New Flickr iPhone app to compete with Instagram and Twitter with 16 filters

Hot on the heels of its email redesign, Yahoo (YHOO) announced on Wednesday that it has completely redesigned the Flickr iPhone app. The new app borrows heavily from Instagram and focuses on what makes Flickr special: photos and communities. Yahoo’s new Flickr app also includes 16 filters with their own fancy names to go head-on with Instagram and Twitter’s recently updated app that added eight filters. Users can now access the Flickr app with numerous accounts including Facebook (FB) and Google (GOOG) and photos can be shared to Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr or via email. The new Flickr app is available for free on iPhone but to our disappointment, there isn’t an iPad-optimized version.

Ellis Hamburger from The Verge penned an interesting editorial on how Twitter misses the mark by simply adding filters to its app without having the close community that makes Instagram so addictive. Led by CEO Marissa Mayer, Yahoo seems aware that mobile apps thrive on the communities that sprout up. The new Flickr app’s emphasis on how the images are displayed and shared in visually appealing and digestible thumbnails suggests Yahoo finally understands mobile.

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The Hobbit: Richard Armitage Talks Preparations For Playing Thorin Oakenshield

British actor Richard Armitage admitted it wasn’t a walk in the park to play a J.R.R. Tolkien character in Peter Jackson’s reimagining of “The Hobbit,” the first installment of which is on its way into theaters.

Upon touching down in New Zealand, where the trilogy was shot, the cast had a lot of character preparation to do.

PLAY IT NOW: Martin Freeman Discusses The Hobbit’s ‘Good Chemistry’ & Playing Bilbo Baggins

“We arrived in February 2011 and we went straight into a training program, which was called ‘Dwarf Bootcamp,’ which was literally boots — these huge boots. We learned how to walk, we wrestled with each other, we did archery together, we did sword fighting, hammer fighting, horse riding — everything you could possibly think of,” Richard, who plays Thorin Oakenshield in the film told Access Hollywood at the film’s junket.

In addition, the cast, which includes his former “Cold Feet” co-star James Nesbitt as Bofur, found ways to get to know each other better off set.

VIEW THE PHOTOS: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey — New York City Premiere

“We went round to each other’s houses and we cooked food together, we went to the pub and got drunk together, so there was an incredibly great bonding time between the dwarves,” he said.

Richard had plenty of experience sword fighting and horse riding in the BBC America series “Robin Hood,” but it was something else that came in handy during the long days on set.

“I’d done a number of shows where I’d had to use sword fighting and I’d also done horse riding. I’d also pulled guns out of my pocket. That was less useful,” he laughed, likely referring to his recent role in the PBS-import series “MI-5,” where he played a British spy. “But, yeah, you draw on everything. I’d worked at the Royal Shakespeare Company, so the vocal work was really useful to kind of pull that from there. I’d worked in a circus, there were… all sorts of things that were really useful, but the one thing that I do have — for lack of talent — is stamina and that’s the one thing I think everybody needed on this job.”

VIEW THE PHOTOS: Meet ‘The Hobbit’ Cast!

An imagination was useful also, but Richard said what turned out on the big screen was still wilder – and more beautiful – than he dreamed of.

“So many moments… Actually, apart from the eagles — which every single time I’ve seen this film absolutely blows my mind and I can barely keep the tears back and [it has] nothing to do with the pathos of the scene, just that feeling of flight moves me — is the throne of Aragorn, in the beginning of the prologue,” he told Access of the moment that moved him most. “When it got to [filming] that scene, I walked on and… it was just a green cross on the floor with a tiny green chair… [But in the film], they just made this incredible, almost space aged, sort of suspended seat in the middle of this stalagmite. It just blows my mind when I see that.”

VIEW THE PHOTOS: The Brit Pack: Hot Shots Of Stars From The UK!

“The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” hits theaters on December 14, 2012, followed by “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug,” on December 13, 2013 and “The Hobbit: There and Back Again,” on July 18, 2014.

– Jolie Lash

Copyright 2012 by NBC Universal, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Gunman kills 2, then self in Oregon mall rampage

A masked gunman opened fire today at Clackamas Town Center, a mall in suburban Portland, Ore., killing two people, injuring one, and then killing himself.

"I can confirm the shooter is dead of an apparent self inflicted gunshot wound," Lt. James Rhodes of the Clackamas County, Ore., Sheriff's Department said today. "By all accounts there were no rounds fired by law enforcement today in the mall."

Police have not released the names of the deceased. Rhodes said authorities are in the process of notifying victims' families. The injured victim has been transported to a local hospital.

Rhodes described the shooter as an adult male.

Witnesses from the shooting rampage said that a young man in a white hockey mask and bulletproof vest tore through the Macy's, food court, and mall hallways firing rounds at shoppers beginning around 3:30 p.m. PT today.

Hundreds of people were evacuated from the busy mall full of holiday shoppers after the shooting began.

READ: Guns in America: A Statistical Look

The gunman entered the mall through a Macy's store, ran through the upper level of Macy's and opened fire near the mall food court, firing multiple shots, one right after another, with what is believed to be a black, semiautomatic rifle, according to witness reports.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Police are tracing the weapon used in the shooting.

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Spice Girls take stage at musical premiere

LONDON (Reuters) – The Spice Girls took to the stage on Tuesday after the world premiere of a new musical loosely based on their meteoric rise to fame in the 1990s, earning huge cheers from an audience that only really got going at the encore.

“Viva Forever!” was the brainchild of producer Judy Craymer, whose “Mamma Mia!” musical based on the hits of ABBA has earned nearly $ 2 billion worldwide and spawned a hit movie starring Meryl Streep.

She teamed up with British comedian Jennifer Saunders to create a story about the central character Viva, a sprightly teenager who, along with her friends, gets into the final stages of a TV singing contest closely resembling “The X Factor”.

To boost flagging audience figures – a nod to “The X Factor”s real-life ratings woes in Britain this season – their “mentor” springs a surprise and throws out three members of the band to leave Viva on her own.

What follows is part morality tale examining what is more important – friends, family or fame – and part satire on reality television, including a callous, Simon Cowell-like producer.

“We love you Judy!” said Geri Halliwell at the end of the show, which closed with a romp through some of the Spice Girls‘ biggest hits including “Spice Up Your Life”.

“Thank you for making the Spice Girls‘ dream come true,” Halliwell added.

Halliwell was joined on stage by Victoria Beckham, Melanie Brown, Emma Bunton and Melanie Chisholm, who together stormed the charts in the 1990s and put “girl power” on the map.

Beckham, who arrived at the London premiere after her ex-bandmates, sat with her soccer star husband David and three sons, who clapped along to the music during the final medley.

NATIONAL TREASURES

Now all young mothers in their late 30s and early 40s, The Spice Girls are still affectionately known by the nicknames they adopted in the band – Posh (Beckham), Scary (Brown), Baby (Bunton), Sporty (Chisholm) and Ginger (Halliwell).

They were hailed as modern-day feminists by some and dismissed as vacuous pop princesses by others, but their success is beyond doubt. They sold 55 million records, had nine British No. 1 singles and three back-to-back Christmas No. 1s.

The band broke up around 12 years ago, and internal bickering among the members was long the delight of Britain’s celebrity-obsessed tabloids.

Perhaps surprisingly, given the bust-ups and hissy fits, the group has been united in its backing of the new musical, and underlining the Spice Girls‘ lasting popularity they played a major part in the closing ceremony at the London Olympics.

Paul Taylor, writing in the Independent newspaper, gave the musical two stars out of five in his review.

“The Spice Girls‘ songs, with their clever hooks and catchy rhythms, are better at projecting an attitude than fleshing out a dramatic situation,” he wrote, describing Saunders’ story as “charmless”, “messy” and “lackluster”.

“Not only does her script rarely give you that necessary gleeful sense of expectancy about where the songs are going to be shoe-horned in, but it’s embarrassingly derivative of ‘Mamma Mia!’ and looks way past its sell-by date in its utterly surprise-free satiric swipe at ‘X Factor’.”

Saunders said before the show that she considered herself the “sixth” Spice Girl.

“We used to travel around everywhere to see them and they were so great with my kids,” said the 54-year-old, best known for playing a self-absorbed, eccentric mother in the popular British comedy series “Absolutely Fabulous”.

“The thought of a Spice Girls musical written by somebody else was not acceptable,” she told the Daily Mirror newspaper. “Because I was so close to them, I couldn’t let it slip through my fingers.”

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, editing by Jill Serjeant)

Music News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Lilly likens Alzheimer’s race to 1920s insulin quest

(Reuters) – Drugmaker Eli Lilly & Co is confident it will do for Alzheimer’s patients what it did almost a century ago for diabetics – find a breakthrough treatment, even though skeptics say it could take years.

“We are on the cusp here of writing medical history again as a company, this time in Alzheimer’s disease,” Jan Lundberg, Lilly’s research chief, said in an interview.

Just as the Indianapolis-based company made history in the 1920s by producing the first insulin when type 1 diabetes was a virtual death sentence, Lundberg said he is optimistic that the drugs Lilly is currently testing could significantly slow the ultimately fatal memory-robbing disease.

“It is no longer a question of ‘if’ we will get a successful medicine for this devastating disease on the market, but when,” said Lundberg, 59.

To be sure, companies often tout drugs in the pipeline that never make it to market. Lundberg’s degree of confidence is striking given that Lilly’s most closely watched experimental drug – solanezumab – failed two big late-stage studies earlier this year. Analysts said the drug still has a slight chance of approval because it delayed memory loss in Alzheimer’s patients with mild symptoms – something no other drug has ever done.

Lilly desperately needs new big-selling medicines to replace lost sales of several of its biggest products that now face competition from cheaper generics. A successful Alzheimer’s drug could bring in billions of dollars each year.

An estimated 5 million people in the United States have Alzheimer’s, the biggest cause of dementia. More than 35 million people worldwide are believed to have dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease, and those numbers are expected to rise as more countries see lifespans increase. But truly effective treatments have eluded researchers.

“Alzheimer’s is fatal, ultimately with no survivors, so we are in desperate need for an effective therapy,” said Dr. Ronald Petersen, director of the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center at the Mayo Clinic. “Is Lilly poised to make that contribution? I don’t know. But they are pursuing very good options.”

Petersen said Alzheimer’s may be more complex than diabetes, and thus harder to make quick strides against, as Lilly did with insulin. “There may not be a silver bullet. We’ve had so many failures of Alzheimer’s drugs, so we don’t want to be inappropriately optimistic.”

THE WAIT FOR APPROVAL

And even as Wall Street looks for an Alzheimer’s treatment that will deliver blockbuster revenues, many remain cautious.

“Lilly is one of the leaders, but this is going to take a lot longer than we all want it to,” said Cowen and Co analyst Steve Scala. “I doubt a drug will have a meaningful impact on the course of the disease for the next five years.”

Lilly also faces competition from other drugmakers like Merck & Co and Roche Holding AG that have promising Alzheimer’s compounds that could reap annual sales in the billions of dollars.

Lilly is ahead of other drugmakers in Alzheimer’s research after solanezumab, in Phase III trials, was shown in August to slow cognitive declines in patients with mild symptoms of the disease. But the drug, given by intravenous infusion, failed its overall goal of delaying cognitive and physical decline in the larger group of patients with mild-to-moderate Alzheimer’s.

Industry analysts said Lilly might ask the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to approve solanezumab only for patients with mild Alzheimer’s. But the FDA would likely require new trials for that narrower population of patients with mild disease, analysts said.

Leerink Swann analyst Seamus Fernandez said a new trial would likely take three years, but that solanezumab could generate annual sales of up to $ 7 billion if approved and become Lilly’s biggest source of earnings growth.

Lundberg, who joined Lilly in early 2010 after heading research for a decade at British drugmaker AstraZeneca, would not say whether Lilly would seek approval of solanezumab, based on already completed trials.

Lundberg noted that test results were mixed for solanezumab. “What we saw was a slowing of cognitive decline — the memory problem — while the activities of daily living were much less affected.”

But he said solanezumab’s results were impressive nonetheless, especially compared with a similar drug from Pfizer Inc, called bapineuzumab, that failed in large closely watched trials over the summer. Both drugs target toxic plaques in the brain made of a protein called amyloid.

“We have an agent that was safer and also showed a statistically significant benefit” against mild Alzheimer’s, he said.

A MULTI-BILLION-DOLLAR OPPORTUNITY

Some researchers believe far earlier use of solanezumab, and other drugs that target amyloid, could prevent symptoms of the disease. One such prevention study will begin next year at Washington University in St. Louis, and includes use of solanezumab.

Lundberg was cautiously optimistic about Lilly’s mid-stage trials of a different oral class of Alzheimer’s drugs called beta secretase inhibitors — or BACE inhibitors — which work by blocking production of amyloid.

In small earlier trials, Lilly’s experimental drug cut levels of amyloid beta in cerebrospinal fluid by 60 percent. A similar drug from Merck & Co lowered levels by about 90 percent in a separate Phase 1 trial. Each company claims to be ahead of the other in the potentially lucrative race to develop the first approved BACE inhibitor.

Excitement about the class of drugs intensified in July, when researchers in Iceland identified a mutation in a gene that slows the body’s production of beta secretase, Lundberg said. Those aged 85 and older with the beneficial mutation were 81 percent less likely to develop Alzheimer’s than others in that age group.

Lilly and Merck are expected to complete their mid-stage trials by early 2014, and show whether their BACE inhibitors are safe.

“This category could be enormous,” said Leerink Swann’s Fernandez, estimating that a successful drug could capture as much revenue – $ 10 billion – annually as some of the most successful cholesterol drugs.

“We’re looking at multi-billion opportunities because of desperation and the cost of treating this disease,” he said.

(Reporting By Ransdell Pierson in New York; Editing by Jilian Mincer and Leslie Adler)

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Facebook helps FBI bust cybercriminals blamed for $850 million losses

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Investigators led by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and aided by Facebook Inc, have busted an international criminal ring that infected 11 million computers around the world and caused more than $ 850 million in total losses in one of the largest cybercrime hauls in history.

The FBI, working in concert with the world’s largest social network and several international law enforcement agencies, arrested 10 people it says infected computers with “Yahos” malicious software, then stole credit card, bank and other personal information.

Facebook’s security team assisted the FBI after “Yahos” targeted its users from 2010 to October 2012, the U.S. federal agency said in a statement on its website. The social network helped identify the criminals and spot affected accounts, it said.

Its “security systems were able to detect affected accounts and provide tools to remove these threats,” the FBI said.

According to the agency, which worked also with the U.S. Department of Justice, the accused hackers employed the “Butterfly Botnet”. Botnets are networks of compromised computers that can be used in a variety of cyberattacks on personal computers.

The FBI said it nabbed 10 people from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, New Zealand, Peru, the United Kingdom, and the United States, executed numerous search warrants and conducted a raft of interviews.

It estimated the total losses from their activities at more than $ 850 million, without elaborating.

Hard data is tough to come by, but experts say cybercrime is on the rise around the world as PC and mobile computing become more prevalent and as more and more financial transactions shift online, leaving law enforcement, cybersecurity professionals and targeted corporations increasingly hard-pressed to spot and ward off attacks.

(Reporting By Edwin Chan; Editing by Matt Driskill)

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Corruption probe shrouds Quebec in new darkness

MONTREAL (Reuters) – Half a century ago, a new crop of Quebec leaders sparked the so-called Quiet Revolution to eradicate the “Great Darkness” – decades of corruption that kept Canada‘s French-speaking province under the dominance of one party and the Catholic church.

The revolution’s reforms, including cleaning up the way lawmakers were elected and secularizing the education system, seemed to work, paving the way for decades of growth, progress and prominence as Canada emerged as a model of democracy.

Fifty years later, a public inquiry into corruption and government bid-rigging suggests the province’s politics are not as clean as Quebecers had hoped or believed.

Since May, when the inquiry opened in Montreal, Canadians have been getting daily doses of revelations of fraud through live broadcasts on French-language television stations. Corruption involving the Mafia, construction bosses and politicians, the inquiry has shown, drove up the average building cost of municipal contracts by more than 30 percent in Montreal, Canada’s second-largest city.

Last month, Montreal Mayor Gerald Tremblay resigned as did the mayor of nearby Laval, Gilles Vaillancourt. Both denied doing anything wrong, but said they could not govern amid the accusations of corruption involving rigging of municipal contracts, kickbacks from the contracts and illegal financing of elections.

Tremblay has not been charged by police. Vaillancourt’s homes and offices have been raided several times by Quebec’s anti-corruption squad, which operates independently of the inquiry, but no charges have been filed against him either. Police said the raids were part of an investigation but they would not release further details.

“Quebecers lived for several years under the impression that they had found the right formula, that their parties were clean,” said Pierre Martin, political science professor at the University of Montreal. Now, he said, “people at all levels are fed up.”

The inquiry must submit its final report to the Quebec government by next October. It has exposed practices worthy of a Hollywood noir thriller – a mob boss stuffing his socks with money, rigged construction contracts, call girls offered as gifts, and a party fundraiser with so much cash he could not close the door of his safe.

“Even though we are in the early days, what is emerging is a pretty troubling portrait of the way public contracts were awarded,” said Antonia Maioni, director of the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada in Montreal.

Quebec’s Liberals, the force behind the Quiet Revolution, launched the inquiry as rumors of corruption swirled. The government then called an election for September, a year ahead of schedule, in what was seen as an attempt to stop damaging testimony hurting its popularity.

The tactic did not help. Jean Charest’s Liberals lost to the Parti Quebecois, whose ultimate aim is to take the French-speaking province, the size of Western Europe, out of Canada.

‘IT WASN’T COMPLICATED’

According to allegations at the inquiry, the corruption helped three main entities: the construction bosses who colluded to bid on contracts, the Montreal Mafia dons who swooped in for their share, and the municipal politicians who received kickbacks to finance campaigns.

In Quebec, the Mafia has been dominated by the Rizzuto family, with tentacles to the rest of Canada and crime families in New York and abroad. But recently the syndicate has been facing challenges from other crime groups in Montreal, according to the Toronto-based Mafia analyst and author Antonio Nicaso.

The reputed godfather of the syndicate, Vito Rizzuto, has been subpoenaed to appear before the commission, but the date for his testimony has not been set.

The hearings have zeroed in on four construction bosses and how their companies worked with the Mafia, bribed municipal engineers and provided funds for mayoralty campaigns in Montreal, the business capital for Quebec’s 8 million people.

“It’s not good for the economy,” said Martin. “It’s not good for any kind of legitimate business that tries to enter into any kind of long-term relationship with the public sector.”

Quebec’s anti-corruption squad has arrested 35 people so far this year, staging well-publicized raids on mayoral offices and on construction and engineering companies. The squad has arrested civil servants and owners of construction companies, among others.

“I now must suffer an unbearable injustice,” Tremblay said in a somber resignation speech earlier this month after a decade as mayor of Montreal, saying he could not continue in office because the allegations of corruption were causing a paralysis at City Hall.

Some of the most explosive allegations at the inquiry, headed by Quebec Superior Court Justice France Charbonneau, came from Lino Zambito, owner of a now bankrupt construction company, and from a top worker for Tremblay’s political party, Union Montreal.

Zambito, who is seen as one of the smaller players and who also faces fraud charges, described a system of collusion between organized crime, business cartels and corrupt civil servants, with payments made according to a predetermined formula.

“The entrepreneurs made money, and there was an amount that was due to the Mafia,” Zambito told the inquiry. “It wasn’t complicated.”

Zambito said the Mafia got 2.5 percent of the value of a contract, 3 percent went to Union Montreal and 1 percent to the engineer tasked with inflating contract prices.

Tremblay did not respond to emails requesting comment on the allegations of corruption at city hall.

A former party organizer, Martin Dumont, alleged the mayor was aware of double bookkeeping used to hide illegal funding during a 2004 election.

Dumont said the mayor walked out of the room during a meeting that explained the double bookkeeping system, saying he did not want to know anything about it.

Dumont also described how he was called into the office of a fundraiser for Union Montreal to help close the door of a safe because it was too full of money.

“I think it was the largest amount I’d ever seen in my life,” Dumont said at the inquiry.

GOLF, HOCKEY, ESCORTS

The inquiry also saw videos linking construction company players with Mafia bosses. In one police surveillance video, a Mafia boss was seen stuffing cash into his socks.

A retired city of Montreal engineer, Gilles Surprenant, described how he first accepted a bribe in the late 1980s after being “intimidated” by a construction company owner. Over the years he said he accepted over $ 700,000 from the owners in return for inflating the price of the contracts.

Another retired engineer, Luc Leclerc, admitted to bagging half a million dollars for the same service. He said the system was well-known to many at city hall and simply part of the “business culture” in Montreal. He also got gifts and paid golf trips to the Caribbean with other businessmen and Mafia bosses.

Gilles Vezina, who is currently suspended from his job as a city engineer, concurred.

“It was part of our business relationships to get advantages like golf, hockey, Christmas gifts” from construction bosses, he told the inquiry in mid-November.

The gifts didn’t stop there. Vezina said he was twice offered the services of prostitutes from different construction bosses in the 1980s or early 1990s, which he said he refused.

The accusations are jarring for a country that prides itself on being one of the least corrupt places in the world, according to corruption watchdog Transparency International. But experts say corruption in Montreal was something of an open secret.

“The alarm signals have been going off here for 20 years and no one has done anything,” said Andre Cedilot, a former journalist who co-wrote a book on the Canadian Mafia.

Quebec’s new government has introduced legislation tasking the province’s securities regulator with vetting businesses vying for public contracts and allowing it to block companies that do not measure up.

Anti-corruption activist Jonathan Brun was not optimistic.

“You’ve got to use modern technology,” said Brun, a co-founder of Quebec Ouvert, a group that wants to make all information about contracts freely available rather than asking regulators to oversee individual companies. “You’ve got to change the entire system if you really want to fight corruption.”

(Writing by Russ Blinch; Editing by Janet Guttsman, Mary Milliken and Prudence Crowther)

Canada News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Argentine mom rescues hundreds of sex slaves in search for daughter

LA PLATA, Argentina (AP) — Susana Trimarco was a housewife who fussed over her family and paid scant attention to the news until her daughter left for a doctor's appointment and never came back.

After getting little help from police, Trimarco launched her own investigation into a tip that the 23-year-old was abducted and forced into sex slavery. Soon, Trimarco was visiting brothels seeking clues about her daughter and the search took an additional goal: rescuing sex slaves and helping them start new lives.

What began as a one-woman campaign a decade ago developed into a movement and Trimarco today is a hero to hundreds of women she's rescued from Argentine prostitution rings. She's been honored with the "Women of Courage" award by the U.S. State Department and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize on Nov. 28. Sunday night, President Cristina Fernandez gave her a human rights award before hundreds of thousands of people in the Plaza de Mayo.

But years of exploring the decadent criminal underground haven't led Trimarco to her daughter, Maria de los Angeles "Marita" Veron, who was 23 in 2002 when she disappeared from their hometown in provincial Tucuman, leaving behind her own 3-year-old daughter Micaela.

"I live for this," the 58-year-old Trimarco told The Associated Press of her ongoing quest. "I have no other life, and the truth is, it is a very sad, very grim life that I wouldn't wish on anyone."

Her painful journey has now reached a milestone.

Publicity over Trimarco's efforts prompted Argentine authorities to make a high-profile example of her daughter's case by putting 13 people on trial for allegedly kidnapping Veron and holding her as a sex slave in a family-run operation of illegal brothels. Prostitution is not illegal in Argentina, but the exploitation of women for sex is.

A verdict is expected Tuesday after a nearly yearlong trial.

The seven men and six women have pleaded innocent and their lawyers have said there's no physical proof supporting the charges against them. The alleged ringleaders denied knowing Veron and said that women who work in their brothels do so willingly. Prosecutors have asked for up to 25 years imprisonment for those convicted.

Trimarco was the primary witness during the trial, testifying for six straight days about her search for her daughter.

The road to trial was a long one.

Frustrated by seeming indifference to her daughter's disappearance, Trimarco began her own probe and found a taxi driver who told of delivering Veron to a brothel where she was beaten and forced into prostitution. The driver is among the defendants.

With her husband and granddaughter in tow, Trimarco disguised herself as a recruiter of prostitutes and entered brothel after brothel searching for clues. She soon found herself immersed in the dangerous and grim world of organized crime, gathering evidence against police, politicians and gangsters.

"For the first time, I really understood what was happening to my daughter," she said. "I was with my husband and with Micaela, asleep in the backseat of the car because she was still very small and I had no one to leave her with."

The very first woman Trimarco rescued taught her to be strong, she said.

"It stuck with me forever: She told me not to let them see me cry, because these shameless people who had my daughter would laugh at me, and at my pain," Trimarco said. "Since then I don't cry anymore. I've made myself strong, and when I feel that a tear might drop, I remember these words and I keep my composure."

Micaela, now 13, has been by her grandmother's side throughout, contributing to publicity campaigns against human trafficking and keeping her mother's memory alive.

More than 150 witnesses testified in the trial, including a dozen former sex slaves who described brutal conditions in the brothels.

Veron may have been kidnapped twice, with the complicity of the very authorities who should have protected her, according to Julio Fernandez, who now runs a Tucuman police department devoted to investigating human trafficking. He testified that witnesses reported seeing Veron at a bus station three days after she initially disappeared, and that a police officer from La Rioja, Domingo Pascual Andrada, delivered her to a brothel there. Andrada, now among the defendants, denied knowing any of the other defendants, let alone Veron.

Other Tucuman police testified that when they sought permission in 2002 to search La Rioja brothels, a judge made them wait for hours, enabling Veron's captors to move her. That version was supported by a woman who had been a prostitute at the brothel: She testified that Veron was moved just before police arrived. The judge, Daniel Moreno, is not on trial. He denied delaying the raid or having anything to do with the defendants.

Some of the former prostitutes said they had seen Veron drugged and haggard. One testified Veron felt trapped and missed her daughter. Another said she spotted Veron with dyed-blonde hair and an infant boy she was forced to conceive in a rape by a ringleader. A third thought Veron had been sold to a brothel in Spain — a lead reported to Interpol.

Trimarco's campaign to find her daughter led the State Department to provide seed money for a foundation in Veron's name. To date, it has rescued more than 900 women and girls from sex trafficking. The foundation also provides housing, medical and psychological aid, and it helps victims sue former captors.

Argentina outlawed human trafficking in 2008, thanks in large part to the foundation's work. A new force dedicated to combating human trafficking has liberated nearly 3,000 more victims in two years, said Security Minister Nilda Garre, who wrote a newspaper commentary saying the trial's verdict should set an example.

Whatever the verdict, Trimarco's lawyer, Carlos Garmendia, says the case has already made a difference.

"Human trafficking was an invisible problem until the Marita (Veron) case," Garmendia said. "The case has put it on the national agenda."

But Trimarco wants more. "I had hoped they would break down and say what they'd done with Marita," she said.

"I feel here in my breast that she is alive and I'm not going to stop until I find her," Trimarco said. "If she's no longer in this world, I want her body."

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“X Factor” castoff Cheryl Cole files $2.3 million lawsuit against producers

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Cheryl Cole, who was originally hired as a judge for the American version of “The X Factor” but was replaced by Pussycat Doll Nicole Scherzinger before the show premiered, is now suing the producers of the show for $ 2.3 million dollars, according to court papers obtained by TheWrap.

In the complaint against Blue Orbit Productions, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, Girls Aloud singer Cole claims that she entered a pay-or-play agreement with Blue Orbit Productions in April 22, 2011, that guaranteed her $ 1.8 million for the first season of the show, and $ 2 million for the second.

The suit also says that Cole was also due to receive other expenses for housing, wardrobe, styling and general living expenses.

Cole claims that she received the $ 1.8 million for the first season, but the producers didn’t pony up for the wardrobe/styling allowance, housing allowance (which, according to the suit, was $ 15,000 per month) or living allowance.

She also didn’t receive her guaranteed $ 2 million for the second season, the suit claims.

Now Cole wants damages “in excess of $ 2.3 million,” plus interest at the legal rate, and court costs.

TheWrap was unable to reach Blue Orbit Productions for comment.

(Pamela Chelin contributed to this report)

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Chavez faces cancer surgery in Cuba, vows he’ll be back

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez flew to Cuba on Monday for cancer surgery, with a vow to return quickly despite conceding for the first time that the disease could end his 14-year rule of the South American OPEC nation.

“I leave full of hope. We are warriors, full of light and faith,” the ever-upbeat Chavez said before boarding the flight to Havana. “I hope to be back soon.”

Chavez, 58, pumped a fist in the air as he set off for the latest chapter of a tumultuous rule that has included a brief coup, persistent acrimony with the United States and frequent nationalizations, as well as wildly popular anti-poverty programs.

The socialist president first suffered an undisclosed form of cancer in the pelvic region in mid-2011. He had appeared to improve and easily won re-election in October but now faces a fourth round of surgery for a second cancer recurrence in the same area.

The news sparked a rally in Venezuela bonds on Monday, given many investors’ preference for more a business-friendly government in Caracas.

Chavez stunned Venezuelans over the weekend with his nationally televised announcement that more malignant cells had been found, despite twice having declared himself cured.

END OF AN ERA?

Chavez’s re-election in October was helped by heavy government spending on social programs and his intense emotional connection to followers who view him as a larger-than-life figure.

He is due to start a new six-year term on January 10.

His departure would mark the end of an era given his flamboyant leadership of Latin America’s hard left and self-appointed role as Washington’s main provocateur in the region.

Chavez has named Vice President and Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro as his preferred successor, urging supporters to vote for Maduro in the event of an election. The constitution stipulates a vote within 30 days should he be incapacitated.

In his first appearance following his anointment, Maduro wept as he vowed the country would remain faithful to Chavez and carry on his self-styled revolution.

“We are going to accompany President Chavez in prayer and in action,” Maduro said at a campaign rally for state governors. “We’ve been with (him) in the good times and bad times.”

Allies including former Vice President Elias Jaua and Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez came forward with good wishes for the president. Ramirez read a statement from oil workers vowing unbending loyalty to Chavez and promising to support Maduro.

State media promoted a Twitter campaign for the president by splashing hashtags including #ElmundoestaconChavez (the world is with Chavez). By midday, it was one of the microblogging site’s top global trending topics.

The health saga has once again eclipsed major national issues such as state elections on Sunday, a widely expected devaluation of the bolivar currency and a proposed amnesty for Chavez’s jailed and exiled political foes.

If a new election were needed, the opposition could be in its best position to win since Chavez took power in 1999. Many voters have overlooked the government’s failings because of their deep emotional connection with the president.

But the opposition’s prospects may hinge on the result of the vote for Miranda state governor on Sunday. A loss there for Governor Henrique Capriles could fracture the coalition that backed him as a unity presidential candidate and spark a return to an era of infighting that benefited Chavez and his allies.

Capriles, 40, lost to Chavez in October but got 44 percent of the vote – a record 6.5 million votes for the opposition in the Chavez years.

Opposition leaders say Chavez’s condition is serious enough that he must officially step aside and temporarily designate the vice president to lead the country while he is in treatment.

Failure to do so, they say, could paralyze decision-making and lead to fighting within the ruling Socialist Party.

Chavez’s backing of Maduro was seen as a snub to Congress head Diosdado Cabello, who is widely considered Maduro’s rival despite their public statements to the contrary. Chavez pointedly called for unity and “no intrigue” before leaving.

The opposition also has criticized the secrecy surrounding the details of his medical condition and his snubbing of local doctors in favor of those in Cuba.

“Hiding information for partisan gain without regards for the good of the country is not democratic,” said Ramon Guillermo Aveledo, the leader of Venezuela’s Democratic Unity coalition.

Venezuela’s heavily traded global bonds rallied 2.81 percent in price, according to returns tallied by the J.P. Morgan Emerging Markets Bond Index Plus (EMBI+).

INTERNATIONAL IMPACT

Chavez’s health has major implications for the region.

A handful of Latin American and Caribbean neighbors – from Cuba and Nicaragua to Bolivia and Ecuador – have come to depend on his oil-fueled largesse to bolster their fragile economies. OPEC member Venezuela has the world’s largest oil reserves.

War-torn Syria, which is facing tightening sanctions by the United States and the European Union, has received much-needed shipments of diesel from the sympathetic Chavez government.

Despite Chavez’s selection of Maduro, his “Chavismo” movement could disintegrate without him given rumored rivalries among the main players. Goldman Sachs analyst Alberto Ramos warned in a research note of “a possibly noisy, and not necessarily short, political transition in Venezuela.”

Maduro, a 50-year-old former bus driver and union leader, is the most popular of the senior “Chavistas” among the president’s working-class supporters, thanks to his affable manner, humble background and close ties to Chavez.

His six years as foreign minister have also given him good contacts in countries such as China and Russia. He has an easygoing style but is a firm believer in Chavez’s leftist policies and has often led fierce criticism of the United States.

Supporters have been holding vigils for Chavez around the country, and even though he was absent on Monday, his image was everywhere on state media and in public squares.

Messages of support also have poured in from abroad, and Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa, a fellow socialist, joined Chavez in Cuba.

“We’ve come in solidarity,” Correa said. “He is a historic president, a great friend … and most of all an extraordinary human being. You are not alone in your struggle.”

For latest news, follow us on Twitter @ReutersVzla

(Additional reporting by Deisy Buitrago in Caracas, Walker Simon in New York, Sujata Rao in London, Nelson Acosta in Havana, Jack Kimball in Bogota; Editing by Kieran Murray and Xavier Briand)

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