Huge study: 5 mental disorders share genetic links


WASHINGTON (AP) — The largest genetic study of mental illnesses to date finds five major disorders may not look much alike but they share some gene-based risks. The surprising discovery comes in the quest to unravel what causes psychiatric disorders and how to better diagnose and treat them.


The disorders — autism, attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder or ADHD, bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder and schizophrenia — are considered distinct problems. But findings published online Wednesday suggest they're related in some way.


"These disorders that we thought of as quite different may not have such sharp boundaries," said Dr. Jordan Smoller of Massachusetts General Hospital, one of the lead researchers for the international study appearing in The Lancet.


That has implications for learning how to diagnose mental illnesses with the same precision that physical illnesses are diagnosed, said Dr. Bruce Cuthbert of the National Institute on Mental Health, which funded the research.


Consider: Just because someone has chest pain doesn't mean it's a heart attack; doctors have a variety of tests to find out. But there's no blood test for schizophrenia or other mental illnesses. Instead, doctors rely on symptoms agreed upon by experts. Learning the genetic underpinnings of mental illnesses is part of one day knowing if someone's symptoms really are schizophrenia and not something a bit different.


"If we really want to diagnose and treat people effectively, we have to get to these more fine-grained understandings of what's actually going wrong biologically," Cuthbert explained.


Added Mass General's Smoller: "We are still in the early stages of understanding what are the causes of mental illnesses, so these are clues."


The Psychiatric Genomics Consortium, a collaboration of researchers in 19 countries, analyzed the genomes of more than 61,000 people, some with one of the five disorders and some without. They found four regions of the genetic code where variation was linked to all five disorders.


Of particular interest are disruptions in two specific genes that regulate the flow of calcium in brain cells, key to how neurons signal each other. That suggests that this change in a basic brain function could be one early pathway that leaves someone vulnerable to developing these disorders, depending on what else goes wrong.


For patients and their families, the research offers no immediate benefit. These disorders are thought to be caused by a complex mix of numerous genes and other risk factors that range from exposures in the womb to the experiences of daily life.


"There may be many paths to each of these illnesses," Smoller cautioned.


But the study offers a lead in the hunt for psychiatric treatments, said NIMH's Cuthbert. Drugs that affect calcium channels in other parts of the body are used for such conditions as high blood pressure, and scientists could explore whether they'd be useful for psychiatric disorders as well.


The findings make sense, as there is some overlap in the symptoms of the different disorders, he said. People with schizophrenia can have some of the same social withdrawal that's so characteristic of autism, for example. Nor is it uncommon for people to be affected by more than one psychiatric disorder.


___


Online:


http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(13)60223-8/abstract


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Wall Street gains on Bernanke comments, S&P above 1,500

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks rose on Wednesday, with major indexes posting their best daily gains since early January, as Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke remained steadfast in supporting the Fed's stimulus policy and data pointed to economic improvement.


In a second day before a congressional committee, Bernanke defended the Fed's buying of bonds to keep interest rates low to boost growth. The market's jump of more than 1 percent also came on better-than-expected data on business spending plans and the housing market.


Bernanke's remarks helped the market rebound from its worst decline since November and put the S&P 500 index back above 1,500, a closely watched level that has been technical support until recently. The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> closed at a level not seen since 2007 as it again pulled within striking distance of an all-time high.


Speaking before the House Financial Services Committee, Bernanke downplayed signs of internal divisions at the Fed, saying the policy of quantitative easing, or QE, has the support of a "significant majority" of top central bank officials.


Bernanke removed a headwind from markets arising from concerns the Fed's quantitative easing might end earlier than anticipated. Doubts about the Fed's intentions had broken a seven-week streak of gains by stocks.


"The Fed continues to encourage risk-taking in markets, which is a powerful tool that makes the danger not being long stocks, not in being too long," said Tom Mangan, a money manager at James Investment Research Inc in Xenia, Ohio.


The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was up 176.32 points, or 1.27 percent, at 14,076.45. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was up 19.07 points, or 1.27 percent, at 1,516.01. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was up 32.61 points, or 1.04 percent, at 3,162.26.


Pending home sales jumped 4.5 percent in January, three times the rate of growth that had been expected. While orders for durable goods fell more than expected in January, non-defense capital goods orders excluding aircraft - a closely watched proxy for business spending plans - showed the biggest gain since December 2011.


About 74 percent of stocks traded on the New York Stock Exchange closed higher while 64 percent of Nasdaq-listed shares closed up.


The S&P turned very slightly higher on the week, recovering from the index's biggest daily drop since November on Monday. That drop came on concerns over Italy's election, as well as over sequestration - U.S. government budget cuts that will take effect starting on Friday if lawmakers fail to reach an agreement on spending and taxes.


The index had climbed 6.3 percent for the year before pulling back on concerns about Fed policy and inconclusive elections in Italy, which rekindled fears of a new euro zone debt crisis.


"While the rally remains intact and there are reasons to be long-term bullish here, there are also reasons to not be surprised if we get a correction," said Mangan, who helps oversee $3.7 billion.


In earnings news, Priceline.com gained 2.6 percent to $695.91 after reporting adjusted earnings that beat expectations. TJX Cos Inc jumped 2.5 percent to $44.75 after the retail chain operator posted higher fourth-quarter results.


The S&P retail index <.spxrt> climbed 1.6 percent.


Target Corp offered a cautious outlook for consumer spending in 2013 following a weak holiday quarter. The stock dipped 1.1 percent to $63.32.


First Solar Inc plunged 14 percent to $27.04 after failing to give a full-year earnings and sales outlook, though it also swung to a quarterly profit.


Groupon Inc plunged 21 percent to $4.70 after the bell after reporting its fourth-quarter results.


With 93 percent of the S&P 500 companies having reported results so far, 69.5 percent beat profit expectations, compared with a 62 percent average since 1994 and 65 percent over the past four quarters, according to Thomson Reuters data.


Fourth-quarter earnings for S&P 500 companies are estimated to have risen 6.2 percent, according to the data, above a 1.9 percent forecast at the start of the earnings season.


About 6.23 billion shares changed hands on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and NYSE MKT, slightly below the daily average so far this year of about 6.48 billion shares.


(Editing by Nick Zieminski and Kenneth Barry)



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As Castro Era Drifts to Close, a New Face Steps In at No. 2


Franklin Reyes/Associated Press


Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, right, during the closing session of the Cuban National Assembly in Havana on Sunday.







MEXICO CITY — He may have just taken on the toughest job in Cuba. Rivals at home will try to take him down. Enemies abroad will discredit him. Almost anyone with an interest in Cuba — including American spies and Cuban intelligence officers — will dig through his public and private lives, rummaging for secrets or clues about his plans.




All the while, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, 52, the top contender to succeed the Castros after more than half a century of their rule, will need to display the authority of a future president while acting as if he does not want the job, maintaining the submissiveness and loyalty that the Castros require.


“It’s going to be a challenge,” said Brian Latell, a former C.I.A. agent who monitored Fidel Castro’s speeches for years and continues to track Raúl Castro as an outside analyst. “The record of the Cuban revolution is littered with the names of people who were thought to be No. 3 or 2 and all of them fell by the wayside, going back to Che Guevara.”


Though a stranger to many Cubans, Mr. Díaz-Canel suddenly became the chosen one when he was promoted to first vice president on Sunday as Raúl Castro, 81, announced he would retire after his current five-year term ended in 2018.


Mr. Díaz-Canel replaced José Ramón Machado Ventura, 82, and became one of the youngest members of Cuba’s political hierarchy. His elevation raised the curtain on an epic drama that had been envisioned dozens of times over the decades. Leader after leader has been mentioned as the next president of Cuba but now, with the Castro era drifting to a close, all the attention is focused on Mr. Díaz-Canel, who has been thrust into what experts describe as the most scrutinized leadership role in the country since Fidel Castro took power in 1959.


Several high-placed young guns who had been auditioning for the job have been banished from government since Fidel Castro fell ill and retired in 2006. Some were accused of corruption, others of disloyalty in the form of vulgar jokes (surreptitiously recorded) about Fidel Castro’s health and Raúl Castro’s political capabilities.


One of those sent packing off in an earlier purge — the Cuban expression is “plan pajama” — is an old boss of Mr. Díaz-Canel’s from their days at the Union of Communist Youth: Roberto Robaina, a brilliant mathematician and former foreign minister who can now be found painting or hanging out at his Havana restaurant, Chaplin’s Cafe.


But unlike others floated as possible future leaders, Mr. Díaz-Canel has managed to be officially anointed as the successor. No one else can claim that distinction, not even Che, Fidel Castro’s right-hand man during the revolution. And though much about Mr. Díaz-Canel remains a mystery, what is known suggests that Rául Castro made the selection. Mr. Díaz-Canel, though clearly an avowed loyalist, has little in common with Fidel Castro, in personality or outlook. He seems instead a younger, more casual version of Raúl.


Like Raúl, he is known for being funny and warm in small groups, and more demure when speaking to crowds. An engineer, he also shares with Raúl a hefty respect for competence over ideology, and an antipathy to showy appearances. While Fidel Castro took power riding a tank into Havana, Mr. Díaz-Canel is well known within Communist Party circles for riding his bike to work when he served as the top official in the province of Villa Clara. He was born there in a lush central region of sweet-smelling mills and pristine coastal keys on April 20, 1960. His father worked for a brewery and his mother was a primary school teacher, according to someone close to the family who did not want to be identified talking about the private life of a government official.


The insider said that Mr. Díaz-Canel was a keen chess player as a child and an avid reader. He is on Facebook, looking casual in a photograph with relatives, but online there are few examples of his published commentary.


He appears to have maintained a down-to-earth approach throughout his career. After graduating from the Central University of Las Villas in 1982, he served in the military for a few years, then slowly moved up the Communist Party ranks. While others behaved like bureaucrats, he had a touch of the mod, wearing his blondish hair long and listening to rock ’n’ roll.


Damien Cave reported from Mexico City, and Victoria Burnett from Havana. Alain Delaquérière contributed research from New York.



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Bobby Brown Sentenced to 55 Days in Jail in Drunk Driving Case















02/26/2013 at 09:30 PM EST



Bobby Brown has been sentenced to 55 days in jail and four years probation in his most recent drunk driving arrest.

Brown, 44, was pulled over in Studio City, Calif., on Oct. 24 for driving erratically and was arrested when the officer detected "a strong scent of alcohol." He was charged with DUI and driving on a suspended license.

He was also arrested for driving under the influence in March of 2012.

Brown pled no contest to the charges on Tuesday, reports TMZ. He was also ordered to complete an 18-month alcohol treatment program.

The singer, who married Alicia Etheredge in Hawaii in June of 2012, must report to jail by March 20.

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C. Everett Koop, 'rock star' surgeon general, dies


NEW YORK (AP) — Dr. C. Everett Koop has long been regarded as the nation's doctor— even though it has been nearly a quarter-century since he was surgeon general.


Koop, who died Monday at his home in Hanover, N.H., at age 96, was by far the best known and most influential person to carry that title. Koop, a 6-foot-1 evangelical Presbyterian with a biblical prophet's beard, donned a public health uniform in the early 1980s and became an enduring, science-based national spokesman on health issues.


He served for eight years during the Reagan administration and was a breed apart from his political bosses. He thundered about the evils of tobacco companies during a multiyear campaign to drive down smoking rates, and he became the government's spokesman on AIDS when it was still considered a "gay disease" by much of the public.


"He really changed the national conversation, and he showed real courage in pursuing the duties of his job," said Chris Collins, a vice president of amfAR, the Foundation for AIDS Research.


Even before that, he had been a leading figure in medicine. He was one of the first U.S. doctors to specialize in pediatric surgery at a time when children with complicated conditions were often simply written off as untreatable. In the 1950s, he drew national headlines for innovative surgeries such as separating conjoined twins.


His medical heroics are well noted, but he may be better remembered for transforming from a pariah in the eyes of the public health community into a remarkable servant who elevated the influence of the surgeon general — if only temporarily.


"He set the bar high for all who followed in his footsteps," said Dr. Richard Carmona, who served as surgeon general a decade later under President George W. Bush.


Koop's religious beliefs grew after the 1968 death of his son David in a mountain-climbing accident, and he became an outspoken opponent of abortion. His activism is what brought him to the attention of the administration of President Ronald Reagan, who decided to nominate him for surgeon general in 1981. Though once a position with real power, surgeon generals had been stripped of most of their responsibilities in the 1960s.


By the time Koop got the job, the position was kind of a glorified health educator.


But Koop ran with it. One of his early steps involved the admiral's uniform that is bestowed to the surgeon general but that Koop's predecessors had worn only on ceremonial occasions. In his first year in the post, Koop stopped wearing his trademark bowties and suit jackets and instead began wearing the uniform, seeing it as a way to raise the visual prestige of the office.


In those military suits, he surprised the officials who had appointed him by setting aside his religious beliefs and feelings about abortion and instead waging a series of science-based public health crusades.


He was arguably most effective on smoking. He issued a series of reports that detailed the dangers of tobacco smoke, and in speeches began calling for a smoke-free society by the year 2000. He didn't get his wish, but smoking rates did drop from 38 percent to 27 percent while he was in office — a huge decline.


Koop led other groundbreaking initiatives, but perhaps none is better remembered than his work on AIDS.


The disease was first identified in 1981, before Koop was officially in office, and it changed U.S. society. It destroyed the body's immune system and led to ghastly death, but initially was identified in gay men, and many people thought of it as something most heterosexuals didn't have to worry about.


U.S. scientists worked hard to identify the virus and work on ways to fight it, but the government's health education and policy efforts moved far more slowly. Reagan for years was silent on the issue. Following mounting criticism, Reagan in 1986 asked Koop to prepare a report on AIDS for the American public.


His report, released later that year, stressed that AIDS was a threat to all Americans and called for wider use of condoms and more comprehensive sex education, as early as the third grade. He went on to speak frankly about AIDS in an HBO special and engineered the mailing of an educational pamphlet on AIDS to more than 100 million U.S. households in 1988.


Koop personally opposed homosexuality and believed sex should be saved for marriage. But he insisted that Americans, especially young people, must not die because they were deprived of explicit information about how HIV was transmitted.


Koop's speeches and empathetic approach made him a hero to a wide swath of America, including public health workers, gay activists and journalists. Some called him a "scientific Bruce Springsteen." AIDS activists chanted "Koop, Koop" at his appearances and booed other officials.


"I was walking down the street with him one time" about five years ago, recalled Dr. George Wohlreich, director of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, a medical society with which Koop had longstanding ties. "People were yelling out, 'There goes Dr. Koop!' You'd have thought he was a rock star."


Koop angered conservatives by refusing to issue a report requested by the Reagan White House, saying he could not find enough scientific evidence to determine whether abortion has harmful psychological effects on women.


He got static from some staff at the White House for his actions, but Reagan himself never tried to silence Koop. At a congressional hearing in 2007, Koop spoke about political pressure on the surgeon general post. He said Reagan was pressed to fire him every day.


After his death was reported Monday, the tributes poured forth, including a statement from New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has made smoking restrictions a hallmark of his tenure.


"The nation has lost a visionary public health leader today with the passing of former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, who was born and raised in Brooklyn," Bloomberg said. "Outspoken on the dangers of smoking, his leadership led to stronger warning labels on cigarettes and increased awareness about second-hand smoke, creating an environment that helped millions of Americans to stop smoking — and setting the stage for the dramatic changes in smoking laws that have occurred over the past decade."


Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health taught Koop what was known about AIDS during quiet after-hours talks in the early 1980s and became a close friend.


"A less strong person would have bent under the pressure," Fauci said. "He was driven by what's the right thing to do."


Carmona, a surgeon general years later, said Koop was a mentor who preached the importance of staying true to the science in speeches and reports — even when it made certain politicians uncomfortable.


"We remember him for the example he set for all of us," Carmona said.


Koop's nomination originally was met with staunch opposition. Women's groups and liberal politicians complained Reagan had selected him only because of his conservative views, especially his staunch opposition to abortion.


Foes noted that Koop traveled the country in 1979 and 1980 giving speeches that predicted a progression "from liberalized abortion to infanticide to passive euthanasia to active euthanasia, indeed to the very beginnings of the political climate that led to Auschwitz, Dachau and Belsen."


But Koop, a devout Presbyterian, was confirmed as surgeon general after he told a Senate panel he would not use the post to promote his religious ideology. He kept his word and eventually won wide respect with his blend of old-fashioned values, pragmatism and empathy.


Koop was modest about his accomplishments, saying before leaving office in 1989, "My only influence was through moral suasion."


The office declined after that. Few of his successors had his speaking ability or stage presence. Fewer still were able to secure the support of key political bosses and overcome the meddling of everyone else. The office gradually lost prestige and visibility, and now has come to a point where most people can't name the current surgeon general. (It's Dr. Regina Benjamin.)


Even after leaving office, Koop continued to promote public health causes, from preventing childhood accidents to better training for doctors.


"I will use the written word, the spoken word and whatever I can in the electronic media to deliver health messages to this country as long as people will listen," he promised.


In 1996, he rapped Republican presidential hopeful Bob Dole for suggesting that tobacco was not invariably addictive, saying Dole's comments "either exposed his abysmal lack of knowledge of nicotine addiction or his blind support of the tobacco industry."


He maintained his personal opposition to abortion. After he left office, he told medical students it violated their Hippocratic oath. In 2009, he wrote to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, urging that health care legislation include a provision to ensure doctors and medical students would not be forced to perform abortions. The letter briefly set off a security scare because it was hand delivered.


Koop served as chairman of the National Safe Kids Campaign and as an adviser to President Bill Clinton's health care reform plan.


Worried that medicine had lost old-fashioned caring and personal relationships between doctors and patients, Koop opened an institute at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire to teach medical students basic values and ethics. He also was a part-owner of a short-lived venture, drkoop.com, to provide consumer health care information via the Internet.


Koop was the only son of a Manhattan banker and the nephew of a doctor. He said by age 5 he knew he wanted to be a surgeon and at age 13 he practiced his skills on neighborhood cats. He attended Dartmouth, where he received the nickname Chick, short for "chicken Koop." It stuck for life.


He received his medical degree at Cornell Medical College, choosing pediatric surgery because so few surgeons practiced it. In 1938, he married Elizabeth Flanagan, the daughter of a Connecticut doctor. They had four children. Koop's wife died in 2007, and he married Cora Hogue in 2010.


He was appointed surgeon-in-chief at Children's Hospital in Philadelphia and served as a professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. He pioneered surgery on newborns and successfully separated three sets of conjoined twins. He won national acclaim by reconstructing the chest of a baby born with the heart outside the body.


Although raised as a Baptist, he was drawn to a Presbyterian church near the hospital, where he developed an abiding faith. He began praying at the bedside of his young patients — ignoring the snickers of some of his colleagues.


___


Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Wilson Ring in Montpelier, Vt.; Jeff McMillan in Philadelphia; and AP Medical Writer Lauran Neergaard in Washington.


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Wall Street rebounds on Bernanke comments, data

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks rebounded from their worst decline since November on Tuesday after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke defended the Fed's bond-buying stimulus and sales of new homes hit a 4 1/2-year high.


The S&P 500 had climbed 6 percent for the year and came within reach of all-time highs before the minutes from the Fed's January meeting were released last Wednesday. Since then, the benchmark S&P 500 has fallen 1 percent.


Bernanke, in testimony on Tuesday before the Senate Banking Committee, strongly defended the Fed's bond-buying stimulus program and quieted rumblings that the central bank may pull back from its stimulative policy measures, which were sparked by the release of the Fed minutes last week.


Bernanke's comments helped ease investors' concerns about a stalemate in Italy after a general election failed to give any party a parliamentary majority, posing the threat of prolonged instability and financial crisis in Europe, and sending the S&P 500 to its worst decline since November 7 in Monday's session.


Bernanke "certainly said everything the market needed to feel in order to get comfortable again," said Peter Kenny, managing director at Knight Capital in Jersey City, New Jersey.


"The fear is we were going to see a rollover, and the first shot over the bow was what we saw out of Italy yesterday with the elections," Kenny said. "When it came to U.S. markets, we saw some of that bleeding stop because our focus shifted from the Italian political circus to Ben Bernanke."


Gains in homebuilders and other consumer stocks, following strong economic data, lifted the S&P 500, and a 5.7 percent jump in Home Depot to $67.56 boosted the Dow industrials. The PHLX housing sector index <.hgx> rose 3.2 percent.


Economic reports that showed strength in housing and consumer confidence also supported stocks. U.S. home prices rose more than expected in December, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller index. Consumer confidence rebounded in February, jumping more than expected, and new-home sales rose to their highest in 4-1/2 years in January.


However, the central bank chairman also urged lawmakers to avoid sharp spending cuts set to go into effect on Friday, which he warned could combine with earlier tax increases to create a "significant headwind" for the economic recovery.


The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> gained 115.96 points, or 0.84 percent, to 13,900.13 at the close. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> rose 9.09 points, or 0.61 percent, to 1,496.94. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> advanced 13.40 points, or 0.43 percent, to close at 3,129.65.


Despite the bounce, the S&P 500 was unable to move back above 1,500, a closely watched level that was technical support until recently, but could now serve as a resistance point.


The CBOE Volatility Index <.vix> or the VIX, a barometer of investor anxiety, dropped 11.2 percent, a day after surging 34 percent, its biggest percentage jump since August 18, 2011.


The uncertainty caused by the Italian elections continued to weigh on stocks in Europe. The FTSEurofirst-300 index of top European shares <.fteu3> closed down 1.4 percent. The benchmark Italian index <.ftmib> tumbled 4.9 percent.


Home Depot gave the biggest boost to the Dow and provided one of the biggest lifts to the S&P 500 after the world's largest home improvement chain reported adjusted earnings and sales that beat expectations.


Macy's shares gained 2.8 percent to $39.59 after the department-store chain stated it expects full-year earnings to be above analysts' forecasts because of strong holiday sales.


Volume was active with about 7.08 billion shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange, NYSE MKT and Nasdaq, above the daily average of 6.48 billion.


Advancing stocks outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a ratio of about 2 to 1, while on the Nasdaq, three stocks rose for every two that fell.


(Reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Jan Paschal; Editing by Jan Paschal)



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New Report Details Syrian Missile Attack





BEIRUT, Lebanon — The Syrian government fired at least four ballistic missiles last week that hit civilian neighborhoods in Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, killing more than 141 people, including 71 children, according to a Human Rights Watch report released on Tuesday.




Syrian antigovernment activists had reported the missile strikes last week, corroborated by video of the aftermath posted on the Internet, but the Human Rights Watch report contained new details about the number of missile strikes and the scope of destruction, with a death toll that was far higher than previously thought.


“The extent of the damage from a single strike, the lack of aircraft in the area at the time, and reports of ballistic missiles being launched from a military base near Damascus overwhelmingly suggest that government forces struck these areas with ballistic missiles,” the report said.


The assessment came as both sides’ international backers called with increasing urgency for a political solution but remained unable to get the antagonists to talk. That impasse has been the main focus of the first foreign trip by John Kerry, the new American secretary of state, who met with his Russian counterpart, Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov, on Tuesday to try to push the Syrian combatants into talks.


Fighting intensified in Aleppo, including around the 12th-century Umayyad Mosque, one of the architectural centerpieces of Aleppo’s Old City, and around a long-contested police academy, according to rebels and the government.


The ballistic missile strikes felled entire buildings in destruction that stands out even after months of fighting, according to Human Rights Watch. Its researchers visited all four sites, in residential areas, and found no evidence of military targets nearby, making the attacks a violation of international law, the organization said.


A resident of Ard al-Hamra, one of the neighborhoods hit, said he had just left his brother’s house after evening tea on Friday when “the sky was lit up by a tremendous flash and all air was sucked away.”


He ran back to find that “my brother’s house was gone,” he told Human Rights Watch. “We managed to find my five young nieces and nephews, aged between 3 and 17 years old. They were all dead under the rubble. We still have not found my brother. When will somebody stop this madness?”


As the death toll from the Syrian conflict exceeds 70,000, according to United Nations estimates, and the destruction of major cities continues unabated, fears are mounting that the conflict will spread throughout the region.


Jeffrey D. Feltman, the United Nations’ top political official, told the Security Council during a Middle East briefing, “The destructive military spiral churns more forcefully each day and threatens to pull its neighbors, most notably and worrisomely Lebanon, into its vortex.”


Lebanon, torn apart by political disagreements over Syria and longstanding sectarian divides exacerbated by the increasingly sectarian killing in Syria, last week became the country hosting the largest number of Syrian refugees, even though it is Syria’s smallest and most politically vulnerable neighbor.


“Even tentative steps to dialogue are struggling to take root,” Mr. Feltman said, referring to offers of negotiations issued — with caveats and conditions — by both the Syrian opposition and government in recent days. “Regrettably, the warring parties remain locked in military logic which is bound to bring more death and destruction.”


Before a meeting in Rome on Thursday of the opposition’s international backers, the main opposition group remains under pressure to further unify and organize itself — in part to make sure there is someone for the government to meet with should talks become possible.


The opposition group, the National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, has said that on Saturday it will select a prime minister to run an interim government to be established in rebel-held areas of northern Syria. But the group has set and missed such deadlines in the past, and members say there is no consensus yet on who should fill the post.


Even if a prime minister is appointed and empowered to negotiate with the Syrian government, it is unclear if talks will take place. The government of President Bashar al-Assad, backed by Russia, has long insisted that Mr. Assad be part of the process, while the opposition coalition, backed by the United States, declares that he cannot be.


Seeking to resolve that impasse, Mr. Kerry had his first meeting as secretary of state with Mr. Lavrov of Russia on Tuesday in Berlin.


The meeting covered the range of American-Russian issues, from economic relations to adoption of Russian orphans. But more than half of the session was devoted to the situation in Syria.


Hillary Rodham Clinton, Mr. Kerry’s predecessor as secretary of state, believed she had worked out an agreement with the Russians in Geneva in June that would have established the framework for negotiations on a political transition to a post-Assad government. But the Russians interpreted the agreement differently, saying that the understanding that Mr. Assad should leave power could not be a precondition for the talks.


Mr. Kerry, who has said he has new ideas on how to advance diplomacy on Syria, has been looking for a way to secure Russian backing for a transition.


“It was a really serious and hard-working session,” said Victoria Nuland, the State Department’s spokeswoman. Much of the discussion, she said, “focused on Syria and how we can work together to implement the Geneva agreement.”


Mr. Lavrov told Russian news agencies after the meeting that Russia would try to establish the conditions for initiating “a dialogue between the government and the opposition.”


Hania Mourtada and Hwaida Saad contributed reporting from Beirut, and Michael R. Gordon from Berlin.



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Facebook Now Has an Entire Team Devoted to Sandy Hook Scams






When three Connecticut lawmakers asked Mark Zuckerberg in a letter on Monday to do something about the flood of fake Sandy Hook memorial pages, he got back to them quickly. Democratic Senators Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy and Rep. Elizabeth Esty, also a Democrat, pointed out that Facebook is filled countless pages that “have become vehicles for harassment, intimidation and possibly financial fraud.” The lawmakers added that such pages enable fraudsters “to violate the privacy of families as they grieve, or seek financial gain through soliciting donations under false pretenses, or generating Facebook ‘likes’ for marketing purposes, should not be given quarter in the Facebook community.” One teacher named Victoria Soto who was killed in the attack had over 100 pages dedicated to her, and the victim’s mother went to the lawmakers for help pulling them down.


RELATED: Morsi’s Anti-Semitism, Newtown Parents, and ‘The Real Husbands of Hollywood’






Facebook called Sen. Blumenthal’s office within hours of the letter being sent to ensure him that the company had a dedicated team to deal with Sandy Hook-related requests. In a statement, the company said, “For the past few months, our rapid response team has acted swiftly to remove inappropriate materials flagged by the foundation and the families.” Indeed, it’s been nearly two months since we found out about the first Sandy Hook scammer, a New York woman who posed as the aunt of one of the first grade victims of the shootings and solicited money for a “funeral fund.” One would’ve thought that the social network would have cranked up the security dials after that scandal, but apparently it wasn’t enough. If the trouble at Facebook continues, at least we’ll know it wasn’t for lack of trying.


Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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PEOPLE Live at the Oscars - Pics and Tweets from the Inside!









02/25/2013 at 07:35 PM EST



The Oscars hit the Dolby Theatre in L.A. Sunday night – and PEOPLE was there!

Editor Peter Castro was on the red carpet with Modern Family's Rico Rodriquez for the live pre-show event Backstage Pass – plus we had editors at the after parties and more!

Check out our best Tweets and pics from the show:


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