A fire caused by a kerosene heater that flipped over in a center for refugees who had fled the Syrian civil war killed seven members of a family, a civil defense spokesman said Wednesday. The center is a temporary shelter for refugees before they are moved to a camp called Zaatari, which has been battered by a flash flood.
World Briefing | Middle East: Jordan: Fire Kills Family at Camp for Syrian Refugees
Label: WorldAmerican Idol's New Judges Make Their Debut
Label: Lifestyle
TV Watch
American Idol
From left: Randy Jackson, Mariah Carey, Ryan Seacrest, Nicki Minaj and Keith Urban
Michael Becker/FOX.
American Idol is back!
Season 12 premiered Wednesday night with the first auditions in New York City. And fans hoping to get a taste of drama from new judges Mariah Carey and Nicki Minaj were not disappointed.
"Right away we knew it was going to be an interesting couple of days," host Ryan Seacrest said at the start of the two-hour episode.
And he was right. (Spoilers ahead!) While fellow newbie Keith Urban and veteran judge Randy Jackson were all about the business of finding talented singers, there was immediate tension between Carey and Minaj, who wore a drum major's hat to her first day on the job.
"We can have accessories?" Carey said disapprovingly after taking her seat at the panel. "I didn't know that was allowed."
"Why did you have to reference my hat?" Minaj responded.
Later, when Carey boasted about her holiday hit, "All I Want for Christmas," Minaj clenched her fists, gritted her teeth and used the b-word. Carey's response? "I rebuke it," she said.
The two women talked over each other at times, rolled eyes and seemed to annoy one another. More than once Carey said "Nicki" like an frustrated mother calls her child out for misbehaving. And Minaj pushed Carey's buttons by talking in a British accent.
But as the two formerly feuding judges have said in recent interviews, the show should be about the hopeful contestants – and there were a handful of talented singers who earned golden tickets to Hollywood:
• Tenna Torres, who attended Camp Mariah and had previously sung for the singer, impressed the panel with her version of "You've Got a Friend," and made her idol very proud.
• Christina "Isabelle," who told a story of losing weight and finding confidence, had Minaj saying, "OMG! OMG!" with her version of "Summertime."
• Frankie Ford, who sings for change on the New York City subway system, stumbled at first but delivered a soulful version of the Eurythmics' "Sweet Dreams." "I like your big voice," Urban said. "There's a lot of musicality in the tone."
Added Carey: "You have an inner glow, which is always beautiful to see."
• Despite hearing loss in both ears, Angela Miller, who sang "Mama Knows Best" by Jessie J, was "definitely one of the best," according to Jackson.
• And Ashlee Feliciano thrilled the female judges with her version of Corinne Bailey Rae's "Put Your Records On." "So pretty," Minaj said. "I want to come to your show ... I'm so inspired by you."
"The potential is great. It was beautiful," Carey said. "You should be really proud of yourself."
At the end of the first two days of auditions, the re-invented Idol panel had done its job: the judges praised the talented singers and handed out 41 tickets to Hollywood; they sent home the kooky contestants (often sweetly) and offered constructive criticism and an invitation to come back next year to the ones still on their way to greatness.
"We gel well in a weird crazy way," Minaj said at the end of the show. Carey said, "I agree."
We'll see how long that lasts! Auditions continue Thursday (8 p.m. ET) on Fox.
Large study confirms flu vaccine safe in pregnancy
Label: HealthNEW YORK (AP) — A large study offers reassuring news for pregnant women: It's safe to get a flu shot.
The research found no evidence that the vaccine increases the risk of losing a fetus, and may prevent some deaths. Getting the flu while pregnant makes fetal death more likely, the Norwegian research showed.
The flu vaccine has long been considered safe for pregnant women and their fetus. U.S. health officials began recommending flu shots for them more than five decades ago, following a higher death rate in pregnant women during a flu pandemic in the late 1950s.
But the study is perhaps the largest look at the safety and value of flu vaccination during pregnancy, experts say.
"This is the kind of information we need to provide our patients when discussing that flu vaccine is important for everyone, particularly for pregnant women," said Dr. Geeta Swamy, a researcher who studies vaccines and pregnant women at Duke University Medical Center.
The study was released by the New England Journal of Medicine on Wednesday as the United States and Europe suffer through an early and intense flu season. A U.S. obstetricians group this week reminded members that it's not too late for their pregnant patients to get vaccinated.
The new study was led by the Norwegian Institute of Public Health. It tracked pregnancies in Norway in 2009 and 2010 during an international epidemic of a new swine flu strain.
Before 2009, pregnant women in Norway were not routinely advised to get flu shots. But during the pandemic, vaccinations against the new strain were recommended for those in their second or third trimester.
The study focused on more than 113,000 pregnancies. Of those, 492 ended in the death of the fetus. The researchers calculated that the risk of fetal death was nearly twice as high for women who weren't vaccinated as it was in vaccinated mothers.
U.S. flu vaccination rates for pregnant women grew in the wake of the 2009 swine flu pandemic, from less than 15 percent to about 50 percent. But health officials say those rates need to be higher to protect newborns as well. Infants can't be vaccinated until 6 months, but studies have shown they pick up some protection if their mothers got the annual shot, experts say.
Because some drugs and vaccines can be harmful to a fetus, there is a long-standing concern about giving any medicine to a pregnant woman, experts acknowledged. But this study should ease any worries about the flu shot, said Dr. Denise Jamieson of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"The vaccine is safe," she said.
___
Online:
Medical journal: http://www.nejm.org
Commentary: Background Checks? Yes, but Leave Video Games Alone
Label: TechnologyCOMMENTARY | I have mixed feelings toward the White House‘s gun violence response. I agree that background checks should be required before people are allowed to buy a firearm and that an assault weapon ban should be reinstated into law. While limiting the number of bullets in a weapon’s magazine will decrease the number of deaths in a mass shooting, the public does not need high-capacity magazines. Therefore any weapon using high-capacity magazines should be banned from public use, not just capping the magazines to 10 bullets.
But violent video games and other media images and scenes real-life violence? These media do not kill people. The shooters kill the people. Those who are mentally unstable may not understand that violent video games are not real life and should not be duplicated in real life. As long as gamers understand the difference between video games and real life, that shouldn’t be touched.
– Edmond, Okla.
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Asian shares consolidate, caution ahead of Chinese data
Label: BusinessTOKYO (Reuters) - Asian shares eked out modest gains Thursday, consolidating amid better-than-expected U.S. earnings but demand was capped by caution ahead of Chinese data on Friday.
The MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan <.miapj0000pus> added 0.1 percent, after falling in the past two sessions, pulled higher by a surge in Australian shares <.axjo>, which rose 1 percent to a 20-month high.
Australian employment surprisingly contracted by 5,500 in December, bolstering the odds for another interest rate cut. The prospect of further policy easing boosted local shares but sent the Australian dollar down to session lows of $1.0534 from $1.0560 before the data.
Analysts said the data came against a fairly positive global backdrop.
"There's a growing sentiment among investors that international risks have been significantly reduced, particularly after the U.S. made a start on its fiscal negotiations," said Ric Spooner, market strategist at CMC Markets in Sydney.
World stock markets ended flat on Wednesday with the banking sector rising as earnings from Goldman Sachs
Investors will now turn to economic reports from China on Friday, including fourth-quarter GDP, December industrial output, retail sales and house price, which will offer clues on the health of Asia's biggest economy.
Data showing demand for new cars in recession-bound Europe fell to a 17-year low in 2012 reminded investors of the challenges facing the global economy, after the World Bank sharply cut its outlook for world growth this year to 2.4 percent from 3 percent, citing a slow recovery in developed nations.
YEN RESUMES WEAKNESS
The dollar and the euro regained ground against the yen, snapping two days of selling when investors took profits from these currencies' sharp and rapid rises against the Japanese currency since November.
Traders expect the yen to remain on a weakening trend amid expectations for bolder monetary easing measures from the Bank of Japan as part of the new government's push to drive Japan out of years of deflation and economic slump.
Japan's benchmark Nikkei average <.n225> inched up 0.2 percent, after tumbling 2.6 percent for its largest daily decline in eight months on Wednesday. The Nikkei hit a 32-month high on Tuesday as the yen's slump to multi-year lows against the dollar and the euro bolstered exporters on improving earnings outlook. <.t/>
The dollar was up 0.1 percent to 88.50 yen, off its peak since June 2010 of 89.67 touched on Monday, while the euro climbed 0.3 percent to 117.75 yen, after surging to its highest since May 2011 of 120.13 yen on Monday.
Anxiety about a possible protracted fight in Washington over raising the federal borrowing limit pushed the five-year cost to insure against a U.S. default up to 44 basis points on Wednesday, the highest since August 2011 during the first debt ceiling battle between U.S. President Barack Obama and Republican lawmakers.
The euro was up 0.1 percent to $1.3306 against the dollar, after reaching an 11-month high of $1.3404 on Monday.
COMMODITIES SEEN RISING
Reduced concerns over the euro zone debt problems, relatively more solid global economic fundamentals than last year and China's moderate recovery suggest there are buying opportunities for shares in cyclically dependant sectors and economies including Japan, Philip Poole, Head of Strategy at HSBC Global Asset Management, told a seminar in Tokyo this week.
"Recovery will feed through into 2013, but China won't go back to pre-crisis (of 2008) levels of growth of 10 percent," Poole said, adding that growth was likely to be 7-8 percent in 2013, a level investors now need to get used to.
"Cyclically sensitive sectors look relatively cheap in emerging countries and developed countries," while defensives were less attractive given their relative outperformance in 2012 under the more stressed financial environment, Poole said.
Another sector likely seen getting a boost from the reduced risk environment is commodities.
"Investment focus for 2013 is shifting to economically sensitive areas as global recovery takes place, boosting commodities prices," said Naohiro Niimura, a partner at research and consulting firm Market Risk Advisory.
The rally in platinum prices to 3-month highs this week, regaining its premium over gold for the first time since March 2012, is an indication of investors turning more proactive about taking risks, he said.
U.S. crude was down 0.2 percent at $94.05 a barrel while Brent was steady around $109.64.
(Additional reporting by Thuy Ong in Sydney; Editing by Shri Navaratnam)
Room for Debate: A New Line in the Sand Against Terror?
Label: WorldThe arid northern African state of Mali once seemed like one of the continent’s rare stable democracies. But a coup, an influx of Libyan arms after the fall of Muammar el-Qaddafi, and an uprising by well-financed militants have led to Islamists controlling the north. Even as they face off against French troops protecting the south, the stronghold raises the specter of a new base of terror just south of the Sahara.
With Islamist groups in Mali connecting with militants from Libya, Nigeria, Algeria and elsewhere, how can northern Africa avoid fostering terrorism and becoming the next Afghanistan?
Read the Discussion »
It's a Boy for Elton John
Label: Lifestyle
Mom & Babies
Celebrity Baby Blog
01/15/2013 at 10:00 PM ET
George Pimentel/WireImage
Elton John is a father again!
The musician and David Furnish welcomed their second child, son Elijah Joseph Daniel Furnish-John, via surrogate on Friday, Jan. 11 in Los Angeles, the couple confirm to HELLO.
Born at 6:40 p.m., Elijah weighed in at 8 lbs., 4 oz.
John and Furnish, who married in 2005, are already parents to son Zachary Jackson Levon, 2.
“Both of us have longed to have children, but the reality that we now have two sons is almost unbelievable. The birth of our second son completes our family in a most precious and perfect way,” the couple say in a statement.
“It is difficult to fully express how we are feeling at this time; we are just overwhelmed with happiness and excitement.”
John, 65, has been open about his desire to expand their family.
“I know when he goes to school there’s going to be an awful lot of pressure, and I know he’s going to have people saying, ‘You don’t have a mummy,’” says the singer-songwriter of his decision to have another baby.
“It’s going to happen. We talked about it before we had him. I want someone to be at his side and back him up. We shall see.”
– Sarah Michaud
Risk to all ages: 100 kids die of flu each year
Label: HealthNEW YORK (AP) — How bad is this flu season, exactly? Look to the children.
Twenty flu-related deaths have been reported in kids so far this winter, one of the worst tolls this early in the year since the government started keeping track in 2004.
But while such a tally is tragic, that does not mean this year will turn out to be unusually bad. Roughly 100 children die in an average flu season, and it's not yet clear the nation will reach that total.
The deaths this year have included a 6-year-old girl in Maine, a 15-year Michigan student who loved robotics, and 6-foot-4 Texas high school senior Max Schwolert, who grew sick in Wisconsin while visiting his grandparents for the holidays.
"He was kind of a gentle giant" whose death has had a huge impact on his hometown of Flower Mound, said Phil Schwolert, the Texas boy's uncle.
Health officials only started tracking pediatric flu deaths nine years ago, after media reports called attention to children's deaths. That was in 2003-04 when the primary flu germ was the same dangerous flu bug as the one dominating this year. It also was an earlier than normal flu season.
The government ultimately received reports of 153 flu-related deaths in children, from 40 states, and most of them had occurred by the beginning of January. But the reporting was scattershot. So in October 2004, the government started requiring all states to report flu-related deaths in kids.
Other things changed, most notably a broad expansion of who should get flu shots. During the terrible 2003-04 season, flu shots were only advised for children ages 6 months to 2 years.
That didn't help 4-year-old Amanda Kanowitz, who one day in late February 2004 came home from preschool with a cough and died less than three days later. Amanda was found dead in her bed that terrible Monday morning, by her mother.
"The worst day of our lives," said her father, Richard Kanowitz, a Manhattan attorney who went on to found a vaccine-promoting group called Families Fighting Flu.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention gradually expanded its flu shot guidance, and by 2008 all kids 6 months and older were urged to get the vaccine. As a result, the vaccination rate for kids grew from under 10 percent back then to around 40 percent today.
Flu vaccine is also much more plentiful. Roughly 130 million doses have been distributed this season, compared to 83 million back then. Public education seems to be better, too, Kanowitz observed.
The last unusually bad flu season for children, was 2009-10 — the year of the new swine flu, which hit young people especially hard. As of early January 2010, 236 flu-related deaths of kids had been reported since the previous August.
It's been difficult to compare the current flu season to those of other winters because this one started about a month earlier than usual.
Look at it this way: The nation is currently about five weeks into flu season, as measured by the first time flu case reports cross above a certain threshold. Two years ago, the nation wasn't five weeks into its flu season until early February, and at that point there were 30 pediatric flu deaths — or 10 more than have been reported at about the same point this year. That suggests that when the dust settles, this season may not be as bad as the one only two years ago.
But for some families, it will be remembered as the worst ever.
In Maine, 6-year-old Avery Lane — a first-grader in Benton who had recently received student-of-the-week honors — died in December following a case of the flu, according to press reports. She was Maine's first pediatric flu death in about two years, a Maine health official said.
In Michigan, 15-year-old Joshua Polehna died two weeks ago after suffering flu-like symptoms. The Lake Fenton High School student was the state's fourth pediatric flu death this year, according to published reports.
And in Texas, the town of Flower Mound mourned Schwolert, a healthy, lanky 17-year-old who loved to golf and taught Sunday school at the church where his father was a youth pastor.
Late last month, he and his family drove 16 hours to spend the holidays with his grandparents in Amery, Wis., a small town near the Minnesota state line. Max felt fluish on Christmas Eve, seemed better the next morning but grew worse that night. The family decided to postpone the drive home and took him to a local hospital. He was transferred to a medical center in St. Paul, Minn., where he died on Dec. 29.
He'd been accepted to Oklahoma State University before the Christmas trip. And an acceptance letter from the University of Minnesota arrived in Texas while Max was sick in Minnesota, his uncle said.
Nearly 1,400 people attended a memorial service for Max two weeks ago in Texas.
"He exuded care and love for other people," Phil Schwolert said.
"The bottom line is take care of your kids, be close to your kids," he said.
On average, an estimated 24,000 Americans die each flu season, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. People who are elderly and with certain chronic health conditions are generally at greatest risk from flu and its complications.
The current vaccine is about 60 percent effective, and is considered the best protection available. Max Schwolert had not been vaccinated, nor had the majority of the other pediatric deaths.
Even if kids are vaccinated, parents should be watchful for unusually severe symptoms, said Lyn Finelli of the CDC.
"If they have influenza-like illness and are lethargic, or not eating, or look punky — or if a parent's intuition is the kid doesn't look right and they're alarmed — they need to call the doctor and take them to the doctor," she advised.
___
CDC advice on kids: http://www.cdc.gov/flu/protect/children.htm
Tablet Too Small? Try Lenovo’s 27-Inch ‘Table PC’
Label: TechnologyGoogle’s aptly-named Nexus 7 tablet made a splash when it debuted last year, at $ 199 and with a screen 7 inches across. Apple soon released its own iPad Mini to join the increasingly crowded world of miniature tablets, which — at about half the size of a regular iPad — are so small as to be pocketable.
Other manufacturers, however, aren’t taking the “smaller is better” route. Microsoft‘s Surface tablet debuted with a 10.6-inch screen, almost an inch across more than the iPad. And now at the recent Consumer Electronics Show, at least two companies were showing off “tablets” the size of an HDTV.
The “IdeaCentre Horizon Table PC”
That’s the actual name of Lenovo‘s new product, which Lenovo is calling an “interpersonal PC” (yes, that is an interpersonal Personal Computer, in case you were wondering). It’s a Windows 8 tablet, with a screen 27 inches across. It can apparently serve as an iMac-style, all-in-one desktop just fine, but Lenovo wants people to use it flat on their tables, like in a promo video which evokes the original Microsoft Surface.
A $ 10,000 bathtub
That’s basically what the first Surface amounted to — the Microsoft prototype of years ago, which never saw widespread use. It was a super-expensive, bathtub-sized table, with a Windows Vista PC inside and a camera array which optically scanned its top surface. It wasn’t a true touchscreen, in other words, so much as an expensive hack that was mostly just good for demos and reminding people of the desks in “Tron.”
Lenovo’s “Table PC” is smaller than that Surface, but will also be a lot cheaper when it comes out “beginning in early summer,” at $ 1,699. And like in those giddy tech demos, it’s designed for multiple people to use it at once; for things like sorting through vacation photos, or even playing animated digital board games, using physical accessories like special dice. (Lenovo calls this sort of hybrid activity “phygital,” a name which probably won’t catch on.)
What about the games and apps?
Thanks to Microsoft’s push for developers to make tablet apps, the Windows Market is starting to fill with touch titles. Lenovo is mostly pushing its own shop, however, run in partnership with Intel, which has “5,000+ multi-user entertainment apps.” It’s not clear how many of those are actually designed for the Horizon Table PC, but it comes with a selection of entertainment and children’s titles, and with the built-in BlueStacks player it should be able to run certain Android apps as well.
Is 27 inches a little too big?
The Asus Transformer AiO, also shown off at CES, is based on a similar concept. It’s an 18.4-inch all-in-one Windows 8 PC, where the screen can detach and become a huge (but not as huge) tablet. Most of the hardware is in the base station, but it can connect to it wirelessly inside the home, Wii U style. It also converts to an Android tablet, for use separate from the base station.
Jared Spurbeck is an open-source software enthusiast, who uses an Android phone and an Ubuntu laptop PC. He has been writing about technology and electronics since 2008.
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Dow, S&P 500 inch up with retailers but Apple drags again
Label: BusinessNEW YORK (Reuters) - The Dow and S&P 500 edged higher on Tuesday after stronger-than-expected retail data, though tech heavyweight Apple dragged on the market for a third day.
Apple was the biggest weight on both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 <.ndx> after reports on Monday of cuts to orders for iPhone parts. Shares declined 3.2 percent to $485.92 and closed below $500 for the first time since February.
Retail stocks advanced after a government report showing retail sales rose more than expected in December was seen as a favorable sign for fourth-quarter growth. A separate report showed manufacturing activity in New York state contracted for the sixth month in a row in January.
"A little better-than-expected news on retail sales once again reinforces that the consumer remains alive and reasonably well," said Mark Luschini, chief investment strategist at Janney Montgomery Scott in Philadelphia, which manages about $54 billion in assets.
Among retailers, American Eagle Outfitters Inc gained 4.8 percent to $20.58 and Gap Inc
Express Inc
The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was up 27.57 points, or 0.20 percent, at 13,534.89. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was up 1.66 points, or 0.11 percent, at 1,472.34. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was down 6.72 points, or 0.22 percent, at 3,110.78.
Apple's stock has lost about 7 percent in the last three sessions and is down 8.7 percent since the start of the year.
"It's tough to discern exactly what's putting the pressure on it. But at the end of the day, its influence, considering it's still 3 1/2 to 4 percent of the S&P 500 index, is being felt," Luschini said.
"I attribute (it) to just some of the bloom coming off of the rose. They haven't necessarily done anything wrong, as much as others have caught up."
Also keeping investors on edge is the looming debt ceiling debate. On Monday, President Barack Obama rejected any negotiations with Republicans over raising the U.S. debt ceiling. The United States could default on its debt if Congress does not increase the borrowing limit.
Resolving the debt ceiling is more a question of how than if. Investors don't expect a U.S. default, but they are also wary of another eleventh-hour agreement like the one in August 2011.
An expected lackluster earnings season, too, kept investors from taking aggressive bets. Analyst estimates for the quarter have fallen sharply since October. S&P 500 earnings growth is now seen up just 1.8 percent from a year ago, Thomson Reuters data showed.
Homebuilder Lennar
Dell Inc
On the down side, shares of Facebook
Volume was roughly 5.8 billion shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and the NYSE MKT, compared with the 2012 average daily closing volume of about 6.45 billion.
Advancers outpaced decliners on the NYSE by about 17 to 12 and on the Nasdaq by about 13 to 11.
(Additional reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Kenneth Barry and Nick Zieminski)
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