New rules aim to get rid of junk foods in schools

WASHINGTON (AP) — Most candy, high-calorie drinks and greasy meals could soon be on a food blacklist in the nation's schools.

For the first time, the government is proposing broad new standards to make sure all foods sold in schools are more healthful.

Under the new rules the Agriculture Department proposed Friday, foods like fatty chips, snack cakes, nachos and mozzarella sticks would be taken out of lunch lines and vending machines. In their place would be foods like baked chips, trail mix, diet sodas, lower-calorie sports drinks and low-fat hamburgers.

The rules, required under a child nutrition law passed by Congress in 2010, are part of the government's effort to combat childhood obesity. While many schools already have improved their lunch menus and vending machine choices, others still are selling high-fat, high-calorie foods.

Under the proposal, the Agriculture Department would set fat, calorie, sugar and sodium limits on almost all foods sold in schools. Current standards already regulate the nutritional content of school breakfasts and lunches that are subsidized by the federal government, but most lunchrooms also have "a la carte" lines that sell other foods. Food sold through vending machines and in other ways outside the lunchroom has never before been federally regulated.

"Parents and teachers work hard to instill healthy eating habits in our kids, and these efforts should be supported when kids walk through the schoolhouse door," Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said.

Most snacks sold in school would have to have less than 200 calories. Elementary and middle schools could sell only water, low-fat milk or 100 percent fruit or vegetable juice. High schools could sell some sports drinks, diet sodas and iced teas, but the calories would be limited. Drinks would be limited to 12-ounce portions in middle schools and to 8-ounce portions in elementary schools.

The standards will cover vending machines, the "a la carte" lunch lines, snack bars and any other foods regularly sold around school. They would not apply to in-school fundraisers or bake sales, though states have the power to regulate them. The new guidelines also would not apply to after-school concessions at school games or theater events, goodies brought from home for classroom celebrations, or anything students bring for their own personal consumption.

The new rules are the latest in a long list of changes designed to make foods served in schools more healthful and accessible. Nutritional guidelines for the subsidized lunches were revised last year and put in place last fall. The 2010 child nutrition law also provided more money for schools to serve free and reduced-cost lunches and required more meals to be served to hungry kids.

Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, has been working for two decades to take junk foods out of schools. He calls the availability of unhealthful foods around campus a "loophole" that undermines the taxpayer money that helps pay for the healthier subsidized lunches.

"USDA's proposed nutrition standards are a critical step in closing that loophole and in ensuring that our schools are places that nurture not just the minds of American children but their bodies as well," Harkin said.

Last year's rules faced criticism from some conservatives, including some Republicans in Congress, who said the government shouldn't be telling kids what to eat. Mindful of that backlash, the Agriculture Department exempted in-school fundraisers from federal regulation and proposed different options for some parts of the rule, including the calorie limits for drinks in high schools, which would be limited to either 60 calories or 75 calories in a 12-ounce portion.

The department also has shown a willingness to work with schools to resolve complaints that some new requirements are hard to meet. Last year, for example, the government relaxed some limits on meats and grains in subsidized lunches after school nutritionists said they weren't working.

Schools, the food industry, interest groups and other critics or supporters of the new proposal will have 60 days to comment and suggest changes. A final rule could be in place as soon as the 2014 school year.

Margo Wootan, a nutrition lobbyist for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, said surveys by her organization show that most parents want changes in the lunchroom.

"Parents aren't going to have to worry that kids are using their lunch money to buy candy bars and a Gatorade instead of a healthy school lunch," she said.

The food industry has been onboard with many of the changes, and several companies worked with Congress on the child nutrition law two years ago. Major beverage companies have already agreed to take the most caloric sodas out of schools. But those same companies, including Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, also sell many of the non-soda options, like sports drinks, and have lobbied to keep them in vending machines.

A spokeswoman for the American Beverage Association, which represents the soda companies, says they already have greatly reduced the number of calories that kids are consuming at school by pulling out the high-calorie sodas.

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Follow Mary Clare Jalonick on Twitter at http://twitter.com/mcjalonick

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"Great Rotation"- A Wall Street fairy tale?

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wall Street's current jubilant narrative is that a rush into stocks by small investors has sparked a "great rotation" out of bonds and into equities that will power the bull market to new heights.

That sounds good, but there's a snag: The evidence for this is a few weeks of bullish fund flows that are hardly unusual for January.

Late-stage bull markets are typically marked by an influx of small investors coming late to the party - such as when your waiter starts giving you stock tips. For that to happen you need a good story. The "great rotation," with its monumental tone, is the perfect narrative to make you feel like you're missing out.

Even if something approaching a "great rotation" has begun, it is not necessarily bullish for markets. Those who think they are coming early to the party may actually be arriving late.

Investors pumped $20.7 billion into stocks in the first four weeks of the year, the strongest four-week run since April 2000, according to Lipper. But that pales in comparison with the $410 billion yanked from those funds since the start of 2008.

"I'm not sure you want to take a couple of weeks and extrapolate it into whatever trend you want," said Tobias Levkovich, chief U.S. equity strategist at Citigroup. "We have had instances where equity flows have picked up in the last two, three, four years when markets have picked up. They've generally not been signals of a continuation of that trend."

The S&P 500 rose 5 percent in January, its best month since October 2011 and its best January since 1997, driving speculation that retail investors were flooding back into the stock market.

Heading into another busy week of earnings, the equity market is knocking on the door of all-time highs due to positive sentiment in stocks, and that can't be ignored entirely. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> ended the week about 4 percent from an all-time high touched in October 2007.

Next week will bring results from insurers Allstate and The Hartford , as well as from Walt Disney , Coca-Cola Enterprises and Visa .

But a comparison of flows in January, a seasonal strong month for the stock market, shows that this January, while strong, is not that unusual. In January 2011 investors moved $23.9 billion into stock funds and $28.6 billion in 2006, but neither foreshadowed massive inflows the rest of that year. Furthermore, in 2006 the market gained more than 13 percent while in 2011 it was flat.

Strong inflows in January can happen for a number of reasons. There were a lot of special dividends issued in December that need reinvesting, and some of the funds raised in December tax-selling also find their way back into the market.

During the height of the tech bubble in 2000, when retail investors were really embracing stocks, a staggering $42.7 billion flowed into equities in January of that year, double the amount that flowed in this January. That didn't end well, as stocks peaked in March of that year before dropping over the next two-plus years.

MOM AND POP STILL WARY

Arguing against a 'great rotation' is not necessarily a bearish argument against stocks. The stock market has done well since the crisis. Despite the huge outflows, the S&P 500 has risen more than 120 percent since March 2009 on a slowly improving economy and corporate earnings.

This earnings season, a majority of S&P 500 companies are beating earnings forecast. That's also the case for revenue, which is a departure from the previous two reporting periods where less than 50 percent of companies beat revenue expectations, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Meanwhile, those on the front lines say mom and pop investors are still wary of equities after the financial crisis.

"A lot of people I talk to are very reluctant to make an emotional commitment to the stock market and regardless of income activity in January, I think that's still the case," said David Joy, chief market strategist at Columbia Management Advisors in Boston, where he helps oversee $571 billion.

Joy, speaking from a conference in Phoenix, says most of the people asking him about the "great rotation" are fund management industry insiders who are interested in the extra business a flood of stock investors would bring.

He also pointed out that flows into bond funds were positive in the month of January, hardly an indication of a rotation.

Citi's Levkovich also argues that bond investors are unlikely to give up a 30-year rally in bonds so quickly. He said stocks only began to see consistent outflows 26 months after the tech bubble burst in March 2000. By that reading it could be another year before a serious rotation begins.

On top of that, substantial flows continue to make their way into bonds, even if it isn't low-yielding government debt. January 2013 was the second best January on record for the issuance of U.S. high-grade debt, with $111.725 billion issued during the month, according to International Finance Review.

Bill Gross, who runs the $285 billion Pimco Total Return Fund, the world's largest bond fund, commented on Twitter on Thursday that "January flows at Pimco show few signs of bond/stock rotation," adding that cash and money markets may be the source of inflows into stocks.

Indeed, the evidence suggests some of the money that went into stock funds in January came from money markets after a period in December when investors, worried about the budget uncertainty in Washington, started parking money in late 2012.

Data from iMoneyNet shows investors placed $123 billion in money market funds in the last two months of the year. In two weeks in January investors withdrew $31.45 billion of that, the most since March 2012. But later in the month money actually started flowing back.

(Additional reporting by Caroline Valetkevitch; Editing by Kenneth Barry)

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Another Reset of Relations With Russia in Obama’s Second Term

MOSCOW — Four years ago, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., used an audience of world leaders at an annual security conference in Munich to propose a “reset” with Russia, the Obama administration’s first big foreign policy statement. But as Mr. Biden arrives in Germany for the same conference this weekend, the United States is quietly adopting a new approach to its old cold war rival: the cold shoulder.

The intense engagement on the reset led to notable achievements, including the New Start nuclear arms treaty and Russia’s entry into the World Trade Organization. But after more than a year of deteriorating relations, the administration now envisions a period of disengagement, according to government officials and outside analysts here and in Washington.

The pullback — which may well be a topic of discussion when Mr. Biden meets with the Russian foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, on the sidelines of the conference — is a response to months of intensifying political repression in Russia since Vladimir V. Putin returned to the presidency last May and a number of actions perceived by Washington as anti-American.

Because American officials do not want to worsen the relationship and still hope for cooperation, they declined to publicly describe the plans. But within the administration it is taken for granted that the relationship with Russia is far less of a priority.

“We have real differences and we don’t hide them,” said Tony Blinken, who has served as Mr. Biden’s national security adviser and is now joining the president’s national security team.

Briefing reporters before the Germany trip, Mr. Blinken said: “We have differences over human rights and democracy. We have differences over — in a number of areas that have been in the media in recent days and weeks.”

The distancing began with the recent withdrawal by the United States from the “civil society working group,” one of 20 panels created in 2009 to carry out the reset between Moscow and Washington under an umbrella organization known as the Obama-Medvedev Commission.

If that step was barely perceptible outside diplomatic circles, the strategy will soon become far more obvious. American officials say President Obama will decline an invitation — publicly trumpeted by Mr. Lavrov and the Russian news media — to visit Moscow on his own this spring. Instead, he will wait until September, when the G-20 conference of the world’s largest economies is scheduled to take place in St. Petersburg, Russia.

And while Secretary of State John Kerry has yet to select his first overseas destination, officials said Russia had been ruled out.

The main goal seems to be to send a message that the United States views much of its relationship with Russia as optional, and while pressing matters will continue to be handled on a transactional basis, Washington plans to continue criticizing Russia on human rights and other concerns. As for the anti-Americanism, the new approach might be described as shrug and snub.

Nevertheless, Mr. Blinken said there was real potential to work through the differences. And American officials are clearly betting that Mr. Putin desires a prominent role on the world stage and will ultimately decide to re-engage.

But the chances of that seem slim. Mr. Putin’s spokesman, Dmitri Peskov, warned that a pullback would be a shirking of American responsibility to work with Russia to maintain global stability. He said that Russia wanted to improve economic ties and build a stronger relationship, but that the United States must stay out of Russia’s affairs.

“We have heard numerous times the word in Washington that Russia’s domestic affairs are not satisfactory,” Mr. Peskov said. “Unfortunately these voices cannot be taken into account here and we cannot agree with them. We are a genuine democratic country and we are taking care of ourselves.”

In the nearly three years since the signing of the New Start treaty, followed by Russia’s vote two months later at the Security Council in support of sanctions on Iran, American officials say only one major thing has changed: the return of Mr. Putin to the presidency.

Confronted by the emergence of a potent political opposition movement among Moscow’s urban middle class, Mr. Putin has taken steps since his inauguration last May to suppress political dissent. Many of those steps were also seen in Washington as anti-American and undermining human rights.

These included the prosecution and jailing of members of the punk band Pussy Riot; the decision to end more than 20 years of cooperation on public health programs and civil society initiatives run by the United States Agency for International Development; cancellation of a partnership to dismantle unconventional weapons, and approval of legislative initiatives clamping down on pro-democracy groups and other nonprofit organizations.

Peter Baker contributed reporting from Washington, and Nicholas Kulish from Berlin.

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Coming soon to Facebook- more action, battle games

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – When nWay began a trial of its dark, sci-fi combat game “ChronoBlade” on Facebook last year, the San Francisco-based startup felt sure it had a hit on its hands.

“First of all, what comes is, ‘Wow, I had no idea you could actually do a game of this quality on Facebook,’” said Dave Jones, Chief Creative Officer of nWay, who has worked on “Grand Theft Auto.”

Then came some resistance: Jones admits some potential investors and partners questioned how an action-focused game with slick graphics can play to a Facebook audience more accustomed to “Farmville” and other less time-consuming casual games. Others wondered how the game — which launches this spring — would gain significant users and revenue on the social network.

But Facebook Inc is betting nWay and a clutch of other developers this year can extend console-style action games beyond Microsoft Corp‘s Xbox or Sony Corp’s PlayStation onto the world’s largest social network.

Facebook is spearheading the launch of 10 high-quality games created by third-party developers in 2013 that squarely target so-called hardcore gamers, an atypical audience overlooked thus far against the wealth of family-friendly offerings like Zynga Inc’s “Farmville” that now dominate the social network’s gaming landscape.

The effort, which began late last year but will accelerate in 2013, is part of Facebook’s ongoing objective of making sure its 1 billion-plus users log in and spend more time on the network, which in turn boosts ad revenue. Facebook also takes a cut of its applications’ revenue.

Facebook’s push into action and battle games follows a meeting in January between companies that make games like “first-person shooters” and Vice President Joe Biden to look for ways to curb gun violence in the wake of the Connecticut school shootings.

Based on the console gaming industry experience, hardcore gamers — typically men 18 to 30 years old — spend more time and effort to master fast-paced games such as first-person shooters (Microsoft’s “Halo”) or real-time strategy games (Activision Blizzard’s “StarCraft”).

“You’ll see a whole set of games hitting in the next two quarters in particular and throughout the year that really start to redefine what people think of Facebook games,” Sean Ryan, head of game partnerships at Facebook said in an interview.

Facebook will embrace games from “casual all the way up through first-person shooters, massively multiplayer online games, real-time strategy games – all those types of more core player-versus-player games.”

Just as hardcore gamers interact online and form clans in multiplayer games on console game networks like Xbox LIVE, Facebook can be that social layer needed to foster such gaming communities that help popularize titles, Jones said.

GAMING POPULATION

Over a quarter of Facebook’s 1.06 billion monthly active users play games, one of the largest gaming communities in the industry, and the social network hopes that can grow.

Facebook also aims to make more revenue from games. Revenue from the area was flat in the fourth quarter from a year ago, the company said on Wednesday without providing details.

The 8-year-old social network takes a 30 percent revenue share from game developers who offer their product free but then charge for virtual goods — like ammunition and power boosts.

On Wednesday, Facebook’s Chief Financial Officer David Ebersman told analysts on a post-earnings conference call that its “games ecosystem continues to show healthy signs of diversification” and suggested that games revenue would grow with increasing user engagement.

To grow its gaming business, Facebook has invested time and resources to work with developers since the summer to bring titles like u4iA’s first-person shooter “Offensive Combat” and Plaruim’s real-time strategy game “Stormfall: Age of War” alive, Ryan said.

“It doesn’t mean we’re walking away from other games, but there’s no question our focus for 2013 much of it will be about becoming a better platform for core gamers and developers who make those games.”

To help users discover them, Facebook added new action and strategy games categories on its App Center that also shows you friends from your list playing those games. It brought back notification messages from game apps — a feature that had been removed because users found the annoying — with certain restrictions that stop developers from spamming a gamer.

Developers also rely on word-of-mouth publicity and ads on Facebook’s advertising platform to draw in prospective gamers.

“Stormfall” has a player base of 4.5 million and hardcore games were proving to be far more lucrative, said Gabi Shalel, chief marketing officer Of Tel Aviv, Israel-based Plarium.

“Hardcore gamers pay more, play more and generate higher average revenue per user than traditional casual games.”

Kixeye, which makes the warfare-strategy game “War Commander,” said its gamers spend 20 times more than players of social games, helping it stay profitable over the past three years.

Going forward, nWay’s Jones says Facebook must have a defining title that comes along that establishes it as a hardcore gaming spot for gamers.

“Like ‘Super Mario’ did for Nintendo or ‘Halo’ on Microsoft, I think it just takes one title to come along, sort of as a benchmark to legitimize the whole thing,” he said.

(Reporting By Malathi Nayak; editing by Andrew Hay)

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Why Warm Bodies Is the Best Zombie Movie in Nearly a Decade

By Alyda Wheat

02/01/2013 at 06:50 PM EST

Nicholas Hoult

Jonathan Wenk/Summit Entertainment

    

Do you have any idea how hard it is to be a charming zombie? Think about it: You see a hot girl. Let's call her Julie (Take Me Home Tonight's Teresa Palmer). She's smart, funny and knows her way around an assault rifle.

How are you going to sweep her off her feet when: A) You can barely speak, B) You reek of decomp, and C) You're technically trying to kill each other?

For Nicholas Hoult's R (his character can't remember his whole name), the trick is to rescue the damsel from the other walking dead, then show her his cool record collection.

The fact that any of this works is thanks to the film's light, funny take on Isaac Marion's novel of the same name, and the delight that is Hoult.

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Healthier schools: Goodbye candy and greasy snacks

WASHINGTON (AP) — Goodbye candy bars and sugary cookies. Hello baked chips and diet sodas.

The government for the first time is proposing broad new standards to make sure all foods sold in schools are more healthful, a change that would ban the sale of almost all candy, high-calorie sports drinks and greasy foods on campus.

Under new rules the Department of Agriculture proposed Friday, school vending machines would start selling water, lower-calorie sports drinks, diet sodas and baked chips instead. Lunchrooms that now sell fatty "a la carte" items like mozzarella sticks and nachos would have to switch to healthier pizzas, low-fat hamburgers, fruit cups and yogurt.

The rules, required under a child nutrition law passed by Congress in 2010, are part of the government's effort to combat childhood obesity. While many schools already have made improvements in their lunch menus and vending machine choices, others still are selling high-fat, high-calorie foods.

Under the proposal, the Agriculture Department would set fat, calorie, sugar and sodium limits on almost all foods sold in schools. Current standards already regulate the nutritional content of school breakfasts and lunches that are subsidized by the federal government, but most lunch rooms also have "a la carte" lines that sell other foods. And food sold through vending machines and in other ways outside the lunchroom has not been federally regulated.

"Parents and teachers work hard to instill healthy eating habits in our kids, and these efforts should be supported when kids walk through the schoolhouse door," said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.

Most snacks sold in school would have to have less than 200 calories. Elementary and middle schools could sell only water, low-fat milk or 100 percent fruit or vegetable juice. High schools could sell some sports drinks, diet sodas and iced teas, but the calories would be limited. Drinks would be limited to 12-ounce portions in middle schools, and 8-ounce portions in elementary schools.

The standards will cover vending machines, the "a la carte" lunch lines, snack bars and any other foods regularly sold around school. They would not apply to in-school fundraisers or bake sales, though states have the power to regulate them. The new guidelines also would not apply to after-school concessions at school games or theater events, goodies brought from home for classroom celebrations, or anything students bring for their own personal consumption.

The new rules are the latest in a long list of changes designed to make foods served in schools more healthful and accessible. Nutritional guidelines for the subsidized lunches were revised last year and put in place last fall. The 2010 child nutrition law also provided more money for schools to serve free and reduced-cost lunches and required more meals to be served to hungry kids.

Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, a Democrat, has been working for two decades to take junk foods out of schools. He calls the availability of unhealthful foods around campus a "loophole" that undermines the taxpayer money that helps pay for the healthier subsidized lunches.

"USDA's proposed nutrition standards are a critical step in closing that loophole and in ensuring that our schools are places that nurture not just the minds of American children but their bodies as well," Harkin said.

Last year's rules faced criticism from some conservatives, including some Republicans in Congress, who said the government shouldn't be telling kids what to eat. Mindful of that backlash, the Agriculture Department exempted in-school fundraisers from federal regulation and proposed different options for some parts of the rule, including the calorie limits for drinks in high schools, which would be limited to either 60 calories or 75 calories in a 12-ounce portion.

The department also has shown a willingness to work with schools to resolve complaints that some new requirements are hard to meet. Last year, for example, the government relaxed some limits on meats and grains in subsidized lunches after school nutritionists said they weren't working.

Schools, the food industry, interest groups and other critics or supporters of the new proposal will have 60 days to comment and suggest changes. A final rule could be in place as soon as the 2014 school year.

Margo Wootan, a nutrition lobbyist for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, says surveys done by her organization show that most parents want changes in the lunchroom.

"Parents aren't going to have to worry that kids are using their lunch money to buy candy bars and a Gatorade instead of a healthy school lunch," she said.

The food industry has been onboard with many of the changes, and several companies worked with Congress on the child nutrition law two years ago. Major beverage companies have already agreed to take the most caloric sodas out of schools. But those same companies, including Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, also sell many of the non-soda options, like sports drinks, and have lobbied to keep them in vending machines.

A spokeswoman for the American Beverage Association, which represents the soda companies, says they already have greatly reduced the number of calories kids are consuming at school by pulling out the high-calorie sodas.

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Follow Mary Clare Jalonick on Twitter at http://twitter.com/mcjalonick

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Wall Street surges to five-year highs; Dow ends above 14,000

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks rose to five-year highs on Friday, with the Dow closing above 14,000 for the first time since October 2007, after jobs and manufacturing data showed the economy's recovery remains on track.

The S&P touched its highest since December 2007 after a 5 percent gain in January, which was its best start to a year since 1997. The index is now just about 60 points away from its all-time intraday high of 1,576.09.

Employment grew modestly in January, with 157,000 jobs added. That was slightly below expectations, but Labor Department revisions showed 127,000 more jobs were created in November and December than previously reported.

Analysts attributed the market's robust showing so far this year partly to a deluge of cash flowing into equities.

Investors poured $12.7 billion into U.S.-based stock mutual funds and exchange-traded funds in the latest week, concluding the strongest four-week flows into stock funds since 1996, data showed on Thursday.

"There is a lot of money looking for a home, and people are finally deciding the bond market is done and moving money into equities," said Edward Simmons, managing director and partner at HighTower in Portland, Maine.

"I see the rotation (of assets) pushing the market up in the face of not-massive amounts of good news," he said. "People are overlooking the higher risk in equities."

Other reports released Friday showed the pace of growth in the U.S. manufacturing sector picked up in January to its highest level in nine months, U.S. consumer sentiment rose more than expected last month, while December construction spending also beat forecasts.

"All the data seems to keep pointing to a slowly, steadily improving economy," said Eric Kuby, chief investment officer at North Star Investment Management Corp in Chicago.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was up 149.21 points, or 1.08 percent, at 14,009.79. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was up 15.06 points, or 1.01 percent, at 1,513.17. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was up 36.97 points, or 1.18 percent, at 3,179.10.

With the day's gains, major equity indexes rose five straight weeks.

More than 600 stocks on the NYSE and the Nasdaq combined hit 52-week highs on Friday, including Google which rose as high as $776.60, before closing at $775.60, up 2.6 percent.

Investors were also attuned to corporate earnings, with a trio of Dow components reporting profits that beat expectations.

Exxon Mobil ended flat at $90.04 after reporting results while Chevron added 1.2 percent to $116.50.

Drugmaker Merck & Co fell 3.3 percent to $41.83 after a cautious 2013 outlook.

Generic drugmaker Perrigo reported a better-than-expected second-quarter profit and its shares jumped 4.7 percent to $105.28.

Of the 252 companies in the S&P 500 that have reported earnings so far, 69 percent have exceeded expectations, according to Thomson Reuters data. That is a higher proportion than over the past four quarters and above average since 1994.

Overall, S&P 500 fourth-quarter earnings are estimated to have grown 4.4 percent, according to the data, up from a 1.9 percent forecast at the start of the earnings season but well below a 9.9 percent profit growth forecast on October 1.

Dell Inc gained 2.9 percent to $13.63 after sources said the company was nearing an agreement to sell itself to a buyout consortium led by its founder, Michael Dell, and private equity firm Silver Lake Partners.

(Reporting By Angela Moon; Editing by Kenneth Barry)

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Sept. 11 Hearing Censorship Ordered Stopped

FORT MEADE, Md. — The military judge overseeing the prosecution of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four other detainees accused of aiding the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks ordered the government on Thursday to disconnect the technology that allows offstage censors — apparently including the Central Intelligence Agency — to block a public feed of the courtroom proceedings at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

The order by the judge, Col. James L. Pohl of the Army, followed an interruption on Monday of a feed from the military tribunal courtroom during a hearing on a pretrial motion. The episode brought to light that unidentified security officials outside the courtroom could censor a feed of the proceedings that the public and the news media receive on a 40-second delay.

“This is the last time,” Colonel Pohl said, that any party other than a security officer inside the courtroom who works for the military commission “will be permitted to unilaterally decide that the broadcast will be suspended.”

He said that while some legal rules and precedents governing the tribunals might be unclear, there was no doubt that only the judge has the authority to close the courtroom. Colonel Pohl made clear he would not tolerate anyone having control over a censorship button in the case other than his courtroom security officer.

Separately on Thursday, Colonel Pohl ordered the Pentagon official in charge of the tribunals — Vice Adm. Bruce MacDonald, retired — to testify at a hearing next month. Defense lawyers are seeking to scuttle the charges and reboot the case, asserting that his original decision to refer the capital charges to the tribunal was flawed.

One of several relatives of victims who traveled to Guantánamo to watch the hearing, Phyllis Rodriguez, whose son Gregory Rodriguez was killed at the World Trade Center, said she was disturbed by the limits on the openness of the proceedings and difficulties that defense lawyers had in gathering information that could mitigate against death sentences. Ms. Rodriquez said she opposed death sentences on principle and was opposed to prosecuting the case in a tribunal.

But Matthew Sellitto, whose son — also named Matthew — was also killed in the attacks, called the process fair, saying the defendants would have already been executed by now in most countries. His wife, Loreen Sellitto, urged defense lawyers not to delay the proceedings, while describing the emotional experience of seeing the defendants in the courtroom.

“I didn’t expect them to look normal and have normal faces,” Ms. Sellitto said. “That scared me.”

In a related development, the Pentagon disclosed that earlier this week, Admiral MacDonald withdrew tribunal charges against three other detainees at Guantánamo. Accused of conspiracy and of providing material support to terrorism in connection with allegations related to explosives training, the three were among those arrested in a March 2002 raid in Pakistan that also captured a more prominent terrorism suspect, Abu Zubaydah.

The validity of bringing charges of material support and conspiracy in a tribunal — at least for actions before October 2006, when Congress approved them as triable offenses in a military commission — has been a point of sharp contention inside the Obama administration. A federal appeals court recently vacated two such verdicts from tribunal cases because such offenses were not recognized as international war crimes.

The chief tribunal prosecutor, Brig. Gen. Mark S. Martins, had asked Admiral MacDonald to withdraw conspiracy as one of the charges pending against the Sept. 11 defendants and focus on classic war crimes, like attacking civilians. But Admiral MacDonald refused, saying it would be “premature” to do so since the Justice Department — over General Martins’s objections — is still arguing in court that conspiracy is a valid tribunal offense.

Most of the attention on Thursday, however, was focused on continuing fallout from the revelation that there were offstage censors — something that even Colonel Pohl apparently had not known — and his order to “unconnect whatever wires need to be unconnected.”

Defense lawyers used the incident as new ammunition in their assertions that the tribunals are unfair.

On Thursday they asked Colonel Pohl to stop any further consideration of motions in the case until they all could learn more about what kind of technology is in place in meeting rooms and in the courtroom, and whether their confidential conversations with their clients and one another are private.

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U.S. tablet shipments soar during holidays, threaten to surpass PCs

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Apple Inc Chief Executive Tim Cook’s prediction that tablets would one day outsell personal computers appears to be coming true.

Holiday season shipments of tablet computers touched a record 52.5 million, up 75 percent from a year ago, as consumers snapped up a wide range of the touch-enabled mobile devices and lower priced offerings, according to International Data Corp (IDC), which tracks both markets.

Growth of the tablet market handily outpaced that of personal computers, with PC shipments sliding 6.4 percent to 89.8 million in the October-December period.

In another sign of the rise of tablets, Apple, the No. 1 seller of tablets, shipped 22 million of them in the fourth quarter, compared with 15 million personal computers shipped by No. 1 PC seller Hewlett-Packard Co during the same period.

But increasing competition means that Apple’s one-time stranglehold on the tablet market continues to loosen. The market share of its iPad fell to 43.1 percent in the fourth quarter from 51.7 percent the previous year, IDC said.

Samsung Electronics, the No. 2 seller of tablets with its flagship Galaxy brand, captured 15.1 percent of the market, more than double its 7.3 percent share a year earlier.

Software maker Microsoft Corp, which launched its Surface with Windows RT tablet during the holidays, shipped about 900,000 units, IDC said.

Microsoft has been banking on Surface to showcase its new Windows 8 software to compete with Google Inc‘s Android-based tablets and the iPad.

Amazon.com Inc, despite having a wider range of products for the holidays, saw its share slip to 11.5 percent from 15.9 percent. Asian manufacturer Asus, which makes the Google-branded Nexus 7 tablet, saw a its share increase to 5.8 percent from 2 percent, IDC said.

IDC’s figures underscore the sliding fortunes of PC makers such as HP and Dell Inc, which is now in the process of taking itself private.

“New product launches from the category’s top vendors, as well as new entrant Microsoft, led to a surge in consumer interest and very robust shipments totals during the holiday season,” said Tom Mainelli, research director, tablets, at IDC.

“The record-breaking quarter stands in stark contrast to the PC market, which saw shipments decline during the quarter for the first time in more than five years,” Mainelli said.

(Reporting By Poornima Gupta; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)

Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Beverley Mitchell Blogs: My Husband Talks to My Baby Through My Belly Button

At 28 weeks along – Courtesy Beverley Mitchell

Please give a warm welcome to our newest celebrity blogger, Beverley Mitchell!

Best known for her role as Lucy Camden on the long-running drama 7th Heaven, the actress most recently played Kaitlin O’Malley on The Secret Life of the American Teenager.

Mitchell, 32, and husband Michael Cameron have announced that they’re expecting their first child — a daughter! — in April.

You can find her on Facebook, WhoSay and Twitter @beverleymitchel.

In her latest blog, Mitchell admits that the first trimester wasn’t her favorite — but that the kicks of the second trimester more than made up for it.

(Also, is her husband the only one who speaks to the baby through their wife’s belly button?)

So I have to admit — at the beginning, I was not digging this pregnancy thing. I was truly struggling with the complete and utter loss of control of my body, mind and everything else. The first trimester — and even a good portion of the second trimester — was just, “Ehh.” I was tired. I was cranky. My already weird food aversions got even weirder. All in all, it was tougher than I thought it would be.

The hard part is when people ask you how you’re doing. You smile and say, “It’s all so wonderful” when really all I wanted to say was, “It is weird, my body feels foreign and who knows what’s happening in my head because of all the hormones?” But I smile and say how excited I am (and I truly am excited, I am just not loving this portion — I actually think it kind of sucks!) and carry on.

I find it rare for a pregnant woman to just say it like it is for fear of seeming ungrateful for the gift that is about to present itself, but let’s be honest — it is not all roses and rainbows!

Then come the kicks. The most beautiful thing about pregnancy is when you first start to feel your little human move. Honestly, it wiped away all the frustration from the previous months and instead holds me absolutely captivated by the simplest of things: belly watching. I often find myself lying down and just staring at my bump in complete awe as I watch my little angel move. It truly is remarkable; it is so hard to believe that there really is a little person in there.

I know this has been happening since the beginning of time, but until you feel it first-hand, it is truly one of the most incredible things. Every morning, Michael and I find ourselves lying in bed sharing the miracle that is her morning kicks. My husband talks to her and lays his hand on my belly. Funnily enough, she responds pretty much immediately — she has certainly grown to know who Dad is and rewards him with a fist pump on a regular basis.

It’s also quite a trip when I realize that this little human has a mind of her own. She jumps when startled, moves as she pleases and she is definitely taking on some likes and dislikes. For instance, Baby Girl loves chocolate — she practically does somersaults after my chocolate-chip cookie.

Baby also is not a fan of my current pants selection. (You see, I still haven’t brought myself to buy maternity pants. I’m already seven months along and don’t see the point in spending all that money for just a few months, but I digress.) Anyway, she definitely sends a message when she is feeling cramped and doesn’t like to sit for too long. She sends me right to my room to put on my favorite Bird & Vine sweatpants — they do not apply any pressure to the belly and she seems to be a fan, as am I.

We spent NYE in Colorado – Courtesy Beverley Mitchell

Needless to say, it has taken a few months and few phone calls from worried friends, but now I get it. Pregnancy is truly a miracle and I am utterly blessed and so madly in love with this little human already.

And watching my husband, who is so attentive and loving, rub my belly and speak to the baby makes my heart melt every time. He is already an incredible father and she isn’t even here yet! Isn’t it funny how men seem to think that your belly button is the direct line of communication to the baby? It honestly makes me laugh every time. It couldn’t be cuter see the man that you love speak into your belly button to tell the baby the plans for the day! Just pure unwavering love.

Now that I’m at 30 weeks, pregnancy has taken a new turn yet again. First frustration, then pure bliss and now as I embark on my third trimester, the true realization that baby will be here soon. Time is running out and in just three more months we will have our little bundle in our arms.

At the beginning, 40 weeks feels like a long time, then all of a sudden you’re where am I now and have no idea where the time has gone. Especially when you are the clever one who decided that an entire house renovation is a good idea after finding out you’re pregnant… I tend to go big — no small projects for this girl.

Lucky for me, I have the most patient and organized husband a girl can ask for. He has taken on this ginormous project I have laid in front of him (I can’t help with most of it because I am a bit off-balance with my growing bump) and there is no doubt that we will get it done just in time for Baby Girl to arrive!

So I’ll be sure to give you an update next time with the progress of the complete home renovation and the exciting adventure of planning the nursery. I have always had an idea of what I would want, but now that April is getting closer, it’s a bit overwhelming. There are so many cute choices! Can’t wait to get started, and don’t worry — I will definitely share the finished product.

Until then, don’t mind me — I’ll just be here staring at my belly in awe watching this precious little being kick and tumble. Leave me a comment below or send me a Tweet @beverleymitchel!

Best husband ever – Courtesy Beverley Mitchell

– Beverley Mitchell

More from Beverley’s PEOPLE.com blog series:

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