Android-powered Ouya console now shipping to 1,200 developers [video]

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Fans to introduce Beyonce at Super Bowl halftime

NEW YORK (AP) — All the single ladies — and fellas — will have a chance to join Beyonce on the field at the Super Bowl.

Pepsi announced Friday that fans will introduce the Grammy-winning diva when she takes the stage Feb. 3 at New Orleans’ Mercedes-Benz Superdome. A contest that kicks off Saturday will allow fans to submit photos of themselves in various poses, including head bopping, feet tapping and hip shaking. Those pictures will be used in a TV ad to air ahead of Beyonce’s halftime performance, and 50 of those who submit photos — along with a friend — will be selected to introduce the singer.

Photo contest details are at www.pepsi.com/halftime . The contest ends Jan. 19, but Jan. 11 is the cutoff date for those interested in introducing Beyonce.

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India gang rape victim dies in Singapore hospital

SINGAPORE/NEW DELHI (Reuters) – An Indian woman whose gang rape in New Delhi triggered violent protests died of her injuries on Saturday in a Singapore hospital, bringing a security lockdown in Delhi and recognition from India‘s prime minister that social change is needed.

The Indian capital braced for a new wave of protests, closing metro stations and banning vehicles from the city centre district where young activists had converged to demand improved women’s rights. The news came in the early hours of the morning in India and there were no signs of protests as morning broke.

The 23-year-old medical student, severely beaten, raped and thrown out of a moving bus in New Delhi two weeks ago, had been flown to Singapore in a critical condition by the Indian government on Thursday for specialist treatment.

“We are very sad to report that the patient passed away peacefully at 4:45 a.m. on Dec 29, 2012 (2045 GMT Friday). Her family and officials from the High Commission (embassy) of India were by her side,” Mount Elizabeth Hospital Chief Executive Officer Kelvin Loh said in a statement.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said in a statement he was deeply saddened by the death and described the emotions associated with her case as “perfectly understandable reactions from a young India and an India that genuinely desires change.

“It would be a true homage to her memory if we are able to channelize these emotions and energies into a constructive course of action.”

Delhi‘s Chief Minister, Sheila Dikshit, expressed revulsion.

“It is a shameful moment for me not just as a chief minister but also as a citizen of this country,” she said.

The woman, who has not been identified, and a male friend were returning home from the cinema by bus on the evening of December 16 when, media reports say, six men on the bus beat them with metal rods and repeatedly raped the woman. The reports say a rod was used in the rape, causing internal injuries. Both were thrown from the bus. The male friend survived the attack.

Singh’s government has been battling criticism that it was tone-deaf to the outcry that followed the attack and was heavy handed in its response to the protests in the Indian capital.

Most rapes and other sex crimes in India go unreported and offenders are rarely punished, women’s rights activists say. But the brutality of the December 16 assault sparked public outrage and calls for better policing and harsher punishment for rapists.

VEHICLES BARRED FROM DELHI CITY CENTRE

T.C.A. Raghavan, the Indian High Commissioner to Singapore, told reporters hours after the woman’s death that a chartered aircraft would fly her body back to India on Saturday, along with members of her family. The woman’s body had earlier been loaded into a van at the hospital and driven away.

In New Delhi, the Joint Commissioner of Traffic Police, Satyendra Garg, told NDTV news channel that residents and commuters were advised to avoid the city centre.

The case has received blanket coverage on cable television news channels. Some Indian media have called the woman “Amanat”, an Urdu word meaning “treasure”.

Talking to reporters earlier on Saturday, Raghavan declined to comment on Indian media reports accusing the government of sending her to Singapore to minimize the possible backlash in the event of her death.

Some Indian medical experts had questioned the decision to airlift the woman to Singapore, calling it a risky maneuver given the seriousness of her injuries. They had said she was already receiving the best possible care in India.

But Dr B.D. Athani, medical superintendent of the New Delhi hospital where she had initially been treated, told Indian television the intention was to give the victim the best chance of surviving in what he described as “an extreme case”.

“Her condition was very critical from day one. We had managed what best we could do at our end … she had to be shifted to a centre with much better facilities.”

On Friday, the Singapore hospital had said the woman’s condition had taken a turn for the worse. It said she had suffered “significant brain injury”. She had already undergone three abdominal operations before arriving in Singapore.

The suspects in the rape – five men aged between 20 and 40, and a juvenile – were arrested within hours of the attack and are in custody. Media reports say they are likely to be formally charged with murder next week.

Commentators and sociologists say the rape tapped into a deep well of frustration many Indians feel over what they see as weak governance and poor leadership on social and economic issues.

Many protesters have complained that Singh’s government has done little to curb the abuse of women in the country of 1.2 billion. A global poll by the Thomson Reuters Foundation in June found that India was the worst place to be a woman because of high rates of infanticide, child marriage and slavery.

New Delhi has the highest number of sex crimes among India’s major cities, with a rape reported on average every 18 hours, according to police figures. Government data show the number of reported rape cases in the country rose by nearly 17 percent between 2007 and 2011.

(Additional reporting by Ross Colvin and Devidutta Tripathy in New Delhi; Saeed Azhar, Edgar Su and Sanjeev Miglani in Singapore; Editing by Michael Roddy, Ron Popeski and Mark Bendeich)

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Obama ‘optimistic’ Senate leaders will reach fiscal cliff deal this weekend

(Reuters/Jonathan Ernst)

Following talks with congressional leaders that yielded no news of  a "fiscal cliff" agreement, President Barack Obama on Friday evening pressured lawmakers to reach a deal this weekend as the public's patience wears thin.

"America wonders why it is that in this town for some reason they can't get stuff done in an organized timetable, why everything always has to wait for the last minute," Obama said during a statement delivered in the White House briefing room. "The American people are not going to have any patience for a politically self-inflicted wound to our economy, not right now."

The president confirmed that following his Friday afternoon meeting with congressional leaders, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell have been tasked to reach an agreement to reduce the deficit and avoid the "fiscal cliff"—automatic spending cuts and tax increases set to go into effect Jan. 1.

But in the absence of a deal, Obama said he will "urge" Reid to "bring to the floor a basic package for an up-or-down vote" that would increase taxes on households earning more than $250,000, extend unemployment insurance and disarm a sequestration—provisions the president has supported.

But Republicans have been rejecting any tax increases, even for the wealthiest earners.

"If members of the House or Senate want to vote 'no,' they can," Obama said of his plan. "But we should let everybody vote. That's the way this is supposed to work."

The president referred to Friday's meeting, which also included House Speaker John Boehner, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Vice President Joe Biden and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, as "good and constructive" and said he remained "modestly optimistic" about Congress' ability to reach a deal.

But he blamed Congress for the 11th-hour holdup.

"The economy is growing, but sustaining that trend is going to require elected officials to do their jobs," Obama said.

No details on the proposals offered Friday were released by the White House or the lawmakers present.

According to a readout from the speaker's office, Boehner began the meeting by reminding those gathered "that the House has already acted to avert the entire fiscal cliff and is awaiting Senate action." Plan options were discussed and the speaker said the House will consider Senate-amended, House-passed legislation.

Following the meeting, McConnell said on the Senate floor that he was "hopeful and optimistic" about a deal.

"We had a good meeting down at the White House. We are engaged in discussions—the majority leader and myself and the White House—in the hopes that we can come forward as early as Sunday and have a recommendation that I can make to my conference and the majority leader can make to his conference," McConnell said. "And so we’ll be working hard to try to see if we can get there in the next 24 hours."

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China tightening controls on Internet

BEIJING (AP) — China‘s new communist leaders are increasing already tight controls on Internet use and electronic publishing following a spate of embarrassing online reports about official abuses.

The measures suggest China’s new leader, Xi Jinping, and others who took power in November share their predecessors’ anxiety about the Internet’s potential to spread opposition to one-party rule and their insistence on controlling information despite promises of more economic reforms.

“They are still very paranoid about the potentially destabilizing effect of the Internet,” said Willy Lam, a politics specialist at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. “They are on the point of losing a monopoly on information, but they still are very eager to control the dissemination of views.”

This week, China’s legislature took up a measure to require Internet users to register their real names, a move that would curtail the Web’s status as a freewheeling forum to complain, often anonymously, about corruption and official abuses. The legislature scheduled a news conference Friday to discuss the measure, suggesting it was expected to be approved.

That comes amid reports Beijing might be disrupting use of software that allows Web surfers to see sites abroad that are blocked by its extensive Internet filters. At the same time, regulators have proposed rules that would bar foreign companies from distributing books, news, music and other material online in China.

Beijing promotes Internet use for business and education but bans material deemed subversive or obscene and blocks access to foreign websites run by human rights and Tibet activists and some news outlets. Controls were tightened after social media played a role in protests that brought down governments in Egypt and Tunisia.

In a reminder of the Web’s role as a political forum, a group of 70 prominent Chinese scholars and lawyers circulated an online petition this week appealing for free speech, independent courts and for the ruling party to encourage private enterprise.

Xi and others on the party’s ruling seven-member Standing Committee have tried to promote an image of themselves as men of the people who care about China’s poor majority. They have promised to press ahead with market-oriented reforms and to support entrepreneurs but have given no sign of support for political reform.

Communist leaders who see the Internet as a source of economic growth and better-paid jobs were slow to enforce the same level of control they impose on movies, books and other media, apparently for fear of hurting fledgling entertainment, shopping and other online businesses.

Until recently, Web surfers could post comments online or on microblog services without leaving their names.

That gave ordinary Chinese a unique opportunity to express themselves to a public audience in a society where newspapers, television and other media are state-controlled. The most popular microblog services say they have more than 300 million users and some users have millions of followers reading their comments.

The Internet also has given the public an unusual opportunity to publicize accusations of official misconduct.

A local party official in China’s southwest was fired in November after scenes from a videotape of him having sex with a young woman spread quickly on the Internet. Screenshots were uploaded by a former journalist in Beijing, Zhu Ruifeng, to his Hong Kong website, an online clearing house for corruption allegations.

Some industry analysts suggest allowing Web surfers in a controlled setting to vent helps communist leaders stay abreast of public sentiment in their fast-changing society. Still, microblog services and online bulletin boards are required to employ censors to enforce content restrictions. Researchers say they delete millions of postings a day.

The government says the latest Internet regulation before the National People’s Congress is aimed at protecting Web surfers’ personal information and cracking down on abuses such as junk e-mail. It would require users to report their real names to Internet service and telecom providers.

The main ruling party newspaper, People’s Daily, has called in recent weeks for tighter Internet controls, saying rumors spread online have harmed the public. In one case, it said stories about a chemical plant explosion resulted in the deaths of four people in a car accident as they fled the area.

Proposed rules released this month by the General Administration of Press and Publications would bar Chinese-foreign joint ventures from publishing books, music, movies and other material online in China. Publishers would be required to locate their servers in China and have a Chinese citizen as their local legal representative.

That is in line with rules that already bar most foreign access to China’s media market, but the decision to group the restrictions together and publicize them might indicate official attitudes are hardening.

That comes after the party was rattled by foreign news reports about official wealth and misconduct.

In June, Bloomberg News reported that Xi’s extended family has amassed assets totaling $ 376 million, though it said none was traced to Xi. The government has blocked access to Bloomberg’s website since then.

In October, The New York Times reported that Premier Wen Jiabao’s relatives had amassed $ 2.7 billion since he rose to national office in 2002. Access to the Times’ Chinese-language site has been blocked since then.

Previous efforts to tighten controls have struggled with technical challenges in a country with more than 500 million Internet users.

Microblog operators such as Sina Corp. and Tencent Ltd. were ordered in late 2011 to confirm users’ names but have yet to finish the daunting task.

Web surfers can circumvent government filters by using virtual private networks — software that encrypts Web traffic and is used by companies to transfer financial data and other sensitive information. But VPN users say disruptions that began in 2011 are increasing, suggesting Chinese regulators are trying to block encrypted traffic.

Curbs on access to foreign sites have prompted complaints by companies and Chinese scientists and other researchers.

In July, the American Chamber of Commerce in China said 74 percent of companies that responded to a survey said unstable Internet access “impedes their ability to do business.”

Chinese leaders “realize there are detrimental impacts on business, especially foreign business, but they have counted the cost and think it is still worthwhile,” said Lam. “There is no compromise about the political imperative of controlling the Internet.”

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Leaked BlackBerry 10 slides show video calling and screen sharing for BBM

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Stallone did not copy screenplay for “The Expendables”: judge

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A federal judge has reaffirmed his decision to dismiss a lawsuit accusing actor Sylvester Stallone of copying someone else’s screenplay to make his popular 2010 movie “The Expendables.”

U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff in Manhattan on Thursday rejected claims of copyright infringement damages by Marcus Webb, who contended that the movie’s screenplay contained 20 “striking similarities” to his own “The Cordoba Caper.”

Webb claimed that both works had similar plots, and involved hired mercenaries in a Latin American country that was home to a villain dictator named General Garza.

But Rakoff said no reasonable juror could find that the works were so similar as to eliminate the possibility that Stallone crafted his screenplay on his own.

Not even the general’s name was an automatic red flag, Rakoff said, writing that “Garza” was the 34th most common Hispanic nickname in the United States.

“The court has carefully examined the entire litany of plaintiff’s proffered ‘striking similarities’ and finds none of them remotely striking or legally sufficient,” Rakoff wrote. “These are two very different screenplays built on a familiar theme: mercenaries taking on a Latin American dictator.”

Other defendants in the case included Nu Image Films, which produced the movie, and Lions Gate Entertainment Corp, which distributed the movie in the United States.

Lawyers for Webb did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

“The Expendables” was released in August 2010, and featured other older action stars like Jet Li and Arnold Schwarzenegger. A sequel, “The Expendables 2,” was released in August 2012.

In June, Rakoff decided to dismiss Webb’s case [ID:nL2E8HQA93] but did not provide his reasons until Thursday.

Stallone also starred in the “Rocky” and “Rambo” movies.

The case is Webb v. Stallone et al, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 11-07517.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel; Editing by Jan Paschal)

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Study links milk-producing protein to aggressive breast cancer

HONG KONG (Reuters) – The discovery that a protein which triggers milk production in women may also be responsible for making breast cancers aggressive could open up new opportunities for treatment of the most common and deadliest form of cancer among women.

Found in all breast cells, the protein ELF5 tries to activate milk production even in breast cancer cells, which does not work and then makes the cancer more aggressive, according to scientists in Australia and Britain.

“The discovery opens up new avenues for therapy and for designing new markers that can predict response to therapy,” said lead author Professor Chris Ormandy from the Garvan Institute of Medical Research in Sydney.

In 2008, Ormandy‘s work linked ELF5 to milk production.

The latest research by Ormandy and his team, published in the journal PLOS Biology on Friday, went a step further to find the link between ELF5 and breast cancer.

“Cancer cells can’t respond properly (to ELF5), so they … acquire some characteristics … that make the disease more aggressive and more refractory (resistant) to treatment with existing therapies,” Ormandy said by telephone.

Ormandy and his team grew human breast cancer tissues, genetically manipulated to contain high amounts of ELF5, in petri dishes and saw how the protein proliferated aggressively.

FINDINGS MAY HELP TARGETED THERAPY

Breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer and the top cause of cancer death among women, accounting for 23 percent of total cancer cases and 14 percent of cancer deaths in women.

To decide on treatment, doctors normally need to find out if the cancer has receptors for the hormones estrogen and progesterone, which, in the case of breast cancer patients, promote growth in their tumors.

Two-thirds of breast cancers are usually positive for estrogen receptors, which then require anti-hormonal therapies that lower estrogen levels in the patient or block estrogen from supporting the growth of the cancer.

For the remaining one-third of patients, their cancers do not have receptors, which means they won’t benefit from hormonal therapies. Such patients are usually given other treatments, such as chemotherapy.

Ormandy’s team found that cancers with these receptors had low levels of ELF5, while those without receptors had significantly higher levels of the protein.

“What we have shown in this paper is high ELF5 tumors are dependent on ELF5 for their proliferation and if we block ELF5 in high ELF5 tumors, we will block proliferation and that will treat the tumor,” Ormandy said.

“If we can develop a drug that targets ELF5, it will be very useful for that group of women,” he said.

(Reporting by Tan Ee Lyn; Editing by Paul Tait)

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Afghan bomber attacks near major US base

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A vehicle driven by a suicide bomber exploded at the gate of a major U.S. military base in eastern Afghanistan on Wednesday, killing the attacker and three Afghans, Afghan police said. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack.

Police Gen. Abdul Qayum Baqizai said a local guard who questioned the vehicle driver at the gate of Camp Chapman was killed along with two civilians and the assailant. The camp is located adjacent to the airport of the capital of Khost province, which borders Pakistan. Chapman and nearby Camp Salerno had been frequently targeted by militants in the past, but violent incidents have decreased considerably in recent months.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in an email that the bomber targeted Afghan police manning the gate and Afghans working for the Americans entering the base. He claimed high casualties were inflicted.

NATO operates with more than 100,000 troops in the country, including some 66,000 American forces. It is handing most combat operations over to the Afghans in preparation for a pullout from Afghanistan in 2014. Militant groups, including the Taliban, rarely face NATO troops head-on and rely mainly on roadside bombs and suicide attacks.

NATO forces and foreign civilians have also been increasingly attacked by rogue Afghan military and police, eroding trust between the allies.

On Tuesday, the Interior Ministry said a policewoman who killed an American contractor in Kabul a day earlier was a native Iranian who came to Afghanistan and displayed “unstable behavior” but had no known links to militants.

The policewoman, identified as Sgt. Nargas, shot 49-year-old Joseph Griffin, of Mansfield, Georgia, on Monday, in the first such shooting by a woman in the spate of insider attacks. Nargas walked into a heavily-guarded compound in the heart of Kabul, confronted Griffin and shot him once with her pistol.

The U.S-based security firm DynCorp International said on its website that Griffin was a U.S. military veteran who earlier worked with law enforcement agencies in the United States. In Kabul, he was under contract to the NATO military command to advise the Afghan police force.

The ministry spokesman, Sediq Sediqi, told a news conference that Nargas, who uses one name like many in the country, was born in Tehran, where she married an Afghan. She moved to the country 10 years ago, after her husband obtained fake documents enabling her to live and work there.

A mother of four in her early 30s, she joined the police five years ago, held various positions and had a clean record, he said. Sediqi produced an Iranian passport that he said was found at her home.

No militant group has claimed responsibility for the killing.

The chief investigator of the case, Police Gen. Mohammad Zahir, said that during interrogation, the policewoman said she had plans to kill either the Kabul governor, city police chief or Zahir himself, but when she realized that penetrating the last security cordons to reach them would be too difficult, she saw “a foreigner” and turned her weapon on him.

There have been 60 insider attacks this year against foreign military and civilian personnel, compared to 21 in 2011. This surge presents another looming security issue as NATO prepares to pull out almost all of its forces by 2014, putting the war against the Taliban and other militant groups largely in the hands of the Afghans.

More than 50 Afghan members of the government’s security forces also have died this year in attacks by their own colleagues. The Taliban claims such incidents reflect a growing popular opposition to the foreign military presence and the Kabul government.

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10 Things to Do on Dec. 26

Christmas has ended and New Year’s Eve is still a few days away. What’s a person to do during this holiday lull?

1. Complain About Your Christmas Gifts

[More from Mashable: ‘We Are Young’ Performed on Vintage Computer Parts]

All I got for Christmas was some CDs and movies and my little brother got an iPad. Thanks a lot Obama!

— Nick Pagliara (@NickPagliara) December 26, 2012

[More from Mashable: What Christmas Is Like in a Simulated Mars Colony]

All i got for christmas was socks and toothpaste. Thats fucked up

— Inferior (@KowaiiShiAkuma) December 26, 2012

2. Use Your New Label Maker

Image courtesy of Imgur

3. Find Weird Crap Around Your Parents’ House

Hey @shaq at my parents house for Christmas and found this collectible! #longtime fan! twitter.com/GuyCPalmer/sta…

— Guy Palmer (@GuyCPalmer) December 26, 2012

Found this at my parents house- my first mobile phone from 13 years ago. I’m pretty old. twitter.com/ScottOfTheRive…

— Scott (@ScottOfTheRiver) December 23, 2012

A little walk down memory lane on Christmas morning when I found this at my parents’ house.#snaggingitforsure twitter.com/Mandery/status…

— Laura Kroll (@Mandery) December 25, 2012

4. Attempt to Learn How a Kindle Works

My mum just asked me ‘what time doesthe Internet close because I want to buy a book for my kindle?’ #wtf

— Natasha Wedlock (@NatashaWedlock) December 21, 2012

Does anybody know how to work a kindle fire? Mine is stressing me out!

— Emily Fitzhugh (@EmiFitzU) December 26, 2012

but like how does this kindle work?

— a (@its_audrey) December 25, 2012

5. Recreate Old Family Photos

Image courtesy of Reddit, 31Max

Image courtesy of Imgur, ConnorUllmann

6. Try to Figure Out What Boxing Day Is

What is this “Boxing Day” you guys speak of, and do I get to wear silk shorts?

— The Robfather (@thatUPSdude) December 26, 2012

Every year I wonder what Boxing Day is before deciding I’m too lazy to look it up and taking a nap instead.

— joseph birdsong (@josephbirdsong) December 26, 2012

No matter what people tell you, Boxing Day is not the day that Canadians celebrate the birth of Muhammad Ali.

— Mark Campbell (@MrWordsWorth) December 26, 2012

What is Boxing Day and why don’t Americans celebrate it?

— Andrea Cooney (@ACCooney) December 20, 2012

Educate yourself.

7. Put Away the Christmas Throw-Up

Image courtesy of Reddit, xbaahx

8. Return the Stuff You Don’t Want

Image courtesy of Imgur

9. Reuse the Christmas Tree Tinsel and Other Holiday Decorations

Image via Borntobenervous.com

Image courtesy of Flickr, stuartpilbrow

10. Take a Nap

1. Sluggish Pug

Image courtesy of Flickr, chriswaits

Click here to view this gallery.

Thumbnail image courtesy of Flickr, formatc1

This story originally published on Mashable here.

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SPOILER ALERT: Twist awaits US fans of ‘Downton’

NEW YORK (AP) — British fans of “Downton Abbey” are feeling blue after Tuesday’s conclusion of Season 3, even as the U.S. audience eagerly anticipates this third cycle on PBS’ “Masterpiece” beginning Jan. 6.

(ANY “ABBEY” DEVOTEES WHO PREFER NOT TO LEARN WHAT AWAITS THEM ARE URGED TO STOP READING RIGHT NOW.)

___

One of the stars of this wildly popular British costume drama is leaving the series after its third season. Dan Stevens had opted not to continue beyond his initial commitment, the British network ITV confirmed Wednesday.

His character, Matthew Crawley, has been written out with what ITV called an “untimely and tragic death” in the season finale. That episode will air in the U.S. in February.

Michelle Dockery will be returning in Season 4 as Matthew’s soon-to-be widow, Lady Mary.

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S.Africa’s Mandela ‘not yet fully recovered’: spokesman

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – Former South African President Nelson Mandela is doing well after being discharged from hospital, although he is still not fully recovered, a government spokesman said on Thursday.

“He is not yet fully recovered, but he has sufficiently moved forward so that he can be discharged,” Mac Maharaj told local broadcaster eNCA.

“He is sufficiently well to be home.”

The 94-year-old anti-apartheid leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate was discharged from the hospital on Wednesday, ending a nearly three-week stay during which he was treated for a lung infection and had surgery to remove gallstones.

Mandela, who has been in frail health for several years, is now receiving care at his suburban Johannesburg home.

Mandela has a history of lung problems dating back to when he contracted tuberculosis while in jail as a political prisoner. He spent 27 years in prison, including 18 years on the windswept Robben Island off Cape Town.

The former president was admitted to a Pretoria hospital on December 8 and this was his longest stay in a hospital since he was released from prison in 1990.

Current President Jacob Zuma visited Mandela on Christmas Day and said the former South African leader was doing much better, making progress and in good spirits.

Mandela was also admitted to a hospital in February because of abdominal pain but released the following day after a keyhole examination showed there was nothing seriously wrong with him.

He has spent most of his time since then in another home in Qunu, his ancestral village in the impoverished Eastern Cape province.

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Powerful winter storm pounds Northeast

A powerful winter storm system that pounded the nation's midsection, wrecking holiday travel plans and dumping a record snowfall in Arkansas, began lashing the Northeast on Wednesday with high winds, snow and sleet.

The storm, which knocked out power to thousands of utility customersm mainly in Arkansas, was blamed in at least six deaths.

Hundreds of flights were canceled or delayed, scores of motorists got stuck on icy roads or slid into drifts and blizzard warnings were issued amid snowy gusts of 30 mph that blanketed roads and windshields, at times causing whiteout conditions.

"The way I've been describing it is as a low-end blizzard, but that's sort of like saying a small Tyrannosaurus rex," said John Kwiatkowski, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Indianapolis.

The system, which spawned Gulf Coast region tornadoes on Christmas Day, pushed through the Upper Ohio Valley and headed into the Northeast Wednesday night. High winds, snow and sleet slickened roads in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut, causing dozens of minor accidents and spinouts. Forecasts called for 12 to 18 inches of snow inland from western New York to Maine into Thursday.

The National Weather Service said early Thursday that snow was falling heavily in Pennsylvania, upstate New York and some New England states. Among the highest snow totals were 2 to five inches in southeastern Massachusetts, 3 to 6 inches in Connecticut, up to a foot in some Pennsylvania counties and 10 to 11 inches in some parts of western New York.

The system was expected to taper off into a mix of rain and snow closer to the coast, where little or no accumulation was expected in such cities as Philadelphia, Boston and New York.

The storm left freezing temperatures in its aftermath, and forecasters also said parts of the Southeast from Virginia to Florida would see severe thunderstorms.

Schools on break and workers taking holiday vacations meant that many people could avoid messy commutes, but those who had to travel were implored to avoid it. Snow was blamed for scores of vehicle accidents as far east as Maryland, and about two dozen counties in Indiana and Ohio issued snow emergency travel alerts, urging people to go out on the roads only if necessary.

About 40 vehicles got bogged down trying to make it up a slick hill in central Indiana, and four state snowplows slid off roads as snow fell at the rate of 3 inches an hour in some places.

Two passengers in a car on a sleet-slickened Arkansas highway were killed Wednesday in a head-on collision, and two people, including a 76-year-old Milwaukee woman, were killed Tuesday on Oklahoma highways. Deaths from wind-toppled trees were reported in Texas and Louisiana.

The day after Christmas wasn't expected to be particularly busy for AAA, but its Cincinnati-area branch had its busiest Wednesday of the year. By mid-afternoon, nearly 400 members had been helped with tows, jump starts and other aid, with calls still coming in, spokesman Mike Mills said.

Jennifer Miller was taking a bus Wednesday from Cincinnati to visit family in Columbus.

"I wish this had come yesterday and was gone today," she said, struggling with a rolling suitcase and three smaller bags on a slushy sidewalk near the station. "I'm glad I don't have to drive in this."

Traffic crawled at 25 mph on Interstate 81 in Maryland, where authorities reported scores of accidents.

"We're going to try to go down south and get below" the storm, said Richard Power, traveling from home in Levittown, N.Y., to Kentucky with his wife, two children and their beagle, Lucky.

He said they were well on their way until they hit snow in Pennsylvania, then 15-mph traffic on I-81 at Hagerstown, Md.

"We're going to go as far as we can go. ... If it doesn't get better, we're going to just get a hotel," he said.

More than 1,600 flights were canceled, according to the aviation tracking website FlightAware.com, and some airlines said they would waive change fees. Lengthy delays were reported Wednesday at the three major New York City-area airports, the Federal Aviation Administration said.

In Arkansas, some of the nearly 200,000 people who lost power could be without it for as long as a week because of snapped poles and wires after ice and 10 inches of snow coated power lines, said the state's largest utility, Entergy Arkansas.

Gov. Mike Beebe, who declared a statewide emergency, sent out National Guard teams, and Humvees transported medical workers and patients. Snow hadn't fallen in Little Rock on Christmas since 1926, but the capital ended Tuesday with 10.3 inches of it.

Other states also had scattered outages. Duke Energy said it had nearly 300 outages in Indiana, with few left in Ohio by early afternoon after scores were reported in the morning.

As the storm moved east, New England state highway departments were treating roads and getting ready to mobilize with snowfall forecasts of a foot or more.

"People are picking up salt and a lot of shovels today," said Andy Greenwood, an assistant manager at Aubuchon Hardware in Keene, N.H.

As usual, winter-sports enthusiasts welcomed the snow. At Smiling Hill Farm in Maine, Warren Knight was hoping for enough snow to allow the opening of trails.

"We watch the weather more carefully for cross-country skiing than we do for farming. And we're pretty diligent about farming. We're glued to the weather radio," said Knight, who described the weather at the 500-acre farm in Westbrook as being akin to the prizes in "Cracker Jacks — we don't know what we're going to get."

Behind the storm, Mississippi's governor declared states of emergency in eight counties with more than 25 people reported injured and 70 homes left damaged.

Cindy Williams stood near a home in McNeill, Miss., where its front had collapsed into a pile of wood and brick, a balcony and the porch ripped apart. Large oak trees were uprooted and winds sheared off treetops in a nearby grove. But she focused instead on the fact that all her family members had escaped harm.

"We are so thankful," she said. "God took care of us."

___

Associated Press writers Rick Callahan and Charles Wilson in Indianapolis, Kelly P. Kissel in Little Rock, Ark.; Jim Van Anglen in Mobile, Ala.; Holbrook Mohr in Jackson, Miss.; Julie Carr Smyth and Mitch Stacy in Columbus, Ohio; Amanda Lee Myers in Cincinnati; David Dishneau in Hagerstown, Md.; Holly Ramer in Concord, N.H.; and David Sharp in Portland, Maine, contributed to this report.

___

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Toronto reaches skyward, but how dark the clouds?

TORONTO (Reuters) – Barry Fenton walked to the bank of floor-to-ceiling windows in his 30th-floor uptown Toronto penthouse suite and declared, “This is the best view of the city.”

To the south, a mass of steel-and-glass skyscrapers glinted in the bright autumn sun. Several cranes were in motion on unfinished buildings, a common sight in a city in the midst of a residential building boom.

“If you look around the core, every building you look at has a different look to it, a different ambience,” said the energetic co-founder of Lanterra Developments, one of the city’s most active builders. “That’s important.”

Fenton, 56, says he is confident the city’s condominium market will remain strong — despite warnings that it is all moving too far, too fast — and has an ambitious lineup for future development. And he is not alone in his optimism.

Toronto‘s seams are bursting with new condo and hotel towers designed by star architects like Frank Gehry and built by famed developers like Donald Trump.

But Fenton and others who see Toronto emerging from its “pokey” past — as a columnist in the Globe and Mail recently described it — face some formidable obstacles: an infrastructure buckling under soaring density rates, the laws of supply and demand and preservationists who say too many new towers are destroying the city’s character.

Canada’s central bank drew a bead on the city of 2.6 million this month in its weighty “Financial System Review,” warning of “potential future supply imbalances” in the condo market.

The Bank of Canada noted that the number of unsold condominiums in pre-construction has doubled, to 14,000, over the past year.

Greater Toronto home sales have slowed after years of steady increases. Sales fell 16 percent in November from the same month a year ago, according to the Toronto Real East Board. So far, however, prices are flattening, not falling, as some analysts have predicted.

In defiance of warnings by the central bank and economists, two mega-projects were unveiled within days of each other in October — a three-tower condo complex to be designed by Gehry and a multi-tower office project that includes a massive casino.

RACE TO THE TOP

More skyscrapers — 147 of them — are being built in Toronto than anywhere in North America, according to Emporis, the German data provider. That is twice as many as in New York, a city with about three times the population.

Toronto is getting taller fast. Fifteen buildings that will be more than 150 meters (492 feet) high are under construction, more than anywhere in the western hemisphere.

The recently completed Trump International Hotel topped out at 277 meters, just shy of Toronto’s tallest skyscraper, the 72-story First Canadian Place, which is 298 meters. That height could be exceeded by a couple of major projects on the drawing boards, including the Mirvish project.

(The city’s tallest freestanding structure, however, is the CN Tower, which soars over Toronto at 553 meters.)

“Toronto is creating a very sustainable future by building condos downtown,” said Daniel Libeskind, the American architect, who was in Toronto in October for a ceremony for one of his latest projects, the 57-story L Tower, with its sweeping, curvaceous, design that rises above the city’s modernist Sony Center for Performing Arts.

“It fights urban sprawl and brings people into the heart of the city.”

While building in big American cities and in Western Europe cratered following the financial crisis four years ago, Toronto never stopped booming. Demand for residential space has been strong, and while the office market has also been healthy, most of the new developments have been for condo projects.

Lanterra’s Fenton said his company has built some 9,000 condominium units in Toronto over the past 10 years and now has “in the hopper” up to 6 million square feet of property in downtown Toronto that is being rezoned for new projects.

Lanterra gained prominence over the past five years for the development of Maple Leaf Square, which included two condo towers, a hotel and office space, near the city’s hockey shrine, Air Canada Center, on land that had sat vacant for years.

Now it is “one of the hottest places to be,” said Fenton.

“ONE TOWER LEADS TO ANOTHER”

Some worry that Toronto can’t handle much more development.

“We have accumulated a serious infrastructure deficit,” wrote Ken Greenberg, a Toronto architect, in the Globe and Mail in October. “We have failed to make the investments in public transit that are urgently needed. Our narrow sidewalks and poorly designed streets are already jammed.”

He criticized the city officials and developers for a lack of coordinated planning. “One tower leads to another,” he said.

Despite decades of debate about transportation policy, Toronto has just two subway lines, a fleet of charming but lumbering streetcar lines and crumbling roadways.

Commuters in Toronto spend at least 80 minutes in traffic a day, on average — worse than what commuters face in London or Los Angeles — according to the Toronto Board of Trade.

Toronto’s City Planning Department did not respond to numerous requests for comment.

There is also concern about soaring neighborhood density rates. The city’s waterfront area has seen the most growth. Its population has soared 134 percent in a decade and is up 66 percent in the past five years, to 43,295, according to city data.

Toronto’s aging energy grid is strained. In July, downtown Toronto endured an eight-hour blackout after a transformer blew due to high demand. There was a similar outage last January.

THE MEGA-PROJECTS

Now two of the most ambitious projects the city has ever seen are being floated.

First out of the gate was theater impresario David Mirvish, who with his father, the late Ed Mirvish, helped create Toronto’s vibrant arts and theater scene.

In early October, Mirvish unveiled a plan for three condominium towers, with up to 85 floors each, that would be the city’s tallest buildings.

A podium at the buildings’ base would house two museums, including one for the Mirvish family’s contemporary art collection.

The Mirvish buildings would be designed by Gehry, the celebrated Canadian-born architect whose 76-story 8 Spruce Street residential tower was just completed in New York.

“These towers can become a symbol of what Toronto can be,” the 83-year-old Gehry said at project’s unveiling. “I am not building condominiums, I am building three sculptures for people to live in.”

Two weeks later, Oxford Properties Group, a Canadian developer with a $ 20 billion global real estate portfolio, announced a $ 3 billion makeover of the downtown convention center, just south of the Mirvish and Gehry project. It envisions a casino, two hotel towers and two office towers that would be among the tallest in the city.

Adam Vaughan, a city councilor whose district would encompass both projects, said a lot more planning is needed. He had kinder words for the Mirvish proposal — “it’s a transformative and astonishing proposal” — than for Oxford’s project, which he called “all out of proportion.”

“It’s time to have a really smart conversation about how we are building this neighborhood because there is a hell of lot of density arriving not just with this project but with all the projects that have been approved,” he said in an interview.

AT THE KIT KAT

Al Carbone, owner for the past three decades of the Kit Kat restaurant, doesn’t think people like Vaughan are listening to him, as the councilor and other politicians are not heeding the growing concerns about the rapid pace of development.

He said buildings are springing up too close to lot lines, creating jammed sidewalks and alleyways. And the sun does not shine on the streets like it once did.

He supports the Mirvish project, which would preserve his street, known as Restaurant Row. But he is battling a separate 47-story building that would go up steps away from his restaurant.

The plan, which still must be approved, would retain the historic facades of buildings on the street, which Carbone believes will destroy the character of the row.

“It’s a tough battle,” said Carbone, who launched the website SaveRestaurantrow.com to drum up support in opposition to the project. “You can’t have a condo on every corner.”

WHERE IS TORONTO HEADED?

Some believe Toronto is at a crossroads as developers, politicians and citizens debate the rapid changes the city’s urban landscape.

The Globe and Mail’s Marcus Gee dismissed the idea that the development was somehow bad for the city in a column in October, saying the condo boom “has transformed our once-pokey downtown into a vibrant, around-the-clock urban community.”

David Lieberman, an architect who also teaches at the University of Toronto’s architectural school, agrees the new developments have been good for the city, but he is not sure the city’s citizens are ready for it.

“We have such an excellent opportunity to get things right, but there is the Canadian conservatism,” Lieberman said, sipping coffee in his studio in an old downtown Toronto house. “Canadians in their city building are not risk takers.”

(Reporting By Russ Blinch. Editing by Janet Guttsman and Douglas Royalty)

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Huawei shows off 6.1-inch Android phablet ahead of CES [video]

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Britain’s royal family attends Christmas services

LONDON (AP) — Britain‘s royal family is attending Christmas Day church services — with a few notable absences.

Wearing a turquoise coat and matching hat, Queen Elizabeth II arrived at St. Mary Magdelene Church on her sprawling Sandringham estate in Norfolk. She was accompanied in a Bentley by granddaughters Beatrice and Eugenie.

Her husband, Prince Philip, walked from the house to the church with other members of the royal family.

Three familiar faces were missing from the family outing. Prince William is spending the holiday with his pregnant wife Kate and his in-laws in the southern England village of Bucklebury. Prince Harry is serving with British troops in Afghanistan.

Later Tuesday, the queen will deliver her traditional, pre-recorded Christmas message, which for the first time will be broadcast in 3D.

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Early Childhood Obesity Rates Might Be Slowing Nation-Wide

About one in three children in the U.S. are now overweight, and since the 1980s the number of children who are obese has more than tripled. But a new study of 26.7 million young children from low-income families shows that in this group of kids, the tidal wave of obesity might finally be receding.Being obese as a child not only increases the risk of early-life health problems, such as joint problems, pre-diabetes and social stigmatization, but it also dramatically increases the likelihood of being obese later in life, which can lead to chronic diseases, including cancer, type 2 diabetes and heart disease. Children as young as 2 years of age can be obese–and even extremely obese. Early childhood obesity rates, which bring higher health care costs throughout a kid’s life, have been especially high among lower-income families.”This is the first national study to show that the prevalence of obesity and extreme obesity among young U.S. children may have begun to decline,” the researchers noted in a brief report published online December 25 in JAMA, The Journal of the American Medical Association. (Reports earlier this year suggested that childhood obesity rates were dropping in several U.S. cities.)The study examined rates of obesity (body mass index calculated by age and gender to be in the 95th percentile or higher–for example, a BMI above 20 for a 2-year-old male–compared with reference growth charts) and extreme obesity (BMI of more than 120 percent above that of the 95th percentile of the reference populations) in children ages 2 to 4 in 30 states and the District of Columbia. The researchers, led by Liping Pan, of the Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity and Obesity at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, combed through 12 years of data (1998 to 2010) from the Pediatric Nutritional Surveillance System, which includes information on roughly half of all children on the U.S. who are eligible for federal health care and nutrition assistance.A subtle but important shift in early childhood obesity rates in this low-income population seems to have begun in 2003. Obesity rates increased from 13.05 percent in 1998 to 15.21 percent in 2003. Soon, however, obesity rates began decreasing, reaching 14.94 percent by 2010. Extreme obesity followed a similar pattern, increasing from 1.75 percent to 2.22 percent from 1998 to 2003, but declining to 2.07 percent by 2010.Although these changes might seem small, the number of children involved makes for huge health implications. For example, each drop of just one tenth of a percentage point represents some 26,700 children in the study population alone who are no longer obese or extremely obese. And if these trends are occurring in the rest of the population, the long-term health and cost implications are massive.Public health agencies and the Obama Administration have made battling childhood obesity a priority, although these findings suggest that early childhood obesity rates, at least, were already beginning to decline nearly a decade ago. Some popular prevention strategies include encouraging healthier eating (by reducing intake of highly processed and high-sugar foods and increasing fruit and vegetable consumption) and increased physical activity (both at school and at home).The newly revealed trends “indicate modest recent progress of obesity prevention among young children,” the authors noted. “These finding may have important health implications because of the lifelong health risks of obesity and extreme obesity in early childhood.”

Follow Scientific American on Twitter @SciAm and @SciamBlogs.Visit ScientificAmerican.com for the latest in science, health and technology news.
© 2012 ScientificAmerican.com. All rights reserved.
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Christmas Day storms blamed for 3 deaths

MOBILE, Ala. (AP) -- Twisters hopscotched across the Deep South, and, along with brutal, straight-line winds, knocked down countless trees, blew the roofs off homes and left many Christmas celebrations in the dark. Holiday travelers in the nation's much colder midsection battled treacherous driving conditions from freezing rain and blizzard conditions from the same fast-moving storms.

As predicted, conditions were volatile throughout the day and into the night with tornado warnings still out for some parts of Alabama, Florida and Georgia. The storms were blamed for three deaths, several injuries, and left homes from Louisiana to Alabama damaged.

In Mobile, Ala., a tornado or high winds damaged homes, a high school and church, and knocked down power lines and large tree limbs in an area just west of downtown around nightfall. WALA-TV's tower camera captured the image of a large funnel cloud headed toward downtown.

Rick Cauley, his wife, Ashley, and two children were hosting members of both of their families. When the sirens went off, the family headed down the block to take shelter at the athletic field house at Mobile's Murphy High School.

"As luck would have it, that's where the tornado hit," Cauley said. "The pressure dropped and the ears started popping and it got crazy for a second." They were all fine, though the school was damaged. Hours after the storm hit, officials reported no serious injuries in the southwestern Alabama city.

The storm system with heavy rains moved into Georgia early Wednesday and expected to hit the Carolinas with severe weather as well.

Meanwhile, blizzard conditions hit the nation's midsection.

Earlier in the day, winds toppled a tree onto a pickup truck in the Houston area, killing the driver, and a 53-year-old north Louisiana man was killed when a tree fell on his house. Icy roads already were blamed for a 21-vehicle pileup in Oklahoma, and the Highway Patrol there says a 28-year-old woman was killed in a crash on a snowy U.S. Highway near Fairview.

The snowstorm that caused numerous accidents pushed out of Oklahoma late Tuesday, carrying with it blizzard warnings for parts of northeast Arkansas, where 10 inches of snow was forecast. Freezing rain clung to trees and utility lines in Arkansas and winds gusts up to 30 mph whipped them around, causing about 71,000 customers to lose electricity for a time.

Blizzard conditions were possible for parts of Illinois, Indiana and western Kentucky with predictions of 4 to 7 inches of snow.

A tornado struck a mobile home park near the municipal airport at Troy, Ala., trapping a man in the wreckage of a trailer, said Thomas Johnston of the Pike County Emergency Management Agency. Rescue workers freed the person, who wasn't hurt badly, and no other serious injuries were reported, he said.

An apparent tornado also caused damage in Grove Hill, about 80 miles north of Mobile.

Mary Cartright said she was working at the Fast Track convenience store in the town on Christmas evening when the wind started howling and the lights flickered, knocking out the store's computerized cash registers.

"Our cash registers are down so our doors are closed," said Cartright in a phone interview.

Trees fell on a few houses in central Louisiana's Rapides Parish, but there were no injuries reported, said sheriff's Lt. Tommy Carnline. Near McNeill, Miss., a likely tornado damaged a dozen homes and sent eight people to the hospital, none with life-threatening injuries, said Pearl River County emergency management agency director Danny Manley.

Gov. Phil Bryant declared a state of emergency in the state, saying eight counties have reported damages and some injuries.

Fog blanketed highways, including arteries in the Atlanta area, which was expected to be dealing with the same storm system on Wednesday. In New Mexico, drivers across the eastern plains had to fight through snow, ice and low visibility.

At least three tornadoes were reported in Texas, though only one building was damaged, according to the National Weather Service.

More than 500 flights nationwide were canceled by the evening, according to the flight tracker FlightAware.com. More than half were canceled into and out of Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport that got a few inches of snow.

Christmas lights also were knocked out with more than 100,000 customers without power for at least a time in Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama.

In Louisiana, quarter-sized hail was reported early Tuesday in the western part of the state and a WDSU viewer sent a photo to the TV station of what appeared to be a waterspout around the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway in New Orleans. There were no reports of crashes or damage.

Some mountainous areas of Arkansas' Ozark Mountains could get up to 10 inches of snow, which would make travel "very hazardous or impossible" in the northern tier of the state from near whiteout conditions, the weather service said.

The holiday may conjure visions of snow and ice, but twisters this time of year are not unheard of. Ten storm systems in the last 50 years have spawned at least one Christmastime tornado with winds of 113 mph or more in the South, said Chris Vaccaro, a National Weather Service spokesman in Washington, via email.

The most lethal were the storms of Dec. 24-26, 1982, when 29 tornadoes in Oklahoma, Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee and Mississippi killed three people and injured 32.

In Mobile, a large section of the roof on the Trinity Episcopal Church is missing and the front wall of the parish wall is gone, said Scott Rye, a senior warden at the church in the Midtown section of the city.

On Christmas Eve, the church with about 500 members was crowded for services.

"Thank God this didn't happen last night," Rye said.

The church finished a $1 million-plus renovation campaign in June 2011, which required the closure of the historic sanctuary for more than a year.

___

Associated Press writers Jay Reeves in Birmingham, Ala., Jeff Amy in Atlanta, Ramit Plushnick-Masti in Houston, Chuck Bartels in Little Rock, Ark., and AP Business Writer Daniel Wagner in Washington, contributed to this report.

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Bolivia’s Morales visits Cuba after Chavez surgery

HAVANA (AP) — Bolivian President Evo Morales has made a lightning trip to Havana where key ally Hugo Chavez is convalescing after cancer surgery.

Morales did not speak to foreign journalists during his weekend visit. Cuban state-run media didn’t confirm that he visited Chavez, but said he came “to express his support” for the Venezuelan president. The Cuban government had invited media to cover Morales’ arrival Saturday and departure Sunday but withdrew the invitation with no explanation.

Photos released by Cuban media showed President Raul Castro greeting Morales at the airport in Havana.

Morales aides said Monday he planned to make a statement later about Chavez.

Chavez underwent on Dec. 11 his fourth cancer-related operation since last year, two months after winning reelection to a six-year term. Venezuelan officials say his condition is stable.

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‘Hobbit’ holds on at $36.9M, ‘Reacher’ does $15.6M

LOS ANGELES (AP) — “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” easily defended its box-office title, remaining the No. 1 film for a second weekend with $ 36.9 million.

A rush of newcomers mostly had modest openings, led by Tom Cruise‘s action tale “Jack Reacher” at No. 2 with $ 15.6 million.

The top 20 movies at U.S. and Canadian theaters Friday through Sunday, followed by distribution studio, gross, number of theater locations, average receipts per location, total gross and number of weeks in release, as compiled Monday by Hollywood.com are:

1. “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,” Warner Bros., $ 36,940,000, 4,100 locations, $ 9,010 average, $ 150,093,000, two weeks.

2. “Jack Reacher,” Paramount, $ 15,600,000, 3,352 locations, $ 4,654 average, $ 15,600,000, one week.

3. “This Is 40,” Universal, $ 12,030,690, 2,913 locations, $ 4,130 average, $ 12,030,690, one week.

4. “Rise of the Guardians,” Paramount, $ 5,900,000, 3,031 locations, $ 1,947 average, $ 79,694,000, five weeks.

5. “Lincoln,” Disney, $ 5,525,774, 2,293 locations, $ 2,410 average, $ 116,673,598, seven weeks.

6. “The Guilt Trip,” Paramount, $ 5,390,000, 2,431 locations, $ 2,217 average, $ 7,421,000, one week.

7. “Monsters, Inc.” in 3-D, Disney, $ 4,774,686, 2,618 locations, $ 1,824 average, $ 6,259,667, one week.

8. “Skyfall,” Sony, $ 4,700,000, 2,365 locations, $ 1,987 average, $ 279,972,000, seven weeks.

9. “Life of Pi,” Fox, $ 4,017,237, 1,750 locations, $ 2,296 average, $ 76,373,481, five weeks.

10. “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 2,” Summit, $ 2,626,955, 2,000 locations, $ 1,313 average, $ 281,632,689, six weeks.

11. “Cirque du Soleil: Worlds Away,” Paramount, $ 2,135,000, 840 locations, $ 2,542 average, $ 2,254,000, one week.

12. “Wreck-It Ralph,” Disney, $ 1,819,036, 1,444 locations, $ 1,260 average, $ 171,741,561, eight weeks.

13. “Silver Linings Playbook,” Weinstein Co., $ 1,781,196, 371 locations, $ 4,801 average, $ 19,861,238, six weeks.

14. “Dabangg 2,” Eros International, $ 1,019,213, 166 locations, $ 6,140 average, $ 1,019,213, one week.

15. “Argo,” Warner Bros., $ 903,000, 450 locations, $ 2,007 average, $ 106,439,000, 11 weeks.

16. “Red Dawn,” Film District, $ 794,880, 1,011 locations, $ 786 average, $ 42,626,783, five weeks.

17. “Flight,” Paramount, $ 709,000, 742 locations, $ 956 average, $ 90,989,000, eight weeks.

18. “Anna Karenina,” Focus, $ 667,669, 331 locations, $ 2,017 average, $ 9,645,583, six weeks.

19. “Hitchcock,” Fox Searchlight, $ 579,676, 535 locations, $ 1,084 average, $ 4,194,968, five weeks.

20. “Playing for Keeps,” Film District, $ 424,105, 851 locations, $ 498 average, $ 12,410,463, three weeks.

___

Online:

http://www.hollywood.com

___

Universal and Focus are owned by NBC Universal, a unit of Comcast Corp.; Sony, Columbia, Sony Screen Gems and Sony Pictures Classics are units of Sony Corp.; Paramount is owned by Viacom Inc.; Disney, Pixar and Marvel are owned by The Walt Disney Co.; Miramax is owned by Filmyard Holdings LLC; 20th Century Fox and Fox Searchlight are owned by News Corp.; Warner Bros. and New Line are units of Time Warner Inc.; MGM is owned by a group of former creditors including Highland Capital, Anchorage Advisors and Carl Icahn; Lionsgate is owned by Lions Gate Entertainment Corp.; IFC is owned by AMC Networks Inc.; Rogue is owned by Relativity Media LLC.

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Venezuela’s Chavez improving after surgery: officials

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is improving after a cancer operation in Cuba and has started exercising, officials said on Monday, amid doubts over whether the former soldier is in good enough health to continue governing.

Vice President Nicolas Maduro said he had spoken by phone with Chavez, who was walking and doing exercises as part of his treatment.

“We’ve gotten the best present we could get this Christmas: a phone call from our commander president,” Maduro said on state television.

Information Minister Ernesto Villegas said earlier in the day that Chavez had “shown a slight improvement in his condition,” without providing details.

Chavez has not been heard from in two weeks following a fourth operation for an unspecified type of cancer in the pelvic region. The government has said he suffered post-operatory complications including unexpected bleeding and a lung infection, but offered few details about his actual condition.

His death, or even his resignation for health reasons, would upend the politics of the South American OPEC nation where his personalized brand of oil-financed socialism has made him a hero to the poor but a pariah to critics who call him a dictator.

His allies are now openly discussing the possibility that he may not be back in time to be sworn in for his third six-year term on the constitutionally mandated date of January 10.

Opposition leaders say a delay to his taking power would be another signal that Chavez is not in condition to govern and that fresh elections should be called to choose his replacement.

They believe they have a better shot against Maduro, Chavez’s anointed successor, than against the charismatic president who for 14 years has been nearly invincible at the ballot box.

But a constitutional dispute over succession could lead to a messy transition toward a post-Chavez era.

Maduro has become the government’s main figurehead in the president’s absence. His speeches have mimicked Chavez’s bombastic style that mixes historical references with acid insults of adversaries.

Opposition leader Henrique Capriles, who lost to Chavez in the October presidential vote, slammed Maduro in an interview published on Sunday for failing to seek dialogue with the opposition at a time of political uncertainty.

“Maduro is not the one that won the elections, nor is he the leader,” Capriles told the local El Universal newspaper. “Because Chavez is absent, this is precisely the time that (Maduro) needs help from people (in the opposition camp).”

Chavez has vastly expanded presidential powers and built a near-cult following among millions of poor Venezuelans, who love his feisty language and social welfare projects.

The opposition is smarting from this month’s governors elections in which Chavez allies won 20 of 23 states. They are trying to keep attention focused on day-to-day problems from rampant crime to power outages.

(Reporting by Brian Ellsworth; Editing by Sandra Maler)

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Taliban not demanding Afghan power monopoly

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Taliban representatives at a conference did not insist on total power in Afghanistan and pledged to grant rights to women that the militant Islamist group itself brutally suppressed in the past, according to a Taliban statement received Sunday.

The pledges emerged from a rare meeting last week involving Taliban and Kabul government representatives.

The less strident substance and tone came in a speech delivered at a conference in France. The French hosts described it as a discussion among Afghans rather than peace negotiations.

It was hard to determine whether the softer line taken by the Taliban representatives reflected a real shift in policy or a salvo in the propaganda war for the hearts and minds of Afghans.

The speech said that a new constitution would protect civil and political rights of all citizens. It promised that women would be allowed to choose husbands, own property, attend school and seek work, rights denied them during Taliban rule, which ended with the 2001 U.S. invasion. The speech was emailed from Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid.

“We are not looking to monopolize power. We want an all-Afghan inclusive government,” the speech said. It was delivered by two Taliban officials, Mawlawi Shahbuddin Dilawar and Muhammad Naeem during the conference on Thursday and Friday.

Afghanistan’s Foreign Ministry spokesman said the government welcomed such talks but did not expect them to bridge the gap between the warring sides.

The United States started to embrace the idea of peace talks after President Barack Obama took office, but discussions stalled in recent years, despite the formation of an Afghan government council tasked with reaching out to the Taliban and the establishment of a Taliban political office in Qatar.

“The peace initiative is a process, and one or two or three meetings are not going to solve the problems. But we are hopeful for the future,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Janan Mosazai said. He said the government’s preconditions for the talks with the Taliban have not changed: a cease-fire, recognition of the Afghan constitution, cutting ties with international terrorists and agreeing to respect the rights of Afghan citizens including women and children.

The Taliban speech reiterated the group’s own longtime policies, declaring that the current constitution was “illegitimate because it is written under the shadow of (U.S.) B-52 aircraft” and that the Taliban remained the legitimate government of the country, a reference to the U.S.-led campaign that drove the Taliban from power.

It also called for the withdrawal of all foreign forces and said a 2014 national election was “not beneficial for solving the Afghan quandary” because it would take place while the country was still under foreign occupation.

Most NATO forces are scheduled to be withdrawn by 2014. The Kabul government and its international backers hope that a peace deal can be brokered with the Taliban and other militant groups before the pullout. NATO still has more than 100,000 troops, including 66,000 U.S. soldiers, on the ground. Washington is now determining the size of a scaled down force the United States will keep in Afghanistan after 2014.

“The occupation must be ended as a first step, which is the desire of the entire nation, because this is the mother of all these tragedies,” the speech said.

The conference was also attended by the Hezb-e-Islami group, which is allied with the Taliban, and political opponents of President Hamid Karzai, whom the Taliban regard as a puppet of Washington.

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RIM shares fall at the open after earnings

TORONTO (Reuters) – Research In Motion Ltd fell in early trading on Friday following the BlackBerry maker’s Thursday earnings announcement, when the company outlined plans to change the way it charges for services.

RIM, pushing to revive its fortunes with the launch of its new BlackBerry 10 devices next month, surprised investors when it said it plans to alter its service revenue model, a move that could put the high-margin business under pressure.

Shares fell 16.0 percent to $ 11.86 in early trading on the Nasdaq. Toronto-listed shares fell 15.8 percent to C$ 11.74.

(Reporting by Allison Martell; Editing by Gerald E. McCormick)

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Bethenny Frankel and husband of 2 years separating

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Bethenny Frankel and husband Jason Hoppy are separating.

The 42-year-old TV personality, chef, author and entrepreneur told The Associated Press Sunday that the split brings her “great sadness.”

“This was an extremely difficult decision that as a woman and a mother, I have to accept as the best choice for our family,” Frankel said. “We have love and respect for one another and will continue to amicably co-parent our daughter who is and will always remain our first priority. This is an immensely painful and heartbreaking time for us.”

Frankel and Hoppy were married in 2010 and have a daughter, Bryn, who was born that same year. The couple’s courtship and marriage were documented in two reality series, “Bethenny Getting Married?” and “Bethenny Ever After…” Frankel gained fame as a star of “The Real Housewives of New York City.” Since her stint on the Bravo show, she has written four books, released a fitness video and founded her Skinnygirl line of cocktails, shapewear and nutritional supplements.

She launched a talk show, “Bethenny,” over the summer that is set to air nationally on Fox stations in 2013.

___

AP Entertainment Writer Sandy Cohen is on Twitter: www.twitter.com/APSandy .

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