New Jersey’s own Springsteen and Bon Jovi sing for Sandy victims

NEW YORK (Reuters) – New Jersey natives Bruce Springsteen and Jon Bon Jovi joined Staten Island-born Christina Aguilera and others on Friday in a televised benefit concert for victims of Sandy, the storm that killed more than 100 and devastated parts of the U.S. Northeast.

The commercial-free one-hour telecast, “Hurricane Sandy: Coming Together,” included appearances by Sting, Billy Joel, Jimmy Fallon, Steven Tyler, Mary J. Blige, Tina Fey, Jon Stewart, Whoopi Goldberg, Kevin Bacon and Danny DeVito.

The host was “Today” show co-anchor Matt Lauer, who said, “We haven’t seen a storm like this in 100 years.”

The fundraiser, shown on NBC, opened with Aguilera saying: “I was born in Staten Island. Four days ago, Hurricane Sandy came through and devastated it.” The New York City borough accounted for about half the city’s 41 deaths from the storm.

Aguilera, a judge on the television singing competition “The Voice,” vowed that “we will do whatever we can to help, we will not leave anyone behind,” then performed “You Are What You Are (Beautiful).”

Next up was Bon Jovi, who was seen in footage filmed this week after he rushed back from a British promotional tour to visit his hometown of Sayreville, New Jersey, to console residents and view the devastation.

Bon Jovi sang “Who Says You Can’t Go Home.”

Fey, an actress and comedian, implored viewers to donate at 1-800-HELPNOW and spread the message for donations via social media such as Twitter.

Donors can also text the word REDCROSS to 90999 to make a $ 10 contribution. All proceeds were earmarked for the American Red Cross to benefit victims of Sandy and rebuilding efforts.

The show was sprinkled with news footage of destruction in New York City and along the New Jersey coast, such as the ruins of the amusement pier familiar to viewers of “Jersey Shore.”

Long Island-raised Joel performed an early song about devastation full of references to New York: “Miami 2017,” often known as “Seen the Lights Go Out on Broadway.” Joel tweaked the lyrics to incorporate areas especially hard hit by Sandy.

Sting chose “Message in a Bottle,” with its familiar refrain “Sending out an SOS.”

Tyler, with Aerosmith, performed “Dream On” and teamed up with Fallon for “On the Boardwalk,” backed up by Joel and Springsteen.

Blige sang “The Living Proof,” and the telecast ended with Springsteen and the E Street Band’s “Land of Hope and Dreams.”

“God bless New York, God bless the Jersey Shore,” Springsteen said as the band struck the final chords.

The telethon was also aired on NBC Universal networks Bravo, CNBC, E!, G4, MSNBC, Style, Syfy and USA, as well as HBO, and was live-streamed on NBC.com and simulcast on Springsteen’s E Street Radio on SiriusXM.

On Thursday, Walt Disney Co announced a $ 2 million donation for Hurricane Sandy relief efforts, while Disney/ABC Television Group designated Monday as a “Day of Giving” when viewers of network and syndicated programming would be encouraged to help.

Entertainment giant Viacom Inc announced a $ 1 million donation to the Mayor’s Fund NYC and local organizations.

(Editing by Gary Hill and Peter Cooney)

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Syrian rebels kill 28 soldiers, several executed

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Anti-government rebels killed 28 soldiers on Thursday in attacks on three army checkpoints around Saraqeb, a town on Syria’s main north-south highway, a monitoring group said.

Some of the dead were shot after they had surrendered, according to video footage. Rebels berated them, calling them “Assad’s Dogs”, before firing round after round into their bodies as they lay on the ground.

The highway linking the capital Damascus to the contested city of Aleppo, Syria’s commercial center, has been the scene of heavy fighting since rebels cut the road last month. Saraqeb lies about 40 km (25 miles) south of Aleppo

In other developments, China put forward a new initiative to resolve the 19-month-old conflict, including a phased, region-by-region ceasefire and the setting up of a transitional governing body.

A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said Beijing had made the proposal to international peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi – whose own call for a truce over the Muslim holiday of Eid was largely ignored by both sides.

The United States meanwhile has called for an overhaul of Syria’s opposition leadership, signaling a break with the largely foreign-based Syrian National Council to bring in more credible figures.

A meeting in Qatar next week of foreign powers backing the rebels will be an opportunity to broaden the coalition against President Bashar al-Assad, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in Zagreb on Wednesday.

The United States and its allies have struggled for months to craft a credible opposition coalition, while Assad has counted on the support of Russia, Iran and, to a lesser extent, China. International efforts to end the violence have all foundered.

More than 32,000 people have been killed since protests against Assad, an Alawite who succeeded his late father Hafez in ruling the mostly Sunni Muslim country, first broke out on city streets. The revolt has since degenerated into full-scale civil war, with the government forces relying heavily on artillery and air strikes to thwart the rebels.

CHECKPOINT ATTACKS

The army has lost swathes of land in Idlib and Aleppo provinces but is fighting to control towns along supply routes to Aleppo city, where its forces are fighting in many districts.

The head of the pro-opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdelrahman, said two of the attacked checkpoints at Saraqeb were on the Damascus-Aleppo highway. The third was near a road linking Aleppo with Latakia, a port city still mostly controlled Assad’s forces.

“The rebels will not stay at the checkpoints for long as Syrian warplanes normally bomb positions after rebels move in,” Abdelrahman said.

Five rebels died in the fighting and at least 20 soldiers were killed at the third site, including those shot after surrendering, he said.

The video footage showed a group of petrified men, some bleeding, lying on the ground as rebels walked around, kicking and stamping on their captives.

One of the captured men says: “I swear I didn’t shoot anyone” to which a rebel responds: “Shut up you animal … Gather them for me.” Then the men are shot dead.

Reuters could not independently verify the footage.

The Observatory said the al Qaeda-inspired Jabhat al-Nusra rebel group was responsible for the executions.

Islamist rebel units are growing in prominence in the war – a cause for concern for international powers as they weigh up what kind of support to give the opposition.

U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration has said it is not providing arms to internal opponents of Assad and is limiting its aid to non-lethal humanitarian assistance. It concedes, however, that some of its allies are providing lethal assistance.

Russia and China have blocked three U.N. Security Council resolutions aimed at increasing pressure on the Assad government, leading the United States and its allies to say they could move beyond U.N. structures for their next steps.

China has been strongly criticized by some Arab countries for failing to take a stronger stance on the conflict. Beijing has urged the Assad government to talk to the opposition and take steps to meet demands for political change.

“More and more countries have come to realize that a military option offers no way out, and a political settlement has become an increasingly shared aspiration,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said in Beijing.

He said China’s new proposal was aimed at building international consensus and supporting peace envoy Brahimi’s mediation efforts.

(Additional reporting by Ayat Basma, Laila Bassam and Dominic Evans in Beirut and Terril Yue Jones in Beijing; Writing by Oliver Holmes; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

World News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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RIP Marty — the Inspiration for Nyan Cat

Marty, the cat which inspired the 8-bit rainbow meme Nyan Cat, passed away Thursday, leaving a heavy heart in the Internet world.

The cat was diagnosed with Feline Infectious Peritonitis (FIP), a fatal, incurable disease. Marty’s owner, and Nyan Cat creator, Chris Torres adopted Marty in 2010 — along with another cat, Buster, who died of FIP soon afterwards.

[More from Mashable: This Is What Social Media Looks Like in the Sandy Blackout Zone [PIC]]

Torres tweeted that Marty began acting strange last week, so he immediately took him to the vet.

“Even with the medical treatment he received he still deteriorated quickly. I’ve been force feeding him and keeping him warm for three days,” wrote Torres.

[More from Mashable: Ghostbuster Backflips Over Cop, Gets Arrested [VIDEO]]

Nyan Cat celebrated its first birthday in April, and has outlasted the lifespan of most Internet memes. The 8-bit rainbow Pop Tart cat continues to entertain the masses with its adorably infectious song — and will no doubt continue to be played, in Marty’s honor, for a long time to come.

1. Tiny Marty in the Tree

Images used with permission by Chris Torres

Click here to view this gallery.

Image used with permission by Chris Torres

This story originally published on Mashable here.

Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Floods render NYC hospitals powerless

NEW YORK (AP) — There are few places in the U.S. where hospitals have put as much thought and money into disaster planning as New York. And yet two of the city’s busiest, most important medical centers failed a fundamental test of readiness during Superstorm Sandy this week: They lost power.

Their backup generators failed, or proved inadequate. Nearly 1,000 patients had to be evacuated.

The closures led to dramatic scenes of doctors carrying patients down dark stairwells, nurses operating respirators by hand, and a bucket brigade of National Guard troops hauling fuel to rooftop generators in a vain attempt to keep the electricity on.

Both hospitals, NYU Langone Medical Center and Bellevue Hospital Center, were still trying to figure out exactly what led to the power failures Thursday, but the culprit appeared to be the most common type of flood damage there is: water in the basement.

While both hospitals put their generators on high floors where they could be protected in a flood, other critical components of the backup power system, such as fuel pumps and tanks, remained in basements just a block from the East River.

Both hospitals had fortified that equipment against floods within the past few years, but the water — which rushed with tremendous force — found a way in.

“This reveals to me that we have to be much more imaginative and detail-oriented in our planning to make sure hospitals are as resilient as they need to be,” said Irwin Redlener, director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health.

The problem of unreliable backup electricity at hospitals is nothing new.

Over the first six months of the year, 23 percent of the hospitals inspected by the Joint Commission, a health care facility accreditation group, were found to be out of compliance with standards for backup power and lighting, according to a spokesman.

Power failures crippled New Orleans hospitals after Hurricane Katrina. The backup generator failed at a hospital in Stafford Springs, Conn., after the remnants of Hurricane Irene blew through the state in 2011. Hospitals in Houston were crippled when Tropical Storm Allison flooded their basements and knocked out electrical equipment in 2001.

When the Northeast was hit with a crippling blackout in 2003, the backup power at several of New York City’s hospitals failed or performed poorly. Generators malfunctioned or overheated. Fuel ran out too quickly. Even where the backup systems worked, they provided electricity to only some parts of the hospital and left others in the dark.

Afterward, a mayoral task force recommended upgrading testing standards for generators and requiring backup plans for blood banks and health care facilities that provide dialysis treatment.

Alan Aviles, president of New York City’s Health and Hospitals Corp., which operates Bellevue, said that after a scare last summer when Hurricane Irene threatened to cause flooding, Bellevue put its basement-level fuel pumps in flood-resistant chambers.

It still isn’t clear whether water breached those defenses, but when an estimated 17 million gallons of water rushed through loading docks and into the hospital’s 1-million-square-foot basement, the fuel feed to the generators stopped working. The floodwaters also knocked out the hospital’s elevators.

For two days, National Guardsmen carried fuel to the generators, but conditions inside the hospital for patients and staff deteriorated anyway. The generators were designed to supply only 30 percent of the usual electrical load at the hospital, leaving a lot of equipment and labs hobbled. The hospital also lost all water pressure on Tuesday. Nearly 700 patients had been evacuated by Thursday afternoon.

“The precautions we had taken to date had served us well,” Aviles said. “But Mother Nature can always up the stakes.”

NYU Langone Medical Center had also tried to armor itself against floods.

All seven of the generators providing backup power to the parts of the hospital involved in patient care are only a few years old and are on higher floors. The fuel tank is in a watertight vault. New fuel pumps were installed just this year in a pump house upgraded to withstand a high flood, said the hospital’s vice president of facilities operation, Richard Cohen.

“The medical center invested quite a bit of money to upgrade the facility,” he said.

The pump house remained “bone dry,” Cohen said. But water shoved aside plastic and plywood defenses and infiltrated the fuel vault, where sensors detected the potentially damaging liquid and shut the generators down. “The force of the surge that came in was unbelievable. It dislodged our additional protection and caused a breach of the vault as well,” Cohen said.

The power at NYU went out in a flash, leaving the staff scrambling to evacuate 300 patients with no notice.

Dr. Robert Berg, an obstetrician, said that when he lost power in his apartment, he went to the hospital to charge his cellphone and was stunned to find it in chaos.

“It didn’t really occur to me that the hospital was going to be in trouble,” he said. Even after finding the lobby dark, “I thought, ‘We’ll have power upstairs. We’re an operating room.’”

He wound up carrying two patients down flights of stairs on a “med sled.”

“There was a Category 1 outside and a Category 4 inside,” he said. “I can’t say that they were very well prepared for it.”

That has left only one hospital, Beth Israel Medical Center, functioning in the southern third of Manhattan. It is also on backup power, but brought in two huge new generators Thursday, just in case.

Aviles said Bellevue might be out of commission for at least two more weeks. NYU Langone’s generators are operating again, but the hospital is waiting for Consolidated Edison to restore its power before it starts taking patients again. That could happen in a matter of days.

Flooding may pose less of a danger to the hospital’s power supply in the future. Construction is under way on a new power plant, at a cost of more than $ 200 million, that will run on natural gas and supply all the hospital’s power needs.

“It’s a tremendous facility, with a lot of hardening built into it,” Cohen said.

___

AP Medical Writer Mike Stobbe contributed to this report.

Health News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Asian shares, dollar rise after positive data lifts risk appetite

TOKYO (Reuters) – Asian shares advanced to their highest in nearly two weeks with risk appetite returning on signs that a trend of global recovery is stabilizing, particularly in the United States and China.

Positive U.S. private sector employment and consumer confidence reports drove the dollar higher, while the yen retreated as demand for safe-haven assets weakened.

Ahead of a U.S. nonfarm payrolls due at 08:30 am EDT, a key market event, U.S. stock futures were down 0.1 percent, suggesting a cautious Wall Street start.

European shares were also seen subdued, with financial spreadbetters expecting London’s FTSE 100 <.FTSE>, Paris’s CAC-40 <.FCHI> and Frankfurt’s DAX <.GDAXI> to open little changed. <.L> <.EU> <.N>

The MSCI index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan <.MIAPJ0000PUS> climbed 0.7 percent to its highest since October 23, and was set for a weekly increase of 1.3 percent.

Factory activity picked up moderately in China, which has spawned global growth in recent years, and business surveys showed other big Asian economies were slowly recovering as well, while there were mixed signals about the health of U.S. manufacturing.

Resources-reliant Australian shares <.AXJO> closed up 0.1 percent, as caution before the U.S. jobs data trimmed earlier rallies rooted in improving U.S. and Chinese economic conditions. The risk-sensitive Australian dollar earlier rose to a five-week high of $ 1.0420.

“Downside risks are lessening,” said Toru Yamamoto, chief strategist at Daiwa Securities.

Thanks to the developments in the U.S. and China, he added, global conditions appear to be getting better, and that “points to a nuanced improvement in sentiment.”

Hong Kong‘s Hang Seng Index <.HSI> outperformed Asian peers with a 1.4 percent jump to a 15-month high, buoyed by strength in Chinese financials and growth-sensitive sectors.

“We could see more gains from here because funds will need to chase performance as the year draws to a close,” said Alan Lam, Greater China equity analyst. “H-shares are going to lead the move up, since they are still lagging on the year.”

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority stepped into the currency market during New York’s Thursday trading hours to combat the local currency’s persistent move to the strong end of its trading range. Hong Kong’s de facto central bank is seeking to counter ample funds unleashed by global quantitative easing chasing stocks, property and other assets in the former British colony.

More capital inflows into Hong Kong are expected and could be a source for further strength for a year-end rally after the party congress that starts next week might alleviate some political uncertainty in China.

Japan’s Nikkei average <.N225> ended 1.2 percent up at a one-week high as a weaker yen underpinned demand for shares. <.T>

The dollar inched up 0.2 percent against the yen to 80.29, nearing a four-month high of 80.38 hit last week.

U.S. employers likely added 125,000 jobs in October and the jobless rate likely ticked up to 7.9 percent from September’s 7.8 percent.

Payrolls processor ADP reported on Thursday that U.S. companies added jobs in October at the fastest pace in eight months while new claims for jobless benefits fell last week.

<^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

U.S. jobless claims: http://link.reuters.com/quh73t

China PMI and output: http://link.reuters.com/qaz63t

2012 asset returns: http://link.reuters.com/muc46s

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^>

US ELECTIONS NEXT FOCUS

Positive economic news could affect the outcome of the November 6 elections while easing pressure for more monetary easing, pushing up Treasury yields and lifting the dollar.

“Market impact from the U.S. jobs data may in the end be offset by the outcome of the presidential election,” said Daiwa’s Yamamoto.

A rise in equities in the wake of a solid jobs report may be countered if President Barack Obama wins, as his re-election will be perceived as negative for equities, while weakness in stocks due to soft data could be recovered if Republican Mitt Romney wins, as markets see him as stock-friendly, Yamamoto said.

Morgan Stanley, in a research note, said “Asian economic indicators are consistent with a risk-on strategy, but we remain risk selective.”

“The outcome of the U.S. presidential election is a close call, leaving markets concerned about whether the newly elected president will have the political capability to deal with the fiscal cliff,” undermining the recent economic rebound, it said.

After the U.S. election, Congress must deal with that “fiscal cliff” – up to $ 600 billion in expiring tax cuts and spending reductions that are set to kick in next year – which threatens to hurt the U.S. economy.

The euro remained in the recent $ 1.28-$ 1.32 range, but dipped below $ 1.29 as spot gold slipped 0.4 percent to $ 1,707.74 an ounce after a fall below key support levels accelerated selling in bullion amid wariness before the U.S. payrolls data.

Reports on manufacturing activity in major euro zone countries, due on Friday, are expected to show continued economic contraction.

U.S. crude fell 0.4 percent to $ 86.71 a barrel and Brent was down 0.2 percent to $ 107.96.

Asian credit markets recovered, tightening the spread on the iTraxx Asia ex-Japan investment-grade index by 4 basis points.

(Additional reporting by Clement Tan in Hong Kong; Editing by Richard Borsuk)

Business News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Judge allows R&B singer Chris Brown to do European tour

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – R&B singer Chris Brown was given the go-ahead to carry out his European tour after a Los Angeles judge said on Thursday that the entertainer was “in compliance” with probation imposed for his 2009 assault on former girlfriend Rihanna.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Patricia Schnegg had the authority to jail the “Kiss Kiss” singer if she had found that Brown had not kept up with the terms of his probation, which includes community service and an already-completed domestic violence program.

Brown, 23, is half way through his five-year probation sentence after pleading guilty to assaulting his fellow R&B star Rihanna on the eve of the 2009 Grammy awards.

Brown’s European tour begins on November 14 in Copenhagen and will finish in Paris on December 7. He will perform in Germany and Norway, among other countries.

The singer’s next progress hearing was set for January 17.

Brown and Rihanna have reconciled in recent months. Brown Tweeted a photograph of himself at Rihanna’s Halloween party in West Hollywood on Wednesday, dressed in Arab robes and brandishing a fake assault rifle.

(Reporting By Eric Kelsey; Editing by Jill Serjeant and Paul Simao)

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Mexico’s Day of Dead brings memories of missing

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Maria Elena Salazar refuses to set out plates of her missing son’s favorite foods or orange flowers as offerings for the deceased on Mexico‘s Day of the Dead, even though she hasn’t seen him in three-and-a-half years.

The 50-year-old former teacher is convinced that Hugo Gonzalez Salazar, a university graduate in marketing who worked for a telephone company, is still alive and being forced to work for a drug cartel because of his skills.

“The government, the authorities, they know it, that the gangs took them away to use as forced labor,” said Salazar of her then 24-year-old son, who disappeared in the northern city of Torreon in July 2009.

The Day of the Dead — when Mexicans traditionally visit the graves of dead relatives and leave offerings of flowers, food and candy skulls — is a difficult time for the families of the thousands of Mexicans who have disappeared amid a wave of drug-fueled violence.

With what activists call a mix of denial, hope and desperation, they refuse to dedicate altars on the Nov. 1-2 holiday to people often missing for years. They won’t accept any but the most certain proof of death, and sometimes reject even that.

Numbers vary on just how many people have disappeared in recent years. Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission says 24,000 people have been reported missing between 2000 and mid-2012, and that nearly 16,000 bodies remain unidentified.

But one thing is clear: just as there are households without Day of the Dead altars, there are thousands of graves of the unidentified dead scattered across the country, with no one to remember them.

An investigation conducted by the newspaper Milenio this week, involving hundreds of information requests to state and municipal governments, indicates that 24,102 unidentified bodies were buried in paupers’ or common graves in Mexican cemeteries since 2006. The number is almost certainly incomplete, since some local governments refused to provide figures, Milenio reported.

And while the number of unidentified dead probably includes some indigents, Central American migrants or dead unrelated to the drug war, it is clear that cities worst hit by the drug conflict also usually showed a corresponding bulge in the number of unidentified cadavers. For example, Mexico City, which has been relatively unscathed by drug violence, listed about one-third as many unidentified burials as the city of Veracruz, despite the fact that Mexico City’s population is about 15 times larger.

Consuelo Morales , who works with dozens of families of disappeared in the northern city of Monterrey, said that “holidays like this, that are family affairs and are very close to our culture, stir a lot of things up” for the families. But many refuse to accept the deaths of their loved ones, sometimes even after DNA testing confirms a match with a cadaver.

“They’ll say to you, ‘I’m not going to put up an altar, because they’re not dead,” Martinez noted. “Their thinking is that ‘until they prove to me that my child is dead, he is alive.”

Martinez says one family she works with at the Citizens in Support of Human Rights center had refused to accept their son was dead, even after three rounds of DNA testing and the exhumation of the remains.

“It was their son, he was very young, and he had been burned alive,” Martinez said by way of explanation.

The refusal to accept what appears inevitable may be a matter of desperation. Martinez said some families in Monterrey also believe their missing relatives are being held as virtual slaves for the cartels, even though federal prosecutors say they have never uncovered any kind of drug cartel forced-labor camp, in the six years since Mexico launched an offensive against the cartels.

But many people like Salazar believe it must be true. “Organized crime is a business, but it can’t advertise for employees openly, so it has to take them by force,” Salazar said.

While she refuses to erect an altar-like offering for her son, she does perform other rituals that mirror the Day of the Dead customs, like the one that involves scattering a trail of flower petals to the doorsteps of houses to guide spirits of the departed back home once a year.

Salazar and her family still live in the same home in Torreon, though they’d like to move, in the hopes that Hugo will return there. They pray three times a day for God to guide him home.

“We live in the same place, and we try to do the same things we used to,” said Salazar, “because he is going to come back to his place, his home, and we have to be waiting for him.”

Mistrust of officials has risen to such a point that some families may never get an answer they’ll accept.

The problem is that, with forensics procedures often sadly lacking in Mexican police forces, the dead my never be connected with the living, which is the whole point of the Mexican traditions.

“As long as the authorities don’t prove the opposite, for us they’re still alive,” Salazar said. “Let them prove it, but let us have some certainty, not just the authorities saying ‘here he is.’ We don’t the government to just give us bodies that aren’t theirs, and that has happened.”

Latin America News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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A look at RIM’s much-delayed BlackBerry 10

BlackBerry maker Research In Motion says it’s now testing its much-delayed BlackBerry 10 smartphones with 50 wireless carriers around the world. RIM calls it a key step.

RIM previously announced delays to its upcoming BlackBerry 10 system, which the company considers crucial to its future. It’s expected in the first quarter of next year, rather than late this year. The delay means the phones will miss the holiday shopping season and come months after the expected launch of a new iPhone. The delay could make it even harder for RIM to regain market share lost to Apple’s iPhone and devices running Google’s Android operating software.

Here’s a look at developments surrounding the BlackBerry 10 in recent months:

Oct. 18, 2011: RIM unveils a new operating system, combining existing BlackBerry elements with RIM’s previously announced QNX operating system for phones and tablet computers. RIM gives few details and offers no timetable, though analysts have come to expect it in early 2012.

Dec. 6: RIM says “BlackBerry 10″ will be the new name for its next-generation system after the company loses a trademark ruling on its previous name, BBX.

Dec. 15: RIM says new phones running BlackBerry 10 won’t be out until late 2012. The company says the phones will need a highly integrated chipset that won’t be available until mid-2012, so the company can now expect the new phones to ship late in the year.

May 1: RIM unveils a newly designed smartphone prototype powered by BlackBerry 10. The prototype BlackBerry has a touch screen, but no physical keyboard like most BlackBerry models. No update is given on the new system’s launch date.

May 2: Company stresses that while the prototype has no physical keyboard, RIM will continue to make some models with one.

June 21: Company says the first BlackBerry device running BlackBerry 10 will not have a physical keyboard, only a touch-screen one. Ones with hard keyboards will eventually be made, but the company declines to say when.

June 28: RIM says it’s delaying the launch of BlackBerry 10 yet again, to the first quarter of next year. CEO Thorsten Heins says RIM’s top priority is a successful launch of the new BlackBerrys. He adds, “I will not deliver a product to the market that is not ready to meet the needs of our customers. There will be no compromise on this issue.”

July 10: At its annual shareholders meeting, Heins asks disgruntled investors for patience as it develops BlackBerry 10. He says the product’s quality is more important than rushing out the software, and he argues that some telecom carriers prefer a 2013 launch because next-generation wireless networks will be more widely operational by then.

Aug. 23: RIM says it has begun showing its new BlackBerry smartphones to wireless carriers around the world, but it remains “months and months” away from starting to sell them. The company says feedback from those carriers has been positive, and it will begin to discuss product launches and other business aspects with the carriers soon.

Sept. 25: Heins promises to restore the BlackBerry phone’s stature as a trailblazing device even as many investors fret about its potential demise. Heins speaks at a conference for mobile applications developers to rally support for BlackBerry 10.

Wednesday: BlackBerry maker Research In Motion says its BlackBerry 10 smartphones are now being tested by 50 wireless carriers around the world. The company calls it a key step.

Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Ivermectin hair lotion found effective against lice

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – A single 10-minute hair application of a drug used in oral form since the 1980s to control river blindness and other parasitic diseases eliminated head lice in nearly three of four children in a new study.

The lotion contains ivermectin and is sold under the brand name Sklice by Sanofi Pasteur, which paid for the study. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration used the results to approve topical ivermectin lotion in February.

“The advantage of it is, it’s a one-application, one-shot treatment,” lead author Dr. David Pariser of Eastern Virginia Medical School, in Norfolk, told Reuters Health.

The treatment “sounds like it has promise in a population itching to get rid of lice,” said Dr. Hannah Chow of Loyola University Health System in Illinois, who was not connected with the study.

“Knowing how difficult it is to completely remove all lice despite due diligence with treatment and nit picking, ivermectin has potential to reduce the spread of lice, thus reducing parental anxiety, missed school and work, and social embarrassment,” she said.

Hundreds of people worldwide suffer from head lice, which feed off blood and lay up to 300 eggs, which are the nits, during a month-long lifespan.

The cost of treating infestations – including the value of lost school days and parents forced to be out of work – is estimated at $ 1 billion a year in the United States. There’s also been concern about resistance to other insecticide treatments.

Using a lotion with 0.5 percent ivermectin, the researchers found that after 14 days it had worked in 73.8 percent of 141 volunteers – most of whom were children younger than 12. In comparison, 17.6 percent of the 148 kids (and a handful of adults) whose hair was treated with a drug-free form of the lotion were louse-free after two weeks.

Lotions were applied to dry hair and then rinsed out after 10 minutes. The immediate success rate, judged the day after the lotion application, was 94.9 percent in the test group and 31.5 percent in the control group.

“It gets the kids back to school and the parents back to work,” said Pariser.

The study, involving children in 11 states, did not compare the ivermectin to any other treatment.

However, in a previous study that did test other drugs as well, Pariser and his colleagues note that ivermectin showed a similar one-day success rate of 92.4 percent while malathion, an insecticide sometimes used to treat lice, cleared 82.4 percent of patients after one day.

“A topical drug formulation is indeed welcome and is expected to have less risk of systemic adverse events,” Dr. Oliver Chosidow of Henri-Mondor Hospital in Creteil, France, and Bruno Giraudeau of University Francois-Rabelais in Tours, France, said in an editorial published with the new study in the New England Journal of Medicine.

But they advised that more-established techniques, such as treatments with permethrin or pyrethrin, or even malathion in cases of resistance, should be tried before using ivermectin.

“Ivermectin should be the last choice, whether topical (for still-infested persons) or oral (especially for mass treatment),” they said.

Interviewed by Reuters Health by phone and e-mail, Chow speculated that more than one application of ivermectin lotion might be necessary because the treatment didn’t work in all cases.

“Knowing that new lice could re-hatch in seven to 10 days if ivermectin didn’t completely kill all nymphs, live lice and newly laid nits, I wonder if a second application will be recommended,” she said. “I would still advocate nit picking at this point.”

“If you do this, think about retreating and continue to be very vigilant,” she said.

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/Yor2zt New England Journal of Medicine, online October 31, 2012.

Medications/Drugs News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Jobs Numbers Will Come Out on Friday, ‘as Scheduled’

11 a.m., Oct. 31, 2012 — The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics confirmed to me on Oct. 31 that it will release the monthly jobs report on schedule this Friday. That takes the wind out of the sails of conspiracy theorists, who speculated that the administration might use Hurricane Sandy as an excuse to delay a bad jobs number that would hurt President Barack Obama’s chances of reelection. Republican Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, channeling his inner Jack Welch, had earlier tweeted: “Labor Dept says may release latest Unemployment figures until after election. Par for course. Why release something might hurt Obama elect?”

I called the BLS a little before 10 a.m. on Wednesday to find out whether the number would or would not be delayed because of Sandy. The receptionist said all calls were being referred to a spokesman at the U.S. Labor Dept., the BLS’s parent agency. When I got an answering machine at that number, I went back to Gary Steinberg, a spokesman for BLS, who—after checking with his boss for several minutes—came on the line and said: “The employment situation will be released, as scheduled, on Friday.”

The report on the October employment situation could have a huge impact on an extremely tight election because the economy’s continued weakness—and what to do about it—has been the most important issue in the campaign.

Now that the jobs report is definitely coming out, conspiracy theorists will have to pivot to attacking the numbers themselves, as former General Electric (GE) Chief Executive Officer Jack Welch did a month ago.

—Peter  Coy

Businessweek.com — Top News

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