Italy PM Monti resigns, elections likely in February

ROME (Reuters) – Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti tendered his resignation to the president on Friday after 13 months in office, opening the way to a highly uncertain national election in February.

The former European commissioner, appointed to lead an unelected government to save Italy from financial crisis a year ago, has kept his own political plans a closely guarded secret but he has faced growing pressure to seek a second term.

President Giorgio Napolitano is expected to dissolve parliament in the next few days and has already indicated that the most likely date for the election is February 24.

In an unexpected move, Napolitano said he would hold consultations with political leaders from all the main parties on Saturday to discuss the next steps. In the meantime Monti will continue in a caretaker capacity.

European leaders including German Chancellor Angela Merkel and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso have called for Monti’s economic reform agenda to continue but Italy’s two main parties have said he should stay out of the race.

Monti, who handed in his resignation during a brief meeting at the presidential palace shortly after parliament approved his government’s 2013 budget, will hold a news conference on Sunday at which he is expected clarify his intentions.

Ordinary Italians are weary of repeated tax hikes and spending cuts and opinion polls offer little evidence that they are ready to give Monti a second term. A survey this week showed 61 percent saying he should not stand.

Whether he runs or not, his legacy will loom over an election which will be fought out over the painful measures he has introduced to try to rein in Italy’s huge public debt and revive its stagnant economy.

His resignation came a couple of months before the end of his term, after his technocrat government lost the support of Silvio Berlusconi‘s centre-right People of Freedom (PDL) party in parliament earlier this month.

Speculation is swirling over Monti’s next moves. These could include outlining policy recommendations, endorsing a centrist alliance committed to his reform agenda or even standing as a candidate in the election himself.

The centre-left Democratic Party (PD) has held a strong lead in the polls for months but a centrist alliance led by Monti could gain enough support in the Senate to force the PD to seek a coalition deal which could help shape the economic agenda.

BERLUSCONI IN WINGS

Senior figures from the alliance, including both the UDC party, which is close to the Roman Catholic Church, and a new group founded by Ferrari sports car chairman Luca di Montezemolo, have been hoping to gain Monti’s backing.

He has not said clearly whether he intends to run, but he has dropped heavy hints he will continue to push a reform agenda that has the backing of both Italy’s business community and its European partners.

The PD has promised to stick to the deficit reduction targets Monti has agreed with the European Union and says it will maintain the broad course he has set while putting more emphasis on reviving growth.

Berlusconi’s return to the political arena has added to the already considerable uncertainty about the centre-right’s intentions and increased the likelihood of a messy and potentially bitter election campaign.

The billionaire media tycoon has fluctuated between attacking the government’s “Germano-centric” austerity policies and promising to stand aside if Monti agrees to lead the centre right, but now appears to have settled on an anti-Monti line.

He has pledged to cut taxes and scrap a hated housing tax which Monti imposed. He has also sounded a stridently anti-German line which has at times echoed the tone of the populist 5-Star Movement headed by maverick comic Beppe Grillo.

The PD and the PDL, both of which supported Monti’s technocrat government in parliament, have made it clear they would not be happy if he ran against them and there have been foretastes of the kind of attacks he can expect.

Former centre-left prime minister Massimo D’Alema said in an interview last week that it would be “morally questionable” for Monti to run against the PD, which backed all of his reforms and which has pledged to maintain his pledges to European partners.

Berlusconi who has mounted an intensive media campaign in the past few days, echoed that criticism this week, saying Monti risked losing the credibility he has won over the past year and becoming a “little political figure”.

(Additional reporting by Gavin Jones, Massimiliano Di Giorgio and Paolo Biondi; Writing by Gavin Jones and James Mackenzie; Editing by Michael Roddy)

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Blizzards, blackouts hit Midwest

CHICAGO (Reuters) - The first major winter storm of the year hit the U.S. Midwest on Thursday, bringing a blizzard to the Plains and tornadoes to Alabama and Arkansas, and leaving some 133,000 customers without electricity.

Bad driving conditions led to a 25-car pileup on a highway near Clarion, Iowa, that left three people dead, authorities said. Blizzard warnings were in effect in eastern Iowa and parts of Wisconsin and Illinois Thursday afternoon, according to the National Weather Service.

"It's going to be very windy with considerable blowing and drifting of snow," said Bruce Terry, a senior National Weather Service forecaster at the HydroMeteorological Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland. He called the pre-Christmas storm "a major winter snowstorm" for the Midwest and western Great Lakes.

Accumulations of up to a foot of snow were expected in some areas, Terry said, adding there was a potential for severe weather on the so-called "warm side" of the storm in the U.S. Southeast.

Blowing snow led to school closures in parts of Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas and Missouri, plus the closure of all state government offices in Iowa.

"Thunder" snow was reported in Iowa Wednesday night, especially in southeastern Iowa, as thunder and lightning accompanied the storm as it surged across the state.

Travel was not advised on Iowa roads for the rest of the day, according to Annette Dunn with the Iowa Department of Transportation.

"We're going to have visibility and drifting problems through midnight," she said.

Late Thursday morning, troopers responded to a 25-car crash which killed three people on southbound Interstate 35 in northern Iowa. Iowa DOT closed I-35 at Highway 30 due to deteriorating conditions.

The Iowa National Guard has deployed about 80 soldiers from across the state to help highway assistance teams cope with the storm.

In Nebraska, portions of I-80 were closed Thursday due to snow-packed and icy road conditions. The entire road was expected to reopen before 4 p.m. local time.

In Chicago, rain was expected to change to snow Thursday night, with wind gusts of as much as 50 miles per hour, the NWS said.

Due to low visibility, airlines at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport were reporting delays of up to 90 minutes and have canceled more than 200 flights. At Midway Airport in Chicago, airlines canceled 150 flights and Southwest Airlines canceled all flights after 4:30 p.m.

A twister near downtown Mobile, Alabama, damaged buildings, snapped trees, downed power lines and flipped vehicles early on Thursday, but there were no reports of injuries, authorities said.

"The potential is there certainly for some isolated tornadoes," Terry said, referring to a broad swath of Gulf of Mexico coast and inland territory stretching from southeast Louisiana through the western Florida Panhandle.

The National Weather Service confirmed on Thursday that a tornado destroyed a mobile home southwest of Sheridan, Arkansas. There were no reports of injuries.

High winds of around 45 miles per hour in Tennessee knocked down trees and power lines.

While the heavy snow in the Upper Midwest will create potentially dangerous travel conditions, meteorologist Jeff Masters said it put an end to this year's "record-length snowless streaks in a number of U.S. cities."

Writing on his website weatherunderground.com, Masters said the storm would also provide "welcome moisture for drought-parched areas of the Midwest."

The winter storm, named Draco by the Weather Channel, began Tuesday in the Rocky Mountains and marked a dramatic change from the mild December so far in most of the nation.

High winds kicked up a dust storm in West Texas on Wednesday, leading to at least one death in a traffic accident near Lubbock.

Power companies reported electrical outages in Iowa, Nebraska, Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas, Kansas, Missouri, Alabama, Mississippi, Oklahoma, West Virginia, Virginia and Tennessee, with a peak of 400,000 customers without power Thursday morning. That fell to 133,000 by Thursday afternoon.

(Writing by Tom Brown and Nick Carey; Reporting by Mary Wisniewski in Chicago, Eileen O'Grady in Houston, Kaija Wilkinson in Mobile, Alabama and Keith Coffman in Denver, Tim Ghianni in Nashville, Kay Henderson in Des Moines, Iowa, Kevin Murphy in Kansas City, Brendan O'Brien in Milwaukee, Matthew Waller in San Angelo, Texas and Suzi Parker in Little Rock, Arkansas.; Editing by Bernadette Baum, Greg McCune, Tim Dobbyn and Jim Marshall)

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‘Homeland’ star Claire Danes gives birth to first child

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Emmy-winning actress Claire Danes has given birth to her first child, a boy, the publicist for the “Homeland” star said on Wednesday.

Cyrus Michael Christopher Dancy was born on Monday to Danes, 33, and her husband, British actor Hugh Dancy.

Danes’ performance as CIA operative Carrie Matheson on Showtime’s “Homeland” series scored her an Emmy win in September, while the psychological thriller won the TV industry’s highest honor of best drama series.

Danes is nominated for her second Golden Globe award in the role at the Hollywood awards show in January. She also has won multiple awards for her past work on 2010 TV film “Temple Grandin,” and as a 15-year-old on the 1990s coming-of-age television drama “My So-Called Life.”

(Reporting by Eric Kelsey, editing by Jill Serjeant and Lisa Shumaker)

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North Korean Video Game Has Western Ties

Video games represent a true luxury for most North Koreans living in a country where even the elite have only hours of electricity each day. That has not stopped a Western company in the capital city of Pyonyang from creating what may be the first North Korean game widely available online.

The game, called “Pyongyang Racer,” is a simple Web browser game that allows players to drive a car around North Korea’s capitol city of Pyongyang, according to Beijing Cream. Players must avoid hitting cars and collect gasoline in the form of petrol barrels to keep their run going as long as possible — all while getting warnings from one of Pyongyang’s famously picturesque traffic girls.

“Pyongyang Racer” has an unusual development history as a video game. The North Korean programmers who made the game work for Nosotek, a Western company that describes itself as the “first western IT venture” in North Korea.

Nosotek’s North Korean programmers previously made mobile-phone games based on the Hollywood films “The Big Lebowski” and “Men in Black.” Those games ended up getting published through a subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch‘s News Corp (owner of Fox News), according to Bloomberg News.

Nosotek claims to have “attracted the cream of local talent as the only company in Pyongyang offering Western working conditions and Internet access.” That would likely be true in North Korea, given the nuclear-armed country’s pariah status among Western countries and businesses.

The Nosotek website also praises the advantages of working in North Korea because “IP secrecy and minimum employee churn rate are structurally guaranteed.” Translation: North Korean programmers would likely never leave Nosotek with the company’s intellectual property secrets because they have practically no other employment options.

Nosotek built the game for Koryo Tours, a company based in Beijing, China, to distribute “Pyongyang Racer” through the Koryo Tours website. Koryo Tours is currently the leading company that runs tours of secretive North Korea for Westerners and other foreigners.

“This game was developed in 2012 and is not intended to be a high-end technological wonder hit game of the 21st century, but more a fun race game (arcade style) where you drive around in Pyongyang and learn more about the sites and get a glimpse of Pyongyang,” Koryo Tours said on the game’s website.

This story was provided by TechNewsDaily, a sister site to LiveScience. You can follow TechNewsDaily Senior Writer Jeremy Hsu on Twitter @jeremyhsu. Follow TechNewsDaily on Twitter @TechNewsDaily, or on Facebook.

Copyright 2012 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Wounded presage health crisis for postwar Syria

ATMEH, Syria (AP) — A baby boy joined the ranks of Syria’s tens of thousands of war wounded when a missile fired by Bashar Assad‘s air force slammed into his family home and shrapnel pierced his skull.

Four-month-old Fahed Darwish suffered brain damage and, like thousands of others seriously hurt in the civil war, he will likely need care well after the fighting is over. That’s something doctors say a post-conflict Syria won’t be able to provide.

Making things worse, there has been a sharp spike in serious injuries since the summer, when the regime began bombing rebel-held areas from the air, and doctors say a majority of the wounded they now treat are civilians.

This week, Fahed was recovering from brain surgery in an intensive care unit, his head bandaged and his body under a heavy blanket, watched over by Mariam, his distraught 22-year-old mother.

She said that after her first-born is discharged from the hospital in Atmeh, a village in an area of relative safety near the Turkish border, they will have to return to their village in a war zone in central Syria.

“We have nowhere else to go,” she said.

Even for those who have escaped direct injury, the civil war is posing a mounting health threat. Half the country’s 88 public hospitals and nearly 200 clinics have been damaged or destroyed, the World Health Organization says, leaving many without access to health care. Diabetics can’t find insulin, kidney patients can’t reach dialysis centers. Towns are running out of water-purifying materials. Many of the hundreds of thousands displaced by the fighting are exposed to the cold in tents or unheated public buildings.

“You are talking about a public health crisis on a grand scale,” said Dr. Abdalmajid Katranji, a hand and wrist surgeon from Lansing, Michigan, who regularly volunteers in Syria.

No one knows just how many people have been injured since the uprising against Assad erupted in March 2011, starting out with peaceful protests that turned into an armed insurgency in response to a violent government crackdown.

More than 43,000 have been killed in the past 21 months, said Rami Abdul-Rahman, head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, basing his count on names and details provided by activists in Syria. He said the number of wounded is so large he can only give a rough estimate, of more than 150,000.

Casualties began to rise dramatically at the start of the summer. At the time, the regime, its ground troops stretched thin, began bombing from the air to prevent opposition fighters from gaining more territory.

Seemingly random bombings have razed entire villages and neighborhoods, driving terrified civilians from their homes, with an estimated 3 million Syrians out of the country’s population of 23 million now displaced.

About 10 percent of the wounded suffer serious injuries and many of those will need long-term care and rehabilitation, said Dr. Omar Aswad of the Union of Syrian Medical Relief Organizations, an umbrella for 14 aid groups.

This includes artificial limbs and follow-up surgery. “This is of course not available and will be one of the major (health) problems in the months right after the war,” said Mago Tarzian, emergency director for the Paris-based Doctors Without Borders.

For now, aid groups are struggling to provide even emergency treatment in under-equipped clinics.

The two dozen small hospitals and field clinics in rebel-run areas of Idlib province in the north only have a few Intensive Care Unit beds between them, said Aswad. None has a CT scanner, an important diagnostic tool.

“We need generators, we need medical supplies and the most pressing is medicine,” he said.

The challenge has been compounded by new types of injuries.

The regime has begun dropping incendiary bombs that can cause severe burns, according to the New York-based Human Rights Watch, citing amateur video and witness accounts.

Ole Solvang, a researcher for the group, said he saw remnants of such a bomb on a recent Syria trip. Aswad said doctors in Idlib and nearby Aleppo province reported seeing patients with burns from such weapons.

Doctors and hospitals have also been targeted. Aswad, who fled the city of Idlib in March after regime forces entered it, said five friends in a secret association of anti-regime physicians have been arrested. Hospitals, ambulances and doctors have been attacked, Solvang said, calling it “a worrying trend that makes the medical situation even worse.”

One of the bright spots is a 50-bed emergency care clinic set up six weeks ago in a former elementary school in Atmeh.

Largely funded by a wealthy Syrian expatriate, the Orient clinic, with five ICU beds, handles some of the most serious cases in a radius of some 150 kilometers (90 miles), said its director, orthopedic surgeon Abdel Hamid Dabbak.

In the past, seriously wounded patients had to go to Turkey, risking dangerous delays at the border, he said. Now, once patients are stabilized in Atmeh, they are sent to a sister clinic across the border for follow-up care.

In Orient’s ICU, a 24-year-old rebel fighter was breathing oxygen through a mask. He had been brought in a day earlier, bleeding heavily from stomach wounds and close to death, said Dr. Maen Martini, a volunteer physician from Joliet, Illinois. After surgery, he stabilized and was taken off a respirator. A delayed crossing into Turkey would have killed him, Martini said.

The fighter’s neighbor was little Fahed, whose house had been struck by a missile on Saturday in the village of Kafr Zeita in Hama province. “The roof collapsed on us,” his mother said of the attack. “We ran out … I saw him bleeding from his head, but it was just a small cut.”

The local clinic said the injury was more serious than it seemed and the family rushed to Atmeh, more than 100 kilometers (60 miles) to the north.

Since surgery, Fahed has been nursing and has moved his arms and legs, and the doctor is hoping for a near-complete recovery.

“Clinically, he has improved dramatically,” he said.

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Funerals become routine in shattered town

NEWTOWN, Conn. (AP) — One by one by one by one, each with fresh heartbreak, hearses crisscrossed two New England towns on Wednesday, bearing three tiny victims of the Sandy Hook school massacre and a heroic teacher in a seemingly never-ending series of funeral processions.

"The first few days, all you heard were helicopters," said Dr. Joseph Young, an optometrist who attended one funeral and would go to several more. "Now at my office all I hear is the rumble of motorcycle escorts and funeral processions going back and forth throughout the day."

As more victims from the slaughter of 20 children and six adults were laid to rest, long funeral processions clogged the streets of Newtown, where Christmas trees were turned into memorials and a season that should be a time of joy was marked by heart-wrenching loss.

At least nine funerals and wakes were held Wednesday for those who died when gunman Adam Lanza, armed with a military-style assault rifle, broke into the school Friday and opened fire on their classrooms. Lanza killed his mother at her home before the attack and committed suicide at the school as police closed in.

At St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church, mourners arrived for Caroline Previdi, an auburn-haired 6-year-old with an impish smile, before the service had even ended for Daniel Barden, a 7-year-old who dreamed of being a firefighter.

"It's sad to see the little coffins," said the Rev. John Inserra, a Catholic priest who worked at St. Rose for years before transferring to a church in Greenwich.

He returned to his old parish to comfort families wondering how a loving God could permit such carnage and has attended several of the funerals.

"It's always hard to bury a child," Inserra said of the seemingly unrelenting cycle of sorrow and loss. "God didn't do this. God didn't allow this. We allowed it. He said, 'Send the little children to me.' But he didn't mean it this way."

Hundreds of firefighters formed a long blue line outside the church for little Daniel's funeral. Two of his relatives work at the Fire Department of New York, and the gap-toothed redhead had wanted to join their ranks one day.

"If me being here helps this family or this community just a little bit, it's worth it," said Kevin Morrow, a New York firefighter and father of two young girls. "He wanted to be a firefighter, as any young boy wants to be."

Family friend Laura Stamberg, of New Paltz, N.Y., whose husband plays in a band with Daniel's father, said that on the morning of the shooting, Mark Barden taught his son to play a Christmas song on the piano.

"They played foosball and then he taught him the song and then he walked him to the bus and that was their last morning together," Stamberg said.

At Caroline's funeral, mourners wore pink ties and scarves — her favorite color — and remembered her as a New York Yankees fan who liked to kid around. "Silly Caroline" was how she was known to neighbor Karen Dryer.

"She's just a girl that was always smiling, always wanting others to smile," Dryer said.

Across town, at Christ the King Lutheran Church, hundreds gathered for the funeral of Charlotte Helen Bacon, many wearing buttons picturing the 6-year-old redhead. Speakers, including her grandfather, told of her love of wild animals, the family's golden retriever and the color pink.

She was "a beautiful little girl who could be a bit stubborn at times — just like all children," said Danbury resident Linda Clark as she left the service.

And in nearby Stratford, family and friends gathered to say goodbye to Victoria Soto, a first-grade teacher hailed as a hero for trying to shield her students, some of whom escaped. Musician Paul Simon, a family friend, performed "The Sound of Silence" at the service.

"She had the perfect job. She loved her job," said Vicky Ruiz, a friend since first grade.

Every year, Soto described her students the same way, Ruiz said.

"They were always good kids. They were always angels," she said, even if, like typical first-graders, they might not always listen.

In Woodbury, a line of colleagues, students and friends of slain Sandy Hook Principal Dawn Hochsprung, 47, wrapped around the block to pay their respects to the administrator, who rushed the gunman in an effort to stop him and paid with her life. U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan attended the service.

"She loved kids. She'd do anything to help them and protect them," said Joann Opulski, of Roxbury.

In emotion-charged Newtown, tempers flared as residents of the town of 27,000 navigated the hordes of reporters and camera crews that descended on the town. Some shouted at reporters outside the funerals Wednesday, urging them to leave their town in peace.

Cynthia Gubitose said the shooting and its aftermath have jolted what she described as a quintessential "Norman Rockwell, New England community."

"Nobody knew about Sandy Hook," Gubitose said as she placed flowers at a memorial with bouquets stacked chest-high. "Many of the people that live here like it that way."

The symbol of Christmas took on a new meaning in the town, where one memorial featured 26 Christmas trees — one for each victim at the school.

Edward Kish said he bought a Christmas tree two days before the shooting but hasn't had the heart to put it up or decorate it.

"I'll still put it up, probably," he said. "It doesn't seem right, and it doesn't seem like Christmas."

Mourners from across the country came to offer condolences. A jazz band from Alabama played at the main memorial site as local children played with a team of trained therapy dogs brought in to provide comfort.

At the Newtown Library, dozens of people gathered for a meeting of Newtown United, a grassroots community group formed in the wake of the shootings. The topic was gun legislation and how the community could push for a ban on assault weapons and other measures to make certain types of guns and ammunition more difficult to obtain.

There was a rumor that guests from Washington, D.C., would show up. About 10 minutes into the meeting Sen. Richard Blumenthal and Sen.-elect Chris Murphy walked into the room, to applause and surprised looks. They spoke and took questions for about a half-hour.

The school massacre continued to reverberate around America as citizens and lawmakers debated whether Newtown might be a turning point in the often-polarizing national discussion over gun control.

President Barack Obama promised he'd send Congress broad proposals for tightening gun laws and curbing violence and pressed Congress to reinstate an assault weapons ban that expired in 2004. He called for stricter background checks for people who seek to buy weapons and limited high-capacity clips.

"This time, the words need to lead to action," said Obama, who set a January deadline for the recommendations.

Authorities say the horrific events of Friday began when Lanza shot his mother, Nancy Lanza, at their home and then took her car and some of her guns to the nearby school.

Investigators have found no letters or diaries that could explain the attack.

However, Connecticut's chief medical examiner, Dr. H. Wayne Carver, told The Hartford Courant he is looking for genetic clues that might explain the behavior and is working with the University of Connecticut department of genetics.

___

Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Allen G. Breed, Helen O'Neill, John Christoffersen, Katie Zezima and Pat Eaton-Robb in Newtown; Michael Melia in Hartford; Larry Margasak in Washington and AP Business Writer Joshua Freed in Minneapolis.

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Leah Remini sued by former managers over “Family Tools” commissions

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Leah Remini‘s new TV gig is already giving her a headache, months before it even starts. Former “King of Queens” star Remini is being sued by her former managers, the Collective Management Group, which claims that it’s owed $ 67,000 in commissions relating to her upcoming ABC comedy “Family Tools,” which debuts May 1.

In a complaint filed with Los Angeles Superior Court on Tuesday, the Collective says that it entered into an agreement with the actress in November 2011 that guaranteed the company 10 percent of the earnings that emerged from projects that Remini “discussed, negotiated, contemplated, or procured/booked during Plaintiff’s representation of Remini,” regardless of whether the income was earned after she and the Collective parted ways.

According to the lawsuit, that would include the $ 1 million that it says Remini will earn for the first season of “Family Tools.” (The suit allows that it isn’t owed commission on a $ 330,000 talent holding fee that Remini received from ABC prior to officially being booked on the show.)

Remini, pictured above wearing the self-satisfied smirk of someone who just might stiff her former managers out of their commission, terminated her agreement with the Collective “without warning or justification” in October, the suit says.

Alleging breach of oral contract among other charges, the suit is asking for an order stipulating that it’s owed the $ 67,000, plus unspecified damages, interest and court costs.

Remini’s agent has not yet responded to TheWrap’s request for comment.

(Pamela Chelin contributed to this report)

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Allscripts names new CEO to spearhead recovery

(Reuters) – Embattled healthcare technology firm Allscripts named its board member and former chief operating officer of rival Cerner Corp Paul Black as its CEO, replacing Glen Tullman, and said it ended a review of strategic alternatives.

The move, effective immediately, raises new questions for the direction of Allscripts Healthcare Solutions Inc after activist shareholder HealthCor Management installed three of its nominees to the company’s board last summer, following a bitter fight with Tullman.

Allscripts has struggled to boost new business following its acquisition of Eclipsys Corp in 2010. It had hoped to expand into software and equipment for hospitals and healthcare systems with that purchase but ended up losing business to Cerner Corp and closely held Epic Systems Corp.

The company, which has been the subject of takeover interest, also said on Wednesday that Lee Shapiro would step down as president.

Allscripts shares, which have nearly halved in value this year, were down 19 percent at $ 8.70 in extended trade on Wednesday. They had closed at $ 10.68 earlier on the Nasdaq.

“Both Glen and the board of directors believe that after Glen’s 15 years of leadership, it is the right time now for a new leader to focus on execution, position the company to deliver shareholder value and lead Allscripts through its next phase of growth,” Allscripts spokeswoman Ariana Nikitas said.

Tullman’s resignation comes months after Healthcor cited problems with his leadership and demanded his ouster.

“I think Glen has been under a lot of pressure since the attempted coup by former board members and HealthCor demanded some changes and Allscripts agreed to put some of HealthCor’s appointees on the board,” said Anthony Vendetti, an analyst at Maxim Group, adding he has personally known Tullman since he became CEO.

Black left Cerner in 2007 after more than 12 years with the company, helping to make it a market leader with more than $ 1.5 billion of annual revenues and playing an instrumental role in its double-digit organic growth, Allscripts said.

“I think (Black) is the ideal candidate for CEO,” said Vendetti, who has a “buy” rating on Allscripts stock and a price target of $ 15.

“We view this news positively as Mr. Black is well regarded in the industry. With that said, we maintain our neutral rating for the time being,” Steven Halper of Lazard Capital Markets wrote in a note.

LONG ROAD TO GROWTH

Allscripts stock has fallen more than 42 percent this year amid weak bookings that hampered sales and profit.

The company withdrew its full-year outlook in November, as it began to consider strategic alternatives. Later that month, Reuters reported that Blackstone Group LP had emerged as the frontrunner to buy the company but that the two sides were far apart on price and a deal was highly uncertain, according to people familiar with the matter.

Black is no stranger to the buyout industry, having served as operating executive of Genstar Capital LLC, a private equity firm, and senior advisor at New Mountain Finance Corporation, an investment management company.

His background may come in handy as he seeks to turn around the company’s financial performance in a difficult environment for healthcare IT firms. These companies face a dwindling customer base as hospitals consolidate physician practices into their existing vendors.

“The expectation is that it will take some time (for the company) to fundamentally turn around its business,” analyst Vendetti said. He added that Allscripts’ main goal should be to re-establish client trust in their products and the ability to integrate their product portfolio.

A comment in the Allscripts statement from Tullman, who had been CEO since 1997, made no reference to the reasons for his departure. He said he was confident that Allscripts was in good hands and had a bright future ahead.

Analyst Halper said he remained concerned about the long-term growth prospects of the company.

“With the selection of Paul Black, hopefully the company can redefine its strategic direction,” Halper said.

(Additional reporting by Ransdell Pierson and Greg Roumeliotis in New York; Editing by Gary Hill, Saumyadeb Chakrabarty and Muralikumar Anantharaman)

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Kodak in $525 million patent deal, eyes bankruptcy end

(Reuters) – Eastman Kodak Co agreed to sell its digital imaging patents for about $ 525 million, a key step to bringing the photography pioneer out of bankruptcy in the first half of 2013.

The deal for the 1,100 patents allows Kodak to fulfill a condition for securing $ 830 million in financing.

The patent deal was reached with a consortium led by Intellectual Ventures and RPX Corp, and which includes some of the world’s biggest technology companies, which will license or acquire the patents.

Those companies are Adobe Systems Inc, Amazon.com Inc, Apple Inc, Facebook Inc, Fujifilm, Google Inc, Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, HTC Corp, Microsoft Corp, Research In Motion Ltd, Samsung Electronics Co Ltd and Shutterfly Inc, according to court documents.

Kodak still must sell its personalized and document-imaging businesses as part of the financing package, and also has to resolve its UK pension obligation.

Kodak said the patent deal puts it on a path to emerge from Chapter 11 in the first half of 2013.

“Our progress has accelerated over the past several weeks as we prepare to emerge as a strong, sustainable company,” said Antonio Perez, chairman and chief executive of the Rochester, New York-based company.

The patent portfolio was expected to be a major asset for Kodak when it filed for bankruptcy in January. An outside firm had estimated the patents could be worth as much as $ 2.6 billion.

Kodak’s patents hit the market as intellectual property values have soared and technology companies have plowed money into patent-related litigation.

For example, last year Nortel Networks sold 6,000 wireless patents in a bankruptcy auction for $ 4.5 billion and earlier this year Google spent $ 12.5 billion for patent-rich Motorola Mobility.

But Kodak’s patent auction dragged on beyond the initial expectation that it would be wrapped up in August. One patent specialist blamed those early, overly optimistic valuations, which he said encouraged Kodak’s team to set their sights too high.

“Unfortunately (Kodak management) was misled into thinking it was worth billions of dollars and it wasn’t,” said Alex Poltorak, chairman of General Patent Corp, a patent licensing firm. “I think they sold them at a very good price.”

He said after Google acquired Motorola, the search engine company no longer needed patents at any price, deflating the intellectual property market.

Kodak traces its roots to the 19th century and invented the handheld camera. But it has been unable to successfully shift to digital imaging.

It will likely be a different company when it exits bankruptcy, out of the consumer business and focused instead on providing products and services to the commercial imaging market.

The patent sale is subject to approval by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan.

The Kodak bankruptcy case is in Re: Eastman Kodak Co. et al, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of New York, No. 12-10202.

(Reporting by Tom Hals in Wilmington, Delaware and Sruthi Ramakrishnan in Bangalore; Editing by Nick Zieminski,; John Wallace and Peter Galloway)

Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Worries grow in east Congo with fighter buildup

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — Aid workers warned Wednesday that armed groups are setting up new front lines in and around the city of Goma in eastern Congo, where the U.N. said it now has documented at least 126 rape cases last month.

Thousands of fighters from the M23 rebel group withdrew several weeks ago from Goma, and the fighters have since taken steps toward negotiating with the Congolese government.

However, residents in Goma say M23 and other armed fighters are now positioning themselves in an around the city — including inside camps for people displaced by the violence.

The arrival of several thousand fighters within the last week is prompting fear among civilians, who already have experienced years of fighting and rebellions, said Tariq Riebl, Oxfam’s humanitarian coordinator there.

“They are very concerned — people are seeing this and they don’t know what it means,” he said. “I think what everyone is scared about is that it seems like people are ramping up, ramping up but for what purpose?”

Oxfam warns that more than 1 million people could come under attack if violence again flares in Goma, where more than 100,000 people already have fled from elsewhere in the region.

“Goma is typically the last refuge safe haven and now it’s being directly called into question. If Goma falls in a big battle, where are people going to go?” Riebl said.

“This is very, very disconcerting because you have a population of over 1 million people and if war were to break out, we’re looking at a horrific situation.”

The M23 rebel group, which is believed to be backed by neighboring Rwanda, is made up of hundreds of soldiers who deserted the Congolese army in April.

They took control of many villages and towns in the mineral-rich east over the last seven months, culminating in the seizure of Goma on Nov. 20. It took days of negotiations and intense international pressure, including from the U.N., for the thousands of fighters from M23 to finally withdraw from the regional capital.

The U.N. mission says it’s received allegations of serious rights violations, including killings and wounding of civilians, rape, looting, and forced recruitment of children, by elements of the M23 rebels in Goma and neighboring areas.

Congo’s armed forces are also blamed for a series of attacks as they fled Goma in retreat in late November.

The U.N. said Tuesday it now has been able to document at least 126 rapes during that period in the Minova area, about 60 kilometers (40 miles) south of Goma.

U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky said that two Congolese soldiers so far have been arrested in connection with the rapes, while seven others had been implicated in looting in the area.

“The Congolese Armed Forces have started investigating those human rights violations,” he said. “The U.N. Mission is supporting the military justice procedure in conducting thorough investigations into these allegations to ensure that the perpetrators are identified and held accountable.”

Rape has long been used as a brutal weapon of war in eastern Congo, where both soldiers and various armed groups use sexual violence to intimidate, punish and control the population.

Africa News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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