“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.”

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