Syria army quits base on strategic Aleppo road

BEIRUT (Reuters) – The Syrian army abandoned its last base near the northern town of Saraqeb after a fierce assault by rebels, further isolating the strategically important second city Aleppo from the capital.

But in a political setback to forces battling to topple President Bashar al-Assad, the United Nations said the rebels appeared to have committed a war crime after seizing the base.

The opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Friday government troops had retreated from a post northwest of Saraqeb, leaving the town and surrounding areas “completely outside the control of regime forces”.

It was not immediately possible to verify the reported army withdrawal. Authorities restrict journalists’ access in Syria and state media made no reference to Saraqeb.

The pullout followed coordinated rebel attacks on Thursday against three military posts around Saraqeb, 50 km (30 miles) southwest of Aleppo, in which 28 soldiers were killed.

Several were shown in video footage being shot after they had surrendered.

“The allegations are that these were soldiers who were no longer combatants. And therefore, at this point it looks very likely that this is a war crime, another one,” U.N. human rights spokesman Rupert Colville said in Geneva.

“Unfortunately this could be just the latest in a string of documented summary executions by opposition factions as well as by government forces and groups affiliated with them, such as the shabbiha (pro-government militia),” he said.

Video footage of the killings showed rebels berating the captured men, calling them “Assad’s dogs”, before firing round after round into their bodies as they lay on the ground.

Rights groups and the United Nations say rebels and forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad have committed war crimes during the 19-month-old conflict. It began with protests against Assad and has spiraled into a civil war which has killed 32,000 people and threatens to drag in regional powers.

The mainly Sunni Muslim rebels are supported by Sunni states including Saudi Arabia, Qatar and neighboring Turkey. Shi’ite Iran remains the strongest regional supporter of Assad, who is from the Alawite faith which is an offshoot of Shi’ite Islam.

STRATEGIC BLOW

Saraqeb lies at the meeting point of Syria’s main north-south highway, linking Aleppo with Damascus, and another road connecting Aleppo to the Mediterranean port of Latakia.

With areas of rural Aleppo and border crossings to Turkey already under rebel control, the loss of Saraqeb would leave Aleppo city further cut off from Assad’s Damascus powerbase.

Any convoys using the highways from Damascus or the Mediterranean city of Latakia would be vulnerable to rebel attack. This would force the army to use smaller rural roads or send supplies on a dangerous route from Al-Raqqa in the east, according to the Observatory’s director, Rami Abdelrahman.

In response to the rebels’ territorial gains, Assad has stepped up air strikes against opposition strongholds, launching some of the heaviest raids so far against working class suburbs east of Damascus over the last week.

The bloodshed has continued unabated despite an attempted ceasefire, proposed by join U.N.-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi to mark last month’s Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha.

In the latest in a string of fruitless international initiatives, China called on Thursday for a phased, region-by-region ceasefire and the setting up of a transitional governing body – an idea which opposition leaders hope to flesh out at a meeting in Qatar next week.

Veteran opposition leader Riad Seif has proposed a structure bringing together the rebel Free Syrian Army, regional military councils and other rebel forces alongside local civilian bodies and prominent opposition figures.

His plan, called the Syrian National Initiative, calls for four bodies to be established: the Initiative Body, including political groups, local councils, national figures and rebel forces; a Supreme Military Council; a Judicial Committee and a transitional government made up of technocrats.

The initiative has the support of Washington. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called on Wednesday for an overhaul of the opposition, saying it was time to move beyond the troubled Syrian National Council.

The SNC has failed to win recognition as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people and Clinton said it was time to bring in “those on the front lines fighting and dying”.

(Additional reporting by Oliver Holmes in Beirut and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; Editing by Jon Boyle)

World News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Hurricane Sandy: why other networks passed on NBC’s telethon

NEW YORK (TheWrap.com) – NBC offered to let the other broadcast networks air its Hurricane Sandy telethon Friday night, but all passed and opted to pursue their own efforts to help the recovery effort, TheWrap has learned.

Every network is trying to help: ABC is devoting its entire broadcast day Monday to raising money for hurricane relief, and its parent company, Disney, has donated $ 2 million. Fox’s corporate parent, News Corp., has given $ 1 million, and TheWrap has learned that CBS is also making a $ 1 million announcement without formally announcing it. Those are only the most high-profile efforts, which also include crawls and public service announcements.

None of its rivals took NBC up on its offer to air the benefit, which was quickly assembled and would have forced them to reschedule new programming. Both CBS and ABC are airing premieres tonight. NBC had planned a rerun of “Revolution” during the telethon‘s timeslot.

The NBC special will be hosted by “Today’s” Matt Lauer and feature Bruce Springsteen, Jon Bon Jovi, Billy Joel and NBC stars including Christina Aguilera, Jimmy Fallon and Brian Williams. (Among the non-NBC talent expected to take part is Kevin Bacon, the lead on the upcoming Fox show “The Following.”) It will air on NBC Universal stations and on HBO at 8/7c.

A person at one broadcast network, speaking on condition of anonymity, said logistical problems were one reason it passed: NBC approached other networks Wednesday, ahead of announcing the telethon Thursday morning.

Additionally, all of the other networks were airing original series in the timeslot when NBC designated the telethon to air, which meant they had more to sacrifice than NBC.

Airing the telethon would have forced CBS to preempt the season premiere of “Undercover Boss.” ABC would have had to preempt the debut of the new Wednesday comedy “Malibu Country” and the return of “Last Man Standing.” Fox would have had to preempt an episode of “Kitchen Nightmares.”

There is some precedent for all the networks coming together to air a telethon: the major broadcasters – and many other networks – aired all three “Stand Up for Cancer” specials simultaneously. But they were produced by an outside organization, not a single network.

TV News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Google's Android software in 3 out of 4 smartphones

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How Computational Models Are Improving Medicine [Video]

Click here to view the video

High-resolution electromechanical model of a heart; courtesy of N. Trayanova

The more we learn about cancer, heart disease and Alzheimer’s, the more vexingly complex they seem–and the more elusive their cures. Even with cutting-edge imaging technology, biomarker tests and genetic data, we are still far from understanding the multifaceted causes and varied developmental stages of these illnesses. With the advent of powerful computing, better modeling programs and a flood of raw biomedical data, researchers have been anticipating a leap forward in their abilities to decipher the intricate dynamics involved human disease. Now, these computational capabilities are starting to arrive, according to a new analysis published online this week in Science Translational Medicine. In fact, “the field has exploded,” Raymond Winslow, director of the Johns Hopkins Institute for Computational Medicine, and co-author of the review, said in a prepared statement. Medicine and medical research largely have been focused on small specialties and narrow studies. But the body is a whole system–not isolated organ groups–and it is in constant interaction with the wider environment, including pollutants, toxins and other stressors. The resulting interactions do not only work in a single direction; instead, we have learned that there are feed-forward and feedback loops and crosstalk on cellular, molecular and genetic levels. This nexus is where advances in computational medicine are poised to make a large contribution. “Computational medicine can help you see how the pieces of the puzzle fit together to give a more holistic picture,” Winslow said. “We may never have all of the missing pieces, but will wind up with a much clearer view of what causes disease and how to treat it.” Models comparing gene expression in different patients have already successfully helped to determine different grades of prostate cancer, predict how different patients will respond to breast cancer treatment and find different types of stomach cancer. Scientists are also taking advantage of more advanced anatomical data to model whole organs and their function–and dysfunction. Using, for example, diffusion tensor magnetic resonance imaging, researchers can collect detailed information about heart anatomy, fiber and structure. This macro structure can be combined with more cellular-based models for “unprecedented structural and biophysical detail, including cardiac electromechanics,” the researchers noted in their paper. With this information, scientists are learning more about blood-flow dynamics, arrhythmia and heart attacks. These new models are now starting to be translated back to individual patients, to help find better treatments. Computational-medicine algorithms from detailed brain maps have already been used to develop an iPad app that is being used clinically to help doctors decide on deep brain stimulation locations and strengths. These models, however, also need to be checked frequently against real-world data and adjusted accordingly. But researchers who are armed to deal with this once unusual cross-discipline endeavor are growing more common. “There is a whole new community of people being trained in mathematics, computer science and engineering, and they are being cross-trained in biology,” Winslow said. “This allows them to bring a whole new perspective to medical diagnosis and treatment.” The myriad applications for computational medicine approaches are only beginning to be explored, the researchers noted. “As we gain confidence in the ability of computational models to predict human biological processes, they will help guide us through the complex landscape of disease, ultimately leading to more effective and reliable methods for disease diagnosis, risk stratification and therapy,” the researchers wrote. “We are poised at an exciting moment in medicine.”

Video of electromechanical heart model courtesy of N. Trayanova

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.

Health News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Power sputters back in New York following Sandy

NEW YORK (AP) — More New Yorkers awoke Saturday morning to power being restored for the first time since Superstorm Sandy pummeled the region, and those whose lights were back on celebrated it, but patience was wearing thin among those in the region who had been without power for most of the week.

From storm-scarred New Jersey to parts of Connecticut, a widespread lack of gasoline frustrated people who were just trying to get to work or pick up a load of groceries. Gas was to be rationed starting at noon Saturday in northern New Jersey, where drivers will be allowed to buy it only every other day, the governor declared.

The ongoing recovery also forced the cancellation of Sunday's New York City Marathon. Mayor Michael Bloomberg reversed himself Friday and yielded to mounting criticism that this was no time to run the race, which starts on hard-hit Staten Island and wends through all five of the city's boroughs.

Bloomberg, who as late as Friday afternoon insisted the world's largest marathon should go on as scheduled Sunday, changed course shortly afterward amid intensifying opposition from the city comptroller, the Manhattan borough president and sanitation workers unhappy they had volunteered to help storm victims but were assigned to the race instead. The mayor said he would not want "a cloud to hang over the race or its participants."

Many runners understood the rationale behind the decision. The death toll in the city stood at 41 and thousands of people were shivering without electricity, making many New Yorkers recoil at the idea of police officers protecting a foot race and evicting storm victims from hotels to make way for runners.

But the suddenness of it all forced runners to deal with an unexpected twist: what to do with no race.

Well over half of the 40,000 athletes were from out of town. Their entry fees were paid. Their airline tickets were purchased. Their friends and family had hotel rooms. And all week the race was a go, even after Sandy came ashore Monday.

"I understand why it cannot be held under the current circumstances," Meb Keflezighi, the 2009 men's champion and 2004 Olympic silver medalist, said in a statement. "Any inconveniences the cancellation causes me or the thousands of runners who trained and traveled for this race pales in comparison to the challenges faced by people in NYC and its vicinity."

ING, the financial company that is the title sponsor of the marathon, said it supported the decision to cancel. The firm's charitable giving arm has made a $500,000 contribution to help with relief and recovery efforts and is matching employee donations. Sponsor Poland Spring said it would donate the bottled water earmarked for the marathon to relief agencies, more than 200,000 bottles.

"When you have a significant amount of people voicing real pain and unhappiness over its running, you have to hear that. You have to take that into consideration," said Howard Wolfson, deputy mayor for government affairs and communications.

"Something that is such a celebration of the best of New York can't become divisive," he said. "That is not good for the city now as we try to complete our recovery effort, and it is not good for the marathon in the long run."

Each day has brought signs of recovery in the region. Fewer than 1 million customers in New York were without power Saturday, the lowest the number has been since the storm hit.

Aida Padilla, 75, was thrilled that the power at her large housing authority complex in New York City's Chelsea section had returned late Friday.

"Thank God," said Padilla, 75. "I screamed and I put the lights on. Everybody was screaming. It was better than New Year's."

Asked about whether she had heat, she replied, "hot and cold water and heat! Thank God, Jesus!"

NYU Langone Medical Center, one of two New York hospitals that had to evacuate patients at the height of the storm, said it would reopen Monday, though some doctors would see patients at alternate sites.

Seven backup generators at the hospital failed during the storm surge on Monday night, forcing the evacuation of 300 patients.

At Bellevue Hospital Center, some 700 patients had to be evacuated after the power failed. An official there said Thursday the hospital could be out of commission at least two more weeks.

In New Jersey, Gov. Chris Christie announced that he would make public a list of when utility companies intend to restore power to each community. Even if they end up working faster or slower, he said, residents will have a sense of when they will have power restored so they can plan their lives a bit better.

Commuter rail operator NJ Transit said it would have more service restored in time for the workweek to start Monday, most of Atlantic City's casinos reopened, and many school districts decided to hold classes next Thursday and Friday, days previously reserved for the New Jersey Education Association's annual conference, which has been canceled because of the storm.

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Syrian rebels kill 28 soldiers, several executed

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Anti-government rebels killed 28 soldiers on Thursday in attacks on three army checkpoints around Saraqeb, a town on Syria’s main north-south highway, a monitoring group said.

Some of the dead were shot after they had surrendered, according to video footage. Rebels berated them, calling them “Assad’s Dogs”, before firing round after round into their bodies as they lay on the ground.

The highway linking the capital Damascus to the contested city of Aleppo, Syria’s commercial center, has been the scene of heavy fighting since rebels cut the road last month. Saraqeb lies about 40 km (25 miles) south of Aleppo

In other developments, China put forward a new initiative to resolve the 19-month-old conflict, including a phased, region-by-region ceasefire and the setting up of a transitional governing body.

A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said Beijing had made the proposal to international peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi – whose own call for a truce over the Muslim holiday of Eid was largely ignored by both sides.

The United States meanwhile has called for an overhaul of Syria’s opposition leadership, signaling a break with the largely foreign-based Syrian National Council to bring in more credible figures.

A meeting in Qatar next week of foreign powers backing the rebels will be an opportunity to broaden the coalition against President Bashar al-Assad, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in Zagreb on Wednesday.

The United States and its allies have struggled for months to craft a credible opposition coalition, while Assad has counted on the support of Russia, Iran and, to a lesser extent, China. International efforts to end the violence have all foundered.

More than 32,000 people have been killed since protests against Assad, an Alawite who succeeded his late father Hafez in ruling the mostly Sunni Muslim country, first broke out on city streets. The revolt has since degenerated into full-scale civil war, with the government forces relying heavily on artillery and air strikes to thwart the rebels.

CHECKPOINT ATTACKS

The army has lost swathes of land in Idlib and Aleppo provinces but is fighting to control towns along supply routes to Aleppo city, where its forces are fighting in many districts.

The head of the pro-opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdelrahman, said two of the attacked checkpoints at Saraqeb were on the Damascus-Aleppo highway. The third was near a road linking Aleppo with Latakia, a port city still mostly controlled Assad’s forces.

“The rebels will not stay at the checkpoints for long as Syrian warplanes normally bomb positions after rebels move in,” Abdelrahman said.

Five rebels died in the fighting and at least 20 soldiers were killed at the third site, including those shot after surrendering, he said.

The video footage showed a group of petrified men, some bleeding, lying on the ground as rebels walked around, kicking and stamping on their captives.

One of the captured men says: “I swear I didn’t shoot anyone” to which a rebel responds: “Shut up you animal … Gather them for me.” Then the men are shot dead.

Reuters could not independently verify the footage.

The Observatory said the al Qaeda-inspired Jabhat al-Nusra rebel group was responsible for the executions.

Islamist rebel units are growing in prominence in the war – a cause for concern for international powers as they weigh up what kind of support to give the opposition.

U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration has said it is not providing arms to internal opponents of Assad and is limiting its aid to non-lethal humanitarian assistance. It concedes, however, that some of its allies are providing lethal assistance.

Russia and China have blocked three U.N. Security Council resolutions aimed at increasing pressure on the Assad government, leading the United States and its allies to say they could move beyond U.N. structures for their next steps.

China has been strongly criticized by some Arab countries for failing to take a stronger stance on the conflict. Beijing has urged the Assad government to talk to the opposition and take steps to meet demands for political change.

“More and more countries have come to realize that a military option offers no way out, and a political settlement has become an increasingly shared aspiration,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said in Beijing.

He said China’s new proposal was aimed at building international consensus and supporting peace envoy Brahimi’s mediation efforts.

(Additional reporting by Ayat Basma, Laila Bassam and Dominic Evans in Beirut and Terril Yue Jones in Beijing; Writing by Oliver Holmes; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

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‘Gossip Girl’ set for 2-hour season finale on December 17

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Get ready to shut down the rumor mill; “Gossip Girl” will officially come to an end in December.

CW’s scandalicious drama will end its six-season run with a two-hour finale on December 17 at 8 p.m., bringing an end to more than half a decade of gasp-inducing twists, the network said Wednesday.

“All will be revealed in the drama-filled series finale, featuring a look back at the unforgettable OMG moments of the series that made headlines, including interviews with the cast and creators themselves,” the network promised in a release.

The “Gossip Girl” finale will also include a sneak peek at the CW’s upcoming “Sex and the City” offshoot “The Carrie Diaries,” which will chronicle sex columnist Carrie Bradshaw‘s early years as a young woman growing up in the 1980s.

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Apple rolls out iPad mini to shorter lines

SYDNEY/NEW YORK (Reuters) - The launch of Apple Inc's iPad mini attracted smaller crowds from Sydney to New York on Friday than have been typical for previous Apple product debuts, events marked by people lining up for hours or even days.

A proliferation of comparable rival devices may have sapped some interest for the device, which is priced above rival gadgets from Google Inc and Amazon.com Inc.

A few hundred people were in line at Apple's Fifth Avenue flagship store in New York at about 8 a.m., days after the city was battered by Hurricane Sandy, one of the biggest storms to ever hit the United States.

Lisa Sieber, 59, from Germany rode a bike to the Apple store on Friday as she said she's been going 'stir crazy' from lack of power and water at her 81-year-old mother's home in Manhattan's Lower East Side.

"I didn't think I needed an iPad but once you get your first Mac, you slide into the iPhone and the next one and it makes it easy to get more Apple products," she said, adding that "there's not much to do without power and lights."

While many people have been happy to camp overnight at the New York store for past launches, some were angry on Friday that Apple changed the store's opening time to 10 a.m. for this launch from 8 a.m. previously.

"Usually it's 8 a.m.," said Vincent Leroy, 27, a student from Long Island City in Queens who showed up at the store at 6:30 a.m. His friends complained loudly in unison when he told them he had found out about the delayed opening.

In Amsterdam two hours after the Apple store opened, it looked like a typical day at the store with no lines outside the door. An Apple employee on the scene told Reuters that people had lined up ahead of the store opening.

About 50 people waited for the Apple store in Sydney, Australia, to open, where in the past the line had stretched for several blocks when the company debuted new iPhones.

At the head of Friday's line was Patrick Li, who had been waiting since 4:30 a.m. and was eager to get his hands on the 7.9-inch slate.

"It's light, easy to handle, and I'll use it to read books. It's better than the original iPad," Li said.

There were queues of 100 or more outside Apple stores in Tokyo and Seoul when the device went on sale, but when the company's flagship Hong Kong store opened staff appeared to outnumber those waiting in line.

The iPad mini marks Apple's first foray into the smaller-tablet segment, and the latest salvo in a global mobile-device war that has engulfed combatants from Internet search leader Google, whose Android software runs on tablets from several vendors, to Web retailer Amazon.com and software giant Microsoft Corp.

Microsoft's 10-inch Surface tablet, powered by the just-launched Windows 8 software, went on sale in October, while Google and Amazon now dominate sales of smaller, 7-inch multimedia tablets.

POSITIVE REVIEWS

Unveiled last week, the iPad mini has won mostly positive reviews, with criticism centering on a lofty price tag and a screen considered inferior to those of rivals. The new tablet essentially replicates most of the features of its full-sized sibling, but in a smaller package.

"Well, first of all it's so thin and light and very cute - so cute!" said iPad mini customer Ten Ebihara at the Apple store in Tokyo's upscale Ginza district.

At $329 for a Wi-Fi only model, the iPad mini is a little costlier than predicted, but some analysts see that as Apple's attempt to retain premium positioning.

Some investors fear the gadget will lure buyers away from Apple's $499 flagship 9.7-inch iPad, while proving ineffective in combating the threat of Amazon's $199 Kindle Fire and Google's Nexus 7, both of which are sold at or near cost.

Also on Friday, Apple rolled out its fourth-generation iPad, with the same 9.7-inch display as the previous version but with a faster A6X processor and better Wi-Fi. Both devices were going on sale in more than 30 countries.

Apple will likely sell between 1 million and 1.5 million iPad minis in the first weekend, far short of the 3 million third-generation iPads sold last March in their first weekend, according to Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster.

"The reason we expect fewer iPad minis compared to the 3rd Gen is because of the lack of the wireless option and newness of the smaller form factor for consumers," Munster said in a note to clients. "We believe that over time that will change."

Reviewers have applauded Apple for squeezing most of the iPad's features into a smaller package that can be comfortably manipulated with one hand.

James Vohradsky, a 20-year-old student who previously queued for 17 hours at the Sydney store to buy the iPhone 5, only stood in line for an hour and a half this time.

"I had an iPad 1 before, I kind of miss it because I sold it about a year ago. It's just more practical to have the mini because I found it a bit too big. The image is really good and it's got the fast A5 chip too," Vohradsky said.

The iPad was launched in 2010 by late Apple boss Steve Jobs and since then it has taken a big chunk out of PC sales, upending the industry and reinventing mobile computing with its apps-based ecosystem.

A smaller tablet is the first device to be added to Apple's compact portfolio under Chief Executive Tim Cook, who took over from Jobs just before his death a year ago. Analysts credit Google and Amazon for influencing the decision.

Some investors worry that Apple might have lost its chief visionary with Jobs, and that new management might not be able to stay ahead of the pack as rivals innovate and encroach on its market share.

Apple shares were down 1 percent at $590.56 in morning trade on Friday.

(Additional reporting by Mariko Lochridge in Tokyo, Stefanie McIntyre in Hong Kong and Miyoung Kim in Seoul, Roberta Cowan in Amsterdam; Writing by Noel Randewich and Edwin Chan in San Francisco, Sinead Carew in New York; Editing by Phil Berlowitz, Alex Richardson and Steve Orlofsky)

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Valeant revenue jumps, acquisitions hit net profit

(Reuters) – Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc , Canada’s biggest public drugmaker, reported a drop in quarterly net profit on Friday, hurt by costs associated with its long string of acquisitions, but revenue jumped almost 50 percent and adjusted earnings rose.

Montreal-based Valeant, whose shares were little changed after the results, has been on the acquisition trail since its 2010 takeover by Biovail Corp, which assumed the Valeant name.

One of its latest deals was the $ 2.6 billion purchase of Medicis Pharmaceuticals Corp , a top competitor in the U.S. dermatology market, in early September. Regulatory approval is still pending.

On a conference call on Friday, Valeant Chief Executive Michael Pearson said annual cost savings associated with the Medicis deal will likely “significantly exceed” his company’s $ 225 million forecast.

“It’s definitely looking good for 2013,” Morningstar analyst David Krempa said of the Medicis update. Krempa added that Valeant’s results for the third quarter, ended September 30, were in line with his expectations.

In its acquisition campaign, Valeant, with a market value of about C$ 17 billion ($ 17 billion), has favored segments where patients often pay out of pocket, such as opthalmology and dermatology, cutting its exposure to cost-sensitive insurers.

Also in September, Valeant acquired Visudyne, a drug used to treat age-related blindness, from Canadian biotech company QLT Inc for $ 112.5 million.

TRACK RECORD

Pearson gave an annual update on the performance of Valeant’s larger deals, looking at 11 acquisitions made since the fall of 2008 for purchase prices of $ 75 million or more.

He said 10 of the 11 are ahead of Valeant’s initial revenue forecast, and nine are more than 10 percent ahead on expected cash flow.

The laggard is cold and flu medicine maker Afexa, won in a takeover battle with Paladin Labs Inc last year. Pearson said Afexa’s results were held back by high inventory at the time of the acquisition, and a mild winter in Canada.

“I thought it was interesting to note that (Afexa) was the only one they had gotten into a bidding war for,” said Krempa. “They had talked in the past about how they tried to avoid bidding wars so they wouldn’t overpay for anything.”

But Krempa also said that given the short-term issues highlighted by Pearson, it might be too soon to judge the Afexa deal, and that it is small in any case.

Net income for the quarter fell to $ 7.6 million, or 2 cents a share, from $ 40.9 million, or 13 cents per share, a year earlier.

On an adjusted basis, income rose to $ 357.5 million, or $ 1.15 a share, compared with $ 211.9 million, or 66 cents a share. Total revenue rose 47 percent to $ 884.1 million.

Analysts, on average, had been expecting earnings per share of $ 1.12 on revenue of $ 873.3 million, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

GUIDANCE

The company narrowed its forecast for the current quarter’s adjusted profit, which it calls cash earnings per share, to $ 1.30 to $ 1.35 for 2012. It had previously forecast earnings between $ 1.25 and $ 1.45 per share.

But Valeant said the updated forecast excludes a new 12 cents a share interest expense associated with the Medicis deal. If included, that cost would bring the forecast below previous guidance, to $ 1.18 to $ 1.23 a share.

For 2012 as a whole, the company cut its forecast for adjusted cash flow from operations to $ 1.2 billion to $ 1.3 billion, from more than $ 1.4 billion, citing higher investment in working capital.

Valeant’s stock was down 0.2 percent at C$ 56.44 on Friday morning on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

($ 1=$ 1.00 Canadian)

(Additional reporting by Bhaswati Mukhopadhyay in Bangalore; Editing by Janet Guttsman; and Peter Galloway)

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Will the final jobs report affect the election?

President Barack Obama and Republican rival Mitt Romney on Friday seized on the last jobs report before Election Day to reinforce their political arguments about the economy. Neither side, however, expected that the better-than-expected news would change many minds.

In a statement, Romney said that come Tuesday the choice would be "between stagnation and prosperity."

Obama, meanwhile, in front of a rowdy crowd of cheering supporters at the Franklin County Fairgrounds in Hilliard, Ohio, said, "This morning we learned that companies hired more workers in October than at any time in the last eight months.

"We've made real progress--but we are here today because we know we've got more work to do," Obama continued. "As long as there's a single American who wants a job and can't find one, as long as there are families working harder but falling behind, as long as there's a child anywhere in this country who's languishing in poverty and barred from opportunity, our fight goes on, we've got more work to do."

Neither campaign expected the new figure to do much to change the dynamic of the race. Aides on both sides have said in recent weeks that Americans' views of the economy are essentially fixed by now, barring a dramatic change.

The Labor Department's monthly jobs report did not provide such a tectonic shift. It showed that the economy added more jobs than experts had predicted and bolstered Obama's argument that he has overseen a slow but steady recovery from the 2007-2008 global economic meltdown.

At the same time, Republicans led by Romney seized on the news to charge that the incumbent has failed to bring about sturdier growth. At the current rate, it would take years to return to pre-recession levels. And no incumbent has faced the voters with unemployment this high since Franklin D. Roosevelt.

"On Tuesday, America will make a choice between stagnation and prosperity," Romney also said. "For four years, President Obama has told us that things are getting better and that we're making progress. For too many American families, those words ring hollow. We can do better."

Non-farm payrolls added 171,000 jobs last month, beating forecasts of about 125,000. The Labor Department also revised its previous estimates of employment growth in August and September upward by 84,000 jobs.

The unemployment rate ticked up from 7.8 percent to 7.9 percent, but chiefly as a result of more Americans getting off the sidelines and looking for work (those not looking are not counted in the jobless rate). Democrats emphasized that Obama had inherited a disastrous economy from George W. Bush and reversed what had been accelerating jobs losses. Republicans noted that the unemployment rate when Obama took office was 7.8 percent.

"Today's increase in the unemployment rate is a sad reminder that the economy is at a virtual standstill," Romney added. "The jobless rate is higher than it was when President Obama took office, and there are still 23 million Americans struggling for work."

One of the political challenges for Romney was that unemployment was lower than the national average in some critical battleground states. In September, it was 7 percent in Ohio, and 5.9 percent in Virginia.

An ABC News/Washington Post poll released on Thursday painted a mixed picture of voters' views about the economy. Fifty-four percent of likely voters expressed confidence that the economy would improve under Romney, against 47 percent for Obama. But 51 percent of those surveyed still blamed George W. Bush for the current conditions, against 36 percent for Obama. The Democrat has made tying Romney to Bush a centerpiece of his closing argument.

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Mexico’s Day of Dead brings memories of missing

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Maria Elena Salazar refuses to set out plates of her missing son’s favorite foods or orange flowers as offerings for the deceased on Mexico‘s Day of the Dead, even though she hasn’t seen him in three-and-a-half years.

The 50-year-old former teacher is convinced that Hugo Gonzalez Salazar, a university graduate in marketing who worked for a telephone company, is still alive and being forced to work for a drug cartel because of his skills.

“The government, the authorities, they know it, that the gangs took them away to use as forced labor,” said Salazar of her then 24-year-old son, who disappeared in the northern city of Torreon in July 2009.

The Day of the Dead — when Mexicans traditionally visit the graves of dead relatives and leave offerings of flowers, food and candy skulls — is a difficult time for the families of the thousands of Mexicans who have disappeared amid a wave of drug-fueled violence.

With what activists call a mix of denial, hope and desperation, they refuse to dedicate altars on the Nov. 1-2 holiday to people often missing for years. They won’t accept any but the most certain proof of death, and sometimes reject even that.

Numbers vary on just how many people have disappeared in recent years. Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission says 24,000 people have been reported missing between 2000 and mid-2012, and that nearly 16,000 bodies remain unidentified.

But one thing is clear: just as there are households without Day of the Dead altars, there are thousands of graves of the unidentified dead scattered across the country, with no one to remember them.

An investigation conducted by the newspaper Milenio this week, involving hundreds of information requests to state and municipal governments, indicates that 24,102 unidentified bodies were buried in paupers’ or common graves in Mexican cemeteries since 2006. The number is almost certainly incomplete, since some local governments refused to provide figures, Milenio reported.

And while the number of unidentified dead probably includes some indigents, Central American migrants or dead unrelated to the drug war, it is clear that cities worst hit by the drug conflict also usually showed a corresponding bulge in the number of unidentified cadavers. For example, Mexico City, which has been relatively unscathed by drug violence, listed about one-third as many unidentified burials as the city of Veracruz, despite the fact that Mexico City’s population is about 15 times larger.

Consuelo Morales , who works with dozens of families of disappeared in the northern city of Monterrey, said that “holidays like this, that are family affairs and are very close to our culture, stir a lot of things up” for the families. But many refuse to accept the deaths of their loved ones, sometimes even after DNA testing confirms a match with a cadaver.

“They’ll say to you, ‘I’m not going to put up an altar, because they’re not dead,” Martinez noted. “Their thinking is that ‘until they prove to me that my child is dead, he is alive.”

Martinez says one family she works with at the Citizens in Support of Human Rights center had refused to accept their son was dead, even after three rounds of DNA testing and the exhumation of the remains.

“It was their son, he was very young, and he had been burned alive,” Martinez said by way of explanation.

The refusal to accept what appears inevitable may be a matter of desperation. Martinez said some families in Monterrey also believe their missing relatives are being held as virtual slaves for the cartels, even though federal prosecutors say they have never uncovered any kind of drug cartel forced-labor camp, in the six years since Mexico launched an offensive against the cartels.

But many people like Salazar believe it must be true. “Organized crime is a business, but it can’t advertise for employees openly, so it has to take them by force,” Salazar said.

While she refuses to erect an altar-like offering for her son, she does perform other rituals that mirror the Day of the Dead customs, like the one that involves scattering a trail of flower petals to the doorsteps of houses to guide spirits of the departed back home once a year.

Salazar and her family still live in the same home in Torreon, though they’d like to move, in the hopes that Hugo will return there. They pray three times a day for God to guide him home.

“We live in the same place, and we try to do the same things we used to,” said Salazar, “because he is going to come back to his place, his home, and we have to be waiting for him.”

Mistrust of officials has risen to such a point that some families may never get an answer they’ll accept.

The problem is that, with forensics procedures often sadly lacking in Mexican police forces, the dead my never be connected with the living, which is the whole point of the Mexican traditions.

“As long as the authorities don’t prove the opposite, for us they’re still alive,” Salazar said. “Let them prove it, but let us have some certainty, not just the authorities saying ‘here he is.’ We don’t the government to just give us bodies that aren’t theirs, and that has happened.”

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The Devil’s General? German film seeks to debunk Rommel myth

BERLIN (Reuters) – Erwin Rommel, the World War Two German field marshal celebrated as the brilliant and humane “Desert Fox“, is portrayed in a new film as a weak man torn by his loyalty to Adolf Hitler and the dawning realization that he was serving a devil.

The drama, due to be broadcast on the public ARD television on Thursday, has angered Rommel‘s son and granddaughter who believe it underplays his role in the resistance against Hitler.

Rommel was forced to commit suicide in 1944 after Hitler suspected the general of being linked to the July 1944 plot to kill him, though historians disagree about how close he was to the failed assassination attempt.

Nazi propaganda feted Rommel as a military genius after his successful, bold offensives against the Allies in North Africa from 1941 until late 1942 when his Afrikakorps was defeated at El Alamein, a battle commemorated in London last week by the dwindling band of surviving British and Commonwealth veterans.

Even wartime British Prime Minister Winston Churchill hailed Rommel as a “great general”.

Rommel’s standing among his enemies was enhanced by his humane treatment of prisoners. The Afrikakorps eschewed the atrocities committed by the German army in other theatres of war, especially on the Eastern Front.

By 1944, in Normandy trying to defend the coast from an impending Allied landing, Rommel realized the war was lost and grew disillusioned. Despite having links to some of the plotters, he never joined the abortive July 20, 1944 conspiracy to assassinate Hitler.

“The idea is to demystify Rommel,” producer Nico Hofmann told Reuters.

“There is a lot of speculation surrounding the myth of Rommel. To some he is a brave, proud soldier, the ‘Desert Fox’. Some people don’t know he committed suicide under pressure from Hitler and think he perished in the war and there are many questions about how close he was to the resistance.”

“These are taboos, subjects for discussion and historical evaluation,” he said.

Film director Niki Stein described Rommel as a “weak man” who chose to look away and many historians say he was primarily bent on serving Hitler to advance his career.

Rommel’s family has denounced the script of the 6 million euro film which focuses on his growing internal conflict during the seven months of his life leading up to his death.

His son, Manfred – who was 15 when his father died and is now 83 – and granddaughter wrote to the producers last year accusing the script of the film “Rommel” of presenting “lies”.

They argued that he played a greater role in the resistance than the producers believed, said Hofmann.

The family have declined to talk to media about the film.

CYANIDE ULTIMATUM

Historians say the film is important as it will show millions of viewers the dramatic last months of the general’s life and the dilemma faced by many Germans who felt a sense of duty to their country, but were disenchanted with Hitler.

“Please watch, this film explains a little how it was back then with our grandparents, with Hitler, with fear, with joining in,” wrote a columnist in top-selling Bild daily, which has been serializing Rommel’s life.

“The Rommel film shows how a man believes he is serving a king and realizes too late that he is a devil.”

Other newspapers have also run long articles on the Rommel figure and the authoritative weekly Der Spiegel splashed “The Myth of Erwin Rommel” on its cover this week.

The film shows how a conflicted general, who was one of the Nazi regime’s biggest propaganda tools, gradually turned against Hitler. In line with the historical evidence, it leaves open his role in the plot against Hitler led by Claus von Stauffenberg.

Although he had contact with some of those involved, his son has written that he knew nothing of the assassination attempt.

Rommel was wounded by a Spitfire attack on his staff car days before the July 20 coup attempt, but soon after the plot ringleaders were executed Hitler grew suspicious about him.

Realizing the potential damage of putting Rommel on trial for treason, Hitler sent two officers to put an ultimatum to his once favorite general: if he wanted his wife and son to be looked after, he should swallow a cyanide capsule.

Hitler wrote to his widow and gave the field marshal a state funeral with his coffin draped in a swastika flag.

“I don’t see him as a hero. He is a tragic figure. He was a weak man drawn into an incredible internal conflict,” Stein, the director and author of the screenplay, told Reuters.

“I hope young Germans watch. We’re talking about our grandparents. It explains a lot about the way people act in a dictatorship.”

With popular actor Ulrich Tukur playing the main role, Stein thinks people will identify with Rommel but not necessarily sympathize with him. “Perhaps they will be shocked when they realize he is not so clean,” he said.

Underscoring the many contradictions of his character, Rommel’s legacy has shifted over the years.

Immediately after World War Two, Germans latched on to the myth of Rommel as a “soldier’s soldier” who had no close links to Nazi ideology and was forced to kill himself by the regime.

Much was made of the behavior of his Afrikakorps and his decision to disobey Hitler’s “victory or death” order at El Alamein and instead oversee a retreat which saved many lives.

“By the 1970s a German destroyer and army barracks were named after him,” said history Professor Soenke Neitzel, who has written about Rommel and advised the filmmakers.

He was favorably portrayed in 1951 by James Mason in “The Desert Fox”, which gave prominence to his disputed role in the von Stauffenberg plot.

But many historians say it is implausible that a field marshal who regularly met top Nazis, including Hitler, did not know of the Holocaust, a point critics say the film brushes over.

“On the one hand he didn’t commit war crimes that we know of and ordered a retreat at El Alamein despite Hitler’s order,” said Neitzel.

“But he took huge German casualties elsewhere and he was a servant of the regime. He was not exactly a shining liberal or Social Democrat. Mostly, he was interested in his career.”

(Editing by Jon Hemming)

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Apple's Cook fields his A-team before a wary Wall Street

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Apple Inc Chief Executive Tim Cook's new go-to management team of mostly familiar faces failed to drum up much excitement on Wall Street, driving its shares to a three-month low on Wednesday.

The world's most valuable technology company, which had faced questions about a visionary-leadership vacuum following the death of Steve Jobs, on Monday stunned investors by announcing the ouster of chief mobile software architect Scott Forstall and retail chief John Browett -- the latter after six months on the job.

Cook gave most of Forstall's responsibilities to Macintosh software chief Craig Federighi, while some parts of the job went to Internet chief Eddy Cue and celebrated designer Jony Ive.

But the loss of the 15-year veteran and Jobs's confidant Forstall, and resurgent talk about internal conflicts, exacerbated uncertainty over whether Cook and his lieutenants have what it takes to devise and market the next ground-breaking, industry-disrupting product.

Apple shares ended the day down 1.4 percent at 595.32. They have shed a tenth of their value this month -- the biggest monthly loss since late 2008, and have headed south since touching an all-time high of $705 in September.

For investors, the management upheaval from a company that usually excels at delivering positive surprises represents the latest reason for unease about the future of a company now more valuable than almost any other company in the world.

Apple undershot analysts targets in its fiscal third quarter, the second straight disappointment. Its latest Maps software was met with widespread frustration and ridicule over glaring mistakes. Sources told Reuters that Forstall and Cook disagreed over the need to publicly apologize for its maps service embarrassment.

And this month, Apple entered the small-tablet market with its iPad mini, lagging Amazon.com Inc and Google Inc despite pioneering the tablet market in 2010.

Investor concerns now center around the demand, availability and profitability of new products, including the iPad mini set to hit stores on Friday.

"The sudden departure of Scott Forstall doesn't help," said Shaw Wu, an analyst with Sterne Agee. "Now there's some uncertainty in the management."

"There appears to be some infighting, post-Steve Jobs, and looks like Cook is putting his foot down and unifying the troops."

Apple declined to comment beyond Monday's announcement.

Against that backdrop, Cook's inner circle has some convincing to do. In the wake of Forstall's exit, iTunes maestro Eddy Cue -- dubbed "Mr Fixit", the sources say -- gets his second promotion in a year, taking on an expanded portfolio of all online services, including Siri and Maps.

The affable executive with a tough negotiating streak who, according to documents revealed in court, lobbied Jobs aggressively and finally convinced the late visionary about the need for a smaller-sized tablet, has become a central figure: a versatile problem-solver for the company.

Ive, the British-born award-winning designer credited with pushing the boundaries of engineering with the iPod and iPhone, now extends his skills into the software realm with the lead on user interface.

Marketing guru Schiller continues in his role, while career engineer Mansfield canceled his retirement to stay on and lead wireless and semiconductor teams. Then there's Federighi, the self-effacing software engineer who a source told Reuters joined Apple over Forstall's initial objections, and has the nickname "Hair Force One" on Game Center.

"With a large base of approximately 60,400 full-time employees, it would be easy to conclude that the departures are not important," said Keith Bachman, analyst with BMO Capital Markets. "However, we do believe the departures are a negative, since we think Mr. Forstall in particular added value to Apple."

TEAM COOK

Few would argue with Forstall's success in leading mobile software iOS and that he deserves a lot of credit for the sale of millions of iPhones and iPads.

But despite the success, his style and direction on the software were not without critics, inside and outside.

Forstall often clashed with other executives, said a person familiar with him, adding he sometimes tended to over-promise and under-deliver on features. Now, Federighi, Ive and Cue have the opportunity to develop the look, feel and engineering of the all-important software that runs iPhones and iPads.

Cue, who rose to prominence by building and fostering iTunes and the app store, has the tough job of fixing and improving Maps, unveiled with much fanfare by Forstall in June, but it was found full of missing information and wrongly marked sites.

The Duke University alum and Blue Devils basketball fan -- he has been seen courtside with players -- is deemed the right person to accomplish this, given his track record on fixing services and products that initially don't do well.

The 23-year veteran turned around the short-lived MobileMe storage service after revamping and wrapping it into the reasonably well-received iCloud offering.

"Eddy is certainly a person who gets thrown a lot of stuff to ‘go make it work' as he's very used to dealing with partners," said a person familiar with Cue. The person said Cue was suited to fixing Maps given the need to work with partners such as TomTom and business listings provider Yelp.

Cue's affable charm and years of dealing with entertainment companies may come in handy as he also tries to improve voice-enabled digital assistant Siri. He has climbed the ladder rapidly in the past five years and was promoted to senior vice president last September, shortly after Cook took over as CEO.

Both Cue and Cook will work more closely with Federighi, who spent a decade in enterprise software before rejoining Apple in 2009, taking over Mac software after the legendary Bertrand Serlet left the company in March last year

Federighi was instrumental in bringing popular mobile features such as notifications and Facebook integration onto the latest Mac operating system Mountain Lion, which was downloaded on 3 million machines in four days.

The former CTO of business software company Ariba, now part of SAP, worked with Jobs at NeXT Computer. Federighi is a visionary in software engineering and can be as good as Jobs in strategic decisions for the product he oversees, a person who has worked with him said.

His presentation skills have been called on of late, most recently at Apple annual developers' gathering in the summer.

Then there's Ive, deemed Apple's inspirational force. Among the iconic products he has worked on are multi-hued iMac computers, the iPod music player, the iPhone and the iPad.

Forstall's departure may free Ive of certain constraints, the sources said. His exit brought to the fore a fundamental design issue -- to do or not to do digital skeuomorphic designs. Skeuomorphic designs stay true to and mimic real-life objects, such as the bookshelf in the iBooks icon, green felt in its Game Center app icon, and an analog clock depicting the time.

Forstall, who will stay on as adviser to Cook for another year, strongly believed in these designs, but his philosophy was not shared by all. His chief dissenter was Ive, who is said to prefer a more open approach, which could mean a slightly different design direction on the icons.

"There is no one else who has that kind of (design) focus on the team," the person said of Ive. "He is critical for them."

(Additional reporting by Alistair Barr; Editing by Edwin Chan and Ken Wills)

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La desvenlafaxina actúa contra los sofocos: estudio

NUEVA YORK (Reuters Health) – El antidepresivo

desvenlafaxina (Pristiq, de Pfizer) reduce los sofocos en las

mujeres postmenopáusicas, según señala un equipo médico.

A pesar de este resultado, que surge de un subestudio de un

ensayo aleatorio, la Administración de Alimentos y Medicamentos

de Estados Unidos (FDA, por su sigla en inglés) rechazó la

solicitud de Pfizer de aprobación de desvenlafaxina para el

tratamiento de los síntomas vasomotores de la menopausia, como

los sofocos, moderados a graves.

“El único tratamiento que aprobó la FDA para los sofocos de

la menopausia es la terapia con estrógeno”, dijo por e-mail la

autora principal, doctora JoAnn V. Pinkerton. “Las mujeres

necesitan alternativas no hormonales. Necesitan opciones”.

En Menopause, el equipo de Pinkerton, del Sistema de Salud

de University of Virginia, Charlottesville, publica los

resultados de un subestudio de efectividad de 12 semanas de

duración durante un estudio de un año con desvenlafaxina.

El grupo a tratar incluía 365 mujeres que, al azar, tomaron

100 mg/día de desvenlafaxina o placebo. Comparado con el

placebo, el fármaco redujo significativamente la cantidad y la

gravedad de los sofocos a la cuarta y la decimosegunda semanas.

A la semana número 12, desvenlafaxina redujo un 62 por

ciento la cantidad diaria de sofocos moderados y graves,

mientras que el placebo lo hizo un 38 por ciento, mientras que

la gravedad de los síntomas disminuyó, respectivamente un 25 y

12 por ciento.

Los autores analizaron también “una diferencia clínicamente

poco significativa”, es decir, una reducción de 5,35 sofocos

moderados y graves por día. Este resultado se obtuvo en el 64

por ciento de las mujeres tratadas con desvenlafaxina y en el 41

por ciento del grupo control.

“La desvenlafaxina es un tratamiento no hormonal seguro,

bien tolerado y efectivo, con reducciones estadísticamente y

clínicamente significativas de la frecuencia y la gravedad de

los sofocos en las mujeres postmenopáusicas con sofocos de

rápida aparición”, afirmó el equipo.

Pfizer retiró su solicitud de la FDA en febrero, pero el

producto sigue disponible para tratar el trastorno depresivo

mayor.

Pinkerton agregó por e-mail: “Es importante desarrollar

alternativas porque hasta el 75 por ciento de las mujeres padece

sofocos en la menopausia y el 25 por ciento de ellas necesita un

tratamiento”.

La autora comentó también que existen otros remedios no

hormonales. Dijo a Reuters Health que con su equipo evaluó la

gabapentina de liberación extendida (Serada, de Depomed) versus

placebo en un ensayo durante 24 semanas con 600 mujeres

postmenopáusicas.

La frecuencia y la intensidad de los sofocos disminuyeron

con gabapentina a las 12 y 24 semanas, y los sofocos “mejoraron

mucho” o “mejoraron” a las 24 semanas.

Los resultados fueron presentados este mes en la reunión

anual de la Sociedad Norteamericana de Menopausia. También este

mes, la FDA aceptó una nueva solicitud de aprobación para

Serada.

FUENTE: Menopause, online 25 de octubre del 2012

Seniors/Aging News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Storm death toll up, gas lines grow

NEW YORK (Reuters) - New Yorkers awoke to the rumble of subway trains for the first time in four days on Thursday and the death toll continued to rise from the former hurricane Sandy, one of the biggest and most devastating storms ever to hit the United States.

Lines formed at gas stations amid fuel shortages around the U.S. Northeast and emergency utility crews struggled to reach the worst hit areas and restore power to millions of people.

At least 82 people in North America died in the superstorm, which ravaged the northeastern United States on Monday night, and officials said the count could climb higher as rescuers searched house-to-house through coastal towns.

More deaths were recorded overnight as the extent of destruction became clearer in the New York City borough of Staten Island, where the storm lifted whole houses off their foundations.

Authorities recovered 15 bodies from Staten Island. Among those still missing were two boys aged 4 and 2 who were swept from their mother's arms by the floodwaters, the New York Post reported. In all, 34 people died in New York City.

In hard-hit New Jersey, where oceanside towns saw entire neighborhoods swallowed by seawater and the Atlantic City boardwalk was destroyed, the death toll doubled to 12.

New Jersey favorite son Bruce Springsteen, along with Jon Bon Jovi and Sting, will headline a benefit concert for storm victims Friday night on NBC television, the network announced.

Sandy started as a late-season hurricane in the Caribbean, where it killed 69 people, before smashing ashore in the United States with 80 mph winds. It stretched from the Carolinas to Connecticut and was the largest storm by area to hit the United States in decades.

About 4.7 million homes and businesses in 15 U.S. states were without power on Thursday, down from a high of nearly 8.5 million, which surpassed the record 8.4 million customers who went dark from last year's Hurricane Irene.

Sandy made landfall in New Jersey with a full moon around high tide, creating a record storm surge that flooded lower Manhattan. By Thursday, the storm had dissipated over the North American mainland.

After a three-day hiatus, President Barack Obama was due to return to the campaign trail on Thursday, boosted in his re-election bid by a resounding endorsement of his disaster response from the Republican governor of New Jersey.

The Democratic incumbent, tied in polls with Mitt Romney before Tuesday's election, begins a two-day trip to the swing states of Colorado, Ohio and Nevada while his Republican challenger travels to Virginia.

Obama viewed flooded and sand-swept New Jersey shore communities on a helicopter tour of the state with Republican Governor Chris Christie on Wednesday.

"The entire country's been watching. Everyone knows how hard Jersey has been hit," Obama told people at an evacuation shelter in the town of Brigantine.

 

In New York, limited train service returned on some train and subway lines, but more than half of the gas stations in the city and neighboring New Jersey remained shut due to power outages and depleted fuel supplies. Even before dawn, long lines formed at gas stations that were expected to open.

Fuel supplies into New York and New Jersey were being choked off in several ways. Two refineries that make up a quarter of the region's refining capacity were still idle due to power outages or flooding. The New York Harbor waterway that imports a fifth of the area's fuel was still closed to traffic, and major import terminals were damaged and powerless.

In addition, the main oil pipeline from the Gulf Coast, which pumps 15 percent of the East Coast's fuel, remained shut.

Matthew Gessler of Brooklyn went to Breezy Point, a New York neighborhood where fire destroyed 111 homes, to inspect damage to his mother's house. Like others, he likened it to a war zone.

He said you could take a picture of the devastation and say it was the Middle East "and no one would doubt you at all."

In Jersey City, across the Hudson River from New York, drivers negotiated intersections without the aid of traffic lights. Shops were shuttered and lines formed outside pharmacies while people piled sodden mattresses and furniture along the side of the roads. The city has issued a curfew on people as well as a driving ban from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m.

New Yorkers faced an easier commute as the subway system resumed limited operations. But four of the seven subway tunnels under the East River remained flooded and there was no service in Manhattan below 34th Street, where the power is still out.

Subway rides were free as authorities encouraged commuters to use mass transit rather than drive. Mayor Michael Bloomberg and state Governor Andrew Cuomo said private cars must carry at least three people in order to enter New York, after the city was clogged by traffic on Wednesday.

LaGuardia airport in New York was scheduled to reopen on Thursday with limited service. John F. Kennedy and Newark, New Jersey, airports reopened with limited service on Wednesday.

(Additional reporting by Michael Erman, Anna Louie Sussman, Atossa Abrahamian, Martinne Geller and Scott DiSavino in New York, Susan Heavey in Washington, Ian Simpson in West Virginia and Mark Felsenthal in Atlantic City, N.J.; Writing by Eddie Evans and Daniel Trotta)

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Syrian air force on offensive after failed truce

AMMAN (Reuters) – Syrian warplanes bombed rebel targets with renewed intensity on Tuesday after the end of a widely ignored four-day truce between President Bashar al-Assad‘s forces and insurgents.

State television said “terrorists” had assassinated an air force general, Abdullah Mahmoud al-Khalidi, in a Damascus suburb, the latest of several rebel attacks on senior officials.

In July, a bomb killed four of Assad‘s aides, including his brother-in-law Assef Shawkat and the defense minister.

Air strikes hit eastern suburbs of Damascus, outlying areas in the central city of Homs, and the northern rebel-held town of Maarat al-Numan on the Damascus-Aleppo highway, activists said.

Rebels have been attacking army bases in al-Hamdaniya and Wadi al-Deif, on the outskirts of Maarat al-Numan.

Some activists said 28 civilians had been killed in Maarat al-Numan and released video footage of men retrieving a toddler’s body from a flattened building. The men cursed Assad as they dragged the dead girl, wearing a colorful overall, from the debris. The footage could not be independently verified.

The military has shelled and bombed Maarat al-Numan, 300 km (190 miles) north of Damascus, since rebels took it last month.

“The rebels have evacuated their positions inside Maarat al-Numaan since the air raids began. They are mostly on the frontline south of the town,” activist Mohammed Kanaan said.

Maarat al-Numan and other Sunni towns in northwestern Idlib province are mostly hostile to Assad’s ruling system, dominated by his minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi’ite Islam.

Two rebels were killed and 10 wounded in an air strike on al-Mubarkiyeh, 6 km (4 miles) south of Homs, where rebels have besieged a compound guarding a tank maintenance facility.

Opposition sources said the facility had been used to shell Sunni villages near the Lebanese border.

“WE’LL FIX IT”

The army also fired mortar bombs into the Damascus district of Hammouria, killing at least eight people, activists said.

One video showed a young girl in Hammouria with a large shrapnel wound in her forehead sitting dazed while a doctor said: “Don’t worry dear, we’ll fix it for you.”

Syria’s military, stretched thin by the struggle to keep control, has increasingly used air power against opposition areas, including those in the main cities of Damascus and Aleppo. Insurgents lack effective anti-aircraft weapons.

U.N.-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi has said he will pursue his peace efforts despite the failure of his appeal for a pause in fighting for the Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday.

But it is unclear how he can find any compromise acceptable to Assad, who seems determined to keep power whatever the cost, and mostly Sunni Muslim rebels equally intent on toppling him.

Big powers and Middle Eastern countries are divided over how to end the 19-month-old conflict which has cost an estimated 32,000 dead, making it one of the bloodiest of Arab revolts that have ousted entrenched leaders in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya.

The United Nations said it had sent a convoy of 18 trucks with food and other aid to Homs during the “ceasefire”, but had been unable to unload supplies in the Old City due to fighting.

“We were trying to take advantage of positive signs we saw at the end of last week. The truce lasted more or less four hours so there was not much opportunity for us after all,” said Jens Laerke, a U.N. spokesman in Geneva.

The prime minister of the Gulf state of Qatar told al-Jazeera television late on Monday that Syria’s conflict was not a civil war but “a war of annihilation licensed firstly by the Syrian government and secondly by the international community”.

Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani said some of those responsible were on the U.N. Security Council, alluding to Russia and China which have vetoed three Western-backed U.N. draft resolutions condemning Assad.

He said that the West was also not doing enough to stop the violence and that the United States would be in “paralysis” for two or three weeks during its presidential election.

(Additional reporting by Raissa Kasolowsky in Abu Dhabi and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; Writing by Oliver Holmes; Editing by Alistair Lyon)

World News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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“Community” returning to old time slot in February

NEW YORK (TheWrap.com) – “Community” will return Thursday, February 7 to its previous timeslot after a long absence from NBC‘s lineup.

NBC confirmed the show’s return date soon after star Yvette Nicole Brown, who plays Shirley on the ensemble comedy, announced the news on Twitter.

“Guys, #Community officially has an airdate: Thursday, February 7th at 8pm!,” tweeted the actress. NBC also announced several others return and premiere dates Tuesday.

The move means the network has abandoned its plans to move the show to Friday nights. “Community” will take the place of “30 Rock,” which will have completed its 13-episode final season by February.

“Community” was scheduled to move to Fridays beginning on October 19. But NBC opted to delay the Friday debut of “Community” and “Whitney” so it could devote itself to promoting its new fall comedies.

When one of them, “Animal Practice,” was cancelled, its timeslot went to “Whitney,” and the fate of “Community” was left up in the air.

Despite the long delay – “Community” hasn’t aired since the spring – the Thursday timeslot is good news for the show since Fridays usually draw much lower ratings.

NBC fired “Community” creator and showrunner Dan Harmon at the end of last season. Though it is critically acclaimed and has many diehard fans online, that hasn’t translated into many viewers.

NBC’s entertainment chairman has said that the network wants to focus more this season on broad comedies than on its quick-witted but odd Thursday shows, which tend to struggle for ratings.

TV News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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