Who's winning the early voting battle?

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama heads toward Election Day with an apparent lead over Republican Mitt Romney among early voters in key states that could decide the election.

Obama's advantage, however, isn't as big as the one he had over John McCain four years ago, giving Romney's campaign hope that the former Massachusetts governor can erase the gap when people vote on Tuesday.

More than 27 million people already have voted in 34 states and the District of Columbia. No votes will be counted until Election Day but several battleground states are releasing the party affiliation of people who have voted early.

So far, Democratic voters outnumber Republicans in Florida, Iowa, Nevada, North Carolina and Ohio — five states that could decide the election, if they voted the same way. Republicans have the edge in Colorado, which Obama won in 2008.

Obama dominated early voting in 2008, building up such big leads in Colorado, Florida, Iowa and North Carolina that he won each state despite losing the Election Day vote, according to voting data compiled by The Associated Press.

"In 2008, the McCain campaign didn't have any mobilization in place to really do early voting," said Michael McDonald, an early voting expert at George Mason University who tallies voting statistics for the United States Elections Project. "This time around the Romney campaign is not making the same mistake as the McCain campaign did."

McDonald said he sees a shift toward Republicans among early voters, which could make a difference in North Carolina, which Obama won by the slimmest of margins in 2008, only 14,000 votes. The Republican shift, however, might not be enough to wipe out Obama's advantage in Iowa and Nevada, which Obama won more comfortably in 2008.

In Colorado, Florida and Ohio, get ready for a long night of vote counting on Tuesday.

Romney's campaign aides say they are doing so much better than McCain did four years ago that Romney is in great shape to overtake Obama in many of the most competitive states.

"They are underperforming what their 2008 numbers were and we are overperforming where we were in 2008," said Rich Beeson, Romney's political director. "We feel very good heading into the Tuesday election."

Obama's campaign counters that Romney can't win the presidency simply by doing better than McCain.

"It's not about whether or not they're doing better than John McCain did," said Jeremy Bird, Obama's national field director. "It's about whether or not they're doing better than us."

About 35 percent of voters are expected to cast ballots before Tuesday, either by mail or in person.

Voters always can cross party lines when they vote for any office, and there are enough independent voters in many states to swing the election, if enough of them vote the same way. Still, both campaigns are following the early voting numbers closely, using them to gauge their progress and plan their Election Day strategies.

A look at early voting in the tightest states:

___

Colorado

About 1.6 million people have voted, and Republicans outnumber Democrats 37 percent to 35 percent. Those numbers are a reversal from four years ago at this time. Inevitably, Obama won the early vote by 9 percentage points in 2008, giving him a big enough cushion to win the state, despite narrowly losing the Election Day vote.

Early voting in Colorado is expected to account for about 80 percent of all votes cast, giving it more weight than in other states.

___

Florida

About 3.9 million people have voted, and 43 percent were Democrats and 40 percent were Republicans. For years ago at this time, Democratic early voters had a 9 percentage point lead over Republicans.

Obama won Florida's early vote by 10 percentage points in 2008, getting 400,000 more early votes than McCain, enough to offset McCain's advantage on Election Day.

In Florida, Republicans have historically done better among people who vote by mail, while Democrats have done better among people who vote early in person. For 2012, Florida's Republican-led Legislature reduced the number of in-person early voting days from 14 to eight.

The Obama campaign responded by encouraging more supporters to vote by mail, and Democrats were able to narrow the gap among mail ballots. Democrats quickly took the lead among all early voters, once in-person early voting started. But the margins are slim.

The Obama campaign acknowledges it must do better among Florida's Election Day voters than Obama did on 2008, when McCain won the Election Day vote by 5 percentage points.

___

Iowa

About 614,000 people have voted, already exceeding Iowa's total number of early votes in 2008. So far this year, 43 percent of early voters were Democrats and 32 percent were Republicans.

Four years ago, Obama won the early vote in Iowa by a whopping 27 percentage points, 63 percent to 36 percent. McCain, meanwhile, won the Election Day vote by about 1,800 votes — less than a percentage point. Together, they added up to a 10-point victory for Obama.

Romney's campaign argues that Democrats always do better among early voters in Iowa while Republicans do better among Election Day voters, even when President George W. Bush narrowly carried the state in 2004.

Obama's campaign counters that with early voting on the rise, Romney will be left with fewer Election Day voters to make up the difference.

___

Nevada

About 628,000 people have voted, and 44 percent were Democrats and 37 percent were Republicans. Four years ago, Obama won Nevada's early vote big, 59 percent to 39 percent. Obama also won Nevada's Election Day vote on his way to a comfortable 13-point win over McCain.

The Romney campaign argues that Obama isn't doing nearly as well among early voters in Nevada as he did in 2008. The Obama campaign argues that it doesn't have to.

___

North Carolina

About 2.5 million people have voted, and 48 percent of them were Democrats and 32 percent of them were Republicans. Four years ago at this time, Democrats had a slightly larger lead over Republicans, and Obama won the early vote by 11 percentage points.

Obama lost the Election Day Vote by 17 percentage points in 2008. But the early vote was much bigger than the Election Day vote, resulting in Obama's narrow win.

Obama's campaign cites the big lead for Democrats among early voters, while Romney's campaign argues that even a small shift toward the Republicans could flip the state to Romney.

___

Ohio

More than 1.6 million people have voted, and 29 percent were Democrats and 23 percent were Republicans. Forty-seven percent were unaffiliated, more than enough voters to swing the state to either candidate.

Ohio may once again be pivotal in the race for the presidency. Unfortunately, Ohio's early voting data is limited. Party affiliation in Ohio is based on the last primary in which a voter participated, so new voters and those who don't vote in primaries are listed as unaffiliated.

In 2008, Obama won Ohio by 5 percentage points.

___

Associated Press Senior Elections Research Coordinator Cliff Maceda contributed to this report.

___

Follow Stephen Ohlemacher on Twitter: http://twitter.com/stephenatap

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George Lucas’ filmmaking rooted in rebellion

LOS ANGELES (AP) — There’s no mistaking the similarities. A childhood on a dusty farm, a love of fast vehicles, a rebel who battles an overpowering empire — George Lucas is the hero he created, Luke Skywalker.

His filmmaking outpost, Skywalker Ranch, is so far removed from the Hollywood moviemaking machine he once despised, that it may as well be on the forest moon of Endor.

That’s why this week’s announcement that Lucas is selling the “Star Wars” franchise and the entire Lucasfilm business to The Walt Disney Co. for more than $ 4 billion is like a laser blast from outer space.

Lucas built his film operation in Marin County near San Francisco largely to avoid the meddling of Los Angeles-based studios. His aim was to finish the “Star Wars” series— his way.

Today the enterprise has far surpassed the 68-year-old filmmaker’s original goals. The ranch covers 6,100 acres and houses one of the industry’s most acclaimed visual effects companies, Industrial Light & Magic. Lucasfilm, with its headquarters now in San Francisco proper, has ventured into books, video games, merchandise, special effects and marketing. Just as Anakin Skywalker became the villain Darth Vader, Lucas —once the outsider— had grown to become the leader of an empire.

“What I was trying to do was stay independent so that I could make the movies I wanted to make,” Lucas says in the 2004 documentary “Empire of Dreams.” ”But now I’ve found myself being the head of a corporation … I have become the very thing that I was trying to avoid.”

After the blockbuster sale announcement Tuesday, Lucas expressed a desire to give away much of his fortune, donate to educational causes and return to the experimental filmmaking of his youth. Still, the move stunned those who’ve followed him. He’d contemplated retirement for years and said he’d never make another “Star Wars” film.

Dale Pollock, the author of the 1999 biography “Skywalking,” said Lucas disdained the Disney culture in interviews he gave in the 1980s, even though he admired the company’s founder. “He felt the corporate ‘Disneyization’ had destroyed the spirit of Walt,” Pollock said.

Lucas said through a spokeswoman on Saturday that he never said such a thing. But his anti-corporate streak is renowned. In the Lucasfilm-sanctioned documentary “Empire of Dreams”, Lucas says on camera that he is “not happy that corporations have taken over the film industry.”

Growing up in the central California town of Modesto, the independent streak was strong in young Lucas. The family lived on a walnut ranch and Lucas’ father owned a stationery store. But, like his fictional protege Luke, George had no interest in taking over the family business. Lucas and his father fought when George made it clear that he’d rather go to college to study art than follow in his father’s footsteps.

Lucas loved fast cars, and dreamed that racing them would be his ticket out. A near-fatal car crash the day before his high school graduation convinced him otherwise.

“I decided I’d better settle down and go to school,” he told sci-fi magazine Starlog in 1981.

As a film student at the University of Southern California, he experimented with “cinema verite,” a provocative form of documentary, and “tone poems” that visualized a piece of music or other artistic work.

The style is reflected in some of the short films he made at USC: “1:42:08″ focused on the sound of a Lotus race car’s engine driving at full speed and “Anyone Who Lived in a Pretty How Town,” inspired by an e.e. Cummings poem. In later interviews, Lucas described his early films as “visual exercises.”

Lucas’ intellectual explorations led to an interest in anthropology, especially the work of American mythologist Joseph Campbell, who studied the common thread linking the myths of disparate cultures. This inspired Lucas to explore archetypal storylines that resonated across the ages and around the world.

Lucas’ epic battle with the movie industry began after Warner Bros. forced him to make unwanted changes to an early film, “THX 1138.” Later, Universal Pictures insisted on revisions to “American Graffiti” that Lucas felt impinged on his creative freedom. The experience led Lucas to insist on having total control of all his work, just like Charlie Chaplin and Walt Disney in their heyday.

“In order to get my vision out there, I really needed to learn how to manipulate the system because the system is designed to tear you down and destroy everything you are doing,” Lucas said in an interview with Charlie Rose.

He shopped his outline for “Star Wars” to several studios before finding a friend in Alan Ladd Jr., an executive at 20th Century Fox. Despite budget and deadline overruns, and pressure from the studio, the movie was a huge success when it was released in 1977. It grossed $ 798 million in theaters worldwide and caused Fox’s stock price at the time to double.

In one of the wisest business moves in Hollywood history, Lucas cut a deal with distributor Fox before the film’s release so that he could retain ownership of the sequels and rights for merchandise. He figured in the 1970s that might mean peddling a few T-shirts and posters to fans to help market the movie. Over the decades, merchandising has formed the bedrock of his multi-billion-dollar enterprise, resulting in a bonanza for Lucas from action figures, toys, spinoff books and other products.

Industrial Light & Magic, the unit he started in a makeshift space in the Los Angeles suburb of Van Nuys, moved to the ranch in northern California and lent its prowess to other movies. It broke ground using computers, motion-controlled cameras, models and masks. Its reach is breathtaking, notably among the biggest science fiction movies of the 1980s: “E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial,” ”Poltergeist,” ”Back to the Future,” ”Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark,” ”Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan” and more.

“Between him and (Steven) Spielberg, they changed how movies got made,” said Matt Atchity, editor-in-chief of movie review website Rotten Tomatoes.

These days, the talent at ILM has spread around the globe, and many former employees have become top executives at other special effects companies, said Chris DeFaria, executive vice president of digital production at Warner Bros.

“You meet anybody who’s a significant executive or artist at a company, they’ve spent their time at ILM or got their start there. That’s probably one of George’s greatest gifts to the business,” DeFaria said.

Lucas helped make the tools that were needed for his films. ILM developed the world’s first computerized film editing and music mixing technology, revolutionizing what had been a cut-and-splice affair. Pixar, the imaging computer he founded as a division of Lucasfilm, became a world-famous animated movie company. Apple’s Steve Jobs bought and later sold it to Disney in 2006.

But the goliath Lucas created began to weigh on him. Fans-turned-critics felt the “Star Wars” prequel trilogy he directed fell short of the first films. Others believed his revisions to the re-released classics undid some of what made the first movies great.

Giving up his role at the head of Lucasfilm may shield him from the fury of rebellious fans and critics. He said in a video released by Disney that the sale would allow him to “do other things, things in philanthropy and doing more experimental kind of films.”

“I couldn’t really drag my company into that.”

Still, Lucas is not planning on going to a galaxy far, far away.

Speaking on Friday night at Ebony magazine’s Power 100 event in New York, Lucas said: “It’s 40 years of work and it’s been my life, but I’m ready to move on to bigger and better things. I have a foundation, an educational foundation. I do a lot of work with education, and I’m very excited about doing that.”

This week he assured the incoming president of Lucasfilm, Kathleen Kennedy that he’d be around to advise her on future “Star Wars” movies —just like the apparition of Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi helps Luke through his adventures.

“They’re finishing the hologram now,” he told Kennedy. “Don’t worry.”

___

Liedtke reported from San Francisco. Global Entertainment Editor Nekesa Mumbi Moody in New York contributed to this story.

Entertainment News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Nurses Who Saved NICU Babies Remember Harrowing Hurricane Night

Nurses at the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at New York University’s Langone Medical Center have challenging jobs, even in the best of times. Their patients are babies, some weighing as little as 2 pounds, who require constant and careful care as they struggle to stay alive.

On Monday night, as superstorm Sandy bore down on Manhattan, the nurses’ jobs took on a whole new sense of urgency as failing power forced the hospital’s patients, including the NICU nurses’ tiny charges, to evacuate.

“20/20″ recently reunited seven of those nurses: Claudia Roman, Nicola Zanzotta-Tagle, Margot Condon, Sandra Kyong Bradbury, Beth Largey, Annie Irace and Menchu Sanchez. They described how they managed to do their jobs – and save the most vulnerable of lives – under near-impossible circumstances.

On Monday night, as Sandy’s wind and rain buffeted the hospital’s windows, the nurses were preparing for a shift change and the day nurses had begun to brief the night shift nurses. Suddenly, the hospital was plunged into darkness. The respirators and monitors keeping the infants alive all went silent.

For one brief moment, everyone froze. Then the alarms began to ring as backup batteries kicked in. But the coast wasn’t clear – the nurses were soon horrified to learn that the hospital’s generator had failed, and that the East River had risen to start flooding the hospital.

Vanishing America: Jersey Shore Boardwalks Washed Away Watch Video

“Everybody ran to a patient to make sure that the babies were fine,” Nicola Zanzotto-Tagle recalled. “If you had your phone with a flashlight on the phone, you held it right over the baby.”

For now, the four most critical patients – infants that couldn’t breathe on their own – were being supplied oxygen by battery-powered respirators, but the clock was ticking. They had, at most, just four hours before the machines were at risk of failing.

Annie Irache tended to the most critical baby — he had had abdominal surgery just the day before – as an evacuation of 20 NICU babies began.

“[He] was on medications to keep up his blood pressure,” Irache said, “and he also had a cardiac defect, so he was our first baby to go.”

One by one, each tiny infant, swaddled in blankets and a heating pad, cradled by one nurse and surrounded by at least five others, was carried down nine flights of stairs. Security guards and secretaries pitched in, lighting the way with flashlights and cell phones.

The procession moved slowly. As nurses took their careful steps, they carefully squeezed bags of oxygen into the babies’ lungs.

“We literally synchronized our steps going down nine flights,” Zanzotto-Tagle said. “I would say ‘Step, step, step.”

With their adrenaline pumping, the nurses said, it was imperative that they stay focused.

“We’re not usually bagging a baby down a stairwell … n the dark,” said Claudia Roman. “I was most worried about, ‘Let me not trip on this staircase as I’m carrying someone’s precious child, because that would be unforgivable.”

When the medical staff and the 20 babies emerged, a line of ambulances was waiting. A video of Margot Condon cradling a tiny baby as she rode a gurney struck a chord worldwide. But Condon said she had a singular goal.

“I was making sure the tube was in place, that the baby was pink,” she said. “I was not taking my eyes off that baby or that tube.”

Like other nurses, she did not feel panic. Her precious patient helped keep her calm.

Health News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Google's Android software in 3 out of 4 smartphones

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As foreigners go, Afghan city is feeling abandoned

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) — By switching from studying business management to training as a nurse, 19-year-old Anita Taraky has placed a bet on the future of the southern Afghan city of Kandahar — that once foreign troops are gone, private-sector jobs will be fewer but nursing will always be in demand.

Besides, if the Taliban militants recapture the southern Afghan city that was their movement’s birthplace and from which they were expelled by U.S.-led forces 11 years ago, nursing will likely be one of the few professions left open to women.

Taraky is one of thousands of Kandaharis who are weighing their options with the approaching departure of the U.S. and its coalition partners. But while she has opted to stay, businessman Esmatullah Khan is leaving.

Khan, 29, made his living in property dealing and supplying services to the Western contingents operating in the city. Property prices are down, and business with foreigners is already shrinking, so he is pulling out, as are many others, he said.

Many are driven by a certainty that the Taliban will return, and that there will be reprisals.   

“From our baker to our electrician to our plumber, everyone was engaged with the foreign troops and so they are all targets for the Taliban. And unless the government is much stronger, when the foreign troops leave, that is the end,” Khan said.

The stakes are high. Kandahar, Afghanistan’s second city, is the southern counterweight to Kabul, the capital. Keeping Kandahar under central government control is critical to preventing the country from breaking apart into warring fiefdoms as it did in the 1990s.

“Kandahar is the gate of Afghanistan,” said Asan Noorzai, director of the provincial council. “If Kandahar is secure, the whole country is secure. If it is insecure, the whole country will soon be fighting.”

Even though Kandahar city has traffic jams and street hawkers to give it an atmosphere of normality, there are dozens of shuttered stores on the main commercial street, it’s almost too easy to find a parking space these days, and shopkeepers are feeling the pinch.

Dost Mohammad Nikzad said his profits from selling sweets have dropped by a half or more in the past year, to about $ 30 a day, and he has had to cut back on luxuries.

He said that every month he would buy a new shalwar kameez, the tunic favored by Afghan men; now he buys one every other month.

“I only go out to eat at a restaurant once a week. Before I would have gone multiple times a week,” Nikzad said, as he stood behind his counter, waiting for customers to show.

The measurements of violence levels contradict each other. On the one hand, many Kandaharis say things are better this year. On the other hand, the types of violence have changed and, to some minds, gotten worse.

“Before, we were mostly worried about bomb blasts. Now … we are afraid of worse things like assassinations and suicide attacks,” said Gul Mohammad Stanakzai, 34, a bank cashier.

Prying open the Taliban grip on Kandahar and its surrounding province has cost the lives of more than 400 international troops since 2001, and many more Afghans, including hundreds of public officials who have been assassinated by the Taliban.

Kandahar province remains the most violent in the country, averaging more than five “security incidents” a day, according to independent monitors. In Kandahar city, suicide attacks have more than doubled so far this year compared with the same period of 2011, according to U.N. figures.

“They are not fighting in the open the way they were before. Instead they are planting bombs and trying to get at us through the police and the army,” said Qadim Patyal, the deputy provincial governor.

The Taliban have said in official statements that they are focusing more on infiltrating Afghan and international forces to attack them. In the Kandahar governor’s office, armed Afghan soldiers are barred from meetings with American officials lest they turn on them, Patyal said.

And many point out that the “better security” is only relative. By all measures — attacks, bombings and civilian casualties — Kandahar is a much more violent city now than in 2008, before U.S. President Barack Obama ordered a troop surge.

There are no statistics on how many people have left the city of 500,000, but people are fleeing the south more than any other part of the country, according to U.N. figures. About 32 percent of the approximately 397,000 people who were recorded as in-country refugees were fleeing violence in the south, according to U.N. figures from the end of May.

The provincial government, which is supposed to fill the void left by the departing international forces, has suffered heavily from assassinations. It suffered a double blow in July last year with the killing of Ahmed Wali Karzai, the half-brother of President Hamid Karzai who was seen as the man who made things work in Kandahar, and Ghulam Haider Hamidi, the mayor of the city.

Now, Noorzai says, he can neither get the attention of ministers in Kabul nor trust city officials to do their jobs.

He remembers 2001, when he and others traveled to the capital flying the Afghan flag which had just been reinstated in place of that of the ousted Taliban. “People were throwing flowers and money on our car, they were so happy to have the Afghan flag flying again,” he said.

“When we got power, what did we give them in return? Poverty, corruption, abuse.”

Mohammad Omer, Kandahar’s current mayor, insists that if people are leaving the city, it is to return to villages they fled in previous years because now security has improved.

Zulmai Hafez disagrees. He has felt like a marked man since his father went to work for the government three years ago, and is too frightened to return to his home in the Panjwai district outside Kandahar city. He refused to have his picture taken or to have a reporter to his home, instead meeting at the city’s media center.

“It’s the Taliban who control the land, not the government,” Hafez said. He notes that the government administrator for his district sold off half his land, saying he would not be able to protect the entire farm from insurgents. Many believe the previous mayor was murdered because he went after powerful land barons.

Land reform is badly needed, and the mayor is angry about people who steal land, but he offers no solution. Kandahar only gets electricity about half the day. The mayor says it’s up to the Western allies to fix that. But the foreign aid is sharply down. Aid coming to Kandahar province through the U.S. Agency for International Development, the largest donor, has fallen to $ 63 million this year from $ 161 million in 2011, according to U.S. Embassy figures.

The mayor prefers to talk about investing in parks and planting trees. “I can’t resolve the electricity problem, but at least I can provide a place in the city for people to relax,” he said.

The only people thinking long-term appear to be the Taliban.

“The Americans are going and the Taliban need the people’s support, so they are trying to avoid attacks that result in civilian casualties,” said Noor Agha Mujahid, a member of the Taliban shadow government for Kandahar province, where he oversees operations in a rural district. “After 2014 … it will not take a month to take every place back.”

One of the biggest worries is the fate of women who have made strides in business and politics since the ouster of the Taliban.

“What will these women do?” asked Ehsanullah Ehsan, director of a center that trains more than 800 women a year in computers, English and business. It was at his center where Anita Taraky studied before switching to nursing.

“Even if the Taliban don’t come back, even if the international community just leaves, there will be fewer opportunities for women,” he said.

On the outskirts of the city stands one of the grandest projects of post-Taliban Kandahar — the gated community of Ayno Maina with tree-lined cement homes, wi-fi and rooftop satellite dishes.

Khan, the departing businessman, says he bought bought 10 lots for $ 66,000 in Ayno Maina and has yet to sell any of them despite slashing the price,

He recalled that when he first went to the project office it was packed with buyers. “Now it is full of empty houses. No one goes there,” Khan said.

Only about 15,000 of the 40,000 lots have been sold, and 2,400 homes built and occupied, according to Mahmood Karzai, one of the development’s main backers and a brother of President Karzai. He argues, however, that prices are down all over Afghanistan, and that Ayno Maina is still viable, provided his brother gets serious about reform that will attract investors.

“Afghanistan became a game,” he said over lunch at the Ayno Maina office. “The game is to make money and get the hell out of here. That goes for politicians. That goes for contractors.”

He shrugged off allegations that he skimmed money from Ayno Maina, saying the claims were started by competitors in Kabul who assume everyone who is building something in Afghanistan is also stealing money.

He said the money went where it was needed: to Western-style building standards and security.

In downtown Kandahar, a deserted park and Ferris wheel serve as another reminder of thwarted hopes. Built in the mid-2000s, the wheel has been idle for two years according to a guard, Abdullah Jan Samad. It isn’t broken, he said, it just needs electricity. A major U.S.-funded project to get reliable electricity to the city has floundered and generators that were supposed to provide a temporary solution only operate part-time because of fuel shortages.

“The government should be paying for maintenance for the Ferris wheel,” the guard said. “When you build something you should also make sure to maintain it.”

____

Associated Press Writer Mirwais Khan contributed to this report from Kandahar.

Asia News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Bloomberg cancels marathon amid outcry

The Clippers are trying to hand the Lakers their third straight loss to start the season. Follow the action here --> http://t.co/fXg4PT9y

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“Roman Polanski: Odd Man Out” documentary to premiere on Showtime next year

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Showtime has acquired the rights to the U.S. television premiere of the documentary “Roman Polanski: Odd Man Out,” the cable network said Thursday.

Marina Zenovich, who also directed the documentary “Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired,” also directed “Odd Man Out.”

The new film follows up on “Wanted and Desired,” will recount the controversial director’s 2009 arrest at the Zurich Film Festival, exploring “the bizarre clash of politics, celebrity justice and the media as sheds new light on the infamous saga of Polanski’s sexual abuse case and his escape from Swiss house arrest,” according to Showtime.

“Odd Man Out” will premiere on Showtime next year. Zenovich is also directing the documentary “Richard Pryor: Omit the Logic,” also slated to air in 2013.

Movies News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Chicago’s Cook County OKs gun tax to defray costs of violence

CHICAGO (Reuters) – The county that includes Chicago approved a tax on firearms on Friday to help pay healthcare costs from gun violence, making it what is believed to be the first major U.S. metropolitan area to enact such a levy as a form of gun control.

The Cook County Board of Commissioners voted 9-7 to impose a $ 25 tax on each firearm sold. The tax is expected to raise $ 600,000 in revenue in 2013.

With the vote, the nation’s third most populous county, with nearly 5.2 million residents, becomes the first large U.S. jurisdiction to approve such a measure, the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence said.

“We want to highlight this issue of gun violence and we also want to add to our resources to address it,” Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle told reporters on Friday.

Preckwinkle, who proposed the handgun tax, earlier this week abandoned an additional proposed tax of 5 cents a bullet because the tax in some cases would have exceeded the price of ammunition.

Preckwinkle said that 670 victims of gun violence were treated by the county’s health system last year. The average cost per patient was $ 52,000.

“The terrible truth is the people who die cost us less than the people who live, because often they live with internal injuries that plague them for the rest of their lives, and we care for them,” Preckwinkle said after the board meeting.

She said 70 percent of the people who came into the county health system with gunshot wounds were not insured.

There have been 443 murders in Chicago so far this year, surpassing last year’s 435, and 22 percent more than in the same period a year ago, according to Chicago police.

SIMILAR PROPOSALS FAILED ELSEWHERE

Richard Pearson, executive director of the Illinois State Rifle Association, has called the Cook County proposal another scheme to punish law-abiding firearm owners and dealers. He said it would prompt people to purchase weapons elsewhere.

Proposals to enact taxes on buyers or sellers of guns or ammunition have failed in six states, including California, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania, said the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.

Tennessee has a hunting-related 10-cent tax on sealed packages of shotgun shells and cartridges that applies to sellers. The money is used to support wildlife resources.

In a separate vote on Friday, the Cook County board passed by a 12-2 vote a $ 2 million gun violence prevention program, which would primarily provide grants to non-profit organizations with experience in violence prevention or community outreach.

The money for the program will come from savings on consultants and outside service providers in the county’s health program, according to county budget director Andrea Gibson.

The board also approved a $ 1-a-pack cigarette tax to help fund the public health system. That means the tax on a pack of cigarettes in Chicago will be $ 6.67, 19 cents short of New York City’s $ 6.86, according to a Chicago Tribune analysis.

The board approved $ 41.7 million in new revenue increases in total on Friday as part of the $ 2.9 billion 2013 budget, Preckwinkle said.

(Editing by Andrew Hay and Peter Cooney)

Health News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Google's Android software in 3 out of 4 smartphones

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Gruesome video raises concerns about Syria rebels

BEIRUT (AP) — A video that appears to show a unit of Syrian rebels kicking terrified, captured soldiers and then executing them with machine guns raised concerns Friday about rebel brutality at a time when the United States is making its strongest push yet to forge an opposition movement it can work with.

U.N. officials and human rights groups believe President Bashar Assad‘s regime is responsible for the bulk of suspected war crimes in Syria‘s 19-month-old conflict, which began as a largely peaceful uprising but has transformed into a brutal civil war.

But investigators of human rights abuses say rebel atrocities are on the rise.

At this stage “there may not be anybody with entirely clean hands,” Suzanne Nossel, head of the rights group Amnesty International, told The Associated Press.

The U.S. has called for a major leadership shakeup of Syria’s political opposition during a crucial conference next week in Qatar. Washington and its allies have been reluctant to give stronger backing to the largely Turkey-based opposition, viewing it as ineffective, fractured and out of touch with fighters trying to topple Assad.

But the new video adds to growing concerns about those fighters and could complicate Washington’s efforts to decide which of the myriad of opposition groups to support. The video can be seen at http://bit.ly/YxDcWE .

“We condemn human rights violations by any party,” U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said, commenting on the video. “Anyone committing atrocities should be held to account.”

She said the Free Syrian Army has urged its fighters to adhere to a code of conduct it established in August, reflecting international rules of war.

The summary execution of the captured soldiers, purportedly shown in an amateur video, took place Thursday during a rebel assault on the strategic northern town of Saraqeb, said the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an activist group.

It was unclear which rebel faction was involved, though the al-Qaida-inspired Jabhat al-Nusra was among those fighting in the area, the Observatory said.

The video, posted on YouTube, shows a crowd of gunmen in what appears to be a building under construction. They surround a group of captured men on the ground, some on their bellies as if ordered to lie down, others sprawled as if wounded. Some of the captives are in Syrian military uniforms.

“These are Assad’s dogs,” one of the gunmen is heard saying of those cowering on the ground.

The gunmen kick and beat some of the men. One gunman shouts, “Damn you!” The exact number of soldiers in the video is not clear, but there appear to be about 10 of them.

Moments later, gunfire erupts for about 35 seconds, screams are heard and the men on the floor are seen shaking and twitching. The spray of bullets kicks up dust from the ground.

The video’s title says it shows dead and captive soldiers at the Hmeisho checkpoint. The Observatory said 12 soldiers were killed Thursday at the checkpoint, one of three regime positions near Saraqeb attacked by the rebels in the area that day.

Amnesty International’s forensics analysts did not detect signs of forgery in the video, according to Nossel. The group has not yet been able to confirm the location, date and the identity of those shown in the footage, she said.

After their assault Thursday, rebels took full control of Saraqeb, a strategic position on the main highway linking Syria’s largest city, Aleppo — which rebels have been trying to capture for months — with the regime stronghold of Latakia on the Mediterranean coast.

On Friday, at least 143 people, including 48 government soldiers, were killed in gunbattles, regime shelling attacks on rebel-held areas and other violence, the Observatory said.

Of the more than 36,000 killed so far in Syria, about one-fourth are regime soldiers, according to the Observatory. The rest include civilians and rebel fighters, but the group does not offer a breakdown.

Daily casualties have been rising since early summer, when the regime began bombing densely populated areas from the air in an attempt to dislodge rebels and break a battlefield stalemate.

Karen Abu Zayd, a member of the U.N. panel documenting war crimes in Syria, said the regime is to blame for the bulk of the atrocities so far, but that rebel abuses are on the rise as the insurgents become better armed and as foreign fighters with radical agendas increasingly join their ranks.

“The balance is changing somewhat,” she said in a phone interview, blaming in part the influx of foreign fighters not restrained by social ties that bind Syrians.

Abu Zayd said the panel, though unable to enter Syria for now, has evidence of “at least dozens, but probably hundreds” of war crimes, based on some 1,100 interviews. The group has already compiled two lists of suspected perpetrators and units for future prosecution, she said.

Many rebel groups operate independently, even if they nominally fall under the umbrella of the Free Syrian Army. In recent months, rebel groups have formed military councils to improve coordination, but the chaos of the war has allowed for considerable autonomy at the local level.

“The killing of unarmed soldiers shows how difficult it is to control the escalation of the conflict and establish a united armed opposition that abides by the same ground rules and norms in battle,” said Anthony Skinner, an analyst at Maplecroft, a British risk analysis company.

Rebel commanders and Syrian opposition leaders have promised human rights groups that they would try to prevent abuses. However, New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a report in September that statements by some opposition leaders indicate they tolerate or condone extrajudicial killings.

Free Syrian Army commanders contacted by the AP on Friday said they were either unaware or had no accurate details about the latest video.

Ausama Monajed, a member of the Syrian National Council, the main opposition group in exile, called for the gunmen shown in the video to be tracked down and brought to justice.

He added, however, that atrocities committed by rebels are relatively rare compared to what he said was a “massive genocide by the regime.”

Regime forces have launched indiscriminate attacks on residential neighborhoods with tank shells, mortar rounds and bombs dropped from warplanes, devastating large areas. In raids of rebel strongholds, Assad’s forces have carried out summary executions, rights groups say.

Rebels have also targeted civilians, setting off car bombs near mosques, restaurants and government offices. Human Rights Watch said in September it collected evidence of the summary executions of more than a dozen people by rebels.

In August, a video showed several bloodied prisoners being led into a noisy outdoor crowd in the northern city of Aleppo and placed against a wall before gunmen shot them to death. That video sparked international condemnation, including a rare rebuke from the Obama administration.

The latest video emerged on the eve of a crucial opposition conference that is to begin Sunday in Qatar’s capital of Doha. More than 400 delegates from the Syrian National Council and other opposition groups are expected to attend to choose a new leadership.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has called for a more unified and representative opposition, even suggesting the U.S. would handpick some of the candidates.

Clinton’s comments reflected growing U.S. impatience with the Syrian opposition, which, in turn, has accused Washington of not having charted a clear path to bringing down Assad.

The Syrian National Council plans to elect new leaders during the four-day conference but is cool to a U.S. proposal to set up a much broader group and a transitional government, said Monajed, the SNC member who runs a think tank in Britain.

U.S. officials have said Washington is pushing for a greater role for the Free Syrian Army and representation of local coordinating committees and mayors of liberated cities in Syria.

Nuland said that it would be easier for the international community to deliver humanitarian assistance to civilians and non-lethal aid to the rebels once a broader, unified opposition leadership is in place.

Such a body could also help persuade Assad backers Russia and China “that change is necessary” and that Syria’s opposition has a better plan for the country than the regime, she said.

___

Associated Press writer Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.

Middle East News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Fuel scarce as East Coast struggles to recover

NEW YORK/SEASIDE HEIGHTS, New Jersey (Reuters) - Rescuers searched flooded homes for survivors, drivers lined up for hours to get scarce gasoline and millions remained without power on Thursday as New York City and nearby towns struggled to recover from one of the biggest storms to hit the United States.

New York subway trains crawled back to limited service after being shut down since Sunday, but the lower half of Manhattan still lacked power and surrounding areas such as Staten Island, the New Jersey shore and the city of Hoboken remained crippled from a record storm surge and flooding.

At least 95 people died in the "superstorm" that ravaged the Northeastern United States on Monday. Officials said the number could rise as rescuers searched house-by-house in coastal towns.

"I worked all my life, and everything I had is right there," said Bob Stewart, 59, standing on the Jersey Shore beach in the town of Seaside Heights and looking at the pile of debris that was once his home. "I put my life right there."

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie said on Thursday that nearly a 1,000 people had been rescued by authorities.

In blackened New York City neighborhoods, some residents complained there was a lack of police and feared an increase in crime. Some were also concerned about traffic safety. New York police officials were not immediately available to comment.

"People feel safe during the day but as soon as the sun sets, people are extremely scared. The fact that Guardian Angels are on the streets trying to restore law just shows how out of control the situation is in lower Manhattan," said Wolfgang Ban, owner of Edi & The Wolf restaurant in Manhattan's Alphabet City neighborhood.

The Guardian Angels are a group of anti-crime volunteers.

More than 15 people in the borough of Queens were charged with looting, and a man was charged on Thursday with threatening another driver with a gun after he tried to cut in on a line of cars waiting for gas, Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said.

The financial cost of the storm promised to be staggering. Disaster modeling company Eqecat estimated Sandy caused up to $20 billion in insured losses and $50 billion in economic losses, double its previous forecast.

At the high end of the range, Sandy would rank as the fourth costliest U.S. catastrophe ever, according to the Insurance Information Institute, behind Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the September 11, 2001, attacks and Hurricane Andrew in 1992.

POWER OUT, GAS SHORTAGE

The presidential campaign was back in full swing on Thursday after being on hold for several days because of the storm. President Barack Obama, locked in a tight race with Republican challenger Mitt Romney head of next Tuesday's election, appeared to gain politically from his disaster relief performance.

Christie, a vocal Romney supporter, praised Obama, and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a political independent, endorsed Obama on Thursday.

In New York, U.N. headquarters suffered severe damage and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon offered recovery help to the United States and Caribbean nations affected by the storm.

The hunt for gasoline added to a climate of uncertainty as Sandy's death toll and price tag rose.

"I'm so stressed out," said Jessica Bajno, 29, a teacher from Elmont, Long Island, who was waiting in line for gas. "I've been driving around to nearby towns all morning, and being careful about not running out of gas in the process. Everything is closed. I'm feeling anxious."

Some residents may lack electricity for weeks. New York utility Consolidated Edison restored power to 250,000 customers, with 650,000 others still in the dark.

The vast majority will be restored by the weekend of November 10-11, but "the remaining customer restorations could take an additional week or more," the company said.

Advertising creative director Chris Swift, 37, lost power in his apartment in Manhattan's Chelsea district on Monday and by Thursday he was so fed up he got on a bus to Boston.

"I tried 20 (New York City) hotels on foot as couldn't call them with no battery left on my phone, but they were all booked. I tried to get to (friends in) Brooklyn but cabs would not take me as they we're running out gas," he said.

About 4.6 million homes and businesses in 15 U.S. states were without power on Thursday, down from a record high of nearly 8.5 million.

More deaths were recorded overnight in the New York borough of Staten Island, where authorities recovered 17 bodies after the storm lifted whole houses off their foundations. Among the dead were two boys, aged 4 and 2, who were swept from their mother's arms by the floodwaters, police said.

In all, 39 people died in New York City, officials said.

"It was like living through Titanic but on ground," said Krystina Berrios, 25, of Staten Island, looking at her bedroom caked in mud, furniture upended. "You would never think in a million years having to live through something like this."

JERSEY SHORE FLOORED

Sandy started as a late-season hurricane in the Caribbean, where it killed 69 people, before smashing ashore in the United States with 80-mile-per-hour (130-kph) winds. It stretched from the Carolinas to Connecticut and was the largest storm by area to hit the United States in decades.

In New Jersey, where entire neighborhoods in oceanside towns were swallowed by seawater and the Atlantic City boardwalk was destroyed, the death toll rose to 13.

Floodwaters receded from the streets of Hoboken, New Jersey, across the Hudson River from Manhattan, leaving behind a smelly mess of submerged basements and cars littering the sidewalks.

"The water was rushing in. It was like a river coming," said Benedicte Lenoble, a photo researcher from Hoboken. "Now it's a mess everywhere. There's no power. The stores aren't open. Recovery? I don't know."

New Jersey natives Bruce Springsteen and Jon Bon Jovi will headline a benefit concert for storm victims Friday on NBC television, the network announced.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency agreed to cover 100 percent of emergency power and public transportation costs through November 9 for affected areas of New York and New Jersey, up from the traditional share of 75 percent.

More than 36,000 disaster survivors from New York, New Jersey and Connecticut have applied for federal disaster assistance and more than $3.4 million in direct assistance has already been approved, White House spokesman Jay Carney said.

The Pentagon was airlifting power restoration experts and trucks from California to New York to assist millions of people still living in darkness.

Fuel supplies into New York and New Jersey were hit by idled refineries, a closed New York Harbor, damages to import terminals, and a closed oil pipeline.

The scarcity of fuel, electricity and supplies made cleanup more daunting for barrier towns.

Seaside Heights residents who obeyed the mandatory evacuation order were cut off from their homes. The entire community was submerged by the storm surge, which washed over the island and into the bay that separates it from the mainland.

Chris Delman, 30, saw a photograph of his house in a local newspaper on Wednesday. It was still standing.

"We ain't living in Seaside no more, that's obvious," Delman said. "I just want to know what I have left."

(Additional reporting by Reuters bureaus throughout the U.S. Northeast; Writing by Daniel Trotta and Michelle Nichols; Editing by Jim Loney and Peter Cooney)

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Jodie Foster to get lifetime achievement award at Golden Globes

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Double-Oscar winner Jodie Foster will receive a lifetime achievement award at the Golden Globes ceremony in January, recognizing her 40-year career as an actress, director and movie producer, organizers said on Thursday.

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA), which organizes the annual Golden Globe awards, said Foster will join the likes of past winners Lucille Ball, Barbra Streisand, Al Pacino, Morgan Freeman and Judy Garland, and become the 2013 recipient of the Cecil B. DeMille award.

“Jodie is a multifaceted woman that has achieved immeasurable amounts of success and will continue to do so in her career,” HFPA president Aida Takla-O’Reilly said in a statement.

“Her ambition, exuberance and grace have helped pave the way for budding artists in this business. She’s truly one of a kind,” she added.

Foster, 49, began her career filming commercials at the age of three and won international fame with her role as a streetwise teen in the 1976 film “Taxi Driver.”

She has since appeared in more than 40 movies, winning best actress Oscars for her role as a rape victim in “The Accused” and as the FBI agent in 1991 thriller “The Silence of The Lambs.”

Foster also branched out into directing (“Little Man Tate”) and producing for both film and television through her production company Egg Pictures.

Foster will be presented with her award at the Golden Globes ceremony in Beverly Hills on January 13, where the HFPA will also announce its picks for the best films and performances in film and television of 2012.

(Reporting By Jill Serjeant; Editing by David Gregorio)

Movies News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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NICE backs melanoma drugs after price cuts

LONDON (Reuters) – Two new drugs for skin cancer have been recommended for use on Britain’s state-run health service after the rival manufacturers – Roche and Bristol-Myers Squibb – agreed to cut their prices.

The move underscores the growing pressure on drug companies to cut deals with austerity-hit European governments in order to prove their expensive new medicines offer value for money.

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) said on Friday it had issued final draft guidance recommending both Roche’s Zelboraf and Bristol‘s Yervoy after the companies offered undisclosed discounts.

NICE, which determines if products should be used by the National Health Service (NHS), had initially rejected both medicines, despite acknowledging that they represented a breakthrough in treating melanoma.

The list price for Zelboraf, which is only suitable for patients with a particular genetic profile, is 52,500 pounds for an average treatment span of seven months.

The price of a four-dose course of Yervoy, which is recommended only for people who have received prior chemotherapy, is 75,000 pounds.

(Reporting by Ben Hirschler; Editing by Mark Potter)

Medications/Drugs News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Apple rolls out iPad mini in Sydney to shorter lines

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