Though Robert Pattinson stuck by her, Ben Affleck has left Kristen Stewart in the dust. Citing a schedule crunch, the actor has backed out of Focus, a con-artist movie set to costar Stewart and begin filming this spring. Stewart had just said in a recent interview that she was excited to start shooting, but now who knows what will happen. "Hi Kristen. We know that you were excited about working with Ben, but he dropped out, so we got you a replacement," a producer says to her the day she arrives on set. ...
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Kerry Calls on Military to Help Protect Diplomats
Label: World
WASHINGTON — Senator John Kerry said Thursday that the United States needed to re-examine how the military might play a greater role in protecting diplomats in dangerous regions in the wake of the attack on the mission in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11 that led to the death of four Americans.
Mr. Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat who is the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, is the leading candidate to succeed Hillary Rodham Clinton as secretary of state, so his comments during a hearing into the handling of diplomatic security in Benghazi before the deadly assault there carry particular significance.
Two deputy secretaries of state, William J. Burns and Thomas R. Nides, told the committee that the department had already started to fix the “serious, systemic problems” identified in a scathing report issued this week by an independent panel. The measures include sending about 225 more Marine security guards to embassies and consulates around the world.
Mr. Kerry said the military’s role needed particular scrutiny after the Benghazi attacks.
“It’s something we really need to pay attention to and think about in terms of deployment and preparedness,” he said.
Pentagon officials have reacted cautiously to the idea of assuming any new commitments without additional financing from Congress at a time when the size of the armed forces is shrinking, with the end of operations in Iraq and the winding down of the mission in Afghanistan.
But foreshadowing possible tensions with the Pentagon, Mr. Kerry pointed out that the United State last year spent about $650 billion on the military, about 10 times the country’s budget for international affairs.
Another Democrat on the panel, Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, also raised the issue, noting that the Pentagon had no forces that could be readily sent to Benghazi as the crisis unfolded. The closest AC-130 gunship was in Afghanistan. There were no armed drones thought to be within range of Libya. There was no Marine expeditionary unit — a large seaborne force with its own helicopters — in the Mediterranean Sea.
“Given the potential for further unrest in Syria, in Egypt and across the Middle East, it seems to me that that’s a question that is really critical as we look at how we continue to provide protection for our personnel on the ground,” Ms. Shaheen said.
Gen. Carter F. Ham, the leader of the Africa Command, said in a recent appearance at George Washington University that the issue of whether the military should better position itself to respond to emergencies at diplomatic compounds had seized the attention of senior officials at the Pentagon and State Department.
“Part of the post-Benghazi review, one component is what role, if any, should the U.S. military have in adjusting its posture globally to be able to respond to incidents?” General Ham said.
Republicans have repeatedly criticized the Obama administration for both its failure to prevent the attacks on the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi and for its explanations about what happened there. But given the highly charged nature of the episode, the Senate panel and a second hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Committee later on Thursday were surprisingly devoid of drama or sharp exchanges.
Four State Department officials were removed from their posts on Wednesday. The most senior was Eric J. Boswell, the assistant secretary of state for diplomatic security, who resigned. A few lawmakers questioned whether higher-level department officials should be held accountable for what the independent panel said was the “grossly inadequate” security that led to the deaths of Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.
Under questioning from Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, Mr. Burns acknowledged that “some of my colleagues on the seventh floor” — where the offices of Mrs. Clinton and most of the other senior officials are — would have seen classified cables from Mr. Stevens and others in the United States Embassy in Tripoli, Libya, warning of a worsening security environment in Benghazi in the months before the attack.
Mr. Burns and Mr. Nides testified in place of Mrs. Clinton, who is recovering from a concussion. She has told lawmakers she would testify on Benghazi next month, before she leaves office.
Some senators, including Bob Corker, Republican of Tennessee, voiced skepticism that the department had quickly addressed the problems that the inquiry had identified, saying that the recommendations of such reviews are rarely carried out fully.
“The culture of the State Department is one that needs to be reformed,” Mr. Corker said.
But Senator Robert Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, said one reason for the weak security was that Congress had not provided as much money as the administration had sought and the panel had recommended.
At the House hearing, Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Florida Republican who leads the committee, scoffed at the calls for additional spending, saying that poor decisions rather than a lack of money were the problem in Benghazi.
“If the State Department intends to blame its long string of failures on inadequate funding, then perhaps it should take a closer look at the money that is being lavished on global climate change, culinary diplomacy programs and other favored projects,” she said. “This money could have been used for providing diplomatic security, including hiring additional personnel and providing them with adequate equipment and training.”
John H. Cushman Jr. contributed reporting.
Apple is dominating the small and medium business market in Q4
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Blake Shelton Says The Voice Winner Cassadee Pope Can Do Anything
Label: Lifestyle
TV Watch
The Voice
By Andrea Billups and Jessica Herndon
12/19/2012 at 07:00 PM EST
Cassadee Pope and Blake Shelton
Trae Patton/NBC
Cassadee Pope won Tuesday night's The Voice competition, and already her team leader and star mentor Blake Shelton says she has the right frame of mind for success.
Even as last week, when her rendition of "Stupid Boy" went No. 1 on iTunes, she was nervously telling Shelton her time on the show was over – much to his chagrin.
"That's what makes an artist," Shelton praised her after the results were announced Tuesday night. "We are never satisfied. But I hope she's really happy that she won."
Pope, 23, who beat out finalists Terry McDermott, who came in second, and Nicholas Davis, who was third, said after her victory that she's eyeing a crossover record as her first professional effort.
"I would love to do the pop/rock thing, but I know that I gained some amazing country fans and I know how hard it is to get into that world," the Florida native said. "I'd love to add a country music element to it a bit. I used to cover country music when I was a kid and it's stylistically part of my voice somehow."
Shelton said the versatile Pope can take many directions for her future success in music.
"She's got a lot of options," he said. "She's adored by rock fans, pop fans, country fans. She connects with a lyric the way few people can. The door is wide open."
Season 4 of The Voice premieres March 25, 2013, with Usher and Shakira joining Shelton and Adam Levine as team leaders.
Experts: Kids are resilient in coping with trauma
Label: HealthWASHINGTON (AP) — They might not want to talk about the gunshots or the screams. But their toys might start getting into imaginary shootouts.
Last week's school shooting in Connecticut raises the question: What will be the psychological fallout for the children who survived?
For people of any age, regaining a sense of security after surviving violence can take a long time. They're at risk for lingering anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder.
But after the grief and fear fades, psychiatrists say most of Newtown's young survivors probably will cope without long-term emotional problems.
"Kids do tend to be highly resilient," said Dr. Matthew Biel, chief of child and adolescent psychiatry at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital.
And one way that younger children try to make sense of trauma is through play. Youngsters may pull out action figures or stuffed animals and re-enact what they witnessed, perhaps multiple times.
"That's the way they gain mastery over a situation that's overwhelming," Biel explained, saying it becomes a concern only if the child is clearly distressed while playing.
Nor is it unusual for children to chase each other playing cops-and-robbers, but now parents might see some also pretending they're dead, added Dr. Melissa Brymer of the UCLA-Duke National Center for Child Traumatic Stress.
Among the challenges will be spotting which children are struggling enough that they may need professional help.
Newtown's tragedy is particularly heart-wrenching because of what such young children grappled with — like the six first-graders who apparently had to run past their teacher's body to escape to safety.
There's little scientific research specifically on PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder, in children exposed to a burst of violence, and even less to tell if a younger child will have a harder time healing than an older one.
Overall, scientists say studies of natural disasters and wars suggest most children eventually recover from traumatic experiences while a smaller proportion develop long-term disorders such as PTSD. Brymer says in her studies of school shootings, that fraction can range from 10 percent to a quarter of survivors, depending on what they actually experienced. A broader 2007 study found 13 percent of U.S. children exposed to different types of trauma reported some symptoms of PTSD, although less than 1 percent had enough for an official diagnosis.
Violence isn't all that rare in childhood. In many parts of the world — and in inner-city neighborhoods in the U.S., too — children witness it repeatedly. They don't become inured to it, Biel said, and more exposure means a greater chance of lasting psychological harm.
In Newtown, most at risk for longer-term problems are those who saw someone killed, said Dr. Carol North of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, who has researched survivors of mass shootings.
Friday's shootings were mostly in two classrooms of Sandy Hook Elementary School, which has about 450 students through fourth-grade.
But those who weren't as close to the danger may be at extra risk, too, if this wasn't their first trauma or they already had problems such as anxiety disorders that increase their vulnerability, she said.
Right after a traumatic event, it's normal to have nightmares or trouble sleeping, to stick close to loved ones, and to be nervous or moody, Biel said.
To help, parents will have to follow their child's lead. Grilling a child about a traumatic experience isn't good, he stressed. Some children will ask a lot of questions, seeking reassurance, he said. Others will be quiet, thinking about the experience and maybe drawing or writing about it, or acting it out at playtime. Younger children may regress, becoming clingy or having tantrums.
Before second grade, their brains also are at a developmental stage some refer to as magical thinking, when it's difficult to distinguish reality and fantasy. Parents may have to help them understand that a friend who died isn't in pain or lonely but also isn't coming back, Brymer said.
When problem behaviors or signs of distress continue for several weeks, Brymer says it's time for an evaluation by a counselor or pediatrician.
Besides a supportive family, what helps? North advises getting children back into routines, together with their friends, and easing them back into a school setting. Studies of survivors of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks found "the power of the support of the people who went through it with you is huge," she said.
Children as young as first-graders can benefit from cognitive-behavioral therapy, Georgetown's Biel said. They can calm themselves with breathing techniques. They also can learn to identify and label their feelings — anger, frustration, worry — and how to balance, say, a worried thought with a brave one.
Finally, avoid watching TV coverage of the shooting, as children may think it's happening all over again, Biel added. He found that children who watched the 9/11 clips of planes hitting the World Trade Center thought they were seeing dozens of separate attacks.
___
EDITOR'S NOTE — Lauran Neergaard covers health and medical issues for The Associated Press in Washington.
Wall Street falls as "cliff" talks sour, but hopes remain
Label: BusinessNEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks sold off late in the day to close at session lows on Wednesday as talks to avert a year-end fiscal crisis turned sour, even as investors still expect a deal.
The S&P 500 slipped after a two-day rally that took the benchmark index to its highest close in two months. Defensive-oriented shares led the decliners, including health care and consumer staples.
General Motors
President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans are struggling to come up with a deal to avoid early 2013 tax hikes and spending cuts that many economists say could send the U.S. economy into recession.
House Speaker John Boehner, the top Republican in Congress, said in a one-minute press conference that his chamber will pass a proposal that Obama had already threatened to veto as it spares many wealthy Americans from tax hikes needed to balance the budget. Obama has already agreed to reductions in benefits for senior citizens.
"My guess is they're close to a deal, and right before, it looks like the deal is about to blow up either on manufactured or legitimate reasons," said Uri Landesman, president of hedge fund Platinum Partners in New York.
He said if the market thought a deal was in real danger, the S&P 500 would slide below 1,400. It stands now near 1,435, not far from a two-month high.
The CBOE Volatility Index <.vix> surged 11.5 percent to 17.36, but has remained relatively stable. Its 14- 50- and 200-day averages are all within 1.1 points.
Landesman said the VIX's stability indicates "the bulls have control of this market still."
Banks and energy shares - groups that outperform during periods of economic expansion - have led recent gains, indicating a shift to focusing on a growing economy as Wall Street looks past the budget talks.
Defensive sectors led Wednesday's downturn, with the S&P health care sector index <.gspa> down 1.1 percent.
The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> dropped 98.99 points, or 0.74 percent, to 13,251.97. The S&P 500 <.spx> lost 10.98 points, or 0.76 percent, to 1,435.81. The Nasdaq Composite <.ixic> fell 10.17 points, or 0.33 percent, to 3,044.36.
Herbalife Ltd
Oracle
Knight Capital Group Inc
Shares of Chinese display advertising provider Focus Media Holding Ltd
Data showed homebuilding permits touched their highest level in nearly 4-1/2 years in November. The PHLX housing index <.hgx> fell 0.8 percent, but has gained 66.4 percent this year as the housing market has turned the corner.
About 6.9 billion shares changed hands on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and NYSE MKT, slightly above the daily average so far this year of about 6.45 billion shares.
Advancing and declining issues were almost even on both the NYSE and the Nasdaq.
(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos; Editing by Jan Paschal)
World Briefing | The Americas: Woman Believed to Be Daughter of Mexican Drug Trafficker Is Deported
Label: World
A woman believed to be the daughter of the most-wanted drug trafficker in the world, Joaquín Guzmán Loera of Mexico, has been deported to Mexico after two months in custody in California, her lawyers and American law enforcement officials said Wednesday. The woman, Alejandrina Gisselle Guzmán Salazar, 31, pleaded guilty in federal court on Monday to carrying a fake visa as she tried to enter the United States at the San Ysidro border crossing in October. She was sentenced to time served and returned by immigration authorities to Mexico on Tuesday. A law enforcement source said that officials were “pretty confident” that Mr. Guzmán is her father, but her lawyer said that played no role in her case.
Samsung Galaxy Muse is like an iPod Shuffle that Syncs with Your Phone
Label: TechnologyIn perhaps the most awkwardly titled tech press release ever, Samsung Mobile announced the launch of the new Samsung Galaxy Muse, a device which appears to have nothing to do with “CORRECTING and REPLACING and ADDING MULTIMEDIA” but everything to do with being a music player crossed with a smartphone accessory.
Say goodbye to iTunes?
While most handheld music players (and smartphone or tablets with music apps) sync with a PC or Mac music app, like iTunes or Banshee, the Samsung Galaxy Muse syncs with your Android phone itself. It uses the Muse Sync app, which Google Play says will install on devices like the Nexus 7 tablet but which Samsung says will only work with the Galaxy S II, Galaxy S III, Galaxy Note and Galaxy Note II smartphones.
Plug it in, turn it on
The pebble-shaped Muse connects to your Samsung phone via its headset jack. It doesn’t have a screen, so you have to control it iPod Shuffle style, and use the Muse Sync app to see how much of its 4 GB of space are free and decide which playlists to sync. Since it only has those 4 GB, it can only hold a fraction of the music that can be put on the much more powerful smartphones.
Who is Samsung selling the Galaxy Muse to?
Samsung says “users can sync the songs they want and leave their phone behind,” the usefulness of which may depend on whether or not you feel limited by having to bring your smartphone with you. The press release mentions its “wearable design and small form factor,” and suggests taking it “in place of [your] smartphone … at the gym or on the go.”
What other gadgets are like the Galaxy Muse?
The most obvious comparison is to the iPod Shuffle, Apple’s similarly tiny and screen-less portable music player. At $ 49, it costs the same as the Galaxy Muse (although a Droid-Life tipster found a $ 25 off coupon code for the Muse), but comes in seven different colors and has an embossed click-wheel controller instead of a flat and featureless surface. It requires you to use iTunes on a desktop PC or Mac, though.
On the upside
The Galaxy Muse’s six hours of battery life may not be suitable for all-day listening, but may at least take the pressure off of a battery-hungry smartphone (so long as it’s one of Samsung’s flagship models). And as PCMag’s Chloe Albanesius notes, “it’s not very convenient to strap a 5.5-inch Galaxy Note II to your arm when you hit the gym.”
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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Kristen Stewart Apologizes for Making Everyone 'So Angry'
Label: Lifestyle
12/18/2012 at 06:30 PM EST
Kristen Stewart
Lorenzo Bevilaqua/Disney/Getty
Kristen Stewart is once again saying she's sorry.
A few months after publicly expressing regret over cheating on boyfriend Robert Pattinson with her Snow White and the Huntsman director Rupert Sanders, the actress has some words for everybody else.
"I apologize to everyone for making them so angry," the typically press-shy On the Road star, 22, tells Newsweek. "It was not my intention."
Stewart, who has been the subject of both vitriolic criticism and tremendous support from fans, adds, "It's not a terrible thing if you're either loved or hated."
But at the end of the day, the former Twilight star is primarily focused on her craft.
"I don't care [about people's opinions]," she explains. "It doesn't keep me from doing my s–––."
Addressing her most famous role, that of Bella Swan in the Twilight franchise, she says, "The only relief when it comes to Twilight is that the story is done ... I start every project to finish the mother––, and to extend that [mentality] over a five-year period adapting all of these treasured moments over four books, it was constantly worrying."
As for always being know to a generation of moviegoers as Bella, she says, "As long as people's perspective of me doesn't keep me from doing what I want to do, it doesn’t matter.”
Experts: Kids are resilient in coping with trauma
Label: HealthWASHINGTON (AP) — They might not want to talk about the gunshots or the screams. But their toys might start getting into imaginary shootouts.
Last week's school shooting in Connecticut raises the question: What will be the psychological fallout for the children who survived?
For people of any age, regaining a sense of security after surviving violence can take a long time. They're at risk for lingering anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder.
But after the grief and fear fades, psychiatrists say most of Newtown's young survivors probably will cope without long-term emotional problems.
"Kids do tend to be highly resilient," said Dr. Matthew Biel, chief of child and adolescent psychiatry at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital.
And one way that younger children try to make sense of trauma is through play. Youngsters may pull out action figures or stuffed animals and re-enact what they witnessed, perhaps multiple times.
"That's the way they gain mastery over a situation that's overwhelming," Biel explained, saying it becomes a concern only if the child is clearly distressed while playing.
Nor is it unusual for children to chase each other playing cops-and-robbers, but now parents might see some also pretending they're dead, added Dr. Melissa Brymer of the UCLA-Duke National Center for Child Traumatic Stress.
Among the challenges will be spotting which children are struggling enough that they may need professional help.
Newtown's tragedy is particularly heart-wrenching because of what such young children grappled with — like the six first-graders who apparently had to run past their teacher's body to escape to safety.
There's little scientific research specifically on PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder, in children exposed to a burst of violence, and even less to tell if a younger child will have a harder time healing than an older one.
Overall, scientists say studies of natural disasters and wars suggest most children eventually recover from traumatic experiences while a smaller proportion develop long-term disorders such as PTSD. Brymer says in her studies of school shootings, that fraction can range from 10 percent to a quarter of survivors, depending on what they actually experienced. A broader 2007 study found 13 percent of U.S. children exposed to different types of trauma reported some symptoms of PTSD, although less than 1 percent had enough for an official diagnosis.
Violence isn't all that rare in childhood. In many parts of the world — and in inner-city neighborhoods in the U.S., too — children witness it repeatedly. They don't become inured to it, Biel said, and more exposure means a greater chance of lasting psychological harm.
In Newtown, most at risk for longer-term problems are those who saw someone killed, said Dr. Carol North of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, who has researched survivors of mass shootings.
Friday's shootings were mostly in two classrooms of Sandy Hook Elementary School, which has about 450 students through fourth-grade.
But those who weren't as close to the danger may be at extra risk, too, if this wasn't their first trauma or they already had problems such as anxiety disorders that increase their vulnerability, she said.
Right after a traumatic event, it's normal to have nightmares or trouble sleeping, to stick close to loved ones, and to be nervous or moody, Biel said.
To help, parents will have to follow their child's lead. Grilling a child about a traumatic experience isn't good, he stressed. Some children will ask a lot of questions, seeking reassurance, he said. Others will be quiet, thinking about the experience and maybe drawing or writing about it, or acting it out at playtime. Younger children may regress, becoming clingy or having tantrums.
Before second grade, their brains also are at a developmental stage some refer to as magical thinking, when it's difficult to distinguish reality and fantasy. Parents may have to help them understand that a friend who died isn't in pain or lonely but also isn't coming back, Brymer said.
When problem behaviors or signs of distress continue for several weeks, Brymer says it's time for an evaluation by a counselor or pediatrician.
Besides a supportive family, what helps? North advises getting children back into routines, together with their friends, and easing them back into a school setting. Studies of survivors of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks found "the power of the support of the people who went through it with you is huge," she said.
Children as young as first-graders can benefit from cognitive-behavioral therapy, Georgetown's Biel said. They can calm themselves with breathing techniques. They also can learn to identify and label their feelings — anger, frustration, worry — and how to balance, say, a worried thought with a brave one.
Finally, avoid watching TV coverage of the shooting, as children may think it's happening all over again, Biel added. He found that children who watched the 9/11 clips of planes hitting the World Trade Center thought they were seeing dozens of separate attacks.
___
EDITOR'S NOTE — Lauran Neergaard covers health and medical issues for The Associated Press in Washington.
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