TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — China‘s “Beijing Blues” has won the best film award at Taiwan’s Golden Horse Film Festival, an event considered the Chinese-language Oscars. Hong Kong‘s Johnnie To is taking home the best director’s award
“Beijing Blues” portrays the lives of the ordinary urban dwellers through the work of a squad of plainclothes crime-hunters.
At Saturday’s ceremony, To won the award for directing “Life Without Principle,” a movie about ordinary citizens’ struggles in hard economic times.
The film has also won veteran Hong Kong actor Lau Ching Wan the best actor’s award. Lau portrays a triad thug seeking to recover money lost in a loan shark scheme.
Taiwan’s Gwei Lun-mei won the best actress award for portraying a woman involved in a romantic triangle in “GF-BF” or “Girlfriend-Boyfriend.”
LONDON (Reuters) – A new virus from the same family as SARS which sparked a global alert in September has now killed two people in Saudi Arabia, and total cases there and in Qatar have reached six, the World Health Organisation said.
The U.N. health agency issued an international alert in late September saying a virus previously unknown in humans had infected a Qatari man who had recently been in Saudi Arabia, where another man with the same virus had died.
On Friday it said in an outbreak update that it had registered four more cases and one of the new patients had died.
“The additional cases have been identified as part of the enhanced surveillance in Saudi Arabia (3 cases, including 1 death) and Qatar (1 case),” the WHO said.
The new virus is known as a coronavirus and shares some of the symptoms of SARS, or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, which emerged in China in 2002 and killed around a 10th of the 8,000 people it infected worldwide.
Among the symptoms in the confirmed cases are fever, coughing and breathing difficulties.
Of the six laboratory-confirmed cases reported to WHO, four cases, including the two deaths, are from Saudi Arabia and two cases are from Qatar.
Britain’s Health Protection Agency, which helped to identify the new virus in September, said the newly reported case from Qatar was initially treated in October in Qatar but then transferred to Germany, and has now been discharged.
Coronaviruses are typically spread like other respiratory infections, such as flu, travelling in airborne droplets when an infected person coughs or sneezes.
The WHO said investigations were being conducted into the likely source of the infection, the method of exposure, and the possibility of human-to-human transmission of the virus.
“Close contacts of the recently confirmed cases are being identified and followed-up,” it said.
It added that so far, only the two most recently confirmed cases in Saudi Arabia were epidemiologically linked – they were from the same family, living in the same household.
“Preliminary investigations indicate that these two cases presented with similar symptoms of illness. One died and the other recovered,” the WHO’s statement said.
Two other members of the same family also suffered similar symptoms of illness, and one died and the other is recovering. But the WHO said laboratory test results on the fatality were still pending, and the person who is recovering had tested negative for the new coronavirus.
The virus has no formal name, but scientists at the British and Dutch laboratories where it was identified refer to it as “London1_novel CoV 2012″.
The WHO urged all its member states to continue surveillance for severe acute respiratory infections.
“Until more information is available, it is prudent to consider that the virus is likely more widely distributed than just the two countries which have identified cases,” it said.
Consumers’ lack of trust in some price comparison websites means that they miss out on potential savings, a regulator has said.
A previous study by the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) said that consumers could collectively save up to £240m a year by using these websites effectively.
But the OFT has now written to 100 leading operators asking them to make information on websites clearer.
One consumer group recently called for comparison websites to be regulated.
‘Step forward’
The use of price comparison websites has grown significantly as more and more consumers gain internet access.
For example, the majority of motor insurance policies are now bought by drivers who search through price comparison sites.
In its latest report, the OFT said these websites had brought a “major step forward” for consumers in getting better value for money.
Yet it said that a review of 55 different sites had shown that many could improve on their privacy settings, their complaints process, the way results were displayed, and clear identification of who was operating the site.
The Data Protection Act requires that all businesses collecting personal data explain to consumers who is collecting their information, what they intend to do with it and who it will be shared with.
The report also urged consumers to:
Look for opt-out options if they do not want their information to be shared
Be aware of how results are displayed – by relevance, price or popularity
Use different websites, rather than relying on a claim that the website has “found the best deal”
Check who runs the site, not just the name, and use accredited websites if possible
“Price comparison websites help busy shoppers find a good deal, but people might not realise that by being a bit savvier they can get even more out of these websites,” said Clive Maxwell, chief executive of the OFT.
“Not all price comparison websites have the same standards.”
Watchdog Consumer Focus, which runs an accreditation service, said that these websites needed to trade fairly and openly to be regarded as trustworthy brokers between consumers and markets.
“An open and honest relationship with customers is vital given the consumer distrust of many of the markets they use comparison sites to shop around,” said chief executive Mike O’Connor.
The consumers’ association Which? has previously called for price comparison websites to be regulated because the information they provided was not always fair.
It said that initial prices could seem very cheap because sites automatically pre-selected certain options for insurance products.
That led to some quotes being misleading and could cause customers to spend more than necessary – a claim that was disputed by one comparison site.
LONDON (Reuters) – A new virus from the same family as SARS which sparked a global alert in September has now killed two people in Saudi Arabia, and total cases there and in Qatar have reached six, the World Health Organisation said.
The U.N. health agency issued an international alert in late September saying a virus previously unknown in humans had infected a Qatari man who had recently been in Saudi Arabia, where another man with the same virus had died.
On Friday it said in an outbreak update that it had registered four more cases and one of the new patients had died.
“The additional cases have been identified as part of the enhanced surveillance in Saudi Arabia (3 cases, including 1 death) and Qatar (1 case),” the WHO said.
The new virus is known as a coronavirus and shares some of the symptoms of SARS, or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, which emerged in China in 2002 and killed around a 10th of the 8,000 people it infected worldwide.
Among the symptoms in the confirmed cases are fever, coughing and breathing difficulties.
Of the six laboratory-confirmed cases reported to WHO, four cases, including the two deaths, are from Saudi Arabia and two cases are from Qatar.
Britain’s Health Protection Agency, which helped to identify the new virus in September, said the newly reported case from Qatar was initially treated in October in Qatar but then transferred to Germany, and has now been discharged.
Coronaviruses are typically spread like other respiratory infections, such as flu, travelling in airborne droplets when an infected person coughs or sneezes.
The WHO said investigations were being conducted into the likely source of the infection, the method of exposure, and the possibility of human-to-human transmission of the virus.
“Close contacts of the recently confirmed cases are being identified and followed-up,” it said.
It added that so far, only the two most recently confirmed cases in Saudi Arabia were epidemiologically linked – they were from the same family, living in the same household.
“Preliminary investigations indicate that these two cases presented with similar symptoms of illness. One died and the other recovered,” the WHO’s statement said.
Two other members of the same family also suffered similar symptoms of illness, and one died and the other is recovering. But the WHO said laboratory test results on the fatality were still pending, and the person who is recovering had tested negative for the new coronavirus.
The virus has no formal name, but scientists at the British and Dutch laboratories where it was identified refer to it as “London1_novel CoV 2012″.
The WHO urged all its member states to continue surveillance for severe acute respiratory infections.
“Until more information is available, it is prudent to consider that the virus is likely more widely distributed than just the two countries which have identified cases,” it said.
The Brussels summit has ended without agreement on the 27-strong union’s next seven-year budget.
A BBC correspondent says another meeting will have to be called to sort out the difficulties but it is unclear how differences will be resolved.
European Council chief Herman Van Rompuy said he was confident a deal would be reached early next year.
Hours of talks failed to bridge big gaps between richer countries and those which rely most on EU funding.
The UK said current EU spending levels must be frozen.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote
Angela Merkel and I both agreed that it would be better to take some time out”
End QuoteFrancois HollandeFrench president
The EU’s divisions are very clear and have become even more stark at a time of economic crisis, says the BBC’s Chris Morris in Brussels.
Mr Van Rompuy had reshuffled the allocations in his original proposed budget during the summit, but he kept in place a spending ceiling of 973bn euros (£783bn; $ 1.2tn).
With the eurozone’s dominant states, Germany and France, unable to agree on the budget, UK Prime Minister David Cameron had warned against “unaffordable spending”.
The failure to decide on a budget came just days after the finance ministers of the 17 eurozone states failed to agree on conditions for releasing a new tranche of bailout money to Greece, raising questions about the union’s decision-making process.
‘No threats’
Mr Van Rompuy’s budget had been unacceptable to a number of other countries, not just Britain, Mr Cameron told reporters.
Continue reading the main story
Analysis
The summit laid bare clear divisions between richer northern countries in the EU, and the poorer south and east. It mirrored the divide that has emerged in the eurozone between northern creditors and southern debtors.
But the uneasy relationship between France and Germany also played a role – when they don’t agree, things tend to move slowly. Germany wanted further cuts in the budget proposal – not as many as Britain and others – but cuts all the same.
France on the other hand, supported by Italy and Spain, was keen to defend the EU’s biggest spending projects.
So striking a deal at a second summit in the New Year won’t be at all easy. But there are two reasons to think that it might succeed.
One is that failure to reach an agreement would mean the EU falling back on more expensive annual budgets.
The other is that many people are keen to avoid a prolonged budget stalemate, which could divert attention from other more important issues – notably the need to take more steps to resolve the crisis in the eurozone.
“Together, we had a very clear message: ‘We are not going to be tough on budgets at home just to come here and sign up to big increases in European spending’,” he said.
“We haven’t got the deal we wanted but we’ve stopped what would have been an unacceptable deal,” he added. “And in European terms I think that goes down as progress.”
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she was sympathetic towards Mr Cameron’s view – but no more than she was to all countries involved in the discussion.
“The discussions, both the bilateral discussions and the common discussion, have shown us that there is sufficient potential for an agreement,” she added.
French President Francois Hollande said the summit had made “progress”.
“There were no threats, no ultimatums,” he told reporters. “Angela Merkel and I both agreed that it would be better to take some time out because we want there to be an agreement.”
Without naming the UK, he also said it was time the system of budget rebates was reconsidered.
“It is a paradox, because some net contributors [EU countries that pay in more than they get back] get some of the money back even though they are in a situation where they are wealthy enough for them not to get this money back,” he said.
Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite remarked that the atmosphere at the summit had been “surprisingly good because the divergence in opinions was so large that there was nothing to argue about”.
European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso said the talks had failed owing to “important differences of opinion – especially in overall size of the budget”.
Revisions
The Commission, which drafts EU laws, had originally called for a budget of 1.025tn euros.
UK Prime Minister David Cameron: “We still believe a deal is do-able”
Its position was supported by the European Parliament and many countries which are net beneficiaries, including Poland, Hungary and Spain.
While most EU members supported some increase in the budget, several, mostly the big net contributors, argued it was unacceptable at a time of austerity.
Germany, the UK, France and Italy are the biggest net contributors to the budget, which amounts to about 1% of the EU’s overall GDP.
Mr Van Rompuy’s revised budget would have softened the blow to the two main areas of spending: development in the EU’s poorer regions, and agriculture.
Instead, there would have been greater cuts to energy, transport, broadband and the EU’s foreign service.
His proposal, put to leaders on Thursday evening, would have made no change to the level of administrative costs – something the UK might have found unacceptable.
Speaking after the summit, Mr Van Rompuy said: “My feeling is that we can go further… It has to be balanced and well prepared, not in the mood of improvisation, because we are touching upon jobs, we are touching upon sensitive issues.”
Failure to agree on the budget by the end of next year would mean rolling over the 2013 budget into 2014 on a month-by-month basis, putting some long-term projects at risk.
Analysts say that could leave the UK in a worse position, because the 2013 budget is bigger than the preceding years of the 2007-2013 multi-year budget.
British man finds carrier pigeon skeleton in his fireplace with unbreakable secret code (Reuters)
Before military forces had secure cell phones and satellite communications, they used carrier pigeons. The highly trained birds delivered sensitive information from one location to another during World War II. Often, the birds found the intended recipient. But not always.
A dead pigeon was recently discovered inside a chimney in Surrey, England. There for roughly 70 years, the bird had a curious canister attached to its leg. Inside was a coded message that has stumped the experts.
The code features a series of 27 groups of five letters. According to Reuters, nobody from Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters has been able to decipher it. The message was sent by a Sgt. W. Scott to someone or something identified as “Xo2.”
A spokesperson remarked, “Although it is disappointing that we cannot yet read the message brought back by a brave carrier pigeon, it is a tribute to the skills of the wartime code-makers that, despite working under severe pressure, they devised a code that was indecipherable both then and now.”
The bird was discovered by a homeowner doing renovations earlier this month. In an interview with Reuters, David Martin remarked that bits of birds kept falling from the chimney. Eventually, Margin saw the red canister and speculated that it might contain a secret message. And it seems as if the message will always be secret.
Carrier pigeons played a vital role in wars due to their incredible homing skills. All told, U.K. forces used about 250,000 of the birds during World War II.
GENEVA (Reuters) – Kris Kristofferson — Oxford scholar, athlete, U.S. Army helicopter pilot, country music composer, one-time roustabout, film actor, singer, lover of women, three times a husband and father of eight — seems ready to meet his maker.
At least, that was the clear impression he left with an audience of middle-aged-and-upwards fans at a concert in Geneva this week, a message underscored by his 28th and latest album, “Feeling Mortal” and its coffin-dark cover.
At a frail-looking 76, his ample beard more straggly than ever and his always gravel-laden voice gasping out the familiar lyrics of his great classics from “Bobby McGee” to “Rainbow Again”, the hereafter appears at the front of his mind.
“I’ve begun to soon descend, like the sun into the sea,” runs the title song of the new CD.
On the stage without backing group in Geneva, the first leg of a solo European tour to promote the disc from his own record company, “God” trips off his lips like a punctuation mark.
Even the old songs that made him — as well as other country artists like Willy Nelson, Johnny Cash, and his one-time girl-friend Janis Joplin — internationally famous, sound shaped by the fading voice to underscore a spiritual dimension.
“Sunday Morning Coming Down” emerges less as an ode to elderly loners facing old age without family and children and more as a call to prepare for the next life.
Religiosity was never that far from Kristofferson, son of a major-general in the U.S. Air Force, grandson of a Swedish army officer and in the 1ate 1950s a Rhodes Scholar in English Literature at England’s Oxford University.
CRUCIFIXION
In the 1971 “Jesus was a Capricorn” he predicts the Christian savior would be crucified again if he came back preaching peace and love among all races and creeds.
In the new album, “Ramblin’ Jack” is semi-autobiographical — a song about a wandering singer “with a face like a tumbled-down shack” of “wild and righteous, wicked ways” who “ain’t afraid of where he’s goin’.”
Kristofferson is adored by many believers, probably the vast majority of U.S. country fans and performers. But his fans among the unreligious and the atheists were also happy just to relish the poetry of his lyrics and the idiosyncrasy of his voice.
In Geneva, despite its Calvinist past as secular today as any major European city, the ageing 1,000-odd audience in a theatre seating twice that number, were certainly ready to enjoy anything he gave them.
They cheered and applauded his political declaration, an aside injected after a song line: “nobody wins.” “But somebody has just won. Obama won, so the whole world has won!” he rasped, waving his electric guitar in the air.
SELF-MOCKERY
They loved his self-mockery when, overcome briefly by a sniffle and pulling a blue bandana — cousin of the red one in “Bobby McGee”? — from his jeans pocket, he asked them if they minded having paid $ 100 “to watch an old fart blow his nose.”
And they laughed with him when — in the full flood of lyrics on the pleasure of being around “a lot of lovely girls in the best of all possible worlds — he confided: “I wrote this song a LONG time ago.”
His 22-year-old angel-faced daughter Kelly, a banjoist and vocalist, joined him on stage for a handful of numbers, while in the hall outside son Jesse manned a stall selling the new CD and the black “Feeling Mortal Tour” t-shirts.
Children — their dreams and the dreams of their parents for them — have also long been a central theme of his music.
“I wrote this for my little girl,” he says of a father’s song pledging he will be “forever there” for a daughter through life, and after. “Spread your wings,” he tells her.
More prosaically, he recalls a rebuke from Jesse at age five over his 1970s hit: “The Silver-Tongued Devil”: “That’s a bad song. You’re blaming all your troubles on someone else.”
After the concert, the Kristofferson family left for Zurich and Vienna to continue the tour. “This may be our last goodbye,” he sang in a final song. “We may not pass this way again.”
“We’ll miss you,” called a voice from the audience.
TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — China has enraged several neighbors with a few dashes on a map, printed in its newly revised passports that show it staking its claim on the entire South China Sea and even Taiwan.
Inside the passports, an outline of China printed in the upper left corner includes Taiwan and the sea, hemmed in by the dashes. The change highlights China’s longstanding claim on the South China Sea in its entirety, though parts of the waters also are claimed by the Philippines, Vietnam, Taiwan, Brunei and Malaysia.
China’s official maps have long included Taiwan and the South China Sea as Chinese territory, but the act of including them in its passports could be seen as a provocation since it would require other nations to tacitly endorse those claims by affixing their official seals to the documents.
Ruling party and opposition lawmakers alike condemned the map in Taiwan, a self-governed island that split from China after a civil war in 1949. They said it could harm the warming ties the historic rivals have enjoyed since Ma Ying-jeou became president 4 1/2 years ago.
“This is total ignorance of reality and only provokes disputes,” said Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council, the Cabinet-level body responsible for ties with Beijing. The council said the government cannot accept the map.
Philippine Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario told reporters in Manila that he sent a note to the Chinese Embassy that his country “strongly protests” the image. He said China’s claims include an area that is “clearly part of the Philippines’ territory and maritime domain.”
The Vietnamese government said it had also sent a diplomatic note to the Chinese Embassy in Hanoi, demanding that Beijing remove the “erroneous content” printed in the passport.
In Beijing, the Foreign Ministry said the new passport was issued based on international standards. China began issuing new versions of its passports to include electronic chips on May 15, though criticism cropped up only this week.
“The design of this type of passports is not directed against any particular country,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at a daily media briefing Friday. “We hope the relevant countries can calmly treat it with rationality and restraint so that the normal visits by the Chinese and foreigners will not be unnecessarily interfered with.”
It’s unclear whether China’s South China Sea neighbors will respond in any way beyond protesting to Beijing. China, in a territorial dispute with India, once stapled visas into passports to avoid stamping them.
“Vietnam reserves the right to carry out necessary measures suitable to Vietnamese law, international law and practices toward such passports,” Vietnamese foreign ministry spokesman Luong Thanh Nghi said.
Taiwan does not recognize China’s passports in any case; Chinese visitors to the island have special travel documents.
China maintains it has ancient claims to all of the South China Sea, despite much of it being within the exclusive economic zones of Southeast Asian neighbors. The islands and waters are potentially rich in oil and gas.
There are concerns that the disputes could escalate into violence. China and the Philippines had a tense maritime standoff at a shoal west of the main Philippine island of Luzon early this year.
The United States, which has said it takes no sides in the territorial spats but that it considers ensuring safe maritime traffic in the waters to be in its national interest, has backed a call for a “code of conduct” to prevent clashes in the disputed territories. But it remains unclear if and when China will sit down with rival claimants to draft such a legally binding nonaggression pact.
The Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia and Vietnam are scheduled to meet Dec. 12 to discuss claims in the South China Sea and the role of China.
___
Associated Press writers Oliver Teves in Manila, Philippines, Chris Brummitt in Hanoi, Vietnam, and researcher Zhao Liang in Beijing contributed to this report.
OTTAWA (Reuters) – Bank of Canada Deputy Governor Tim Lane repeated on Wednesday the central bank‘s message that interest rate increases will likely be needed, but only over time.
The “over time” phrase was introduced in the bank’s key guidance in its rate statement on October 23 as a way of signaling that while the next rate move is likely to be up, such a move was less imminent than it had been.
“Over time, some gradual withdrawal of monetary policy stimulus will likely be required, consistent with achieving the inflation-control target,” Lane said, according to a prepared presentation he was giving on Wednesday in Moncton, New Brunswick.
Another part of the presentation, which was posted on the central bank’s website, noted: “The Canadian economy continues to operate with a small amount of excess supply.”
The Bank of Canada is alone in the Group of Seven leading industrialized countries in signaling an intention to raise rates despite expectations of modest and unbalanced global growth.
Lane forecast “very robust growth” in emerging markets, stagnation in Europe and significant dampening of U.S. growth due to fiscal consolidation. He said Canada‘s real gross domestic product was still expected to grow at a moderate pace.
(Reporting by Randall Palmer; Editing by Jeffrey Hodgson; and Peter Galloway)
LOS ANGELES (AP) — How does “It’s a SpongeBob Christmas!” squeeze even more fun out of our porous little hero and the Bikini Bottom gang? By turning the animated characters three-dimensional for their holiday special.
In a tribute to classic fare such as “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” the “SpongeBob SquarePants” crew has been re-imagined as puppets and put through their comedy paces for stop-motion photography.
The story line as dreamed up by Tom Kenny, the voice of SpongeBob, and his musical collaborator Andy Paley: The denizens of Bikini Bottom are suddenly rude because of exposure to jerktonium, a plot by naughty Plankton to get on Santa’s (voiced by guest star John Goodman) nice list.
Plankton “wants to put everyone on their worst behavior when they should be on their best behavior, and zany mayhem ensues,” Kenny said.
“It’s a SpongeBob Christmas!” debuts 9:30 p.m. EST Friday on CBS, followed by an encore on the show’s home network, Nickelodeon, at 7:30 p.m. EST Sunday, Dec. 9.
The first-time foray into stop-motion is a welcome change for the 13-year-old “SpongeBob,” Kenny said.
“It’s fun that after all these years we can still do stuff that’s a little different. It’s like reinventing the wheel a little bit — if you can refer to a square character as a wheel,” he added, unable to resist the quip.
The actor looks back fondly on childhood memories of “Rudolph” from the Rankin-Bass studio and other stop-action projects. Even the TV commercial that put Santa on an electric razor subbing for a sleigh gets a Kenny shoutout.
Asked if young viewers might be fazed by seeing the familiar characters in a new guise, Kenny mulled the question before rebutting it.
“The characters act the same, the recording process is exactly the same. Our job is exactly the same. … There’s still plenty of the animated mayhem and anarchy that happens in the 2-D version of the show.”
Screen Novelties, the Los Angeles studio that produced the Christmas special, made a feast out of the job. In just one of their inventive approaches, filmmakers used fruit-flavored cereal to create a coral reef.
“I came to the studio and they had hundreds of boxes of cereal open and were hot-gluing it together,” Kenny recalled.
The Patrick Star puppet was covered in wool-like material and SpongeBob “wasn’t a sponge but some kind of weird material they found somewhere,” he said. “They’re like ‘MacGyver,’ always repurposing something.”
The TV special has a small element of recycling. Kenny calls it a testament to “a goofy little song” he and Paley wrote three years ago — “Don’t Be a Jerk, (It’s Christmas).”
“Bring joy to the world, it’s the thing to do. But the world does not revolve around you. Don’t be a jerk, it’s Christmas” is among its bouncy yet cautionary verses.
The tune is among a dozen included on the digital release “It’s a SpongeBob Christmas! Album,” most written by Kenny and Paley (a songwriter-producer who’s worked with artists including Brian Wilson and Blondie). Four songs are part of the special.
Music fans might want to check out the album for its craftsmanship. The veterans who play on it include harpist Corky Hale and harmonica player Tommy Morgan, both of whom have backed a roster of big stars, including Billie Holliday and Frank Sinatra.
The recording sessions proved an early holiday gift for Kenny.
“We’d spend a half-hour working and then make the musicians tell stories about who they played with,” he said.
Eva Cevallos with her eleven-month daughter, Quinn, shop at the Pre-Black Friday event at the Walmart Supercenter store in Rosemead, Calif., Nov. 21, 2012. (Image credit: ASSOCIATED PRESS)
Black Friday – a day famous for long lines, scary stampedes and even pepper spray - can be stressful. But with a bit of preparation, you can get great deals without the headache.
Click here to see how to save money on Black Friday.
Check out these tips to beat Black Friday stress.
Use Bricks and Clicks
You might be tempted to avoid the lines by shopping online, but spreading out purchases between stores and sites can help cut stress, according to a 2011 market research study.
“You would think sitting in an armchair wearing a robe waiting for a site to go live would be far less stressful,” John Ross, chief executive officer of Shopper Sciences, told ABCNews.com. “Even though you don’t have the pushing and shoving, shopping purely online tends to be pretty stressful, too.”
Ross said people who shopped in stores and online experienced less stress and spent more money overall, possibly because they found more good deals.
“You can browse online, do your shopping in the morning, have your turkey in the afternoon, line up your day for going into the stores on Friday, and then hit the stores early and get the best of both the online and the offline deals,” Best Buy Online president Scott Durschlag told ABC’s “Good Morning America.” “It’s really bricks and clicks.”
Click here to check out Cyber Monday deals you can get now.
Tap the Apps
A new set of smartphone apps can help you manage coupons and compare deals on the go. And with online price tags fluctuating throughout the day, some apps can even also help you decide when to pull the trigger.
Click here to see five Black Friday apps.
Don’t Sweat It in Line
The dread of waiting in long snaking lines can quash the excitement of finding great Black Friday deals, according to a 2011 market research study that measured shopper stress with sweat-sensing bracelets.
“The data shows the highest stress level occurred while shoppers were waiting for the store to open,” Shopper Sciences’ Ross said. “Once the store was open, shoppers were really happy, until they had to wait in the checkout line.”
But some simple relaxation techniques can help you keep your cool. Tell yourself, “There’s nothing I can do about it,” Dr. Redford Williams, director of Duke University’s Behavioral Medicine Research Center, said of waiting in lines. “Instead of fuming at the slowness, take a deep breath and say, ‘There’s no way I can make those people go faster, so I might as well just chill.”
Click here for tips on beating holiday stress.
Keep It Clean
It’s cold-and-flu season, and busy stores teem with germs. Make sure you bring home deals and not diseases like the flu by arming yourself with a flu shot and hand sanitizer. And be particularly careful when testing toys and electronics fondled by thousands before you.
“Try out your candidate iPhone, look at it, play with it, and then do your hand sanitizer thing,” Dr. William Schaffner, president of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases and chairman of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn., told ABCNews.com.
Click here to see the germiest places at the mall.
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Euro zone consumer confidence fell in November compared to the previous month, the first estimate from the European Commission showed on Thursday.
The Commission said consumer confidence in the 17-member euro zone slipped to -26.9 this month from a revised October figure of -25.7.
Consumer spending accounts for more than half of euro zone economic output, but with the effects of the debt crisis cutting disposable income, households have been in no position to contribute much to economic recovery.
In the wider 27-member European Union, consumer sentiment improved a fraction, to -23.7, compared to -24.3 last month.
EU leaders want to drive economic growth and employment after nearly three years of crisis and austerity, but the bloc has little immediate cash to invest and faces the longer-term challenge of falling productivity and an ageing workforce.
ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greece has reacted with dismay to the European Union‘s failure to agree to release vital rescue loan funds for the debt-ridden country, with the prime minister warning it was not just Greece’s future that hangs in the balance.
The delay prolongs uncertainty over the future of Greece, which faces a messy default that would threaten the entire euro currency used by 17 EU nations.
Prime Minister Antonis Samaras stressed that Greece has done what its creditors from the EU and International Monetary Fund required. “Our partners, along with the IMF, also must do what they have committed to doing,” he said.
He said that “it is not just the future of our country, but the stability of the entire eurozone” that depend on the success of negotiations in coming days.
NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — A federal jury on Tuesday convicted a man of illegally gaining access to AT&T‘s servers and stealing more than 120,000 email addresses of iPad users including New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and film mogul Harvey Weinstein.
Andrew Auernheimer, of New York, was convicted of identity theft and conspiracy to gain unauthorized access to computers. Each count carries a maximum prison sentence of five years.
Prosecutors said the former Fayetteville, Ark., resident was part of an online group that tricked AT&T’s website into divulging email addresses including those of Bloomberg, Weinstein, then-White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, who’s now Chicago’s mayor, and other celebrities.
The group then shared the addresses with the website Gawker, which published them in redacted form accompanying a news article about the breach, prosecutors said.
A second man arrested with Auernheimer early last year, Daniel Spitler, of San Francisco, pleaded guilty that June.
At the time of the arrests, U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman said there was no evidence the men used the swiped information for criminal purposes. But authorities cautioned that it could have wound up in the hands of spammers and scam artists.
According to court papers, the men used a computer script they called the iPad3G Account Slurper to fool AT&T’s servers into thinking they were communicating with an iPad. The theft of the email addresses occurred in June 2010.
Prosecutors said at the time of Auernheimer’s arrest that he had bragged about the operation in a blog posting and in an interview with CNET published online after the Gawker article. Court papers also quoted him declaring in a New York Times article: “I hack, I ruin, I make piles of money. I make people afraid for their lives.”
Auernheimer, after he was charged and released on bail, had declined to comment.
iPad maker Apple Inc., based in Cupertino, Calif., referred questions to AT&T, which acknowledged a security weak spot on a website that exposed the email addresses. AT&T said the vulnerability affected only iPad users who signed up for its 3G wireless Internet service and said it had fixed the problem.
LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – A possibly counterfeit Oscars trophy for the 1978 film has sparked a very real lawsuit.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has filed suit in U.S. District Court in Washington state over an Oscar statuette that “was either a genuine statuette or a very convincing counterfeit.”
If it’s real, the trophy was the one awarded to Aaron Rochin for his sound work on the 1978 film “The Deer Hunter.”
The Academy is suing Washington resident James Dunne, who sold the statue, and Edgard G. Francisco, who purchased it.
Dunne initially offered the statuette for sale on eBay in September but deleted the listing for fear that the Academy might discover it, according to the suit, which was filed last week. He later privately sold the statue of Florida resident Francisco for $ 25,000, the suit says.
The suit goes on to allege that after an appraisal, Francisco decided the statuette was fake and demanded a $ 15,000 refund. Dunne claims he provided a full refund. He also claims that he told Francisco that the trophy might not be authentic before he bought it.
Dunne told the Academy that he had either picked up the statuette at a moving sale or obtained it from a third party who got it at an estate sale.
After getting the refund, the suit says, Francisco threw the statuette away.
The Academy’s suit is two-fold: If the trophy was real, the Academy is seeking restitution for the loss of its property; if it was fake, the Academy claims that the pair infringed on the organization’s Oscars copyright.
The latter would seem to be the more probable scenario in this case. For one thing, the Academy says that the identification number for the statuette would place its manufacture in 1979, while the eBay auction billed it as a “Rare Pre-1950 Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences OSCAR Statue Award!”
The Academy is asking for unspecified damages, plus suit costs and attorneys’ fees.
In an attempt to lower the alarmingly high rate of unplanned pregnancy — and the high cost associated with it — an expert panel of doctors recommended Tuesday that birth control pills be made available without a prescription.
Specifically, the committee said the potential benefits of over-the-counter birth control pills outweigh the danger, which includes a small risk of dangerous blood clots.
Nearly half of all pregnancies happen by accident, according to government data. These pregnancies cost taxpayers an estimated $ 11.1 billion each year, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists’ Committee on Gynecologic Practice.
The birth control pill, commonly called “the pill,” is a formulation of hormones, usually progestin and estrogen, that helps prevent pregnancy mainly by keeping the ovaries from releasing eggs. Right now “the pill” is only available in the United States with a prescription, which the committee said poses a significant barrier.
“Access to and cost issues are common reasons why women do not use contraception or use it inconsistently,” said Dr. Kavita Nanda, one of the physicians on the committee.
A survey from 2004, cited by the committee, found that almost half of all uninsured women and 40 percent of low-income women who were not using birth control pills, the patch or the ring, said they would more likely use the pill if it were available over the counter.
This same survey also found that more than two out of three women at risk of an unintended pregnancy would use their pharmacy if more methods of birth control were available over the counter.
The committee said that birth control pills are good options for these women, with efficacy ranging from 92 to 99 percent depending on use.
Dr. Daniel Grossman, an American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists fellow, who was not part of the committee, said oral contraceptives are also safe. “We have over 50 years of experience with this method,” he said.
There are still many steps that would have to occur for the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recommendation to translate into the availability of birth control pills over the counter. And not all doctors support the idea that birth control pills are safely sold without a prescription.
“I think that the risks far outweigh the benefits,” said ABC News’ senior medical contributor Dr. Jennifer Ashton, who is also an obstetrician and gynecologist.
“Even though they’re hormones … they’re at much higher doses than our body makes, and as such there can be side effects ranging from minor to life threatening,” Ashton said. She went on to list some of the side effects associated with birth control pills, including low risks of blood clot, stroke and heart attack. “It’s a full spectrum of things that really needs a medical provider in the picture.”
Still, the committee noted in its recommendation that the risk of blood clots associated with birth control pills was low, with three to 10 women out of 10,000 taking the pill experiencing such a problem each year. By comparison, past research has found that the risk of blood clots associated with being pregnant is five to 20 women out of 10,000 each year, while the risk of clots associated with having just given birth is 40 to 65 per 10,000.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A gauge of future U.S. economic activity rose marginally in October, pointing to modest growth in the near term.
The Conference Board said on Wednesday its Leading Economic Index increased 0.2 percent to 96.0 after advancing 0.5 percent in September. It was the second consecutive month of gains and was in line with economists’ expectations.
“Based on the trends, the economy will continue to expand modestly through the early months of 2013,” said Ken Goldstein, an economist at the Conference Board.
Goldstein said superstorm Sandy, which ravaged the East Coast at the end of October, was not yet fully reflected in the LEI data. He cautioned, however, that the storm could adversely affect consumer spending and home building in the short-term.
“In addition, the outcome of the fiscal cliff debates is another factor that could alter the outlook,” said Goldstein.
The fiscal cliff refers to automatic government spending cuts and higher taxes that could suck about $ 600 billion from the economy early next year. Business confidence has taken a dive in recent months on fears of tighter fiscal policy.
(Reporting By Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Andrea Ricci)
TORONTO (Reuters) – Any fiscal problems that would significantly slow the U.S. economy would be of great concern to Canada, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said on Monday.
The United States needed a credible medium-term fiscal plan, Harper said at a business forum in Ottawa, adding that he was following the U.S. fiscal debate with “great interest.”
LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – FilmDistrict, Alliance Films and Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions will bring “Insidious Chapter 2,” the sequel to last year’s hit film “Insidious,” to U.S. theaters on August 30, 2013, the companies announced Monday.
Patrick Wilson, Rose Byrne, Lin Shaye and Ty Simpkins will reprise their roles in the film, which “Insidious” director James Wan will direct from a script written by Leigh Whannell who also wrote the first film.
Jason Blum, who produced “Insidious,” is producing the low-budget sequel through his Blumhouse Productions. Brian Kavanaugh Jones, Oren Peli, Steven Schneider, and Charles Layton are executive producing. Production on the sequel is set to begin on January 15 in Los Angeles.
Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions acquired the U.S. rights to the film in conjunction with FilmDistrict. The film is being financed by Alliance Films. FilmDistrict will distribute the film theatrically in the United States, with Sony handling the majority of ancillary rights in the U.S.
Alliance Films will distribute in Canada, the U.K. (via its Momentum Pictures subsidiary) and Spain (via Aurum), and Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions will distribute in all other international territories.
Peter Schlessel, FilmDistrict’s CEO, said: “We are all very excited to see the next chapter of James and Leigh’s vision of the Further. It’s great to be in business again with Blumhouse, Alliance and Sony.”
In an effort to curb HIV transmission and get treatment to those already infected, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force has recommended that every American between the ages of 15 and 65 be tested for HIV.
Experts hope that the new recommendations will encourage more Americans to get tested and, if necessary, get treated.
“HIV screening is an important way to help people who have HIV, and also to prevent transmission,” said Dr. Doug Owens, a leader of the task force and professor of medicine at Stanford University and the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System. Owens said that HIV treatment “decreases the amount of circulating virus,” making it less likely for it to spread from person to person.
Roughly 1.2 million Americans are currently living with HIV, a number that has been increasing steadily over the past five years, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There continue to be about 48,000 new cases per year in the United States, but new treatments are allowing people to live long lives after they’re diagnosed.
“Hopefully, more people with HIV will be identified and treated earlier,” said Dr. Roger Chou of the Pacific Northwest Evidence Based Practice Center, whose study on the evidence supporting the new recommendation was published today in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
HIV-positive patients who start treatment while their immune systems are relatively intact live longer and are less likely to spread the virus to other people. But 20 percent of patients are unaware they have the virus, said Dr. Carlos Del Rio, co-director of the Emory Center for AIDS research in Atlanta.
“This news about screening is very exciting,” Del Rio said.
Previous task force recommendations on HIV testing, published in 2005, called for adults to get tested only if they’d had unprotected sex with multiple partners or used intravenous drugs — in other words, were at high risk. But up to a quarter of patients who test positive for HIV report no risk factors, according to the new Preventive Services Task Force statement.
“People are terrible at knowing their own risk,” said Del Rio, adding that people may be unaware of the HIV status of their sexual partners. “And doctors are terrible at asking them about risk. It can be difficult to discuss sex and drugs with our patients.”
The task force recommendations are used by Medicare and other insurance companies to determine what laboratory tests should be covered. Other important task force recommendations included screening for breast and colon cancer, as well as high cholesterol.
“I don’t have to ask my patients if they eat hamburgers before ordering a cholesterol test,” said Del Rio. “Now I can do a routine HIV test when patients come to clinic.”
In order for the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force to make a testing recommendation, the test has to be accurate, treatment for the disease must be available and the benefits of the treatment outweigh the harms.
“HIV testing is one of the most accurate tests that we have for any condition,” said Chou.
Coupled with the fact that the benefits of HIV treatment are now known to outweigh the risks, screening now makes sense, according to the experts on the task force.
Also Read Sexual Health News Headlines – Yahoo! News
Why is Mark Thompson increasingly reminding us of James Murdoch?
Not long ago, Thompson and Murdoch were rivals of sorts. Murdoch was the head of News International in London. Thompson was the head of the BBC. Sometimes they took turns criticizing each other’s media operations in public.
Then scandals hit both organizations. And in the aftermath, as they have both repeatedly explained how the problems might have occurred on their watch without them knowing, as they have tried to distance themselves from widening probes and allegations of corporate cover-ups, and as they left London for new jobs in New York, the two rivals have started to sound a lot alike.
Recall Murdoch’s situation first.
In the summer of 2011, revelations of widespread phone hacking at News International triggered a huge wave of public outrage in the U.K., a range of public investigations, and allegations of a company cover-up on Murdoch’s watch.
In the immediate aftermath of the revelations, Murdoch said repeatedly that he was not part of any alleged cover-up; that for a long time he had been led to believe the phone hacking had been limited to a single “rogue” reporter; and that he had never been made aware of any allegations of widespread phone hacking taking place at News International until after the whole thing had erupted in public.
But then a correspondence involving lawyers for Murdoch surfaced, raising questions about those claims.
In the e-mail chain, an editor for one of News International’s papers updated Murdoch on a union official who was suing the company, noting that the situation “is as bad as we feared.” He also forwarded Murdoch two e-mails from company lawyers, one of which explained that the union official was eager to show that phone hacking was “rife” at News International and not limited to a single “rogue” reporter. The e-mail was sent to Murdoch well before the scandal erupted publicly—which seemed to cast serious doubt on his claims that he had been kept in the dark about the possibility of a broader problem.
But even after the e-mail surfaced, Murdoch stood firm.
He explained that when he had originally received the correspondence, he had just returned from overseas, was in the company of his young children, and so he might not have read to the bottom of the e-mail chain. Thus, he had apparently failed to absorb its meaning.
This past week, Thompson offered up a story reminiscent of Murdoch’s.
In October, allegations that the late Jimmy Savile, the former BBC star, had used his position to sexually abuse a large number of minors over the years triggered a huge wave of public outrage in the U.K., touched off multiple investigations, and raised allegations that a company cover-up had taken place on Thompson’s watch.
Like Murdoch, Thompson has denied that he was part of a cover-up. He explained that he had never been made aware of any allegations of sexual abuse until after the whole thing erupted in public.
“During my time as director general of the BBC, I never heard any allegations or received any complaints about Jimmy Savile,” Thompson told the New York Times in mid-October.
Then a correspondence involving lawyers for Thompson emerged, casting doubt on those claims.
The Times reported that 10 days before Thompson left the BBC in September 2012, lawyers representing him threatened in a letter to sue a newspaper in London that was preparing to publish an article suggesting, among other things, that Thompson had been involved in killing a BBC news investigation into Savile. “Interviews show that the letter included a summary of the alleged abuse, including the allegation that some abuse might have occurred at the BBC,” reported the Times.
Even after the Times broke the news of the letter’s content, however, Thompson stood firm.
An aide to Thompson explained to the Times that while Thompson had “orally authorized the sending of the letter” he might not have read its content—in part, because he had recently been traveling on vacation. In any case, he had apparently failed to absorb its meaning.
In February, Murdoch stepped down as the head of News International and relocated to New York for a job overseeing News Corp.’s (NWSA) international TV businesses. The ongoing investigations into wrongdoing at News International have raised questions about the future of his leadership role at the company. “I look forward to expanding my commitment to News Corporation’s international television businesses and other key initiatives across the Company,” said Murdoch at the time of his announced relocation to New York.
Recently, Thompson relocated to New York to become the new chief executive officer of the New York Times Co. (NYT). The ongoing investigations into wrongdoing at the BBC have raised questions about the future of his leadership role at the company. Last week, on his first day at work, camera crews greeted him outside his new office. A reporter asked if the crisis at the BBC would impact his role at the Times. ”No,” said Thompson. “I believe that it will not in any way affect my new job, which I’m starting right now.”
OTTAWA/NEW YORK (Reuters) – The Canadian government on Friday reiterated its intention to balance its budget by 2015, three days after projecting there would be deficits until 2016-17.
In separate appearances in Quebec City and New York, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Finance Minister Jim Flaherty were at pains to say they still intended to end the red ink by 2015.
“It remains the government’s plan, intention, to balance the budget prior to the next federal election. The recent economic and fiscal update by the minister indicates we are actually very close to that objective,” Harper told reporters in Quebec City. The next election is in October 2015.
Flaherty’s fall fiscal update on Tuesday had pushed back the target date for eliminating the deficit by a year, to 2016-17, citing a weak global economy.
But the minister said in a speech in New York that the government was on track to balance the budget in the next two to three years, barring major external events, and he later clarified that he intended a balanced budget by 2015.
“The prime minister’s always correct,” he chuckled.
He sought to explain the discrepancy by saying the fiscal update had built in a C$ 3 billion ($ 3 billion) contingency cushion, meaning there was an underlying surplus of C$ 1.2 billion for 2015-16. He said the projection of a C$ 1.8 billion deficit amounted to about half a percent of the C$ 275 billion federal budget.
“There’s lots of water to go under the bridge between now and then,” he said.
The opposition New Democratic Party noted the discrepancy in a release headlined: “Stephen Harper makes stuff up about balancing the budget.”
It pointed out that balancing the budget by the next election was not the same as balancing it by 2016-17.
As it is, even the 2015-16 timetable is a year later than offered in the Conservative campaign for reelection in May 2011. They had promised a balanced budget by 2014-15, followed by major personal income tax relief before the 2015 election.
Flaherty’s timetable drew criticism this week from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, which said the minister had become expert at kicking the can down the road.
The projections could be thrown out of whack if the United States goes off the fiscal cliff, a set of automatic tax hikes and spending cuts that are to be triggered on January 2 if legislators and the White House cannot agree on a more nuanced budget deal.
Flaherty said U.S. failure to avert the fiscal cliff would cause a significant and immediate decline in Canada’s gross domestic product, and he would counter it.
Referring to a possible economic shock from Europe or the United States, he said: “If that were to happen and if the Canadian economy were to be pushed back into recession with the resulting danger for higher unemployment and the danger always of a prolonged recession, then we would act.”
He added: “We would not stand by and let that happen. The kinds of measure we can take: there are various tax measures we can take, there are measures with respect to stimulus we can take, these are things that we have done before and we can do again.”
On Tuesday, Flaherty spoke of having prepared various contingency plans.
(Additional reporting by Louse Egan; Editing by David Gregorio)
NEW YORK (AP) — Amazon has started shipping the larger version of its Kindle Fire HD tablet computer on Thursday, five days ahead of schedule.
Amazon is short on stock, though, so new orders won’t ship until Dec. 3. Amazon.com Inc. had been taking orders for shipment on Nov. 20.
The Kindle Fire is one of several tablets challenging Apple’s iPad.
The tablet, which has an 8.9-inch screen measured diagonally, is available on Amazon’s website for $ 299. The tablet will be available at Best Buy stores beginning Friday and at more retailers in the coming weeks.
A version with cellular access is available for $ 499 and will start shipping next week as planned, though new orders won’t ship until Dec. 3.
The smaller version, which has a 7-inch screen, has been available since September.
NASHVILLE, Tennessee (Reuters) – Aaron Lewis stands as one of the more unusual crossovers into country music, but the singer of the metal band Staind believes it was a fit made in the cradle.
“It’s been quite the pleasant eclectic mix of tattoos and black eyeliner, and Stetsons, cowboy boots and big shiny buckles,” Lewis said in an interview after the release of his first full-length country studio album, “The Road,” this week.
Lewis, 40, was raised on what he terms his grandfather’s country music: Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Charlie Daniels and George Jones. He collaborated with Daniels and Jones on his country EP, “Town Line,” released last year.
This made the transition from the angst-ridden world of metal to the laid-back country scene an easy step for him, but perhaps not so much for his head-banging fans.
“A few fans are really having a hard time with it,” Lewis said. “I can’t make everyone happy. Music is about making me happy first. For those who wish I would stick with Staind, they’ll get what they want, too.”
Lewis, who sold seven studio albums over a 17-year career with Staind, says he has two musical careers because he is “creatively bipolar” and suffers from attention deficit disorder.
“I need to switch it up a little bit,” he said. “It’s kind of nice to write a song about taking my daughters to the beach instead (of) about something that’s tearing me apart from the inside.”
For Lewis, each song on “The Road” is the opportunity to explore his creativity in music, while winding down a road filled with new country listeners and taking Staind fans along for the ride.
“The Road” includes “Forever,” a thoughtful song of life on the road, and “Endless Summer,” a simple track about digging up clams and casting for striped bass with his daughters.
“If we catch a keeper we throw it on the grill,” he says. “The beauty of the adventure that I’m on now is I can write songs about stuff like that. I could never bring a song like that to the table for Staind.”
He describes writing “Endless Summer” as a “refreshing and a nice change” from his metal past.
“I remember having a big smile on my face the whole time I was writing it,” he said. “In the past, what’s usually coming up for lyrics is not smiley material. The song wrote itself in 10 minutes.”
In contrast, “Party in Hell,” which has fans up and dancing, was the last song Lewis wrote for the album and was inspired by a stint in Las Vegas.
“Las Vegas really is, in a metaphorical sense, a party in hell; you can get into anything you want to,” he said. “It was like well, ‘OK, I’m going to hell, who else is going to be there? We might as well have a party with it.’”
SAME PROCESS
His previous country EP, “Town Line,” featured the gold-selling single “Country Boy,” a collaboration with Daniels and Jones that hit the top of the “Billboard” album charts and topped off at No. 7 on the Top 200.
“That’s crazy, right?” Lewis asks, shaking his head. “It was pretty amazing for me, pretty surreal. I was actually in the studio with Charlie, which was a lot of fun. We have become good friends.”
The writing process for country or rock is the same, according to Lewis.
“The music is always first, then the melody, and the lyrics third,” he said. “I need the music to know what the landscape is that I’m singing over, and I need the melody to fit the words in, and then the words come last.”
But the lyrics do not come while he is writing on a piece of paper. “They come with me standing in front of a microphone with the song playing in the background and singing,” he said. “It’s total improv, right off the cuff.”
As with recording, Lewis does not approach a rock performance differently from a country performance.
“I go out on stage and perform those songs I recorded to the best of my ability to sound just like the recording,” he said. “I have always tried to approach every show like it’s the only show that I have. That’s kind of how I’ve gone about this crazy career I’ve had now coming up on 15 years.”
(Reporting by Vernell Hackett; Editing by Christine Kearney and Lisa Von Ahn)
Teens may be chugging protein shakes and taking other muscle-enhancing supplements more often than previously thought, a new study found.
According to a self-reported survey conducted among adolescent males and females, nearly 35 percent said they used protein powders and shakes, while almost 6 percent reported using steroids, according to study author Maria Eisenberg of the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, and colleagues. Both both behaviors were more common among boys versus girls.
Read this story on www.medpagetoday.com.
In comparison, recent studies with population-based samples of U.S. youth have indicated that 8 percent of females and 10.2 percent of males reported the use of protein supplements.
Use of muscle-enhancing products or behaviors to bulk up, such as different eating habits or exercising more, were significantly associated with grade level, Asian race, body mass index, and sports team participation, the current authors wrote in Pediatrics online.
Women and how media images impact thinness and body image has been the subject of a great deal of research, but images of men depicted in the popular media show people who are increasingly large, lean, and muscular, the authors pointed out.
“Boys’ body dissatisfaction has simultaneously increased, and research has demonstrated that exposure to images of extremely muscular models contributes to body dissatisfaction and muscle dysmorphia in young men,” they wrote.
For the current study, they gathered data through the Eating and Activity in Teens (EAT 2010) study, a large, population-based study of weight status, dietary intake, physical activity, weight control behaviors, and related factors for adolescents from the Minneapolis and St. Paul metropolitan area during the 2009 to 2010 school year.
The study included a 235-question self-report survey and physical measurements of participants height and weight.
The authors focused on participant response to questions related to frequency of participation in any of five muscle-enhancing behaviors over the year prior to the survey, including altered eating behaviors and exercising more — considered “healthy” behaviors as well as use of protein powder or shakes, use of steroids, or use of other muscle-building substances, such as creatine, amino acids, or growth hormones, considered “unhealthy” behaviors.
Participants also reported their school level, gender, race, socioeconomic status based on parental educational attainment, body mass index (BMI), sports team participation, and weight status.
The study population consisted of 2,793 students with a mean age of 14.4 and almost equally divided among females (53.2 percent) and males (46.8 percent). Nearly 30 percent of the participants were black and about 20 percent were white or Asian.
Almost 60 percent of the study population played at least one after-school sport.
Among boys, the authors found that more than two-thirds reported changing their eating to increase their muscle size or tone, and 90 percent exercised more to increase their muscle mass or tone. In terms of the prevalence of “unhealthy” behaviors:
34.7 percent reported using protein powders or shakes
5.9 percent reported using steroids
10.5 percent reported using some other muscle-enhancing substance
Among the girls, 21.2 percent reported using protein powders, while 4.6 percent said they used steroids, and 5.5 percent used other muscle-enhancing substances.
The authors also found that overweight and obese girls had significantly greater odds of using protein powders or shakes than girls of average BMI.
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Stocks rose more than 1 percent on Monday, rebounding after last week’s decline, on signs of progress in talks to resolve the fiscal crunch.
Adding to optimism, U.S. home resales unexpectedly rose in October, a sign that the slow improvement in the job market is helping the housing sector.
In another positive report on housing, sentiment among home builders rose for a seventh straight month in November to the highest level in over six years as demand for new homes increased.
Over the weekend, leading Democratic and Republican lawmakers expressed confidence that they could reach a deal to avert the “fiscal cliff” even as they laid down markers on raising taxes and spending cuts that may make any agreement more difficult.
“While not our base case, we believe that stocks could rise substantially if U.S. policymakers can negotiate a ‘grand bargain’ that credibly addresses long-term tax, spending and entitlement reforms,” said Jonathan Golub, strategist at UBS in New York.
“Unfortunately, our sense is that the most important structural issues will be pushed off into the future, leaving significant uncertainty about the long-term direction of the economy and corporate profits.”
Reflecting the uncertainty, UBS introduced a cautious outlook with a year-end 2013 price target on the S&P 500 at 1,425.
The Dow Jones industrial average <.DJI> was up 152.40 points, or 1.21 percent, at 12,740.71. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index <.SPX> was up 20.35 points, or 1.50 percent, at 1,380.23. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.IXIC> was up 39.37 points, or 1.38 percent, at 2,892.50.
U.S. financial markets will be closed on Thursday for the Thanksgiving holiday.
Stronger-than-expected earnings also contributed to the market’s advance.
Shares of Lowe’s Cos Inc , the world’s No. 2 home improvement chain, rose 7.3 percent to $ 34.28 after the company reported higher-than-expected quarterly profit and raised its full-year sales forecast.
Shares of Tyson Foods Inc jumped 7 percent to $ 18.07 after the company reported higher-than-expected quarterly earnings, helped by higher prices.
But Intel shares fell 0.7 percent to $ 20.06 on news that the company’s Chief Executive Paul Otellini will retire in May, and that the board will consider internal and external candidates to choose Otellini’s successor.
(Reporting by Angela Moon; Editing by Kenneth Barry)
34.7 percent reported using protein powders or shakes
