Raspberry Pi creator says sequel unlikely in 2013







Raspberry Pi’s $ 35 Linux-based computer is a runaway success. Creator Eben Upton told ZDNet in a recent interview that his team thought they would sell 1,000 units when they were designing the mini PC, but sales have now topped 700,000. ”We honestly did think we would sell about 1,000, maybe 10,000 in our wildest dreams,” Upton said. “We thought we would make a small number and give them out to people who might want to come and read computer science at Cambridge.” On a slightly disappointing note to those hoping for an upgraded model in 2013, Upton said in the interview that the company has no plans to launch a sequel to the latest Raspberry Pi “Model B” this year.


[More from BGR: BlackBerry 10 browser smokes iOS 6 and Windows Phone 8 in comparison test [video]]






This article was originally published on BGR.com


Linux/Open Source News Headlines – Yahoo! News





Title Post: Raspberry Pi creator says sequel unlikely in 2013
Url Post: http://www.news.fluser.com/raspberry-pi-creator-says-sequel-unlikely-in-2013/
Link To Post : Raspberry Pi creator says sequel unlikely in 2013
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment




Read More..

Elisabeth Röhm Blogs: Deciding When to Share and When to Shield Children

Elisabeth Röhm's Blog: Why I Support St. Jude
Beautiful sunset – Courtesy Elisabeth Röhm


Elisabeth Röhm, best known for her roles as Serena on Law & Order and Kate on Angel, has been blogging for PEOPLE.com for two years now.


The actress, 39, currently stars as Taylor on The Client List, while her film In the Dark re-airs on Lifetime throughout January.


Her book, Object of My Conception: A Journey to Motherhood Through IVF, will be released by Da Capo in April.


She can be found on Facebook, Google + and @ElisabethRohm.


In her latest blog, Röhm — mom to 4½-year-old Easton August with fiancé Ron Anthony — opens up about the loss of her Aunt Lolly and how recent events have her considering how much Easton actually understands.


No one likes to cry in front of people. I’m sure most of us can say we don’t like to cry at all. We certainly don’t like to cry in front of our kids or emote feelings that are overwhelming to us. But what happens when we are sad, tired, temporarily defeated, grieving or just plain exhausted by life? What happens when we are human and not the demi-God our children think we are? What do we do with our tragic flaws?


How do we handle our feelings in front of our kids? Those precious, innocent kids that simply don’t get the scope of whatever it is we’re experiencing or feeling? They simply don’t get it. Or do they?


Isn’t it our job to protect them from the harsh realities of the world, our world and yes, soon-to-be their world? Are we supposed to hide in a closet, a bathroom or our bedrooms and let it all out in private? Are we supposed to bottle our cries and our stresses until we wave the school bus good-bye, or we drive away from their academic establishments after morning drop-off?


Is that right and fair to us moms who are just trying to get by, all the while juggling the various things that make us those invincible superstars that get to be called Mom, Mommy, Mama? Isn’t it beneficial for them to understand the complexity of us mommies and the complexities of life?


I’ve never been closeted or one for locking the bathroom to privately exhale, shed a few tears or simply decompress before I lose it. I’m very open and actually really enjoy sharing and perhaps over-sharing. Why hide in the closet trying to stifle our sobs over love, money, career or the fact that our hormones have gotten the best of us and sometimes get in the way of our ordinary sanity?


We should communicate with our loved ones. But our children; our children, who are a part of our bodies and souls and feel every emotion, experience and reaction that course through us even before we’ve uttered a word, yelp or deep sigh of frustration?


Not to mention the bigger burdens of loss, death, the news that so often deals with death and dying or grief. What if we lose a loved one? How do we explain the tears that can come brimming over our lashes and down our face without our permission?


Even if we’d like to be the happiest, go luckiest, best, most responsible stable mothers, sometimes things get too hard, tiring, staggering and quite simply sad on a given day — making it near impossible to be the supermom we see ourselves as.


Sometimes life does get the best of us, doesn’t it?


We experience our life as it unfolds before us and sometimes we notice that the image of ourselves as a “perfect parent” is just not matching up. That can make us feel very vulnerable as parents who are supposed to shoulder it all with an endless waterfall of smiles and unconditional strength.


I know, oh how I know! What did Jack Lemmon say? “It’s show-time!” For parents, it’s “show-time” all the time, right?


No matter if we are burned out, stressed out or tapped out, our children look to us for unwavering calming love, security and safety and most of all joy. So what do we do when we feel like we are coming apart at the seams like a poorly-crafted stuffed animal, with all that cotton ball stuffing poking out in the most unflattering of ways?


Is it really the most responsible choice to hide out where little prying, wide eyes can’t see their parents losing their — you know what — @##^*%^&*%^-cookies?


Having lost my mother three years ago, I tried so very hard to keep my deepest grief private, but as our kids get older it’s a little harder to hide those truthful emotions. They are so sensitive and curious.


As they grow we wonder what parts we should share, what’s beneficial and helpful in growing them up into mature, wise beings who understand that feelings are not scary and challenging experiences are a part of life — you can’t avoid them even if you want to.


And also, this is a BIG one: that dying is a part of living. It is natural and painful and transformative.


Saturday afternoon, late in the day, as I was cleaning out Easton’s closet to add to that ever-evolving hand-me-down bag of kid stuff for a girlfriend, the telephone rang with tragic news. My beloved Aunt Laurie, who I’ve referred to many times in my blog as “Lolly,” had shockingly passed away from a sudden and unexpected heart attack. Too young to die, like my mother was.


The news hit me like a freight train and I fell to the ground flooded by my pools of tears.


Easton was so confused and concerned. Since she is almost 5, I tried to explain to her what happened. At first I thought she was getting it. Then I realized that she really wasn’t getting it. After 10 minutes of crying and hugging her tight on the kitchen floor whilst I tried very carefully and thoughtfully to explain where “Lolly” had gone and why I was so upset, I realized it was better left unsaid.


I pulled myself together, self-conscious of my parenting, and stuffed my feelings in the back pocket of my jeans so as not to worry her any further.


It reminded me of my mother all over again, and how I tried to shield Easton from my loss. The experience was just too complicated for a little person — or so it has seemed. And really, why make Easton endure along with me what would mostly be an onslaught of confusing emotions from her mother? Better to deal with it on my own in the closet, right?


As the days have gone by, I’ve kept my tears saved up for those moments that she’s not around, just like I did when Mom passed away. I’ve waited until I’m in the shower, the car or she’s gone to sleep to break into a million pieces of angels wings that flutter into the heavens where my beloved mother and aunt are now.


I hope I’m being a conscientious parent — or am I?


As I left for the airport Tuesday to go to my Aunt Lolly’s funeral, my daughter still seemed confused by my leaving and the idea of death, as I tried once more to explain where Mommy was going for several days. She just looked at me with shiny blue eyes, blinking with the innocence of kind-of-sort-of getting it but not.


I guess that confirmation again made me feel clear that it’s been better for Easton that I keep my grown-up feelings to myself.


This scenario of late begs the question of talking and sharing with our children about other heavy subjects like arguments, breakups, divorce, moving, money issues, news, loss, fear and all other forms of pain in our big adult lives, doesn’t it?


Several weeks ago, there was some quarreling going on between Ron and me. It became a discussion as to if we should try to explain the bickering to Easton or if it was better to assume that she wouldn’t grasp all the details anyway and to protect her altogether.


On one hand, you could say that children do get it all and are highly sensitive — even to the tense and hushed discussions that you try to keep private — and that in order for them to feel safe, the parents should include the child in what they are witness to.


On the other hand, when we asked Easton in loving and nurturing tones if she had any questions or was worried at all by what Mommy and Daddy were talking about, she simply said, “No.”


We pressed and said, “Because we’ll always explain everything to you and always tell you the truth. You sure you don’t have any questions or concerns?” “Nope,” she said, assuredly and clearly, and then she was off to a game of hide and seek with her Aunt Olivia.


Where do you stand on all of this, ladies? Where do you draw the line? Do you cry, fight, share grief and stress, watch the news, talk openly and show your emotions without question or regret in front of your wee-ones?


Let’s discuss any ah-ha moments where you realized you needed to share more or less, realized you were sheltering or over-exposing your children to life’s tragedies and cruelties.


I always love the conversations that we share, the debates, the memories of our lives and those poignant learned lessons!!


Looking forward to another year of blogging with you and wishing a blessed and abundant New Year for you and your families.


Elisabeth Röhm's Blog: Why I Support St. Jude
With my girl – Courtesy Elisabeth Röhm


Until next time…


– Elisabeth Röhm


More from Elisabeth’s PEOPLE.com blog series:


Read More..

Flu season 'bad one for the elderly,' CDC says


The number of older people hospitalized with the flu has risen sharply, prompting federal officials to take unusual steps to make more flu medicines available and to urge wider use of them as soon as symptoms appear.


The U.S. is about halfway through this flu season, and "it's shaping up to be a worse-than-average season" and a bad one for the elderly, said Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.


It's not too late to get a flu shot, and "if you have symptoms, please stay home from work, keep your children home from school" and don't spread the virus, he said.


New figures from the CDC show widespread flu activity in all states but Tennessee and Hawaii. Some parts of the country are seeing an increase in flu activity "while overall activity is beginning to go down," Frieden said. Flu activity is high in 30 states and New York City, up from 24 the previous week.


Nine more children or teens have died of the flu, bringing the nation's total this flu season to 29. That's close to the 34 pediatric deaths reported during all of the last flu season, although that one was unusually light. In a typical season, about 100 children die of the flu and officials said there is no way to know whether deaths this season will be higher or lower than usual.


The government doesn't keep a running tally of adult deaths from the flu, but estimates that it kills about 24,000 people most years.


So far, half of confirmed flu cases are in people 65 and older. Lab-confirmed flu hospitalizations totaled 19 for every 100,000 in the population, but 82 per 100,000 among those 65 and older, "which is really quite a high rate," Frieden said.


"We expect to see both the number and the rates of both hospitalizations and deaths rise further in the next week or so as the flu epidemic progresses,'" so prompt treatment is key to preventing deaths, he said.


About 90 percent of flu deaths are in the elderly; the very young and people with other health problems such as diabetes are also at higher risk.


If you're worried about how sick you are and are in one of these risk groups, see a doctor, Frieden urged. One third to one half of people are not getting prompt treatment with antiviral medicines, he said.


Two drugs — Tamiflu and Relenza — can cut the severity and risk of death from the flu but must be started within 48 hours of first symptoms to do much good. Tamiflu is available in a liquid form for use in children under 1, and pharmacists can reformulate capsules into a liquid if supplies are short in an area, said Dr. Margaret Hamburg, head of the Food and Drug Administration.


To help avoid a shortage, the FDA is letting Tamiflu's maker, Genentech, distribute 2 million additional doses of capsules that have an older version of package insert.


"It is fully approved, it is not outdated," just lacks information for pharmacists on how to mix it into a liquid if needed for young children, she said.


This year's flu season started about a month earlier than normal and the dominant flu strain is one that tends to make people sicker. Vaccinations are recommended for anyone 6 months or older. There's still plenty of vaccine — an update shows that 145 million doses have been produced, "twice the supply that was available only several years ago," Hamburg said.


About 129 million doses have been distributed already, and a million doses are given each day, Frieden said. The vaccine is not perfect but "it's by far the best tool we have to prevent influenza," he said.


Carlos Maisonet, 73, got a flu shot this week at New York's Brooklyn Hospital Center at the urging of his wife, who was vaccinated in August.


"This is his first time getting the flu shot," said his wife, Zulma Ramos.


Last week, the CDC said the flu again surpassed an "epidemic" threshold, based on monitoring of deaths from flu and a frequent complication, pneumonia. The flu epidemic happens every year and officials say this year's vaccine is a good match for strains that are going around.


___


Online:


Flu vaccine finder: http://www.flu.gov


CDC flu info: http://www.cdc.gov/flu/index.htm


___


AP Photographer Bebeto Matthews in New York contributed to this report.


___


Follow Marilynn Marchione's coverage at —http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP


Read More..

Dow, S&P 500 end at five-year highs on early earnings beats

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Dow and S&P 500 closed at five-year highs on Friday as the market registered a third straight week of gains on a solid start to the quarterly earnings season.


Morgan Stanley was the latest Wall Street bank to report strong results. Its better-than-expected earnings followed similar report cards from Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase earlier in the week.


Shares of Morgan Stanley shot up 7.9 percent to $22.38. It reported a fourth-quarter profit after a year-earlier loss, helped by higher revenue at the bank's institutional securities business.


But Friday's rise was held back by shares of Intel Corp , which slumped 6.3 percent to $21.25 a day after it forecast quarterly revenue below analysts' estimates and announced plans for increased capital spending amid slow demand for personal computers.


Another factor that has been weighing on the market before a three-day weekend is uncertainty about the federal debt limit and spending cuts that could hamper U.S. growth. U.S. markets will be closed on Monday for the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.


There were signs on Friday that the question of raising the U.S. debt limit would be put off for a while. House Republican leaders said they would seek to pass a three-month extension of federal borrowing authority next week to buy time for the Democratic-controlled Senate to pass a budget that shrinks deficits.


"It could be a big positive for the markets if we come up wih a plan of spending cuts that isn't too awfully hard on the economy," said Bryant Evans, investment adviser and portfolio manager at Cozad Asset Management, in Champaign, Illinois.


The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was up 53.68 points, or 0.39 percent, at 13,649.70. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was up 5.04 points, or 0.34 percent, at 1,485.98. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was down 1.30 points, or 0.04 percent, at 3,134.71.


The Dow and S&P 500 ended at their highest levels since December 2007. For the week, the Dow ended up 1.2 percent, the S&P 500 ended up 0.9 percent and the Nasdaq ended up 0.3 percent.


The CBOE Volatility index <.vix>, Wall Street's so-called fear gauge, fell 8.2 percent. The VIX usually moves inversely to the S&P 500 as it is used as a hedge against further market decline.


Also reporting stronger-than-expected earnings on Friday was General Electric , whose shares rose 3.5 percent to $22.04.


Overall, S&P 500 fourth-quarter earnings are forecast to have risen 2.5 percent, according to Thomson Reuters data. [ID:nL1E9CI581] That estimate is above the 1.9 percent forecast from a week ago but well below the 9.9 percent fourth-quarter earnings forecast from October 1, the data showed.


Economic data from China also provided some support to the market, though the focus remained on U.S. corporate earnings. China's economy grew at a modestly faster-than-expected 7.9 percent in the fourth quarter, the latest sign the world's second-biggest economy was pulling out of a post-global financial crisis slowdown which saw it grow in 2012 at its weakest pace since 1999.


Despite the gains by Morgan Stanley, financial stocks sagged as Capital One Financial reported disappointing profit. Capital One slumped 7.5 percent to $56.99, while the KBW bank index <.bkx> slipped 0.3 percent.


Volume was roughly 6.6 billion shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and the NYSE MKT, compared with the 2012 average daily closing volume of about 6.45 billion.


Advancers outpaced decliners on the NYSE by nearly 2 to 1 and on the Nasdaq by about 13 to 11.


(Additional reporting by Angela Moon; Editing by Bernadette Baum, Kenneth Barry and Nick Zieminski)



Read More..

British Leader Sees Wider Threat in Algeria Attack


Oli Scarff/Getty Images


Prime Minister David Cameron en route to Parliament to deliver a statement on the Algeria hostage crisis.







LONDON — With more than 60 hostages still missing and many feared dead, Prime Minister David Cameron told Parliament on Friday that the Qaeda-linked attack on a remote Algerian gas installation demonstrated the need for Britain and its Western allies, including the United States, to direct more of their diplomatic, military and intelligence resources to the intensifying threat emanating from “the ungoverned space” of the North African desert, treating it with as much concern as the terrorist challenge in Pakistan and Afghanistan.




Mr. Cameron offered little new information about the showdown at the In Amenas plant, nearly 1,000 miles from Algiers, the Algerian capital, in the oil-and-gas-rich emptiness of the Sahara, saying the information reaching London about what he described as a “continuing situation” remained sketchy. He added that Britain learned overnight that the number of British citizens caught up in the hostage-taking and the subsequent shootout was “significantly” fewer than the 30 people feared on Thursday. As part of the effort to learn more, he said, a special plane had been assigned to carry Britain’s ambassador in Algiers and other British diplomats to the area of the gas plant on Friday.


But in an hourlong session in the House of Commons, Mr. Cameron pointed to the somber implications of underestimating recent events in Mali and Algeria as a regional problem for North Africa rather than as an increasingly fertile arena for Islamic militants and their hostility to the West. He said he had discussed his concerns in a telephone conversation with President Obama on Thursday.


The British leader said the growth of Islamic terrorist networks in the countries of the Sahel, the broad area of North Africa that runs more than 3,000 miles from Mauritania in the west to Sudan and Somalia in the east, should be a renewed focus of Western counterterrorist concerns and resources. At one point, he said military assistance to the affected countries needed to be part of NATO military planning, though he again emphatically ruled out any British combat role in support of France’s campaign against militants in Mali.


Pointing to the leading role played in the Algerian attack by Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a terrorist ringleader and smuggler with links to North Africa’s main Islamic terrorist group, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, Mr. Cameron warned that the Algerian attack was symptomatic of a far broader threat.


“What we know is that the terrorist threat in the Sahel comes from Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, which aspires to establish Islamic law across the Sahel and northern Africa, and to attack Western interests in the region and, frankly, wherever it can,” Mr. Cameron said. “Just as we have reduced the scale of the Al Qaeda threat in other parts of the world, including in Pakistan and Afghanistan, so it has grown in other parts of the world. We need to be equally concerned about that, and equally focused on it.”


To some British commentators, Mr. Cameron’s remarks sounded like an effort to prompt the United States to become more deeply involved in North African security matters. In the 2011 Libyan conflict, the United States stepped back from the lead role it has traditionally taken in NATO military operations and left Britain, France and Italy to conduct the bulk of the bombing in support of the Libyan rebels’ successful campaign to topple Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi.


Since then, high-ranking British officials have expressed concerns that the Obama administration is stepping back from European political and security issues and turning its attentions increasingly to the nations of the Pacific.


With the approach of Mr. Obama’s second inauguration on Sunday, The Spectator, a London-based weekly that is influential in Mr. Cameron’s Conservative Party, devoted its cover this week to an article headlined “The Pacific President,” and an illustration showing Mr. Obama in a brightly colored Hawaiian shirt and shorts surfing off a palm-lined beach. “As Barack Obama is sworn in again as president, his allies in the West will ask themselves the same nervous question they posed four years ago: how much does he care about us?” the accompanying article asked.


White House officials said on Thursday that Mr. Obama had used his telephone conversation with Mr. Cameron to underscore American concerns that Britain remain a robust force within the 27-nation European Union, a hot-button issue for Mr. Cameron. The prime minister had planned — then canceled, amid the Algerian crisis — a landmark speech in Amsterdam on Friday in which he was to have outlined his plan to negotiate a much sparer role for Britain in the European bloc.


In his remarks to lawmakers on Friday, Mr. Cameron offered what could have been construed as an oblique riposte to Mr. Obama, or at least to officials in the Obama administration who have urged that Europe take greater responsibility for confronting terrorist and other security threats at its own doorstep.  He may also have been addressing domestic critics in Britain, or other NATO countries that have been less active than Britain in counterterrorism efforts aimed at confronting the spread of Islamic militant groups.


“There is a great need for not just Britain but other countries to give a priority to understanding better, and working better, with the countries in this region,” he said. “Those who believe that there is a terrorist, extremist Al Qaeda problem in parts of north Africa, but that it is a problem for those places and we can somehow back off and ignore it, are profoundly wrong. That is a problem for those places, and for us.”


Mr. Cameron noted that Britain had been “the first country in the world” to offer France military assistance in its campaign in Mali, deploying one of the largest military transport aircraft it has, an American-made C-17 Globemaster, to ferry French troops and military equipment to Bamako, the Malian capital. He said it was time for Britain and France to move beyond their spheres of influence in Africa dating back to the colonial era, “and recognize that is in our interest to boost the capacity of all African states” confronted by the terrorist threat.


This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: January 18, 2013

An earlier version of this article misstated the year that Libyan rebels overthrew Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi. It was 2011, not last year.



Read More..

In Which Actual Joe Biden and ‘Onion’ Joe Biden Pal Around on Reddit and Twitter






The Onion‘s brilliant creation, “Diamond” Joe Biden, stopped by Reddit, in character, for one of the site’s signature Ask Me Anything sessions on Friday afternoon. And, hey, look who asked something over Twitter just as the AMA began:



Q for @reddit AMA with my @theonion pal: A Trans-Am? Ever look under the hood of a Corvette? #imavetteguy –VP twitter.com/VP/status/2923…






— Office of VP Biden (@VP) January 18, 2013


So that happened, and it’s so beyond meta that our heads hurt. It confirms that the vice-president (or at least his office) is aware of his satirical alter-ego: the foul-mouthed, Trans-Am-driving, skirt-chaser known to hundreds of Onion articles. And, of course, “Diamond” Joe answered:


RELATED: The Real Joe Biden vs. The Onion’s Joe Biden: A Quiz


So why would Actual Joe Biden indulge the funniest incarnation of the Uncle Joe Biden whom the Internet loves so much? Maybe he thinks he’s funny! After all, Actual Joe Biden is pretty funny himself, and “Diamond” Joe’s answers on Reddit this afternoon didn’t disappoint. Some highlights:


RELATED: The Gingriches Endorse Meryl Streep; Alec Baldwin’s Mayoral Two-Step


And another:


RELATED: How Joe Biden Stages Those Average-Joe Pictures… in Pictures


8eade  4f2570aadcda87ffa174c9e396a9a743 640x138 In Which Actual Joe Biden and Onion Joe Biden Pal Around on Reddit and Twitter


One more:


8eade  d8f4bc9006a58d7fb7023f4b958f4ba5 640x137 In Which Actual Joe Biden and Onion Joe Biden Pal Around on Reddit and Twitter


And, yes, there’s a theme here:


8eade  95a4b46ca936267d4f43e3122923cd2d 640x188 In Which Actual Joe Biden and Onion Joe Biden Pal Around on Reddit and Twitter


Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News




Read More..

Katie Holmes's Hair Has a New Job




Style News Now





01/18/2013 at 03:30 PM ET



Katie HolmesCourtesy Alterna


Katie Holmes has your beauty routine covered.


Just months after signing on as the first famous face of Bobbi Brown cosmetics, the actress has inked a deal as the debut celebrity spokeswoman for Alterna Haircare.


Never heard of the brand? You’re not alone. “Alterna has been haircare’s ‘best kept secret’ for years,” Joan Malloy, the company’s president and CEO, says in a statement. “But that is about to change. We’re confident that adding Katie’s natural beauty, gorgeous hair and creative instincts to our state-of-the-art, results-driven haircare collection will be a game-changing combination.”


According to a release, the plan is for Holmes to help the brand grow worldwide — particularly in salons and retail stores. She’ll also appear in ads in March 2013 women’s beauty, lifestyle and salon trade magazines.


“I’m really proud to be a part of this company — not only because the products are incredible, but because their ‘accessible luxury’ and ‘free of’ philosophy really speaks to me,” Holmes says of the eco-conscious brand. “It’s good for my hair and good for the earth, so I feel good using it.”



The brand feels good about using her, too, especially as she’s transformed this year from Tom Cruise‘s wife into big city girl. “Katie inspired us by gracefully evolving from an actress to a multi-faceted artist, designer and style icon,” Malloy says.


If you want to try the goods for yourself, they’re available at Sephora.com, ULTA.com, beauty.com and QVC.com. According to the brand, Holmes’s favorite products include caviar anti-aging moisture shampoo and conditioner and bamboo dry shampoo. Tell us: Do you like the idea of Holmes promoting a haircare company?


–Kate Hogan


PHOTOS: BETTER BEFORE OR AFTER? VOTE ON STARS’ HAIRDO RE-DOS


Read More..

Will Obama's order lead to surge in gun research?


MILWAUKEE (AP) — Nearly as many Americans die from guns as from car crashes each year. We know plenty about the second problem and far less about the first. A scarcity of research on how to prevent gun violence has left policymakers shooting in the dark as they craft gun control measures without much evidence of what works.


That could change with President Barack Obama's order Wednesday to ease research restrictions pushed through long ago by the gun lobby. The White House declared that a 1996 law banning use of money to "advocate or promote gun control" should not keep the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other federal agencies from doing any work on the topic.


Obama can only do so much, though. Several experts say Congress will have to be on board before anything much changes, especially when it comes to spending money.


How severely have the restrictions affected the CDC?


Its website's A-to-Z list of health topics, which includes such obscure ones as Rift Valley fever, does not include guns or firearms. Searching the site for "guns" brings up dozens of reports on nail gun and BB gun injuries.


The restrictions have done damage "without a doubt" and the CDC has been "overly cautious" about interpreting them, said Daniel Webster, director of the Center for Gun Policy and Research at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.


"The law is so vague it puts a virtual freeze on gun violence research," said a statement from Michael Halpern of the Union of Concerned Scientists. "It's like censorship: When people don't know what's prohibited, they assume everything is prohibited."


Many have called for a public health approach to gun violence like the highway safety measures, product changes and driving laws that slashed deaths from car crashes decades ago even as the number of vehicles on the road rose.


"The answer wasn't taking away cars," said Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association.


However, while much is known about vehicles and victims in crashes, similar details are lacking about gun violence.


Some unknowns:


—How many people own firearms in various cities and what types.


—What states have the highest proportion of gun ownership.


—Whether gun ownership correlates with homicide rates in a city.


—How many guns used in homicides were bought legally.


—Where juveniles involved in gun fatalities got their weapons.


—What factors contribute to mass shootings like the Newtown, Conn., one that killed 26 people at a school.


"If an airplane crashed today with 20 children and 6 adults there would be a full-scale investigation of the causes and it would be linked to previous research," said Dr. Stephen Hargarten, director of the Injury Research Center at the Medical College of Wisconsin.


"There's no such system that's comparable to that" for gun violence, he said.


One reason is changes pushed by the National Rifle Association and its allies in 1996, a few years after a major study showed that people who lived in homes with firearms were more likely to be homicide or suicide victims. A rule tacked onto appropriations for the Department of Health and Human Services barred use of funds for "the advocacy or promotion of gun control."


Also, at the gun group's urging, U.S. Rep. Jay Dickey, a Republican from Arkansas, led an effort to remove $2.6 million from the CDC's injury prevention center, which had led most of the research on guns. The money was later restored but earmarked for brain injury research.


"What the NRA did was basically terrorize the research community and terrorize the CDC," said Dr. Mark Rosenberg, who headed the CDC's injury center at the time. "They went after the researchers, they went after institutions, they went after CDC in a very big way, and they went after me," he said. "They didn't want the data to be collected because they were threatened by what the data were showing."


Dickey, who is now retired, said Wednesday that his real concern was the researcher who led that gun ownership study, who Dickey described as being "in his own kingdom or fiefdom" and believing guns are bad.


He and Rosenberg said they have modified their views over time and now both agree that research is needed. They put out a joint statement Wednesday urging research that prevents firearm injuries while also protecting the rights "of legitimate gun owners."


"We ought to research the whole environment, both sides — what the benefits of having guns are and what are the benefits of not having guns," Dickey said. "We should study any part of this problem," including whether armed guards at schools would help, as the National Rifle Association has suggested.


Association officials did not respond to requests for comment. A statement Wednesday said the group "has led efforts to promote safety and responsible gun ownership" and that "attacking firearms" is not the answer. It said nothing about research.


The 1996 law "had a chilling effect. It basically brought the field of firearm-related research to a screeching halt," said Benjamin of the Public Health Association.


Webster said researchers like him had to "partition" themselves so whatever small money they received from the CDC was not used for anything that could be construed as gun policy. One example was a grant he received to evaluate a community-based program to reduce street gun violence in Baltimore, modeled after a successful program in Chicago called CeaseFire. He had to make sure the work included nothing that could be interpreted as gun control research, even though other privately funded research might.


Private funds from foundations have come nowhere near to filling the gap from lack of federal funding, Hargarten said. He and more than 100 other doctors and scientists recently sent Vice President Joe Biden a letter urging more research, saying the lack of it was compounding "the tragedy of gun violence."


Since 1973, the government has awarded 89 grants to study rabies, of which there were 65 cases; 212 grants for cholera, with 400 cases, yet only three grants for firearm injuries that topped 3 million, they wrote. The CDC spends just about $100,000 a year out of its multibillion-dollar budget on firearm-related research, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has said.


"It's so out of proportion to the burden, however you measure it," said Dr. Matthew Miller, associate professor of health policy at the Harvard School of Public Health. As a result, "we don't know really simple things," such as whether tighter gun rules in New York will curb gun trafficking "or is some other pipeline going to open up" in another state, he said.


What now?


CDC officials refused to discuss the topic on the record — a possible sign of how gun shy of the issue the agency has been even after the president's order.


Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a statement that her agency is "committed to re-engaging gun violence research."


Others are more cautious. The Union of Concerned Scientists said the White House's view that the law does not ban gun research is helpful, but not enough to clarify the situation for scientists, and that congressional action is needed.


Dickey, the former congressman, agreed.


"Congress is supposed to do that. He's not supposed to do that," Dickey said of Obama's order. "The restrictions were placed there by Congress.


"What I was hoping for ... is 'let's do this together,'" Dickey said.


___


Follow Marilynn Marchione's coverage at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP


Read More..

Housing, job-market data push S&P to five-year high

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stronger-than-expected data on housing starts and jobless claims lit a fire under stocks on Thursday, pushing the S&P 500 to a five-year high and its third day of gains.


A pair of economic reports lifted investors' sentiment. The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell to a five-year low last week and housing starts jumped last month to the highest since June 2008.


Strength in the housing and labor markets is key to sustained growth and higher corporate profits, helping to bring out buyers even on a day when earnings reports were mixed.


Gains were tempered by weakness in the financial sector, with Bank of America down 4.2 percent to $11.28 and Citigroup off 2.9 percent to $41.24 after their results.


In other negative earnings news, shares of chipmaker Intel fell 5.2 percent to $21.49 in extended-hours trading after the company forecast quarterly revenue that fell short of analysts' expectations. Intel had ended the regular session up 2.6 percent at $22.68.


The S&P 500 ended at its highest since December 2007 and now sits just 5.6 percent from its all-time closing high of 1,565.15.


"Having consolidated really for the last two weeks, the fact that we broke out, I think that that is sucking in quite a bit of money," said James Dailey, portfolio manager of TEAM Asset Strategy Fund in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.


The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was up 84.79 points, or 0.63 percent, at 13,596.02. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was up 8.31 points, or 0.56 percent, at 1,480.94. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was up 18.46 points, or 0.59 percent, at 3,136.00.


Better-than-expected earnings and revenue reported by online marketplace eBay late Wednesday helped the stock gain 2.7 percent to $54.33.


In the housing sector, PulteGroup Inc shares gained 4.9 percent to $20.29 and Toll Brothers Inc advanced 3.1 percent to $35.99. The PHLX housing sector index <.hgx> climbed 2.4 percent, reaching its highest close since August 2007.


Semiconductor shares <.sox> rose 2 percent to the highest close in eight months.


Financials were the only S&P 500 sector to register a slight decline for the day.


Bank of America's fourth-quarter profit fell as it took more charges to clean up mortgage-related problems. Citigroup posted $2.32 billion of charges for layoffs and lawsuits.


Energy shares led gains on the Dow as U.S. crude oil prices jumped more than 1 percent. Shares of Exxon Mobil were up 0.8 percent at $90.20 while shares of Chevron were up 0.7 percent at $114.75.


S&P 500 earnings are expected to have risen 2.3 percent in the fourth quarter, Thomson Reuters data showed. Expectations for the quarter have fallen considerably since October when a 9.9 percent gain was estimated.


Volume was roughly 6.5 billion shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and the NYSE MKT, compared with the 2012 average daily closing volume of about 6.45 billion.


Advancers outpaced decliners on the NYSE by about 22 to 7 and on the Nasdaq by about 2 to 1.


(Additional reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Kenneth Barry and Nick Zieminski)



Read More..

The Lede Blog: An Irish Hostage Is 'Safe and Free' in Algeria, but Britons Are Told to Brace for Bad News

An Arabic-language video report from Al Jazeera showing the gas facility in Algeria where dozens of workers were taken hostage by Islamist militants.

Following a military raid on a gas facility in Algeria, where a heavily armed group of Islamist militants took dozens of workers hostage, the Irish government confirmed on Thursday that a man from Belfast who had been part of the group taken captive was freed. The fate of other hostages remained unclear.

Algeria’s communications minister, Mohand Saïd Oublaïd, said that many of the hostages had been freed, but some were killed in the rescue effort, along with “a large number of terrorists.” A news agency in neighboring Mauritania reported that a spokesman for the Islamists claimed that a number of hostages were killed in the Algerian government raid.

Ireland’s foreign minister, Eamon Gilmore, said at a news conference, “while naturally we are delighted that Stephen McFaul is free and safe, our thoughts are with his fellow workers and the other people who have not been so fortunate. Our thoughts are particularly with the citizens of other countries who have still not been accounted for.”

Video of Ireland’s foreign minister, Eamon Gilmore, speaking to reporters about an Irish citizen, Stephen McFaul, who was freed from the custody of kidnappers in Algeria on Thursday.

Mr. McFaul was physically unharmed and being held at a military base, the minister said. He declined to provide further details of Mr. McFaul’s ordeal, out of respect for the families of the other hostages.

Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain confirmed in an interview posted online by Britain’s Channel 4 News that at least one British hostage had been killed and said, “we should be prepared for the possibility of further bad news, very difficult news, in this extremely difficult situation.”

A spokesman for the Norwegian oil firm Statoil, which jointly operates the gas facility with BP, told reporters, “We have received information about two of our employees being physically hurt, not serious, but the situation is unclear and very difficult to follow.”

Agence France-Presse video of a statement by a Norwegian oil company official on the hostage crisis at a facility in Algeria.

In Belfast, Mr. McFaul’s family expressed joy and relief in interviews with Ulster Television and BBC News. “I feel over the moon. I’m just really excited. I just can’t wait for him to get home,” his young son, Dylan, told UTV, as he broke down in tears.

The Irish prime minister, Enda Kenny, said in a statement:

I am greatly relieved to hear that Stephen is safe and well. I believe he has already spoken to his family in Belfast and I wish him a safe return home to his loved ones. I would like to pay tribute to all those who have been involved in the effort to resolve this crisis and my thoughts are with the other oil field workers and their families who have found themselves at the center of this traumatic situation.

In the interview with UTV, Mr. McFaul’s family said he had called his wife after reaching safety. “I was delighted, I could not get better news,” said his mother, Marie. “I feel sorry for the other hostages and their families,” said Mr. McFaul’s father, Christopher.


Read More..