morsi. The protesters later mingled freely with the black-clad riot police, as more and more people flocked to the area to join the demonstration.

The protesters covered most of the palace walls with anti-Morsi graffiti and waved giant banners carrying images of revolutionaries killed in earlier protests. "Down with the regime" and "No to Morsi," they wrote on the walls.

"He isn't the president of all Egyptians, only of the Muslim Brotherhood," said protester Mariam Metwally, a postgraduate student of international law. "We don't feel like he is our president."

A giant poster emblazoned with an image of Morsi wearing a Pharaonic crown was hoisted between two street light posts outside the presidential palace. "Down with the president. No to the constitution," it declared.

"The scene at Itihadiya palace is a stab at the president's legitimacy and his constitutional declaration," opposition leader Hamdeen Sabahi told a private TV network. "The scene sends a message to the president that he is running out of time."

The massive gathering was reminiscent of the one outside the palace on Feb. 11, 2011 — the day authoritarian president Hosni Mubarak stepped down in the face of an 18-day uprising that ended his 29-year regime.

Shouts of "Erhal! Erhal!" — Arabic for "Leave! Leave!" — and "The people want to topple the regime!" rose up from the crowd, the same chants used against Mubarak. This time, though, they were directed at his successor, Egypt's first democratically elected president.

"The same way we brought down Mubarak in 18 days, we can bring down Morsi in less," Ziad Oleimi, a prominent rights activist, told the crowds using a loudspeaker.

In Alexandria, some 10,000 opponents of Morsi gathered in the center of the country's second-largest metropolis, chanting slogans against the leader and his Islamic fundamentalist group, the Muslim Brotherhood.

The protests fueled Egypt's worst political crisis since Mubarak's ouster, with the country clearly divided into two camps: Morsi, his Muslim Brotherhood and their ultraconservative Islamist allies, versus an opposition made up of youth groups, liberal parties and large sectors of the public.

Tens of thousands also gathered in Cairo's downtown Tahrir Square, miles away from the palace, to join several hundred who have been camping out there for nearly two weeks. There were other large protests around the city.

Smaller protests by Morsi opponents were staged in the Islamist stronghold of Assiut, as well as in Suez, Luxor, Aswan, Damanhour and the industrial city of Mahallah, north of Cairo.

"Freedom or we die," chanted a crowd of several hundred outside a mosque in Cairo's Abbasiyah district. "Mohammed Morsi, illegitimate! Brotherhood, illegitimate!" they yelled.

Earlier Tuesday, several hundred protesters also gathered outside Morsi's residence in an upscale suburb. "Down with the sons of dogs. We are the power and we are the people," they chanted.

Morsi, who narrowly won the presidency in a June election, appeared to be in no mood for compromise.

A statement by his office said he met Tuesday with his deputy, his prime minister and several top Cabinet members to discuss preparations for the referendum. The statement suggested business as usual at the palace, despite the mass rally outside its doors.

Asked why Morsi did not address the crowds, Muslim Brotherhood spokesman Mahmoud Ghozlan said the protesters were "rude" and included "thugs and drug addicts."

The Islamists responded to the mass opposition protests last week by sending hundreds of thousands of supporters into Cairo's twin city of Giza on Saturday and across much of the country. Thousands also besieged Egypt's highest court, the Supreme Constitutional Court.

The court had been widely expected to declare the constitutional assembly that passed the draft charter illegitimate and to disband parliament's upper house, the Shura Council. Instead, the judges went on strike after they found their building under siege by protesters.

Morsi's Nov. 22 decrees were followed last week by the constitutional panel rushing through the draft constitution in a marathon, all-night session without the participation of liberal and Christian members. Only four women, all Islamists, attended the session.

The charter has been criticized for not protecting the rights of women and minority groups, and many journalists see it as restricting freedom of expression. Critics also say it empowers Islamic religious clerics by giving them a say over legislation, while some articles were seen as tailored to get rid of the Islamists' enemies.

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Associated Press writer Maggie Michael contributed to this report.

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Official: Syria moving chemical weapons components

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. and allied intelligence have detected Syrian movement of chemical weapons components in recent days, a senior U.S. defense official said Monday, as the Obama administration strongly warned the Assad regime against using them.

A senior defense official said intelligence officials have detected activity around more than one of Syria‘s chemical weapons sites in the last week. The defense official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about intelligence matters.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, in Prague for meetings with Czech officials, reiterated President Barack Obama‘s declaration that Syrian action on chemical weapons was a “red line” for the United States that would prompt action.

“We have made our views very clear: This is a red line for the United States,” Clinton told reporters. “I’m not going to telegraph in any specifics what we would do in the event of credible evidence that the Assad regime has resorted to using chemical weapons against their own people. But suffice it to say, we are certainly planning to take action if that eventuality were to occur.”

Syria said Monday it would not use chemical weapons against its own people. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Syria “would not use chemical weapons — if there are any — against its own people under any circumstances.”

Syria has been careful never to confirm that it has any chemical weapons.

The use of chemical weapons would be a major escalation in Assad’s crackdown on his foes and would draw international condemnation. In addition to causing mass deaths and horrific injuries to survivors, the regime’s willingness to use them would alarm much of the region, particularly neighboring states, including Israel.

At the White House, press secretary Jay Carney said, “We are concerned that in an increasingly beleaguered regime, having found its escalation of violence through conventional means inadequate, might be considering the use of chemical weapons against the Syrian people. And as the president has said, any use or proliferation of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime would cross a red line for the United States. “

Administration officials would not detail what that response might be.

Although Syria is one of only seven nations that have not signed the Chemical Weapons Treaty, it is a party to the 1925 Geneva Protocol that bans the use of chemical weapons in war. That treaty was signed in the aftermath of World War I, when the effects of the use of mustard gas and other chemical agents outraged much of the world.

Clinton didn’t address the issue of the fresh activity at Syrian chemical weapons depots, but insisted that Washington would address any threat that arises.

An administration official said the trigger for U.S. action of some kind is the use of chemical weapons or movement with the intent to use or provide them to a terrorist group like Hezbollah. The U.S. is trying to determine whether the recent movement detected in Syria falls into any of those categories, the official said. The administration official was speaking on condition of anonymity this person was not authorized to speak publicly about the issue.

The senior defense official said the U.S. does not believe that any Syrian action beyond the movement of components is imminent.

An Israeli official said if there is real movement on chemical weapons, it would require a response. He didn’t say what that might be and spoke on condition of anonymity pending a formal government response to the reports of the latest activities.

Israeli officials have repeatedly expressed concerns that Syrian chemical weapons could slip into the hands of Hezbollah or other anti-Israel groups, or even be fired toward Israel in an act of desperation by Syria.

Syria is believed to have several hundred ballistic surface-to-surface missiles capable of carrying chemical warheads.

Its arsenal is a particular threat to the American allies, Turkey and Israel, and Obama singled out the threat posed by the unconventional weapons earlier this year as a potential cause for deeper U.S. involvement in Syria’s civil war. Up to now, the United States has opposed military intervention or providing arms support to Syria’s rebels for fear of further militarizing a conflict that activists say has killed more than 40,000 people since March 2011.

Clinton said that while the actions of President Bashar Assad‘s government have been deplorable, chemical weapons would bring them to a new level.

“We once again issue a very strong warning to the Assad regime that their behavior is reprehensible, their actions against their own people have been tragic,” she said. “But there is no doubt that there’s a line between even the horrors that they’ve already inflicted on the Syrian people and moving to what would be an internationally condemned step of utilizing their chemical weapons.”

Activity has been detected before at Syrian weapons sites, believed to number several dozen.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said in late September the intelligence suggested the Syrian government had moved some of its chemical weapons in order to protect them. He said the U.S. believed that the main sites remained secure.

Asked Monday if they were still considered secure, Pentagon press secretary George Little declined to comment about any intelligence related to the weapons.

Senior lawmakers were notified last week that U.S. intelligence agencies had detected activity related to Syria’s chemical and biological weapons, said a U.S. intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the closed-door meetings. All congressional committees with an interest in Syria, from the intelligence to the armed services committees, are now being kept informed.

“I can’t comment on these reports but I have been very concerned for some time now about Syria’s stockpiles of chemical weapons and its stocks of advanced conventional weapons like shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missiles,” said House intelligence committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Mich. “We are not doing enough to prepare for the collapse of the Assad regime, and the dangerous vacuum it will create. Use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime would be an extremely serious escalation that would demand decisive action from the rest of the world,” he added.

Syria is believed to have one of the world’s largest chemical weapons programs, and the Assad regime has said it might use the weapons against external threats, though not against Syrians. The U.S. and Jordan share the same concern about Syria’s chemical and biological weapons — that they could fall into the wrong hands should the regime in Syria collapse and lose control of them.

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Klapper reported from Prague. Associated Press writers Josef Federman in Jerusalem, Albert Aji in Damascus and Matthew Lee, Kimberly Dozier, and Julie Pace in Washington contributed to this report.

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‘The Daily’ doomed by dull content and isolation

LOS ANGELES (AP) — It was too expensive. It lacked editorial focus. And for a digital publication, it was strangely cut off from the Internet. That’s the obituary being written in real time through posts, tweets and online chats about The Daily, the first-of-its-kind iPad newspaper that is being shut down this month.

Rupert Murdoch‘s News Corp. said Monday that The Daily will publish its final issue on Dec. 15, less than two years after its January 2011 launch. The app has already been removed from Apple’s iTunes, where it once received lukewarm ratings.

The Daily had roughly 100,000 subscribers who paid either 99 cents a week or $ 40 a year for its daily download of journalism tailored for touch screens. But that wasn’t enough to sustain some 100 employees and millions of dollars in losses since its launch. At the time of its debut, News Corp. said The Daily’s operating costs would amount to about half a million dollars a week, or around $ 26 million a year.

When News Corp. launched The Daily, it was touted as a bold experiment in new media. The company hired top-name journalists from other publications, such as the New York Post’s former Page Six editor, Richard Johnson, and said it poured $ 30 million into the newspaper’s launch. Now, the company is acknowledging that The Daily no longer has a place at News Corp., which is being split in two to separate its publishing enterprises from its TV and movie businesses.

Murdoch said in a statement that News Corp. “could not find a large enough audience quickly enough to convince us the business model was sustainable in the long-term.” Some employees are being hired in other parts of the company.

Critics say The Daily’s day-to-day mix of news, opinion and info-graphics wasn’t that different from content available for free on the Internet. And despite a high-profile launch that drew lots of media attention, the publication failed to build a distinctive brand. There was no ad campaign touting its coverage and stories weren’t accessible to non-subscribers, so it didn’t benefit from buzz that comes from social networks like Twitter and Facebook.

Trevor Butterworth, who wrote a weekly column for The Daily called “The Information Society,” says the disconnect between the app and the broader Internet curtailed its reach. He was laid off in July when the publication shrank from 170 workers to about 120. As part of the purge, The Daily cut its dedicated opinion section and dropped sports coverage in favor of using a feed from its News Corp. sister outfit, Fox Sports.

“Stories weren’t widely shared or widely known,” says Butterworth. “It felt like I was writing into the void.”

When it launched, The Daily was meant to take advantage of the explosion of tablet computer sales, and the notion that people generally read on them in the morning or evening, like a magazine.

But each issue came in a giant file — sometimes 1 gigabyte large — and took 10 or 15 minutes to download over a broadband connection, which is unheard of for news apps, says Matt Haughey, the founder of MetaFilter.com, one of the first community blogs on the Internet.

Because the stories weren’t linkable, The Daily didn’t benefit from new Internet traffic that would have come from content aggregators like Flipboard and Tumblr.

“They ignored the obvious, which was the Web,” Haughey says. Although many people are foregoing buying a laptop for the lightweight convenience of a tablet, the day hasn’t arrived yet when all online access will come through apps rather than the Web. “Maybe in five or 10 years, the Web will be less important,” he says. “For now it seems like they were missing out.”

It may also have been a problem that News Corp. launched The Daily from scratch into an environment where readers tend to gravitate toward trusted sources and established brands. According to a 2011 Pew Research Center survey, 84 percent of mobile device users said a news app’s brand was a major factor in deciding whether to download it.

One of the intangible challenges The Daily had was standing out in a sea of online journalism, both paid and free. Some national newspapers, such as The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, have carved out a niche with informed coverage of sometimes complex topics and have gained paying digital subscribers by limiting the number of free articles they offer online.

Gannett Co., which publishes USA Today and about 80 other newspapers, has succeeded in raising circulation revenue at local papers by putting up so-called online “pay walls,” taking advantage of the fact that there are few alternative sources of coverage for certain communities.

Without a unique coverage niche or a local monopoly, The Daily was caught between two worlds.

By being digital-only, the publication didn’t have a defined coverage area. It was “in competition with everybody and everything,” says Joshua Benton, director of the Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard University. Yet it failed to carve out its own niche in that larger universe, he says.

“Its lack of editorial focus played a role,” Benton notes. “It was sort of a pleasant, middle-brow, slightly tabloidy mix of news and features. And there’s lots of that available for free online. I would imagine if ‘The Daily’ were starting again now, they would invest more in establishing their brand identity early on.”

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