Madonna fan guilty in NYC resisting arrest trial

NEW YORK (AP) — A former firefighter with a crush on Madonna has been convicted of resisting arrest outside her former New York City apartment building as he spray-painted poster boards with love notes.

A jury delivered its verdict Friday in Robert Linhart‘s trial. He could face up to a year in jail.

Defense lawyer Lawrence LaBrew tells the New York Post (http://bit.ly/ZgI4jl) that Linhart will appeal.

Linhart was arrested in September 2010. Police say he parked his SUV outside the singer’s Manhattan apartment, laid out a tarp and wrote out such messages as “Madonna, I need you.”

Jurors told the Post they felt it was fine for Linhart to express himself to the Material Girl. But they said they believed police testimony that he resisted arrest by flailing his arms.

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States given more time to work on health exchanges

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Obama administration gave states extra time to work toward setting up new health insurance exchanges on Friday, days after President Barack Obama‘s re-election ensured the survival of his healthcare reform law.

The move is seen as a concession to dozens of states that delayed compliance with the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act until after the November 6 election. Opponents of the plan had hoped a victory for Republican Mitt Romney would ultimately result in the law’s repeal.

But with Obama now heading into a second term, and a November 16 federal deadline to declare their plans looming, many states needed more time to prepare for exchanges, complex marketplaces meant to offer working families private insurance at federally subsidized rates beginning in 2014.

Since Tuesday’s election, seven states including Texas, Kansas, Virginia and Florida have said they will not pursue state-operated exchanges and conservative political donors are mounting a publicity campaign to encourage more defections.

But there are also signs that opposition could be waning in some states.

In cases where states decide not to participate, the federal government says it will go in and build an exchange on its own.

“The administration would like to do whatever it can to bring states in,” said Larry Levitt, a healthcare policy expert with the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation, which tracks health issues.

“It’s always been expected that if the president got reelected, a lot of states sitting on the sidelines would realize they don’t want the federal government building a state health insurance system. That’s what we’re seeing happening.”

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a November 9 letter to governors that the administration still expects states to declare whether they intend to operate their own exchanges by next Friday.

But they now have until December 14 to file blueprints showing how they would operate the marketplaces. So far, about 13 states are well on their way to setting up their own exchanges.

States can also choose to develop their exchange in partnership with the federal government. As many as 30 could go that route.

Sebelius said states that prefer a partnership now have until February 15, 2013, to declare their intentions and prepare the appropriate paperwork. She said states can still apply to run exchanges in subsequent years but emphasized that the start date for coverage has not changed.

“Consumers in all 50 states and the District of Columbia will have access to insurance through these new marketplaces on January 1, 2014, as scheduled, with no delays,” she said in the letter, which described the deadline extension as a response to state requests for more time.

Analysts characterized the extension as a substantial offer from the federal government.

“It’s about as far as they reasonably could extend, knowing that the systems have to be ready by Oct 1, 2013,” said Patrick Howard, who advises states on healthcare issues for Deloitte.

The Affordable Care Act, the most sweeping health legislation since the 1960s, would extend health coverage to more than 30 million uninsured Americans. About half would receive coverage through a planned expansion of the Medicaid program for the poor, and the other half through the exchanges.

The list of states that say they will not participate in the healthcare exchanges grew this week when Virginia and Kansas added their names.

Texas, South Dakota, South Carolina, Alaska and Florida confirmed to Reuters on Friday that they will not participate in exchanges. Louisiana had also opposed the plan before the election, but officials there did not respond to inquiries about their plans under Obama’s second term.

But Maine, which advised the administration last April that it did not intend to pursue a state-based exchange, said on Friday that further guidance from Sebelius’ department could make a difference.

“It’s too soon to tell,” said Adrienne Bennett, spokeswoman for Republican Governor Paul LePage.

“We’re willing to look at the information and move forward. But we can’t move forward if we don’t have information from the Obama administration. So we’re in a holding pattern,” she said.

Several Republican advocacy groups are expected to push against the implementation of Obama’s healthcare law. Americans for Prosperity, a conservative non-profit in part funded by billionaire Koch brothers, on Friday urged U.S. governors to reject the state-based exchange options, calling them “flawed” and “bloated bureaucracies” that put states’ budgets at risk.

(Writing by David Morgan; Editing by Michele Gershberg, Eric Walsh, Claudia Parsons and David Gregorio)

Health News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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How 'poor judgment' felled military star Petraeus

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - David Petraeus was a star on the battlefield, commanding the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, but was undone by "poor judgment" in engaging in an extramarital affair that led to his downfall as CIA director.

Just two days after his 60th birthday, Petraeus stepped down from the spy agency where he had held the top office since September 6, 2011.

"After being married for over 37 years, I showed extremely poor judgment by engaging in an extramarital affair. Such behavior is unacceptable, both as a husband and as the leader of an organization such as ours. This afternoon, the President graciously accepted my resignation," Petraeus told the shadow warriors he commanded at CIA.

It was a stunning downfall for a revered military man who was seen as one of the top American leaders of his generation and was once considered a potential contender for the White House.

Petraeus was credited with pulling Iraq from the brink of all-out civil war and for battlefield successes in Afghanistan after overseeing a surge of 30,000 troops ordered by President Barack Obama in late 2009. He became known for counter-insurgency strategies that were seen as gaining ground against the Taliban in Afghanistan.

"I don't think he was professionally overrated. His were genuine accomplishments," said James Carafano, a war historian with the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank.

At the time of his nomination to the CIA post, some Washington insiders had said the White House wanted to find a prominent position for Petraeus to ensure he would not be recruited by Republicans as a challenger to the 2012 Obama-Biden ticket.

When he was nominated to lead the CIA there were some concerns in intelligence circles that the high-profile four-star Army general might not be able to lead from the shadows as appropriate for a spy chief.

But once he took over the head office at the U.S. spy agency, Petraeus kept a decidedly low public profile.

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat, expressed regret about the resignation of "one of America's best and brightest" and said it was an "enormous loss" for the country.

"At CIA, Director Petraeus gave the agency leadership, stature, prestige and credibility both at home and abroad. On a personal level, I found his command of intelligence issues second to none," she said.

RESIGNATION ACCEPTED

After accepting his resignation about a year-and-a-half after nominating Petraeus to the CIA post, Obama said: "By any measure, he was one of the outstanding General officers of his generation, helping our military adapt to new challenges, and leading our men and women in uniform through a remarkable period of service in Iraq and Afghanistan, where he helped our nation put those wars on a path to a responsible end."

Earlier this week, in a Newsweek article entitled "General David Petraeus's Rules for Living," he listed 12 lessons for leadership. Number 5 was: "We all will make mistakes. The key is to recognize them and admit them, to learn from them, and to take off the rear­ view mirrors - drive on and avoid making them again."

In 2010 Petraeus stepped into the breach as the new commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan to replace General Stanley McChrystal who was fired by Obama in a scandal over an article in which McChrystal and his aides made mocking comments about the president and some of his top advisers.

In 2009 Petraeus was diagnosed with early-stage prostate cancer and underwent radiation treatment. The media-friendly general joked at that time at a Washington event that reporters were only gathered "to see if the guy is still alive."

Petraeus, born in Cornwall, New York, lives in Virginia with his wife Holly. They have two grown children, a son who was an Army Ranger who served in Afghanistan, and a daughter.

Petraeus's wife, Holly, is an activist and volunteer who champions military families, and she continued that work after her husband retired from the military and moved to the CIA.

She currently is assistant director of the office of servicemember affairs at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, where she tries to keep unscrupulous lenders from taking advantage of military personnel. The bureau was championed by Harvard law professor Elizabeth Warren, who was elected to the Senate from Massachusetts this week.

Holly Petraeus is the daughter of four-star General William Knowlton, who was superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point when Petraeus was a cadet.

She briefed the press at the Pentagon on her efforts recently and was introduced by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, who called her "a true friend of the Department of Defense and a dedicated member of our military family."

Petraeus has four Defense Distinguished Service Medal awards, three Distinguished Service Medal awards, the Bronze Star Medal for valor, and the State Department Distinguished Service Award.

He has a doctorate in international relations from Princeton University.

(Additional reporting by David Alexander, Matt Spetalnick and Diane Bartz; Editing by Warren Strobel and Jackie Frank)

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Assad says will live and die in Syria

DOHA (Reuters) – President Bashar al-Assad said he would “live and die” in Syria and warned that any Western invasion to topple him would have catastrophic consequences for the Middle East and beyond.

Assad’s defiant remarks coincided with a landmark meeting in Qatar on Thursday of Syria’s fractious opposition to hammer out an agreement on a new umbrella body uniting rebel groups inside and outside Syria, amid growing international pressure to put their house in order and prepare for a post-Assad transition.

The Syrian leader, battling a 19-month old uprising against his rule, appeared to reject an idea floated by British Prime Minister David Cameron on Tuesday that a safe exit and foreign exile for the London-educated Assad could end the civil war.

“I am not a puppet. I was not made by the West to go to the West or to any other country,” he told Russia Today television in an interview to be broadcast on Friday. “I am Syrian; I was made in Syria. I have to live in Syria and die in Syria.”

Russia Today’s web site, which published a transcript of the interview conducted in English, showed footage of Assad speaking to journalists and walking down stairs outside a white villa. It was not clear when he had made his comments.

The United States and its allies want the Syrian leader out, but have held back from arming his opponents or enforcing a no-fly zone, let alone invading. Russia has stood by Assad.

The president said he doubted the West would risk the global cost of intervening in Syria, whose conflict has already added to instability in the Middle East and killed some 38,000 people.

“I think that the price of this invasion, if it happened, is going to be bigger than the whole world can afford … It will have a domino effect that will affect the world from the Atlantic to the Pacific,” the 47-year-old president said.

“I do not think the West is going in this direction, but if they do so, nobody can tell what is next.”

QATAR, TURKEY CHIDE OPPOSITION

Backed by Washington, the Doha talks underline Qatar’s central role in the effort to end Assad‘s rule as the Gulf state, which funded the Libyan revolt to oust Muammar Gaddafi, tries to position itself as a player in a post-Assad Syria.

Qatari Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim Al Thani urged the Syrian opposition to set its personal disputes aside and unite, according to a source inside the closed-door session.

“Come on, get a move on in order to win recognition from the international community,” the source quoted him as saying.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmed Davutoglu delivered a similar message, saying, according to the source: “We want one spokesman not many. We need efficient counterparts, it is time to unite.”

An official text of a speech by Qatari Foreign Minister Khalid Mohamed al-Attiyah showed he told the gathering: “The Syrian people awaits unity from you, not divisions … Your agreement today will prove to the international community that there is a unity … and this will reflect positively in the international community’s stance towards your fair cause.”

Across Syria, more than 90 people were killed in fighting on Thursday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

In Turkey’s Hatay border province, two civilians, a woman and a young man, were wounded by stray bullets fired from Syria, according to a Turkish official. Turkish forces increased their presence along the frontier, where officials have said they might seek NATO deployment of ground to air missiles.

Syria poses one of the toughest foreign policy challenges for U.S. President Barack Obama as he starts his second term.

International rivalries have complicated mediation efforts. Russia and China have vetoed three Western-backed U.N. Security Council resolutions that would have put Assad under pressure.

Syria’s conflict, pitting mostly Sunni Muslim rebels against forces dominated by Assad’s Alawite minority, whose origins lie in Shi’ite Islam, has fuelled sectarian tensions across the Middle East. Sunni Arab countries and Turkey favor the rebels, while Shi’ite Iran backs Assad, its main Arab ally.

“VICIOUS CIRCLE”

The main opposition body, the Syrian National Council (SNC), has been heavily criticized by Western and Arab backers of the revolt as ineffective, run by exiles out of touch with events in Syria, and under the sway of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood.

British Foreign Minister William Hague said London would now talk to rebel groups inside Syria, after U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last week criticized the SNC and called for a new opposition body to include those “fighting and dying”.

But the plan for a body that could eventually be considered a government-in-waiting capable of winning foreign recognition and therefore more military backing ran into trouble almost as soon as it was proposed by SNC member Riyad Seif.

The meeting has so far been bogged down by arguments over the SNC representation and the number of seats the rival groups – which include Islamists, leftists and secularists – will have in a proposed assembly. Seif said he hoped for agreement on that on Thursday night, although the talks may continue into Friday.

Senior SNC member Burhan Ghalioun said the participants were moving towards consensus: “The atmosphere was positive. We all agree that we don’t want to walk away from this meeting in failure,” he told reporters.

Seif’s proposal is the first concerted attempt to merge opposition forces to help end the devastating conflict.

The initiative would also create a Supreme Military Council, a Judicial Committee and a transitional government-in-waiting of technocrats – along the lines of Libya’s Transitional National Council, which managed to galvanize international support for its successful battle to topple Gaddafi.

Michael Doran of the Brookings Institute in Washington told a forum in Doha it would not work for Syria. “It’s not a ridiculous idea, but it’s not going to succeed,” he said.

A diplomat on the sidelines of the talks said international divisions in the U.N. Security council did not help.

“It’s a vicious circle. They are asking the opposition to unite when they admit they are not themselves united,” he said.

(Writing by Tom Perry and Samia Nakhoul; Editing by Alistair Lyon, Alastair Macdonald and Philippa Fletcher)

World News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Ex-oilman named new leader of world’s Anglicans

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain named a former oil executive as the new Archbishop of Canterbury and leader of the world’s 80 million Anglicans on Friday as the church struggles to overcome a painful rift over the issues of female bishops and same-sex marriage.

Welby, 56, who has been bishop of the northern English city of Durham for little more than a year, will replace incumbent Rowan Williams who steps down in December.

The long-awaited appointment, announced by Prime Minister David Cameron‘s office in a statement, follows weeks of intense speculation that a row over whether to choose a reformer or a safe pair of hands had stalled the nomination process.

For Welby, the move capped a meteoric rise up the Church of England hierarchy since quitting the business world and being ordained in 1992.

The bespectacled father-of-five is seen as more conservative than the liberal Williams and is widely reported to be against gay marriage but in favor of the ordination of women bishops.

(Writing by Maria Golovnina Editing by Guy Faulconbridge)

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Malaria vaccine a letdown for infants

LONDON (AP) — An experimental malaria vaccine once thought promising is turning out to be a disappointment, with a new study showing it is only about 30 percent effective at protecting infants from the killer disease.

That is a significant drop from a study last year done in slightly older children, which suggested the vaccine cut the malaria risk by about half — though that is still far below the protection provided from most vaccines. According to details released on Friday, the three-shot regimen reduced malaria cases by about 30 percent in infants aged 6 to 12 weeks, the target age for immunization.

Dr. Jennifer Cohn, a medical coordinator at Doctors Without Borders, described the vaccine’s protection levels as “unacceptably low.” She was not linked to the study.

Scientists have been working for decades to develop a malaria vaccine, a complicated endeavor since the disease is caused by five different species of parasites. There has never been an effective vaccine against a parasite. Worldwide, there are several dozen malaria vaccine candidates being researched.

In 2006, a group of experts led by the World Health Organization said a malaria vaccine should cut the risk of severe disease and death by at least half and should last longer than one year. Malaria is spread by mosquitoes and kills more than 650,000 people every year, mostly young children and pregnant women in Africa. Without a vaccine, officials have focused on distributing insecticide-treated bed nets, spraying homes with pesticides and ensuring access to good medicines.

In the new study, scientists found babies who got three doses of the vaccine had about 30 percent fewer cases of malaria than those who didn’t get immunized. The research included more than 6,500 infants in Africa. Experts also found the vaccine reduced the amount of severe malaria by about 26 percent, up to 14 months after the babies were immunized.

Scientists said they needed to analyze the data further to understand why the vaccine may be working differently in different regions. For example, babies born in areas with high levels of malaria might inherit some antibodies from their mothers which could interfere with any vaccination.

“Maybe we should be thinking of a first-generation vaccine that is targeted only for certain children,” said Dr. Salim Abdulla of the Ifakara Health Institute in Tanzania, one of the study investigators.

Results were presented at a conference in South Africa on Friday and released online by the New England Journal of Medicine. The study is scheduled to continue until 2014 and is being paid for by GlaxoSmithKline and the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative.

“The results look bad now, but they will probably be worse later,” said Adrian Hill of Oxford University, who is developing a competing malaria vaccine. He noted the study showed the Glaxo vaccine lost its potency after several months. Hill said the vaccine might be a hard sell, compared to other vaccines like those for meningitis and pneumococcal disease — which are both effective and cheap.

“If it turns out to have a clear 30 percent efficacy, it is probably not worth it to implement this in Africa on a large scale,” said Genton Blaise, a malaria expert at the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute in Basel, who also sits on a WHO advisory board.

Eleanor Riley of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said the vaccine might be useful if used together with other strategies, like bed nets. She was involved in an earlier study of the vaccine and had hoped for better results. “We’re all a bit frustrated that it has proven so hard to make a malaria vaccine,” she said. “The question is how much money are the funders willing to keep throwing at it.”

Glaxo first developed the vaccine in 1987 and has invested $ 300 million in it so far.

WHO said it couldn’t comment on the incomplete results and would wait until the trial was finished before drawing any conclusions.

___

Online:

www.nejm.org

Diseases/Conditions News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Gas rationing expands as Sandy, Nor'easter effects linger

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Ghana building collapse traps dozens, kills 1

ACCRA, Ghana (AP) — A five-story shopping center built earlier this year in a bustling suburb of Ghana‘s capital collapsed Wednesday, killing at least one person and leaving several dozen people trapped in the rubble, authorities and eyewitnesses said.

Rescue crews used cranes to try and remove debris from the top of the building amid fears that machinery sifting through the wreckage could injure trapped survivors. Crowds of bystanders gathered as rescuers sifted through cement and glass.

The fatality at the Melcom Shopping Center at Achimota, a suburb of Accra, was confirmed by Public Affairs Officer of the Ghana Fire Service Billy Anaglate. “We are still working to find out the fate of others who may be trapped under,” he said.

Other officials told The Associated Press that the death toll was likely to rise.

An AP reporter at the scene saw at least one man pulled from the debris, covered in dust and who was then whisked into an ambulance.

A Greater Accra Regional Public Affairs officer, deputy superintendent Freeman Tettey, confirmed that one person died and told the AP that 51 have been rescued and sent to hospitals around the capital.

“I was on my way to the shop when l saw it crumpling down,” Kojo Boadi, an eyewitness, said.

President John Mahama declared the scene a disaster zone and cut short his election campaign in the north of the country to be able to visit the site. The presidential election is scheduled for December.

The five-story store opened in February is part of the Melcom chain owned by Indian immigrant magnate, Bhagwan Khubchandani. His late father arrived in Ghana in 1929 as a 14-year-old to work as a store boy in the-then Gold Coast.

The store sells a variety of cheap, imported household goods and appliances that are popular with working-class Ghanaians.

Africa News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Exclusive: Google Ventures beefs up fund size to $300 million a year

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How South Korea’s Dark Oscar Entry ‘Pieta’ Cut Out Producers, Investors

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – By his 15th film, Kim Ki-duk, the director of South Korea‘s Best Foreign Picture Oscar entry “Pieta,” was sick of money shaping his cinematic vision.

The director, who told an audience at the Landmark Theatre that he tries in his movies to ruthlessly dissect society with all its nuances and complexities, said he didn’t want Hollywood-type producers and investors telling him how to fashion his films.

“It’s very formulaic. Film dramas, action movies – the structure is very simple, in the end, good prevails over evil,” Kim told TheWrap‘s Steve Pond at the kickoff of TheWrap’s Foreign Screening Series Monday night. “I consciously have tried to get out of the major system. … Once I had money, after that I used my own money.

“I don’t want to have producers or investors tell me what to do,” he added. “I want to maintain the same autonomy.”

“Pieta” follows a local money lender‘s thuggish enforcer, whose life changes when a woman arrives claiming to be his mother. Notorious in his impoverished neighborhood for crippling shop-owners who are unable to pay back their debt and interest on time, Lee Kang-do soon loses his hard exterior as he experiences maternal coddling for the first time.

Before the projector started rolling, Pond – at Kim’s behest – warned the audience that the first 20 minutes would contain violence that may be difficult to stomach. Indeed, it was easy to see how Kim’s producers might try to dilute the disturbing images and scenes he shoots.

The film, Kim told the audience through a translator, cost $ 100,000 to make. It earned $ 1 million in Korea alone.

“I’m going to distribute half of that to my staff members,” he said. “And half will go to the next film.”

Kim, who began his career as a screenwriter and studied art for three years in Paris, sees himself as an everyman director, more interested in cinema than profits.

“Pieta” reflects the changing culture of his native land and the economic woes the global recession brought on Korea’s poor. In the film, high-rises sprout from one side of the city – the sort of neighborhood parodied in Psy’s “Gangnam Style” music video – the other is still congested with trash and small shacks.

He explained that in Korea’s capital of Seoul, Gangnam means “south of the river.” North of it, where the working-class lives, is Gang-buk.

“That’s where working-class, people like me, regular people, live,” he said. “There are two lifestyles and classes.”

Kim said his next movie will similarly critique 21st century life – with its speedy pace and rapid international trading – which he described as “cannibalistic.”

“My next film is again my question about, what is modern society?” he said. “I believe that modern society is some sort of cannibalistic society. Through money, money forms this huge structure.”

He said his future movies, like the past 18 he has made, will likely feature strong female characters, too.

“Korean women suffered a lot. It’s a long history of suffering,” Kim said. “Korean women are known for having very, very intense energy and warm motherly love. However their status and their images are not really intact. They’ve been harmed; they’ve been abused a lot.”

“Pieta” certainly doesn’t pull punches – the film features a rape scene, and numerous women are left weeping over their sons or husbands when Kang-do shatters their bodies.

“The images you see in my films, they make you uncomfortable, they’re violent, but that’s the reality,” he said.

But those images, he said, will almost certainly make his movie a longshot to land an Oscar nomination, something no Korean film has ever done. “If you look at the films that win, they are the ones that make you feel good,” he said. “My films are not like that.”

Movies News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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