A 114-year-old South Carolina woman who was the oldest living U.S. citizen has died.
Two daughters say Mamie Rearden of Edgefield, who held the title as the oldest person in the country for about two weeks, died Wednesday at a hospital in Georgia.
Sara Rearden of Burtonsville, Md., said Saturday that her mother broke her hip after a fall about three weeks ago.
Robert Young of the Gerontology Research Group said Mamie Rearden's September 1898 birth was recorded in the 1900 U.S. Census. The group, which verifies age information for Guinness World Records, listed Rearden as the oldest living U.S. citizen after last month's passing of 115-year-old Dina Manfredini of Iowa.
Rearden was more than a year younger than the world's oldest person, 115-year-old Jiroemon Kimura of Japan.
As Steubenville, Ohio, prepares for the high-profile rape trial of two high school football players, officials, battling allegations of a cover-up, announced the creation of a new website today to debunk rumors and create what they said would be a transparent resource for the community.
"This site is not designed to be a forum for how the Juvenile Court ought to rule in this matter," the website, called Steubenville Facts, said.
A timeline of the case, beginning with the alleged gang rape of a 16-year-old girl at a party on Aug. 11-12, 2012, is posted on the site. Summaries of Ohio law relating to the case and facts about the local police force including statistics on how many graduated from Steubenville schools, is included.
The case gained national attention last week when hacking collective Anonymous leaked a video of Steubenville high school athletes mocking the 16-year-old female victim and making crude references to the alleged rape.
Steubenville Herald-Star, Michael D. McElwain/AP Photo
"It's disgusting, and I've had people calling, numerous people call here, upset, they have seen it, one woman, two women were crying, because of what they witnessed," Jefferson County Sheriff Fred Abdalla said. "It really is disgusting to watch that video."
Anonymous has called for more arrests, however Steubenville Police have said their hands are tied.
"Steubenville Police investigators are caring humans who recoil and are repulsed by many of the things they observe during an investigation," the website said, addressing the video. "Like detectives in every part of America and the world, they are often frustrated when they emotionally want to hold people accountable for certain detestable behavior but realize that there is no statute that allows a criminal charge to be made."
Occupy Steubenville, a grassroots group, estimated 1,300 people attended a rally today outside the Jefferson County Courthouse, where rape victims and their loved ones gathered to share their stories.
The father of a teenage rape victim was met with applause when he shared his outrage.
"I've tried to show my girl that not all men are like this, but only a despicable few," he said. "And their mothers that ignore the truth that they gave birth to a monster."
Authorities investigated the case and charged two Steubenville high school athletes on Aug. 22, 2012.
The teenagers face trial on Feb. 13, 2013 in juvenile court before a visiting judge.
Attorneys for the boys have denied charges in court.
CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuelan lawmakers re-elected a staunch ally of Hugo Chavez to head the National Assembly on Saturday, putting him in line to be caretaker president if the socialist leader does not recover from cancer surgery.
By choosing the incumbent, Diosdado Cabello, the "Chavista"-dominated legislature cemented the combative ex-soldier's position as the third most powerful figure in the government, after Chavez and Vice President Nicolas Maduro.
"As a patriot ... I swear to be supremely loyal in everything I do, to defend the fatherland, its institutions, and this beautiful revolution led by our Comandante Hugo Chavez," Cabello said as he took the oath, his hand on the constitution.
He had earlier warned opposition politicians against attempting to use the National Assembly to "conspire" against the people, saying they would be "destroyed" if they tried.
Thousands of the president's red-clad supporters gathered outside parliament hours before the vote, many chanting: "We are all Chavez! Our comandante will be well! He will return!"
If Chavez had to step down, or died, Cabello would take over the running of the country as Assembly president and a new election would be organized within 30 days. Chavez's heir apparent, Maduro, would be the ruling Socialist Party candidate.
Chavez, who was diagnosed with an undisclosed form of cancer in his pelvic area in mid-2011, has not been seen in public nor heard from in more than three weeks.
Officials say the 58-year-old is in delicate condition and has suffered multiple complications since the December 11 surgery, including unexpected bleeding and severe respiratory problems.
Late on Friday, Maduro gave the clearest indication yet that the government was preparing to delay Chavez's inauguration for a new six-year term, which is scheduled for Thursday.
'CHAVEZ IS PRESIDENT'
Maduro said the ceremony was a "formality" and that Chavez could be sworn in by the Supreme Court at a later date.
The opposition says Chavez's absence would be just the latest sign that he is no longer fit to govern, and that new elections should be held in the South American OPEC nation.
Brandishing a copy of the constitution after his win in the Assembly, Cabello slammed opposition leaders for writing a letter to foreign embassies in which they accused the government of employing a "twisted reading" of the charter.
"Get this into your heads: Hugo Chavez was elected president and he will continue to be president beyond January 10. No one should have any doubt ... this is the constitutional route," he said as fellow Socialist Party lawmakers cheered.
The opposition sat stony-faced. One of their legislators had earlier told the session that it was not just the head of state who was ill, "the republic is sick."
Last year, Chavez staged what appeared to be a remarkable comeback from the disease to win re-election in October, despite being weakened by radiation therapy. He returned to Cuba for more treatment within weeks of his victory.
Should the president have to step down after 14 years in office, a new vote would probably pit Maduro, a 50-year-old former bus driver and union leader, against opposition leader Henrique Capriles, the 40-year-old governor of Miranda state.
Capriles lost to Chavez in October's presidential election.
"I don't think Maduro would last many rounds in a presidential race. He's not fit for the responsibility they have given him," Capriles said after the vice president's appearance on state television.
Chavez's condition is being watched closely by leftist allies around Latin American who have benefited from his oil-funded generosity, as well as investors attracted by Venezuela's lucrative and widely traded debt.
The country boasts the world's biggest crude reserves. Despite the huge political upheaval Chavez's exit would cause, the oil industry is not likely to be affected much in the short term, with an extension of "Chavismo" keeping projects on track, while a change in parties could usher in more foreign capital.
(Additional reporting by Deisy Buitrago; Editing by Vicki Allen)
LONDON: Stale Solbakken was sacked as manager of Championship side Wolves on Saturday, just hours after the club had been dumped out of the FA Cup by non-league Luton.
The struggling side, who were relegated from the Premier League last season, also terminated the contracts of assistant manager Johan Lange and Patrick Weiser, the first team coach.
Wolves are currently 18th in the Championship, having won just three out of their last 16 league games and a disappointing run of results culminated in Saturday's FA Cup third round 1-0 defeat to Luton Town.
Solbakken had only been in charge at Molineux for six months.
"Kevin Thelwell, head of football development and recruitment, will take charge of first team training until a new manager is appointed, assisted by development coach, Steve Weaver," said a club statement.
"The club would like to offer their thanks and best wishes to Stale, Johan and Patrick."
The 44-year-old Solbakken, who had previously been in charge of German side Cologne, replaced Terry Connor in the Wolves hotseat last summer.
He becomes the 10th Championship manager to leave his club this season while Wolves now search for their fourth boss in under a year.
Speaking after Saturday's match, the Norwegian had said he was not "embarrassed" by the defeat.
"There will be a lot of questions over me but that is normal, that's football and I have to take that, it's no problem," he said.
"I can put it right. I'm not embarrassed by the result, I can't fault the players' effort. First half we did well, but second half we didn't because our physical presence in the box was not enough."
This could have been Mars back before the dinosaurs built a super space ramp to our planet, at least according to software engineer and artist Kevin Gill.
(Credit: Kevin Gill)
What if the Red Planet weren't always in that constant state of blushing? Kevin Gill, a software engineer who also re-engineers planets every now and then, imagines Mars might long ago have looked quite a bit more like the aqua-green marble we call home.
To create the above image, Gill used data from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), picked an arbitrary sea level, and used a script to cover all the surfaces of Mars below that line with a nice shade of royal blue. From there, Gill writes on Google+ that it was a combination of some earthly textures borrowed from NASA and Gill's own imagination -- adhering of course to the kind of strict logic you'd expect from a career engineer... and an artist.
There is no scientific reasoning behind how I painted it; I tried to envision how the land would appear given certain features or the effects of likely atmospheric climate. For example, I didn't see much green taking hold within the area of Olympus Mons and the surrounding volcanoes, both due to the volcanic activity and the proximity to the equator (thus a more tropical climate). For these desert-like areas I mostly used textures taken from the Sahara in Africa and some of Australia. Likewise, as the terrain gets higher or lower in latitude I added darker flora along with tundra and glacial ice. These northern and southern areas' textures are largely taken from around northern Russia. Tropical and subtropical greens were based on the rainforests of South America and Africa.
Paint by number, you have met your match.
Of course, Gill points out that "this wasn't intended as an exhaustive scientific scenario" but hopes some of his assumptions will prove to be true. Here's hoping the Curiosity rover has a secret time machine built in that NASA hasn't told us about yet, so we can see just how close Gill is to the real deal.
Here are a few alternate views Gill cooked up:
A wet Mars with its own Atlantis adrift in a vast sea.
(Credit: Kevin Gill)
Here's a closer view of the Martian land mass with added oceanic action:
A scene of a plane crash in Palm Coast, Florida, Jan. 4, 2013. /CBS/WKMG/Flagler Live
PALM COAST, Fla. Authorities say at least three people are dead after a small plane crashed into a house while trying to land at a central Florida airport.
The Florida Highway Patrol confirmed the deaths Friday afternoon.
The Federal Aviation Administration says the pilot reported mechanical problems shortly after 2 p.m. Friday. The Beechcraft BE35, which had three people onboard, had been heading to Downtown Island Airport in Knoxville, Tenn., but diverted to the Flagler County Airport. FAA officials didn't immediately know where the plane took off.
The Flagler County Sheriff's Office reports that the plane hit a Palm Coast home just east of the airport a few minutes after the pilot's call. The house caught fire and the home's owner was taken to a nearby hospital in stable condition.
With the "fiscal cliff" crisis behind him, President Obama is poised to name two new key players to his cabinet, with both announcements expected to come next week.
Obama will name the replacement for outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta as soon as Monday, sources told ABC News. Former Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel is the likely nominee, they said.
Meanwhile, the president is also eyeing a replacement for outgoing Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, the longest-serving member of Obama's first-term economic team and one-time lead negotiator for the administration in the "fiscal cliff" talks.
Current chief of staff Jack Lew is all but certain to get the nod for Treasury, according to people familiar with Obama's thinking.
A White House spokesman cautioned that the president has not yet made a final decision on either post, calling reports about Hagel and Lew "merely guessing."
Still, when Obama returns from his Hawaiian vacation on Sunday, he's expected to waste little time filling out his team for a second term.
Geithner has said he would remain at his post "until around the inauguration" Jan. 20, a Treasury spokesperson said Thursday, putting the department potentially in transition just as the administration confronts the next financial "cliffs" over automatic spending cuts and the nation's debt limit.
Brendan Hoffman/Getty Images
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During an appearance on ABC's "This Week" in April, Geithner said the next Treasury secretary would need to be someone who is "willing to tell [Obama] the truth and, you know, help him do the tough things you need to do."
Lew, a former two-time Office of Management and Budget director and trusted Obama confidant who has held the chief of staff role since early 2012, is the front-runner for the job.
Meanwhile, Sen. John Kerry -- Obama's nominee to replace outgoing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton -- has begun making more regular appearances at the U.S. State Department before his expected confirmation later this month.
His Senate hearings are set to begin shortly after Obama's inauguration, sources say. The administration still expects Clinton to testify about the Sept. 11 Benghazi, Libya, attacks before Kerry is confirmed.
But it is the potential nomination of Republican Hagel that has caused the most stir.
Critics from across the political spectrum have taken aim at the former senator from Nebraska's record toward Israel and what some have called a lack of experience necessary to lead the sprawling Pentagon bureaucracy or its operations. The controversy has set the stage for what would be a contentious confirmation process.
"A lot of Republicans and Democrats are very concerned about Chuck Hagel's position on Iran sanctions, his views toward Israel, Hamas and Hezbollah, and that there is wide and deep concern about his policies," Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told "Fox News Sunday."
He would not say whether Republicans felt so strongly as to expect a filibuster of the nomination.
"I can tell you there would be very little Republican support for his nomination," Graham said. "At the end of the day, they will be very few votes."
Still, Hagel, 66, a former businessman and decorated veteran who served in the Vietnam War, has won praise and admiration from current and former diplomats for his work on Obama's Intelligence Advisory Board and Panetta's Policy Advisory Board.
GAZA (Reuters) - President Mahmoud Abbas predicted the end of a five-year split between the two big Palestinian factions as his Fatah movement staged its first mass rally in Gaza with the blessing of Hamas Islamists who rule the enclave.
"Soon we will regain our unity," Abbas, whose authority has been limited to the Israeli-occupied West Bank since the 2007 civil war between the two factions, said in a televised address to hundreds of thousands of followers marching in Gaza on Friday, with yellow Fatah flags instead of the green of Hamas.
The hardline Hamas movement, which does not recognize Israel's right to exist, expelled secular Fatah from Gaza during the war. It gave permission for the rally after the deadlock in peace talks between Abbas's administration and Israel narrowed the two factions' ideological differences.
The Palestinian rivals have drawn closer since Israel's assault on Gaza assault in November, in which Hamas, though battered, claimed victory.
Egypt has long tried to broker Hamas-Fatah reconciliation, but past efforts have foundered over questions of power-sharing, control of weaponry, and to what extent Israel and other powers would accept a Palestinian administration including Hamas.
An Egyptian official told Reuters Cairo was preparing to invite the factions for new negotiations within two weeks.
Israel fears grassroots support for Hamas could eventually topple Abbas's Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank.
"Hamas could seize control of the PA any day," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday.
The demonstration marked 48 years since Fatah's founding as the spearhead of the Palestinians' fight against Israel. Its longtime leader Yasser Arafat signed an interim 1993 peace accord that won Palestinians a measure of self rule.
Hamas, which rejected the 1993 deal, fought and won a Palestinian parliamentary election in 2006. It formed an uneasy coalition with Fatah until their violent split a year later.
Though shunned by the West, Hamas feels bolstered by electoral gains for Islamist movements in neighboring Egypt and elsewhere in the region - a confidence reflected in the fact Friday's Fatah demonstration was allowed to take place.
"The success of the rally is a success for Fatah, and for Hamas too," said Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri. "The positive atmosphere is a step on the way to regain national unity."
Fatah, meanwhile, has been riven by dissent about the credibility of Abbas's statesmanship, especially given Israel's continued settlement-building on West Bank land. The Israelis quit Gaza unilaterally in 2005 after 38 years of occupation.
"The message today is that Fatah cannot be wiped out," said Amal Hamad, a member of the group's ruling body, referring to the demonstration attended by several Abbas advisers. "Fatah lives, no one can exclude it and it seeks to end the division."
In his speech, Abbas promised to return to Gaza soon and said Palestinian unification would be "a step on the way to ending the (Israeli) occupation".
(Editing by Dan Williams, Alistair Lyon and Jason Webb)
SYDNEY: French tennis star Jo-Wilfried Tsonga has withdrawn from next week's Sydney International with a hamstring injury, tournament organisers said on Saturday.
The world number eight pulled out of the last major leadup event to this month's Australian Open after suffering the injury playing for France in the mixed teams Hopman Cup in Perth on Friday.
"Unfortunately Jo-Wilfried Tsonga sustained an injury in Perth and has been forced to pull out of the Apia International Sydney with a left hamstring injury," tournament director Craig Watson said.
"We wish him a speedy recovery and all the best for a successful Australian Open."
Tsonga, the 2008 Australian Open finalist, would have been top seed for the Sydney International and compatriot Richard Gasquet, the world number 10, is expected to become the top seed for the men's draw to be made later Saturday.
I've always heard that smell plays an important role in how food tastes. I didn't expect that color could also sway the taste buds. A study published in the Journal of Sensory Studies found that the color of a cup can influence the way people taste hot chocolate.
Betina Piqueras-Fiszman, a researcher at the Polytechnic University of Valencia in Spain, and Charles Spence, a professor at the University of Oxford in England, subjected 57 participants to what may be one the tastiest science experiments ever.
The participants tasted samples of hot chocolate served in four different colors of plastic cups: white, cream, red, and orange. The sippers preferred the flavor of the beverage in orange or cream-colored cups.
So why did orange and cream set themselves apart from white and red? It's a bit mysterious, but it definitely involves the way the brain processes visual information and allows it to influence our sense of taste.
"These results should hopefully help stimulate chefs, restaurateurs, and those working in the food and beverage packaging sectors to think more carefully about the color of their plateware/packaging and its potential effects on their customers' perception of the taste/flavor of the products that they happen to be serving/delivering to market," the researchers write.
There has already been research into how the color of food itself impacts our taste. A 2007 study in the Journal of Consumer Research showed that the color of orange juice had a greater impact on taste perception than actual differences in samples. What's intriguing about this latest study is how the color of the packaging impacts our taste perceptions.
The taste challenge Not one to shy away from a science challenge, I took it upon myself to become a guinea pig and tackle this important issue head-on. I raided the cabinet for Fiestaware, coming up with mugs in the colors of red, blue, and orange.
I prepared two packets of Starbucks-brand hot cocoa in double chocolate flavor in a 2-cup measuring cup. I poured an equal amount into each mug. Sipping them thoughtfully, I thought I detected a greater smoothness and sweetness in the hot chocolate that was gently steaming in the orange mug.
The problem with my findings is that I already knew the results of the study. I needed an unwitting test subject, so I called the one person I know who is a hot chocolate connoisseur... my mother.
My mom came over and tasted the hot chocolate from each cup. She considered the flavors. She thought the red mug tasted a bit bitter. She thought the blue was nicely chocolatey. Her favorite, though, was the hot chocolate in the orange mug.
Sure, my test sample size is incredibly small, but the orange mug is the clear winner of my mini-experiment. I also learned something very important today. Science is delicious.
Google hasn't violated any antitrust laws, the Federal Trade Commission announced Thursday, but it has agreed to make some changes in how it treats its rivals as part of a settlement to end the 19-month investigation into its business practices.
The FTC's investigation focused on allegations that Google has been abusing its dominance in Internet search. Google's rivals say the company has been highlighting its own services on its influential results page while burying the links to competing sites.
Google Inc. has fiercely defended its right to recommend the websites that it believes are the most relevant.
The FTC said it voted unanimously to close the investigation on whether Google's algorithm unfairly favored itself because there was no evidence that Google violated antitrust laws.
"Although some evidence suggested that Google was trying to eliminate competition, Google's primary reason for changing the look and feel of its search results to highlight its own products was to improve the user experience," FTC chairman Jon Leibowitz said to reporters Thursday.
Google was also investigated for abusing patent protection against competitors like Apple. As part of the settlement, Google is agreeing to license patents deemed to be "essential" for rival mobile devices such as Apple Inc.'s iPhone and iPad, regulators said.
Regulators say Google is also promising that upon request, it will exclude snippets copied from other websites in its summaries of key information, even though the company had insisted the practice is legal under the fair-use provisions of U.S. copyright law.
The Senate Intelligence Committee has launched a new probe to determine how much the CIA may have influenced the portrayal of torture scenes shown in "Zero Dark Thirty," the Hollywood dramatization of the decade-long hunt for Osama bin Laden.
The probe, as first reported by Reuters and confirmed to ABC News by a spokesperson for the committee's chairman, will attempt to answer two questions: Did the CIA give filmmakers "inappropriate" access to secret material and was the CIA responsible for the perceived suggestion that harsh interrogation techniques aided the hunt for America's most wanted man?
In a press release today, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Sen. Dianne Feinstein's office said Feinstein, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D.-Mich.) and former Presidential candidate John McCain (R.-Ariz.) – the latter of two are ex officio members of the Intelligence Committee – sent two letters to acting CIA Director Michael Morell in December asking just what the CIA might have told the filmmakers about the effectiveness of enhanced interrogation.
The first letter, dated Dec. 19, focused on the possibility that the CIA "misled" the filmmakers into showing torture as an effective tactic.
"As you know, the film depicts CIA officers repeatedly torturing detainees. The film then credits CIA detainees subjected to coercive interrogation techniques as providing critical lead information on the courier that led to the [bin Laden] compound," the letter says. "The CIA cannot be held accountable for how the Agency and its activities are portrayed in film, but we are nonetheless concerned, given the CIA's cooperation with the filmmakers and the narrative's consistency with past public misstatements by former senior CIA officials, that the filmmakers could have been misled by information they were provided by the CIA."
Two days after the letter was sent, Morell posted a statement on the CIA website explaining that the movie was "not a realistic portrayal of the facts" but said some information did come from detainees subjected to enhanced interrogation.
"...[T]he film creates the strong impression that the enhanced interrogation techniques that were part of our former detention and interrogation program were key to finding Bin Laden. That impression is false," Morell said. "As we have said before, the truth is that multiple streams of intelligence led CIA analysts to conclude that Bin Laden was hiding in Abbottabad. Some came from detainees subjected to enhanced techniques, but there were many other sources as well. And, importantly, whether enhanced interrogation techniques were the only timely and effective way to obtain information from those detainees, as the film suggests, is a matter of debate that cannot and never will be definitively resolved."
The trio of Feinstein, Levin and McCain wrote the second letter on New Year's Eve in apparent frustration with that statement and asked Morell to provide information on what exactly the CIA learned from detainees who underwent harsh interrogation – and if it was learned before, during or after the detainees' ordeals.
A CIA spokesperson told ABC News today the agency had received the letters and "take[s] very seriously our responsibility to keep our oversight committees informed and value[s] our relationship with Congress."
AZAZ, Syria (Reuters) - At least 11 people were killed and 40 wounded when a car bomb exploded at a crowded petrol station in the Syrian capital Damascus on Thursday, opposition activists said.
The station was packed with people queuing for fuel that has become increasingly scarce during the country's 21-month-long insurgency aimed at overthrowing President Bashar al-Assad.
The semi-official al-Ikhbariya television station showed footage of 10 burnt bodies and Red Crescent workers searching for victims at the site.
The opposition Revolution Leadership Council in Damascus said the explosion was caused by a booby-trapped car.
There was no immediate indication of who was responsible for the bombing in the Barzeh al-Balad district, whose residents include members of the Sunni Muslim majority and other religious and ethnic minorities.
"The station is usually packed even when it has no fuel," said an opposition activist who did not want to be named. "There are lots of people who sleep there overnight, waiting for early morning fuel consignments."
It was the second time that a petrol station has been hit in Damascus this week. Dozens of people were incinerated in an air strike as they waited for fuel on Wednesday, according to opposition sources.
In northern Syria, rebels were battling to seize an air base in their campaign against the air power that Assad has used to bomb rebel-held towns.
More than 60,000 people have been killed in the uprising and civil war, the United Nations said this week, a much higher death toll than previously thought.
DRAMATIC ADVANCES
After dramatic advances over the second half of 2012, the rebels now hold wide swathes of territory in the north and east, but they cannot protect towns and villages from Assad's helicopters and jets.
Hundreds of rebel fighters were attempting to storm the Taftanaz air base, near the highway that links Syria's two main cities, Aleppo and Damascus.
A rebel fighter speaking from near the Taftanaz base overnight said much of the base was still in loyalist hands but insurgents had managed to destroy a helicopter and a fighter jet on the ground.
The northern rebel Idlib Coordination Committee said the rebels had detonated a car bomb inside the base.
The government's SANA news agency said the base had not fallen and that the military had "strongly confronted an attempt by the terrorists to attack the airport from several axes, inflicting heavy losses among them and destroying their weapons and munitions".
Rami Abdulrahman, head of the opposition-aligned Syrian Observatory for Human Rights which monitors the conflict from Britain, said as many as 800 fighters were involved in the assault, including Islamists from Jabhat al-Nusra, a powerful group that Washington considers terrorists.
Taftanaz is mainly a helicopter base, used for missions to resupply army positions cut off by the rebels, as well as for dropping crude "barrel bombs" on rebel-controlled areas.
Near Minakh, another northern air base that rebels have surrounded, government forces have retaliated by shelling and bombing nearby towns.
NIGHTLY BOMBARDMENTS
In the town of Azaz, where the bombardment has become a near nightly occurrence, shells hit a family house overnight. Zeinab Hammadi said her two wounded daughters, aged 10 and 12, had been rushed across the border to Turkey, one with her brain exposed.
"We were sleeping and it just landed on us in the blink of an eye," she said, weeping as she surveyed the damage.
Family members tried to salvage possessions from the wreckage, men lifting out furniture and children carrying out their belongings in tubs.
"He (Assad) wants revenge against the people," said Abu Hassan, 33, working at a garage near the destroyed house. "What is the fault of the children? Are they the ones fighting?"
Opposition activists said warplanes struck a residential building in another rebel-held northern town, Hayyan, killing at least eight civilians.
Video footage showed men carrying dismembered bodies of children and dozens of people searching for victims in the rubble. The provenance of the video could not be independently confirmed.
In addition to their tenuous grip on the north, the rebels also hold a crescent of suburbs on the edge of Damascus, which have come under bombardment by government forces that control the center of the capital.
On Wednesday, according to opposition activists, dozens of people died in an inferno caused by an air strike on a petrol station in a Damascus suburb where residents were lining up for fuel.
The civil war in Syria has become the longest and bloodiest of the conflicts that rose out of uprisings across the Arab world in the past two years.
Assad's family has ruled for 42 years since his father seized power in a coup. The war pits rebels, mainly from the Sunni Muslim majority, against a government supported by members of Assad's Shi'ite-derived Alawite minority sect and some members of other minorities who fear revenge if he falls.
The West, most Sunni-ruled Arab states and Turkey have called for Assad to step down. He is supported by Russia and Shi'ite Iran.
(Additional reporting by Khaled Yacoub Oweis in Amman and Dominic Evans in Beirut; Writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Ruth Pitchford and Giles Elgood)
GENEVA: The World Economic Forum will focus on global health issues when it holds its annual winter meeting in Davos, Switzerland from January 23-27, Forum organisers said on Thursday.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon and World Bank president Jim Yong Kim are to be joined by several health ministers and more than 25 heads of healthcare companies under the theme of "Resilient Dynamism," a Forum statement said.
"The health community will focus on the future of sustainable national health systems, workplace wellness and individual health," it added.
According to the Forum's organisers, global consideration of health-care issues often is held back by short-term thinking and entrenched positions, and they urged countries to "break from the status quo to embark on courageous transformation to sustainably deliver access to high-quality health services."
The Forum plans to launch a report on sustainable health systems and health in the workplace as the meeting gets under way.
The report is based on a study of more than two million workers in 125 countries.
Robots may still be our best bet for Mars missions.
(Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Malin Space Science Systems)
My brother has told me that if a manned Mars mission were seeking volunteers, he'd be the first in line, even if it meant never coming back. I wouldn't want him to go, but my desire to keep him Earth-bound is even more intense after checking out a new study on the impact of radiation on potential manned Mars missions.
A study published in PLOS One looks at the effects of galactic cosmic radiation on mice. Researchers exposed the mice to particle irradiation like that found in space. The result was cognitive impairment in line with the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease.
The study's lead author is Dr. M. Kerry O'Banion, a professor of neurobiology and anatomy at the University of Rochester Medical Center. Researchers exposed 29 male mice and 20 female mice to controlled doses of radiation at NASA's Space Radiation Laboratory at Brookhaven National Laboratory.
The mice were monitored for the next 3.5 months for the females and 6 months for the males. During this time, they underwent behavioral and memory testing, which showed a decrease in the mice's cognitive abilities.
"The doses used in this study are comparable to those astronauts will see on a mission to Mars, raising concerns about a heightened chance of debilitating dementia occurring long after the mission is over," the study states.
We may be a far cry away from sending people to Mars, but this study adds one more potential wrinkle to the many challenges ahead. It also lends some credence to those sci-fi stories about people going crazy in space. It could even explain why "Prometheus" was such a trainwreck. It wasn't the script, it was the space dementia.
WASHINGTONSecretary of State Hillary Clinton was discharged from a New York hospital Wednesday, after spending 72 hours under observation following the discovery of a blood clot in her head, the State Department said.
In a statement, spokesperson Philippe Reines said: "Her medical team advised her that she is making good progress on all fronts, and they are confident she will make a full recovery. She's eager to get back to the office."
Clinton and her family thanked her medical team "for the excellent care she received," Reines said.
Earlier Wednesday, Clinton had been seen in public for the first time in three weeks when she walked out of the Harkness Eye Institute in New York City and into a secure van along with a smiling Bill and Chelsea Clinton and accompanied by a security detail, reports CBS News correspondent Margaret Brennan.
The State Department had said Secretary Clinton was active in speaking with staff and reviewing paperwork while she continued to recover at New York Presbyterian Hospital.
Clinton was admitted to a New York hospital Sunday and was treated with blood thinners to dissolve a clot in the vein behind the right ear. Doctors found the clot during a follow-up exam stemming from a concussion she suffered in early December. She has been hospitalized for around 72 hours, which is a window of time during which it is possible to establish the proper blood thinner dosage that would be required prior to discharge according to doctors.
Clinton's doctors say there was no neurological damage.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said today that it was "disgusting" that the House adjourned without voting on a $60 billion relief package for the victims of superstorm Sandy and put the blame squarely on a fellow Republican -- House Speaker John Boehner.
Christie, who is considered a possible Republican presidential candidate four years from now, said there was "only one group to blame, the Republican Party and Speaker Boehner."
The blunt talking New Jersey governor joined a chorus of Republicans from New York and New Jersey fuming over his decision to pull the bill at the last minute.
Christie in an angry news conference decried the "selfishness and duplicity," the "palace intrigue," "the callous indifference to the people of our state."
"Unfortunately people are putting politics ahead of their responsibilities... You do the right thing. Enough with all the politics," he said.
Christie said that when it comes to natural disasters, "We respond as Americans, at least we did until last night... it was disgusting to watch."
"In our hour of desperate need, we've been left waiting for help six times longer than the victims of Katrina with no end in sight," said Christie. "Sixty-six days and counting, shame on you. Shame on Congress."
The governor said his four calls to Boehner Tuesday night went unanswered, but he said he spoke to the House speaker today. Christie would not disclose any details of the conversation, but clearly his anger over the no-vote was not mollified.
Following Christie's press conference Republican representatives from New York and New Jersey announced that the speaker promised a vote on the bill on Jan. 15.
"Getting critical aid to the victims of Hurricane Sandy should be the first priority in the new Congress, and that was reaffirmed today with members of the New York and New Jersey delegations," Boehner said in a statement released late this afternoon.
Rep. Peter King Blasts Speaker Boehner on House Floor Watch Video
Boos as House Adjourns Without Hurricane Sandy Relief Watch Video
'Fiscal Cliff' Deal Passes House Despite GOP Holdouts Watch Video
Rep. Peter King, R-NY, whop spent much of the day criticizing Boehner, met with the speaker this afternoon and was confident that the speaker would keep his word and hold a vote later this month and offered for the first time a reason for why the bill was pulled.
"[Boehner] said there was much confusion and so much fighting going on over the fiscal cliff bill it would be damaging to the Republican caucus" to have voted on the relief bill Tuesday night.
Lawmakers were initially told by Boehner, R-Ohio, that the relief bill would get a vote on Tuesday night following an eleventh hour vote on the fiscal cliff bill. But in an unexpected switch, Boehner refused to put the relief bill to a vote, leading to lawmakers from parties yelling on the floor of the House.
Congress historically has responded to natural disasters by promptly funding relief efforts. It took just 11 days to pass a relief package for victims of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The Senate already passed its version of the bill that would replenish an emergency fund set to run out of cash next week and which will help repair subways and tunnels in New York City and rebuild parts of the New Jersey shore devastated by superstorm Sandy.
Time is particularly pressing, given that a new Congress will be sworn in Thursday. The Senate will therefore have to vote on the bill again before it comes to the House, which could be as late as February or March.
"This was a betrayal," Rep. Michael Grimm, R-N.Y., told ABC News.com. "It's just reprehensible. It's an indefensible error in judgment not have given relief to these people that are so devastated."
Rep. King, took the floor of the House and to the airwaves and aimed his outrage squarely at Boehner, accusing him plunging "a cruel knife in the back" of storm-ravaged residents "who don't have shelter, don't have food," he said during a House session this morning.
"This is not the United States. This should not be the Republican Party. This shouldn't not be the Republican leadership," King said on the floor of the House.
He made no attempt to hide his anger, suggesting that residents in New York and New Jersey should stop sending money to Republicans and even questioning whether he could remain a member of the party.
"Anyone who donates one cent to the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee should have their head examined," King, a staunch conservative and Republican congressman for 10 years, told CNN.
"They have written off New York and New Jersey. They've written me off…. Party loyalty, I'm over that. When your people are literally freezing in the winter… Then why should I help the Republican Party?" he added.
He said that Boehner refused to talk to Republican members from New York and New Jersey when they tried to ask him about the vote Tuesday night.
"He just decided to sneak off in the dark of night," King said.
DAMARA, Central African Republic (Reuters) - Rebels in Central African Republic said they had halted their advance on the capital on Wednesday and agreed to start peace talks, averting a clash with regionally backed troops.
The Seleka rebels had pushed to within striking distance of Bangui after a three-week onslaught and threatened to oust President Francois Bozize, accusing him of reneging on a previous peace deal and cracking down on dissidents.
Their announcement on Wednesday gave the leader only a limited reprieve as the fighters told Reuters they might insist on his removal in the negotiations.
"I have asked our forces not to move their positions starting today because we want to enter talks in (Gabon's capital) Libreville for a political solution," said Seleka spokesman Eric Massi, speaking by telephone from Paris.
"I am in discussion with our partners to come up with proposals to end the crisis, but one solution could be a political transition that excludes Bozize," he said.
Bozize on Wednesday sacked his Army Chief of Staff and took over the defense minister's role from his son, Jean Francis Bozize, according to a decree read on national radio, a day after publicly criticizing the military for failing to repel the rebels.
The advance by Seleka, an alliance of mostly northeastern rebel groups, was the latest in a series of revolts in a country at the heart of one of Africa's most turbulent regions - and the most serious since the Chad-backed insurgency that swept Bozize to power in 2003.
Diplomatic sources have said talks organized by central African regional bloc ECCAS could start on January 10. The United States, the European Union and France have called on both sides to negotiate and spare civilians.
Central African Republic is one of the least developed countries in the world despite its deposits of gold, diamonds and other minerals. French nuclear energy group Areva mines the country's Bakouma uranium deposit - France's biggest commercial interest in its former colony.
RELIEF IN BANGUI
News of the rebel halt eased tension in Bangui, where residents had been stockpiling food and water and staying indoors after dark.
"They say they are no longer going to attack Bangui, and that's great news for us," said Jaqueline Loza in the crumbling riverside city.
ECCAS members Chad, Congo Republic, Gabon and Cameroon have sent hundreds of soldiers to reinforce CAR's army after a string of rebel victories since early December.
Gabonese General Jean Felix Akaga, commander of the regional force, said his troops were defending the town of Damara, 75 km (45 miles) north of Bangui and close to the rebel front.
"Damara is a red line not to be crossed ... Damara is in our control and Bangui is secure," he told Reuters. "If the rebellion decides to approach Damara, they know they will encounter a force that will react."
Soldiers armed with Kalashnikovs, rocket propelled grenade launchers and truck-mounted machineguns had taken up positions across the town, which was otherwise nearly-abandoned.
Some of the fighters wore turbans that covered their faces and had charms strung around their necks and arms meant to protect them against enemy bullets.
Chad's President Idriss Deby, one of Bozize's closest allies, had warned the rebels the regional force would confront them if they approached the town.
Chad provided training and equipment to the rebellion that brought Bozize to power by ousting then-president Ange Felix Patasse, who Chad accused of supporting Chadian dissidents.
Chad is also keen to keep a lid on instability in the territory close to its main oil export pipeline and has stepped in to defend Bozize against insurgents in the past.
A CAR government minister told Reuters the foreign troop presence strengthened Bozize's bargaining position ahead of the Libreville peace talks.
"The rebels are now in a position of weakness," the minister said, asking not to be named. "They should therefore stop imposing conditions like the departure of the president."
Central African Republic is one of a number of countries in the region where U.S. Special Forces are helping local soldiers track down the Lord's Resistance Army, a rebel group which has killed thousands of civilians across four nations.
France has a 600-strong force in CAR to defend about 1,200 of its citizens who live there.
Paris used air strikes to defend Bozize against a rebellion in 2006. But French President Francois Hollande turned down a request for more help, saying the days of intervening in other countries' affairs were over.
(Additional reporting by Paul-Marin Ngoupana in Bangui and Jon Herskovitz in Johannesburg; Writing by Richard Valdmanis; Editing by Andrew Heavens and Janet Lawrence)
OAKLAND: A federal judge on Wednesday rejected Apple's claim of false advertising for Amazon.com to refer to its online shop for mobile gadget applications as an "app store."
"Apple has failed to establish that Amazon made any false statement of fact that actually deceived or had the tendency to deceive a substantial segment of its audience," US District Judge Phyllis Hamilton said in her ruling.
"The mere use of 'Appstore' by Amazon to designate a site for viewing and downloading/purchasing apps cannot be construed as a representation that the nature, characteristics, or quality of the Amazon Appstore is the same as that of the Apple App Store."
Apple in 2008 launched its App Store, which is stocked with mini-programs for iPhones, iPads, and iPod touch devices.
Amazon in late 2011 opened its "Appstore," which sells applications tailored for Android-powered mobile devices for the Seattle, Washington-based retail giant's Kindle Fire tablets.
Apple sued Amazon, claiming its rival was engaging in false advertising as well as trademark infringement.
US officials are still considering Apple's application to trademark the term "App Store," but that did not deter the company from pressing its case in Hamilton's courtroom in the California city of Oakland.
Software titan Microsoft is among the companies that have weighed in against letting the Cupertino, California, company have a trademark giving it the exclusive right to call a mobile applications market an "app store."
New information from Web analytics firm Experian Hitwise suggests Instagram has recovered nicely from a seemingly disastrous privacy policy uproar last month.
For the 15 days since December 18, Instagram.com received more than 41.7 million total U.S. visits, an increase of 18 percent compared with the 15 days prior to the controversial proposed policy changes. The data was provided to CNET by Experian Marketing Services on request.
"The holidays see a spike in traffic as people are sharing more pictures than perhaps normal," Experian Marketing Services spokesman Matt Tatham told CNET, adding that the data doesn't include mobile traffic.
Facebook declined to provide official data or comment on this story.
Instagram members were alarmed in mid December when the Facebook-owned property announced it would include new language in its terms of service. The ambiguous language additions led many to believe that Instagram would be allowed to sell members' photos without their permission and without payment. The proposed changes set off a ruckus so loud that many users, influential celebrities included, said they'd be deleting their accounts.
Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom responded by assuring members that their photos would not be sold, and he apologized for the confusion. The offending language has since been removed -- with Instagram reverting to its 2010 terms of service just before the holiday season kicked in -- but the damage was done, according to a widely circulated New York Post article claiming an Instagram exodus was in effect. That story cited third-party data from AppData -- which tracks Instagram users who log on through Facebook -- that showed a decline of close to 25 percent of the app's daily active users. An Instagram representative told CNET that the data was inaccurate.
If Instagram's Web traffic is any indicator, the photo-sharing app is weathering its privacy storm quite nicely, likely with the holidays to thank for its buoyancy. The 18 percent uptick in Web traffic is not reflective of user growth or indicative of any changes on mobile; it may represent nothing more than normal holiday fluctuations in sharing behaviors. Still, the 41.7 million visits Instagram accrued during the past 15 days speak to the continued relevance and growing footprint of a service that many turn to for sharing their most intimate moments.
ABIDJAN, Ivory CoastA crowd stampeded after leaving a New Year's fireworks show early Tuesday in Ivory Coast's main city, killing 61 people — many of them children and teenagers — and injuring more than 200, rescue workers said.
Thousands had gathered at the Felix Houphouet Boigny Stadium in Abidjan's Plateau district to see the fireworks. It was only the second New Year's Eve fireworks display since peace returned to this West African nation after a bloody upheaval over presidential elections put the nation on the brink of civil war and turned this city into a battle zone.
With 2013 showing greater promise, people were in the mood to celebrate on New Year's Eve. Families brought children and they watched the rockets burst in the nighttime sky. But only an hour into the new year, as the crowds poured onto the Boulevard de la Republic after the show, something caused a stampede, said Col. Issa Sako of the fire department rescue team. How so many deaths occurred on the broad boulevard and how the tragedy started is likely to be the subject of an investigation.
Many of the younger ones in the crowd went down, trampled underfoot. Most of those killed were between 8 and 15 years old
"The flood of people leaving the stadium became a stampede which led to the deaths of more than 60 and injured more than 200," Sako told Ivory Coast state TV.
Desperate parents went to the city morgue, the hospital and to the stadium to try to find missing children. Mamadou Sanogo was searching for his 9-year-old son, Sayed.
"I have just seen all the bodies, but I cannot find my son," said a tearful Sanogo. "I don't know what to do."
State TV showed a woman sobbing in the back of an ambulance; another was bent over on the side of the street, apparently in pain; and another, barely conscious and wearing only a bra on her upper body, was hoisted by rescuers. There were also scenes of small children being treated in a hospital. One boy grimaced in pain and a girl with colored braids in her hair lay under a blanket with one hand bandaged. The death toll could rise, officials said.
After the sun came up, soldiers were patrolling the site that was littered with victims' clothes, shoes, torn sandals and other belongings. President Alassane Ouattara and his wife Dominique visited some of the injured in the hospital. Mrs. Ouattara leaned over one child who was on a bed in a crowded hospital ward and tried to console the youngster. The president pledged that the government would pay for their treatment, his office said.
The government organized the fireworks to celebrate Ivory Coast's peace, after several months of political violence in early 2011 following disputed elections.
This is not Ivory Coast's first stadium tragedy. In 2009, 22 people died and over 130 were injured in a stampede at a World Cup qualifying match at the Houphouet Boigny Stadium, prompting FIFA, soccer's global governing body, to impose a fine of tens of thousands of dollars on Ivory Coast's soccer federation. The stadium, which officially holds 35,000, was overcrowded at the time of the disaster.
A year later, two people were killed and 30 wounded in a stampede at a municipal stadium during a reggae concert in Bouake, the country's second-largest city. The concert was organized in the city, held by rebels at the time, to promote peace and reconciliation.
Ivory Coast is the world's largest cocoa producer, growing more than 37 percent of the world's annual crop of cocoa beans, which are used to make chocolate.
Top House Republicans today opposed a bipartisan compromise that passed the Senate in the wee hours of New Year's Day to avert the "fiscal cliff," amid concerns about the cost of spending and extending tax cuts in the plan.
If House Republicans tweak the legislation, as they seem likely to do, there's no clear path for its return to the Senate before a new Congress is sworn in Thursday.
GOP leaders emerged from a morning conference meeting disenchanted by the legislative package devised by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Vice President Biden early this morning, with several insisting they cannot vote on it as it now stands.
"I do not support the bill," House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., said as he left the meeting. "We're looking for the best path forward. No decisions have been made yet."
It's almost certain that Republicans will attempt to amend the bill in order to win over the support of more conservatives.
House Speaker John Boehner refused to comment on the meeting, but his spokesman said "the lack of spending cuts in the Senate bill was a universal concern amongst members in today's meeting."
"Conversations with members will continue throughout the afternoon on the path forward," Brendan Buck said in a statement.
As lawmakers wrestled with the legislation, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that the bill's added spending combined with the cost of extending tax cuts for those making under $400,000 would actually add $3.9 trillion to the deficit over the next 10 years. The Joint Committee on Taxation reached a similar conclusion.
Bill Clark/Roll Call/Getty Images
Fiscal Cliff Countdown: Missing the Deadline Watch Video
Obama on Fiscal Cliff: 'Agreement Within Sight' Watch Video
The impasse once again raised the specter of sweeping tax hikes on all Americans and deep spending cuts' taking effect later this week.
"This is all about time, and it's about time that we brought this to the floor," House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said after emerging from a meeting with Democrats.
"It was a bill that was passed in the U.S. senate 89-8. Tell me when you've had that on a measure as controversial as this?" she said of the overwhelming vote.
Pelosi could not say, however, whether the measure had the backing of most House Democrats. "Our members are making their decisions now," she said.
Biden, who brokered the deal with McConnell, joined Democrats for a midday meeting on Capitol Hill seeking to shore up support for the plan.
While Congress technically missed the midnight Dec. 31 deadline to avert the so-called cliff, both sides have expressed eagerness to enact a post-facto fix before Americans go back to work and the stock market opens Wednesday.
"This may take a little while but, honestly, I would argue we should vote on it today," said Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., who sits on the Budget Committee. "We know the essential details and I think putting this thing to bed before the markets is important.
"We ought to take this deal right now and we'll live to fight another day, and it is coming very soon on the spending front."
The Senate passed legislation shortly after 2 a.m. that would extend current tax rates on 98 percent of Americans, raise taxes on the wealthiest earners and delay by two months the pending automatic spending cuts to defense and domestic programs, known as the "sequester."
The measure passed by an overwhelming majority vote of 89-8, boosting the prospects that enough House members would follow suit to make it law.
If the House amends the bill, however, the fragile compromise could get shattered. The Senate would need to reconvene to consider the changes.
A Senate Democratic leadership aide told ABC News, "we did our work, and McConnell's office said they were confident of House passage. All bets are off if they amend our bill."
Meanwhile, most Senators have already returned home, dismissed early this morning by Majority Leader Sen. Harry Reid.
"I've said all along our most important priority is protecting middle-class Americans, this legislation does that," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said early this morning prior to the vote.
ABIDJAN (Reuters) - At least 61 people were crushed to death in a stampede after a New Year's Eve fireworks display at a stadium in Ivory Coast's main city Abidjan early on Tuesday, officials said.
Witnesses said police had tried to control crowds around the Felix Houphouet-Boigny Stadium following the celebrations, triggering a panic in which scores were trampled.
"The estimate we can give right now is 49 people hospitalized ... and 61 people dead," said the chief of staff of Abidjan's fire department Issa Sacko.
Crying women searched for missing family members outside the stadium on Tuesday morning. The area was covered in patches of dried blood and abandoned shoes.
"My two children came here yesterday. I told them not to come but they didn't listen. They came when I was sleeping. What will I do?" said Assetou Toure, a cleaner.
Sanata Zoure, a market vendor injured in the incident, said New Year's revelers going home after watching the fireworks had been stopped by police near the stadium.
"We were walking with our children and we came upon barricades, and people started falling into each other. We were trampled with our children," she said.
Another witness said police arrived to control the crowd after a mob began chasing a pickpocket.
President Alassane Ouattara called the deaths a national tragedy and said an investigation was under way to find out what happened.
"I hope that we can determine what caused this drama so that we can ensure it never happens again," he said after visiting the injured in hospital.
The country, once a stable economic hub for West Africa, is struggling to recover from a 2011 civil war in which more than 3,000 people were killed.
Ivory Coast's security forces once were among the best trained in the region, but a decade of political turmoil and the 2011 war has left them in disarray.
At least 18 people were killed in another stampede during a football match in an Abidjan stadium in 2009.
(Reporting by Loucoumane Coulibaly and Alain Amontchi; Writing by Richard Valdmanis; Editing by Michael Roddy)
KARACHI: A motorcycle bomb exploded Tuesday near the venue of a major political rally in Pakistan's largest city Karachi, killing four people and injuring 42 others, officials said.
The bombing appeared to be targeted at buses carrying supporters of the city's dominant political party, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), which organised the rally attended by thousands of people.
"The latest report we have collected from hospitals said that four people have been killed and 42 are injured," provincial health minister Saghir Ahmad told AFP, updating the earlier toll of two dead and 25 injured.
Another health official at Karachi's Abbasi Shaheed hospital confirmed the new toll.
"The bomb was planted in a motorcycle," said Asif Ijaz, a senior police official.
Imran Shokat, a police spokesman in the southern Sindh province of which Karachi is the capital, said the motorcycle was parked in a congested neighbourhood near the venue of the rally.
"Bomb disposal experts are investigating but preliminary reports said it was a remote-controlled bomb," Shokat told AFP.
Karachi, the commercial capital of Pakistan with an estimated population of 18 million, is in the grip of a long-running wave of political and sectarian violence.
Its Arabian Sea port is used by the United States and NATO to ship supplies to the war in neighbouring, landlocked Afghanistan.
(Credit: Apple Screenshot by Chris Matyszczyk/CNET)
However walled your garden, rodents still pad around, cockroaches still shuffle.
One can only, therefore, feel sympathy for Apple's new ad for the iPhone 5.
It features the mysterious and wonderful Williams sisters. They are in a dream. They are playing the dreamy Jeff Daniels at ping-pong.
And yet the ad also features the phone's "Do Not Disturb" feature, which users can switch on to silence in-coming calls, alerts, and notifications, or set up to perform such silencing during a preordained period of time. And who would want to be disturbed during such a high-level game of table tennis?
The slightly unfortunate aspect is that, as 9to5Mac glumly recognizes, there were reports overnight that this feature did actually disturb.
By not switching itself off.
The forums at MacRumors, for example, were adorned by iPhone users mystified that they had missed vital events such as, who knows, an invitation to a spontaneous brunch or a call informing them they had removed their pants in public last night.
More Technically Incorrect
The problems was reported in Spain, Australia, and even the home of all things current and disturbing, Brooklyn.
I have contacted Apple to see whether this has been noticed by the company and whether this might be mere operator error or something more disturbing.
There will be some who, excited by the slight disturbance over Apple's maps -- not to mention last year's alarm-clock stumble apparently also caused by the New Year rollover -- will be snorting that this is another example of Cupertino's imperfection.
They will sniff in jest that all these people must have been holding their iPhones wrong when they set them not to disturb.
I prefer to imagine that this is all the work of Siri.
She knew what each of these iPhone owners had been through and done on New Year's Eve.
She just wanted to offer them extra rest before reality knocked upon their foreheads and muttered: "Have you any idea what you put in your ear last night?"
LAKE FOREST, Ill. The Chicago Bears fired coach Lovie Smith on Monday after the team missed the playoffs for the fifth time in six seasons.
Smith was informed of the decision by general manager Phil Emery on the day after the Bears beat Detroit to finish 10-6 but still didn't make the playoffs.
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NFL coaches, GMs sacked in firing frenzy
Smith led the Bears to a Super Bowl, but also saw his team collapse in the second half of the past two seasons. Hired in 2004, Smith led the Bears to three division titles, two NFC title games and a 2007 Super Bowl appearance in his nine seasons. His record is 81-63, and he leaves with one year left on his contract.
The Bears scheduled a news conference Tuesday to discuss the move.
Even though Chicago closed with a win, the Bears needed a loss by Minnesota to get into the playoffs. The Vikings, though, beat Green Bay to clinch a postseason spot, leaving Chicago as the second team since the postseason expanded to 12 teams to miss out after a 7-1 start. The other was Washington in 1996.
CBS Sports NFL Insider Jason La Canfora reported Sunday that Smith's tenuous hold on his job "would be further imperiled should his team fail to get into the postseason."
But Smith, who had one year remaining on his current deal, shouldn't have any trouble finding work. League sources told La Canfora that Smith should land head-coaching interviews with other NFL teams.
Smith's record ranks third on the Bears' all-time list, behind George Halas and Mike Ditka.
The highlight of his tenure was the run to the title game that ended with a loss to the Indianapolis Colts. It was the first time two black coaches met for the championship, with Smith going against his mentor Tony Dungy.
The Bears made the playoffs just three times and posted three postseason victories under Smith. The 2010 team beat Seattle after the Seahawks won their division with a 7-9 record, but the Bears lost to Green Bay in the NFC title game at Soldier Field.
There was speculation Smith would be let go following the 2011 team's collapse, but he got one more year while general manager Jerry Angelo was fired.
Ultimately, the struggles on offense did him in.
Known for solid defenses, Smith oversaw a unit that was consistently effective and at times ranked among the league's best with stars such as Brian Urlacher, Lance Briggs and later Julius Peppers. Smith emphasized taking the ball away from the opposition, and no team did it more than the Bears with 310 during his tenure.
But on the other side, it was a different story.
Smith went through four offensive coordinators in Terry Shea, Ron Turner, Mike Martz and Mike Tice. He never could find the right formula, even as the Bears acquired stars such as quarterback Jay Cutler and receiver Brandon Marshall over the years.
The offensive line has struggled in a big way over the past few seasons after age took its toll on a group that was a strength during the 2005 and 2006 playoff seasons. The Bears were never able to replenish, spending first-round picks on Chris Williams (2008) and Gabe Carimi (2011) that did not pan out.
Williams had his contract terminated in October, ending a disappointing run, and Carimi struggled this season after missing most of his rookie year with a knee injury.
While Angelo took the fall after last season, Smith was not without blame in the personnel issues over the years. He pushed to bring in former Rams offensive lineman Orlando Pace and safety Adam Archuleta, players who succeeded in St. Louis when Smith was the defensive coordinator there but were busts with the Bears.
He had no bigger supporter than team matriarch Virginia McCaskey, but the fans seemed split on him. To some, he was a picture of calm, a coach who never lost his composure and never criticized his players in public, the anti-Ditka if you will.
History suggests fans who are clamoring for a high-profile replacement such as Bill Cowher or Jon Gruden might be disappointed. The last time the Bears went with an experienced NFL head coach was when Halas returned to the sideline in 1958.
They might, however, go with an offensive-minded coach for the first time since Mike Ditka was fired after the 1992 season, given the issues in that area.
That the Bears would be in this spot seemed unthinkable after they ripped Tennessee 51-20 on Nov. 4. They were sailing along at 7-1 and eyeing a big playoff run after collapsing the previous season, with the defense taking the ball away and scoring at an eye-opening rate to compensate for a struggling offense, but the schedule took a tougher turn.
They dropped back-to-back games to Houston and San Francisco and five of six in all before closing out with wins at Arizona and Detroit. Injuries mounted along the way, and what looked like a playoff run slipped from their grasp, just as it did after a promising start in 2011.
That year, they won seven of their first 10 only to wind up at 8-8 after a monumental collapse sparked by a season-ending injury to Cutler.
While Angelo was fired, Smith got spared and Emery took the job with a mandate to keep the coach at least one more year.
He quickly went to work retooling the roster, landing Marshall in a blockbuster trade with Miami that reunited Cutler with his favorite target in Denver.
He also added depth in other areas, bringing in Jason Campbell as the backup quarterback after Caleb Hanie failed the previous season and teaming running back Michael Bush in the backfield with Matt Forte.
All those moves sent expectations soaring. The results were awfully familiar, though.
Hillary Clinton's latest health update -- cerebral venous thrombosis -- is a rare and potentially "life-threatening" condition, according to medical experts, but one from which the globe-trotting secretary of state is likely to recover from.
In an update from her doctors, Clinton's brain scans revealed a clot had formed in the right transverse venous sinus, and she was being successfully treated with anticoagulants.
"She is lucky being Hillary Clinton and had a follow-up MRI -- lucky that her team thought to do it," said Dr. Brian D. Greenwald, medical director at JFK Johnson Rehabilitation Center for Head Injuries. "It could have potentially serious complications."
The backup of blood flow could have caused a stroke or hemorrhage, according to Greenwald.
"Imagine this vein, where all the cerebral spinal fluid inside the head and spine no longer flows through this area," he said. "You get a big back up and that itself could cause a stroke. In the long-term … the venous system can't get the blood out of the brain. It's like a Lincoln Tunnel back up."
A transverse sinus thrombosis is a clot arising in one of the major veins that drains the brain. It is an uncommon but serious disorder.
Morne de Klerk/Getty Images
Hillary Clinton Has Blood Clot From Concussion Watch Video
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According to Greenwald, the clot was most likely caused by dehydration brought on by the flu, perhaps exacerbated by a concussion she recently suffered.
"The only time I have seen it happen is when people are severely dehydrated and it causes the blood to be so thick that it causes a clot in the area," said Greenwald. "It's one of the long-term effects of a viral illness."
Drs. Lisa Bardack of the Mt. Kisco Medical Group and Dr. Gigi El-Bayoumi of George Washington University discovered the clot during a routine follow-up MRI on Sunday.
"This is a clot in the vein that is situated in the space between the brain and the skull behind the right ear," they said in a statement today. "It did not result in a stroke, or neurological damage. To help dissolve this clot, her medical team began treating the secretary with blood thinners. She will be released once the medication dose has been established."
Clinton is "making excellent progress," according to her doctors. "She is in good spirits, engaging with her doctors, her family, and her staff."
Clinton, 65, was hospitalized at New York-Presbyterian Hospital Sunday. She suffered a concussion earlier this month after she hit her head when she fainted because of dehydration from a stomach virus, according to an aide.
Dehydration can also precipitate fainting, according to Dr. Neil Martin, head of neurovascular surgery at University of California, Los Angeles Medical Center.
He agreed that the condition could potentially have caused a brain hemorrhage or stroke and been fatal.
"In patients with no symptoms after many days, full recovery is the norm," said Martin. "However, some cases show extension of the thrombus or clot into other regions of the cerebral venous sinuses, and this can worsen the situation considerably -- thus the use of anticoagulants to prevent extension of the thrombus."
But, he said, anticoagulants can be a "double-edged sword." With even a tiny injury within the brain from the concussion, these medications can cause "symptomatic bleed," such as a subdural or intracerebral hemorrhage.
The clot location is not related to the nasal sinuses, but are rather large venous structures in the dura or protective membrane covering the brain, which drains blood from the brain.
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - At least 23 people were killed and 87 wounded in attacks across Iraq on Monday, police said, underlining sectarian and ethnic divisions that threaten to further destabilize the country a year after U.S. troops left.
Tensions between Shi'ite, Kurdish and Sunni factions in Iraq's power-sharing government have been on the rise this year. Militants strike almost daily and have staged at least one big attack a month.
The latest violence followed more than a week of protests against Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki by thousands of people from the minority Sunni community.
No group claimed responsibility for any of Monday's attacks, which targeted government officials, police patrols and members of both the Sunni and Shi'ite communities.
Seven people from the same Sunni family were killed by a bomb planted near their home in the town of Mussayab, south of Baghdad.
In the Shi'ite majority city of Hilla, also in the south, a parked car bomb went off near the convoy of the governor of Babil province, missing him but killing two other people, police said.
"We heard the sound of a big explosion and the windows of our office shattered. We immediately lay on the ground," said 28-year-old Mohammed Ahmed, who works at a hospital near the site of the explosion.
"After a few minutes I stood up and went to the windows to see what happened. I saw flames and people lying on the ground."
In the capital Baghdad, five people were killed by a parked car bomb targeting pilgrims before a Shi'ite religious rite this week, police and hospital sources said.
Although violence is far lower than during the sectarian slaughter of 2006-2007, about 2,000 people have been killed in Iraq this year following the withdrawal last December of U.S. troops, who led an invasion in 2003 to overthrow Sunni dictator Saddam Hussein.
SUNNIS PROTEST
Violence also hit Iraq's disputed territories, over which both the central government and the autonomous Kurdish region claim jurisdiction.
Three militants and one Kurdish guard were killed in the oil-producing, ethnically mixed city of Kirkuk, where militants driving a car packed with explosives tried to break into a Kurdish security office.
Earlier on Monday, two policemen were killed in Kirkuk when a bomb they were trying to detonate exploded prematurely. An army official and his bodyguard were also killed in a drive-by shooting in the south of the city.
Kirkuk lies at the heart of a feud between Baghdad and Kurdistan over land and oil rights, which escalated last month when both sides deployed their respective armies to the swath of territory along their contested internal boundary.
Efforts to ease the standoff stalled when President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd seen as a steadying influence, suffered a stroke and was flown abroad for medical care in December.
Maliki then detained the bodyguards of his Sunni finance minister, which ignited anti-government protests in the western province of Anbar, a Sunni stronghold on the border with Syria.
A lecturer in law at Baghdad University said the protests could help create the conditions for militant Islamist groups like al Qaeda to thrive.
"Raising tension in Anbar and other provinces with mainly Sunni populations is definitely playing into the hands of al Qaeda and other insurgent groups," Ahmed Younis said.
More than 1,000 people protested in the city of Samarra on Monday and rallies continued in Ramadi, center of the protests, and in Mosul, where about 500 people took to the streets.
In the city of Falluja, where protesters have also staged large rallies and blocked a major highway over the past week, gunmen attacked an army checkpoint, killing one soldier.
Protesters are demanding an end to what they see as the marginalization of Sunnis, who dominated the country until the U.S.-led invasion. They want Maliki to abolish anti-terrorism laws they say are used to persecute them.
On Sunday, Deputy Prime Minister Saleh al-Mutlaq, himself a Sunni, was forced to flee a protest in Ramadi when demonstrators pelted him with stones and bottles.
The civil war in neighboring Syria, where majority Sunnis are fighting to topple a ruler backed by Shi'ite Iran, is also whipping up sectarian sentiment in Iraq.
"The toppling of President Bashar al-Assad and empowerment of Sunnis (in Syria) will definitely encourage al Qaeda to regain ground," Younis said.
(Reporting by Ali al-Rubaie in Hilla, Mustafa Mahmoud and Omar Mohammed in Kirkuk, Ali Mohammed in Baquba and Ahmed Rasheed and Aseel Kami in Baghdad; Writing by Isabel Coles; Editing by Alison Williams)
WASHINGTON: The US Treasury said the country would hit its debt ceiling on Monday as expected, forcing it to take measures to keep funding the government while political leaders battle over the deficit.
The Treasury said it would adjust its handling of civil service pension fund assets to be able to keep operating under the $16.394 trillion borrowing limit without slashing federal spending, suggesting it could do this for at least two months.
"We will reach the statutory debt limit today," a Treasury official told reporters.
In an official letter to Congress, the Treasury detailed the extraordinary measures it would undertake to keep the government afloat, which would last to February 28, 2013.
The statement came as Democrats and Republicans continued to joust over measures to correct the country's deep deficit, with a last-minute deal in the works late Monday to avert the steep tax increases of the fiscal cliff.
But the deal appeared not to include any increase in the congressionally-mandated official debt ceiling, as President Barack Obama had demanded.
That left open the possibility of another showdown like that of July 2011 over how to bridge the fiscal deficit and reduce the debt load.
The brinksmanship over the ceiling last year led to Standard & Poor's cutting the US's top-level AAA credit rating for the first time in history, putting it at AA+ with a "negative" outlook.
On Friday S&P said that any deal to fix the fiscal cliff package of economy-crunching tax hikes and spending cuts would not help the country's credit rating.
In 2011, S&P said, its downgrade was rooted in "the political brinkmanship of recent months (that) highlights what we see as America's governance and policymaking becoming less stable, less effective, and less predictable".
"We believe that this characterisation still holds," it said Friday.
