Pope Benedict XVI Joins Twitter















12/12/2012 at 04:05 PM EST







Pope Benedict XVI Tweeting


Splash News Online


The Vatican just got considerably more social media savvy.

Pope Benedict XVI sent out his first Tweet on Wednesday using the handle @Pontifex (loosely translated from Latin to mean "bridge builder").

"Dear friends, I am pleased to get in touch with you through Twitter," he wrote. "Thank you for your generous response. I bless all of you from my heart."

The pontiff sent the first Tweet himself on an iPad in front of a public audience in the Vatican. He will not send out every Tweet personally, but his new form of outreach is still sure to connect Catholics across the globe.

"Offer everything you do to the Lord, ask his help in all the circumstances of daily life and remember that he is always beside you," he later Tweeted.

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Congress examines science behind HGH test for NFL


WASHINGTON (AP) — A congressional committee has opened a hearing to examine the science behind a human growth hormone test the NFL wants to start using on its players.


Nearly two full seasons have passed since the league and the players' union signed a labor deal that set the stage for HGH testing.


The NFL Players Association won't concede the validity of a test that's used by Olympic sports and Major League Baseball, and the sides haven't been able to agree on a scientist to help resolve that impasse.


Among the witnesses before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Wednesday is Pro Football Hall of Fame member Dick Butkus. In his prepared statement, Butkus writes: "Now, let's get on with it. The HGH testing process is proven to be reliable."


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Wall Street ends nearly flat as Bernanke warns on "cliff"

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks ended nearly flat on Wednesday, giving up most of the day's gains after Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke reiterated that monetary policy won't be enough to offset damage from the "fiscal cliff."


His comments followed the Federal Reserve's announcement of a new stimulus plan, which briefly pushed the S&P 500 to a seven-week high.


The plan, the latest attempt to boost the country's struggling economy, will replace a more modest program set to expire with a fresh round of Treasury purchases that will increase its balance sheet. The program is known as "quantitative easing" or QE.


In comments after the announcement, Bernanke said he hopes that markets won't have to tank to get a fiscal cliff deal.


"Initially the addition of QE was certainly favorable. I think, though, in the press conference, what came out is that there still seems to be a level of uncertainty with regard to the exit strategy (and) the efficacy of the current policy," said Bucky Hellwig, senior vice president at BB&T Wealth Management in Birmingham, Alabama.


Bernanke "reiterated the fact that monetary policy has its hands tied as far as addressing the seriousness of going over the fiscal cliff," Hellwig added.


The S&P financial sector index <.gspf>, which had been up more than 1 percent after the Fed's announcement, ended up just 0.5 percent.


Wal-Mart Stores Inc's stock was the biggest drag on the Dow, falling 2.8 percent to $68.94 following the Indian government's announcement of an inquiry into the company's lobbying practices.


The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> slipped 2.99 points, or 0.02 percent, to 13,245.45 at the close. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> inched up just 0.64 of a point, or 0.04 percent, to 1,428.48. But the Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> shed 8.49 points, or 0.28 percent, to end at 3,013.81.


Though the S&P 500 ended up just slightly, it was the sixth day of gains for the index - its longest winning streak since August.


The central bank committed to monthly purchases of $45 billion in Treasuries on top of the $40 billion per month in mortgage-backed bonds it started buying in September. It also said it will keep its near-zero interest-rate program in place until the U.S. unemployment rate falls to 6.5 percent from its current 7.7 percent.


Negotiations over plans to avoid the fiscal cliff intensified in Washington, but U.S. House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner said on Wednesday that "serious differences" remain with President Barack Obama in their talks. If no agreement is reached, steep tax hikes and budget cuts will fall into place early next year.


Shares of Aetna , the third-largest U.S. health insurer, gained 3.2 percent to $45.91, a day after the company gave a higher forecast for profit and revenue growth in 2013.


(Reporting by Caroline Valetkevitch; Additional reporting by Leah Schnurr Editing by Jan Paschal)



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Avigdor Lieberman of Israel Vents Anger at Europe





JERUSALEM — Israel’s blunt-talking foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, gave vent on Wednesday to the government’s anger over recent diplomatic gains by the Palestinians paired with international rebukes for Israel, comparing Israel’s situation to that of Czechoslovakia in 1938 before the Nazi invasion.




Israel was dismayed last month when all the countries of Europe, other than the Czech Republic, supported the Palestinians or abstained when the General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to upgrade the status of the Palestinians at the United Nations.


The country was further aggrieved when several major countries responded to its immediate announcement of plans for further settlement planning and construction in East Jerusalem and the West Bank by summoning Israeli ambassadors to protest.


Defiantly standing by the settlement plans Mr. Lieberman and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have expressed outrage over what Mr. Netanyahu described as a “deafening silence” abroad after Khaled Meshal, the political leader of Hamas, vowed to build an Islamic Palestinian state on all the land of Israel during a visit to Gaza over the weekend.


Addressing members of the foreign press here on Monday, Mr. Netanyahu asked why Palestinian diplomats were not summoned in European capitals to explain why Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Western-backed Palestinian Authority, had not only failed to condemn Mr. Meshal’s remarks but instead was speaking about reconciliation with the rival Hamas, which Israel, the United States and the European Union regard as a terrorist organization.


Mr. Lieberman, who leads the nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu Party, has often spoken his mind in terms that critics would describe as undiplomatic . Mr. Netanyahu, of the conservative Likud Party, has on occasion distanced himself from his foreign minister’s remarks. But in October these two coalition partners announced that their parties would run on a joint ticket in the January elections, and Mr. Lieberman has effectively become Mr. Netanyahu’s No. 2.


Speaking in English at a conference for foreign diplomats in Israel sponsored by the Jerusalem Post newspaper, Mr. Lieberman said, “When push comes to shove many key leaders would be willing to sacrifice Israel without batting an eyelid in order to appease Islamic radicals and ensure quiet for themselves.” He added, “We are not willing to become a second Czechoslovakia and sacrifice vital security interests.”


Excerpts of the speech were broadcast and reported on the Jerusalem Post Web site.


In another response to the Palestinians’ successful bid to upgrade their status at the United Nations to that of a nonmember observer state, Israel refused to transfer tax revenues it had collected on behalf of the Palestinian Authority last month, instead using the money to pay off part of a debt run up by the Palestinian Authority to the Israel Electric Corporation and other Israeli providers.


Mr. Lieberman said on Wednesday that it would take four months for the Palestinian Authority to repay its debts from tax revenues and that no money would be transferred from Israel to the authority until the debts were paid off.


A day earlier, in response to a statement by the Foreign Affairs Council of the European Union that strongly condemned Israel’s plans for settlement expansion, Mr. Lieberman told Israel Radio, “We have already been through this with Europe at the end of the 1930s and in the 1940s,” accusing Europe of ignoring calls for Israel’s destruction.


Mr. Lieberman said that it did not stem from “an anti-Semitic motive but rather it is a narrow motive of interests,” adding: “Then too, back in the 1940s. They already knew by the start of the 1940s exactly what was happening in the concentration camps, what was happening with the Jews and they didn’t exactly act.”


The European Union statement included a denunciation of the Hamas leader’s remarks, saying it found “inflammatory statements by Hamas leaders that deny Israel’s right to exist unacceptable.” It also pledged to continue efforts to combat terrorism and reiterated the European Union’s “fundamental commitment to the security of Israel.”


Tzipi Livni, the former foreign minister who is running in the elections at the head of a new centrist party, Hatnuah (The Movement), accused Mr. Lieberman of cheapening the Holocaust with his Nazi-era comparisons.


“It’s an incorrect comparison, and incomprehensible,” she said at the Jerusalem Post conference on Wednesday. “There is absolutely no similarity between the situation of Israeli citizens today and that of European Jews then.”


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Obama election tweet most repeated but Olympics tops on Twitter






(Reuters) – An election victory tweet from President Barack Obama — “Four more years” with a picture of him hugging his wife — was the most retweeted ever, but the U.S. election was topped by the Olympics as the most tweeted event this year.


Obama’s tweet was retweeted (repeated) more than 810,000 times, Twitter said as it published a list of the most tweeted events in 2012. (http://2012.twitter.com/)






“Within hours, that Tweet simultaneously became the most retweeted of 2012, and the most retweeted ever. In fact, retweets of that simple message came from people in more than 200 countries around the world,” Twitter spokeswoman Rachael Horwitz said.


Twitter users were busiest during the final vote count for the presidential elections, sending 327,452 tweets per minute on election night on their way to a tally of 31 million election tweets for the day.


The 2012 Olympic Games in London had the most overall tweets of any event, with 150 million sent over the 16 days.


Usain Bolt’s golden win in the 200 meters topped 80,000 tweets per minute but he did not achieve the highest Olympic peak on Twitter. That was seen during the closing ceremony when 115,000 tweets per minute were sent as 1990s British pop band the Spice Girls performed.


Syria, where a bloody civil war still plays out, was the most talked about country in 2012 but sports and pop culture dominated the tally of tweets.


Behind Obama was pop star Justin Bieber. His tweet, “RIP Avalanna. i love you” sent when a six-year-old fan died from a rare form of brain cancer, was retweeted more than 220,000 times.


Third most repeated in 2012 was a profanity-laced tweet from Green Bay Packers NFL player TJ Lang, when he blasted a controversial call by a substitute referee officiating during a referee dispute. That was retweeted 98,000 times.


This was the third year running that the microblogging site published its top Twitter trends, offering a barometer to assess the biggest events in social media.


Superstorm Sandy, which slammed the densely populated U.S. East Coast in late October, killing more than 100 people, flooding wide areas and knocking out power for millions, attracted more than 20 million tweets between October 27 and November 1.


European football made the list of top tweets when Spain’s Juan Mata scored as his side downed Italy 4-0 in the Euro 2012 final — sparking 267,200 tweets a minute.


News of pop star Whitney Houston‘s death in February generated more than 10 million tweets, peaking at 73,662 per minute.


Romantic comedy “Think Like a Man” was the most tweeted movie this year, topping “The Hunger Games”, “The Avengers” and “The Dark Knight Rises.”


Rapper Rick Ross who notched his fourth No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 chart this year, was the most talked about music artist.


(Editing by Rodney Joyce)


Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News


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PHOTO: Sheryl Crow and Son Splash Down




Celebrity Baby Blog





12/11/2012 at 04:00 PM ET



Water baby! Sheryl Crow takes elder son Wyatt Steven, 5½, for a spin on a jet-ski while vacationing in the Bahamas on Tuesday. The musician, 50, is also mom to son Levi James, 2½.


Crow is currently taking a break from working on her new record — her first country album! — at home in Nashville.


Jenna Bush Hager Expecting First Child
Butterworth/Splash News Online


RELATED: Sheryl Crow Assures Fans Her Brain Tumor Is Non-Cancerous


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APNewsBreak: DA investigating Texas cancer agency


AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The Texas prosecutor responsible for investigating public corruption among state officials said Tuesday that he has opened an investigation into the state's troubled $3 billion cancer-fighting agency.


Gregg Cox, director of the Travis County district attorney's public integrity unit, told The Associated Press that an investigation has begun into the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas. The agency also is under investigation by the Texas attorney general's office after an $11 million grant to a private company did not receive the proper review.


Cox said his unit, which prosecutes crimes related to the operation of state government, is beginning its investigation not knowing "what, if any, crime occurred" at CPRIT.


His announcement came on the same day that CPRIT said its executive director had submitted his resignation letter and amid escalating scrutiny over the management of the nation's second-biggest pot of cancer research dollars.


CPRIT has not been able to focus on fighting the disease due to "wasted efforts expended in low value activities" during the past tumultuous eight months, Executive Director Bill Gimson wrote in a resignation letter dated Monday. Gimson offered to stay on until January, and the agency's board must still approve his request to step down.


Gimson has led the state agency since it launched in 2009. But he fell under mounting criticism over the recent disclosure that an $11 million award to a private company was never reviewed. It was the second time this year that a lucrative taxpayer-funded grant instigated backlash and raised questions about oversight.


"Unfortunately, I have also been placed in a situation where I feel I can no longer be effective," Gimson wrote.


The Texas attorney general's office has said it is looking into CPRIT's $11 million grant to Dallas-based Peloton Therapeutics. An internal audit performed by the agency revealed that Peloton's proposal was approved for funding in 2010 without being reviewed by an outside panel.


Gimson said last week that Peloton's funding was the result of an honest mistake that happened when the agency was still young and in the process of installing checks and balances. Agency emails surrounding the Peloton grant are no longer available, Gimson said, and state investigators said they will work to find them.


Only the National Institutes of Health doles out more cancer research dollars than CPRIT, which has awarded more than $700 million so far. The agency's former chief science officer, Nobel laureate Alfred Gilman, resigned earlier this year over a separate $20 million award that Gilman claimed received a thin review. That led some of the nation's top scientists to accuse the agency of charting a politically-driven path.


___


Follow Paul J. Weber on Twitter: www.twitter.com/pauljweber


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Big tech boosts S&P 500 to best close since election

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks rose on Tuesday, led by gains in technology companies, helping the S&P 500 end at its highest level since Election Day.


A 2.2 percent gain to $541.39 in Apple's stock lifted the Nasdaq, as the largest U.S. company by market value rebounded from a week in which investors took profits before a possible tax rise next year. Prior to Tuesday's trading, Apple shares had lost 25 percent from an all-time intraday high hit in September.


Stocks pared some gains by late afternoon as more news on the "fiscal cliff" negotiations emerged. U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said it will be difficult to reach agreement resolving the cliff tax hikes and spending cuts before Christmas.


"There's been a real explosion in anxiety over this thing. Because markets have become the way they are, you've got people just stepping back," said James Dailey, portfolio manager of TEAM Asset Strategy Fund in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.


"There's a tremendous absence of liquidity in the market," he said.


The S&P 500 had lost 5.3 percent in the seven sessions following Election Day as investors refocused on the threat posed to the economy by the fiscal cliff, a series of automatic spending cuts and tax increases. Markets have mostly recovered those losses, but volume has been thin, suggesting investors are not betting aggressively due to the uncertainty.


The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was up 78.56 points, or 0.60 percent, at 13,248.44. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was up 9.29 points, or 0.65 percent, at 1,427.84. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was up 35.34 points, or 1.18 percent, at 3,022.30.


Other major tech stocks also rose. Texas Instruments gained 4 percent to $31.01 after bumping up its profit target late Monday. That helped other chipmakers rally, with the PHLX Semiconductor index <.sox> up 1.9 percent. Microsoft rose 1.4 percent to $27.32.


The lack of demonstrable progress in the fiscal cliff negotiations has kept investors from making aggressive bets in recent weeks.


Republican House Speaker John Boehner called on President Barack Obama to propose a counter-offer on Tuesday.


Retailers like luggage maker Tumi Holding Inc and Michael Kors Holding gained on Tuesday after a positive report from Goldman Sachs Equity Research. Tumi was up 4.7 percent to $21.92 and Michael Kors gained 2.4 percent, reaching $50.92.


By contrast, discount retailers Dollar General and Family Dollar declined. Dollar General said it sees margins under pressure in 2013.


SPX Corp shares fell 9.1 percent to $62.07 and the stock was the biggest percentage decliner on the New York Stock Exchange after sources said the company is in exclusive talks to buy rival Gardner Denver , in a merger that could create an industrial machinery conglomerate with a market value over $7 billion.


The U.S. Treasury is selling its remaining stake in insurer American International Group Inc . AIG's shares were up 5.7 percent at $35.26.


The Fed began a two-day policy-setting meeting on Tuesday. The central bank is expected to announce a new round of Treasury bond purchases when the meeting ends on Wednesday to replace its "Operation Twist" stimulus, which expires at the end of the year.


(Reporting by Gabriel Debenedetti and Caroline Valetkevitch; Editing by Kenneth Barry and Nick Zieminski)



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In Egypt, New Challenge to Referendum as Loan Is Postponed


Hassan Ammar/Associated Press


Protests continued on Tuesday outside the presidential palace in Cairo.







CAIRO — In the latest challenge to President Mohamed Morsi, the main association of Egyptian judges announced on Tuesday that 90 percent of its members will refuse to monitor the referendum set for Saturday on an Islamist-backed draft constitution. The action is meant to protest the draft and the president’s decree, since withdrawn, that temporarily set his decisions beyond the reach of judicial review.




Egyptian law requires judicial supervision of elections. Advisers to Mr. Morsi said that they had lined up enough willing judicial officials to proceed with the voting on Saturday. But the announcement by Ahmed Zend, chief of the Judges Club, may influence the debate among opponents over whether to campaign for votes against the draft constitution or boycott the referendum entirely.


In his remarks, Mr. Zend accused Mr. Morsi of repeatedly attacking the “sacredness” of the Egyptian judiciary. “The head of the Judges Club does not betray the judiciary, and does not betray Egypt,” Mr. Zend said, referring to himself.


Still, Mr. Zend has little influence over Mr. Morsi’s Islamist supporters. He has been an outspoken critic of Mr. Morsi and his Islamist political allies, and was a loyalist of former President Hosni Mubarak; he was installed at the top of the Judges Club in a takeover after the group became part of a movement seeking judicial independence years ago.


Protests continued on Tuesday outside the presidential palace in Cairo, and tensions mounted over reports that unidentified gunmen had fired birdshot at protesters in a tent camp in Tahrir Square overnight, injuring nine people, a security official said. By Tuesday night, security officials had concluded that the birdshot was fired in a personal, apolitical dispute after an unidentified man was denied access to the sit-in, scuffled with protesters, and returned with friends armed with at least one shotgun.


New uncertainty over the country’s economy added to the political turmoil. On Tuesday, Mr. Morsi’s government postponed a $4.8 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund that was intended to help Egypt avert financial collapse, saying that the delay would give Egyptian officials more time to discuss the related package of economic policy changes with the public, the country’s finance minister told Reuters.


The monetary fund’s board had been expected to approve the loan this month to prop up the economy, which has been battered by the near-evaporation of tourism and general slow growth since the revolution that unseated Mr. Mubarak nearly two years ago. But a huge public outcry against planned tax increases prompted Mr. Morsi to back away from them on Monday, and Finance Minister Mumtaz al-Said told Reuters on Tuesday that the government had asked to postpone the loan until the fund’s board meets next in January.


The military-led transitional government that followed Mr. Mubarak drained the country’s foreign exchange reserves, which were propping up the Egyptian pound, and economists say the aid package from the fund is essential to avoid a collapse of the currency and the soaring inflation and worsened unrest that might follow.


“Of course the delay will have some economic impact, but we are discussing necessary measures” to address that issue until the loan can be completed, Mr. Said told Reuters.


Meanwhile, as the main opposition coalition prepared to formally announce its position on the 0referendum, there were hints of cracks in its unity.


On Sunday, the coalition seemed to favor a boycott, saying in a statement that it rejected “lending legitimacy to a referendum that will definitely lead to more sedition and division.” But in an interview broadcast Monday, the coalition’s coordinator, Mohamed ElBaradei, said, “We might go to the vote.” And on Tuesday, Amr Moussa, a leading coalition figure and foreign minister under Mr. Mubarak, said that while the referendum should be canceled or postponed, if it is carried out anyway, “I call on citizens to vote no.”


The April 6th Revolutionary Youth Group, which is not a member of the coalition but coordinates its activities with the National Salvation Front, began a campaign on Tuesday urging a no vote in the referendum under the slogan, “Your Constitution does not represent us.”


A group representing administrative court judges said that its members would supervise the referendum under certain conditions: they demanded a secure environment and life insurance policies for the judges. Other judges’ groups have said they would not take part.


Mayy El Sheikh and Kareem Fahim contributed reporting.



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New leaks suggest Microsoft Office for iOS could launch soon






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