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Label: TechnologyJeff Probst Shares His Thoughts on Who Could Win Survivor
Label: Lifestyle
TV Watch
Survivor
Jeff Probst ;Malcolm Freberg
Lisa Whelchel
Denise Stapley
Mike Skupin
Monty Brinton/CBS(5)
In the 25 seasons that Jeff Probst has hosted Survivor, he has presided over 399 tribal councils.
Since the show's debut 12 years ago, 384 contestants have played the game, with 43 of them competing more than once. Seven contestants have quit; ten have been medically evacuated and 23 people have walked away with $1 million and the title of Sole Survivor. (Sandra Diaz-Twine is the only contestant to win the game twice.)
Why all the statistics? Because it just goes to show that Probst knows a thing or two about how to win this game. Here, he evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of the final four contestants of Survivor: Philippines for PEOPLE. Who will walk away with the million-dollar prize on Sunday night? Probst won't find out until the live finale with the rest of us, but here's his expert take on everyone's chances.
MALCOLM FREBERG
"If he can win his way to the final tribal council, I think he wins against anybody," says Probst. "He's played a beautiful game combining physical skills with great social skills. People like him, he's an underdog and he hasn't lied. If he doesn't win the final immunity challenge, he has no chance. Nobody is going to take him to the end."
LISA WHELCHEL
Unless something goes terribly wrong, Lisa will be in the final tribal council. The question is: Who will be there with her? Lisa has a good story – she has overcome a lot. Her biggest challenge will be getting sympathy from the jury. It's much easier for the audience who sees all of her interviews. The other players may see her as a whiner. She will need an amazing speech at the final tribal if she is to beat Malcolm or Denise.
DENISE STAPLEY
If she gets to the end with anyone other than Malcolm, she will most likely win. She has the biggest underdog story having survived the worst tribe and going to every tribal council. She has also played a brilliant social game. Her best bet is to go to the final with Lisa and/or Skupin.
MIKE SKUPIN
He's the longshot only because of his competition. Skupin is seen as a bit of goofball. He has a "go for broke" attitude and, as a result, he is as likely to fumble the ball as he is to score the touchdown. It's a great way to play Survivor and it got him this far, but in a game in which the jury is looking for any reason to criticize, Skupin may have given them too much.
Fewer health care options for illegal immigrants
Label: HealthALAMO, Texas (AP) — For years, Sonia Limas would drag her daughters to the emergency room whenever they fell sick. As an illegal immigrant, she had no health insurance, and the only place she knew to seek treatment was the hospital — the most expensive setting for those covering the cost.
The family's options improved somewhat a decade ago with the expansion of community health clinics, which offered free or low-cost care with help from the federal government. But President Barack Obama's health care overhaul threatens to roll back some of those services if clinics and hospitals are overwhelmed with newly insured patients and can't afford to care for as many poor families.
To be clear, Obama's law was never intended to help Limas and an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants like her. Instead, it envisions that 32 million uninsured Americans will get access to coverage by 2019. Because that should mean fewer uninsured patients showing up at hospitals, the Obama program slashed the federal reimbursement for uncompensated care.
But in states with large illegal immigrant populations, the math may not work, especially if lawmakers don't expand Medicaid, the joint state-federal health program for the poor and disabled.
When the reform has been fully implemented, illegal immigrants will make up the nation's second-largest population of uninsured, or about 25 percent. The only larger group will be people who qualify for insurance but fail to enroll, according to a 2012 study by the Washington-based Urban Institute.
And since about two-thirds of illegal immigrants live in just eight states, those areas will have a disproportionate share of the uninsured to care for.
In communities "where the number of undocumented immigrants is greatest, the strain has reached the breaking point," Rich Umbdenstock, president of the American Hospital Association, wrote last year in a letter to Obama, asking him to keep in mind the uncompensated care hospitals gave to that group. "In response, many hospitals have had to curtail services, delay implementing services, or close beds."
The federal government has offered to expand Medicaid, but states must decide whether to take the deal. And in some of those eight states — including Texas, Florida and New Jersey — hospitals are scrambling to determine whether they will still have enough money to treat the remaining uninsured.
Without a Medicaid expansion, the influx of new patients and the looming cuts in federal funding could inflict "a double whammy" in Texas, said David Lopez, CEO of the Harris Health System in Houston, which spends 10 to 15 percent of its $1.2 billion annual budget to care for illegal immigrants.
Realistically, taxpayers are already paying for some of the treatment provided to illegal immigrants because hospitals are required by law to stabilize and treat any patients that arrive in an emergency room, regardless of their ability to pay. The money to cover the costs typically comes from federal, state and local taxes.
A solid accounting of money spent treating illegal immigrants is elusive because most hospitals do not ask for immigration status. But some states have tried.
California, which is home to the nation's largest population of illegal immigrants, spent an estimated $1.2 billion last year through Medicaid to care for 822,500 illegal immigrants.
The New Jersey Hospital Association in 2010 estimated that it cost between $600 million and $650 million annually to treat 550,000 illegal immigrants.
And in Texas, a 2010 analysis by the Health and Human Services Commission found that the agency had provided $96 million in benefits to illegal immigrants, up from $81 million two years earlier. The state's public hospital districts spent an additional $717 million in uncompensated care to treat that population.
If large states such as Florida and Texas make good on their intention to forgo federal money to expand Medicaid, the decision "basically eviscerates" the effects of the health care overhaul in those areas because of "who lives there and what they're eligible for," said Lisa Clemans-Cope, a senior researcher at the Urban Institute.
Seeking to curb expenses, hospitals might change what qualifies as an emergency or cap the number of uninsured patients they treat. And although it's believed states with the most illegal immigrants will face a smaller cut, they will still lose money.
The potential impacts of reform are a hot topic at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. In addition to offering its own charity care, some MD Anderson oncologists volunteer at a county-funded clinic at Lyndon B. Johnson General Hospital that largely treats the uninsured.
"In a sense we've been in the worst-case scenario in Texas for a long time," said Lewis Foxhall, MD Anderson's vice president of health policy in Houston. "The large number of uninsured and the large low-income population creates a very difficult problem for us."
Community clinics are a key part of the reform plan and were supposed to take up some of the slack for hospitals. Clinics received $11 billion in new funding over five years so they could expand to help care for a swell of newly insured who might otherwise overwhelm doctors' offices. But in the first year, $600 million was cut from the centers' usual allocation, leaving many to use the money to fill gaps rather than expand.
There is concern that clinics could themselves be inundated with newly insured patients, forcing many illegal immigrants back to emergency rooms.
Limas, 44, moved to the border town of Alamo 13 years ago with her husband and three daughters. Now single, she supports the family by teaching a citizenship class in Spanish at the local community center and selling cookies and cakes she whips up in her trailer. Soon, she hopes to seek a work permit of her own.
For now, the clinic helps with basic health care needs. If necessary, Limas will return to the emergency room, where the attendants help her fill out paperwork to ensure the government covers the bills she cannot afford.
"They always attended to me," she said, "even though it's slow."
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Sherman can be followed on Twitter at https://twitter.com/chrisshermanAP .
Plushnick-Masti can be followed on Twitter at https://twitter.com/RamitMastiAP .
Wall Street Week Ahead: Holiday "on standby" as clock ticks on cliff
Label: BusinessNEW YORK (Reuters) - The last two weeks of December are traditionally quiet for stocks, but traders accustomed to a bit of time off are staying close to their mobile devices, thanks to the "fiscal cliff."
Last-minute negotiations in Washington on the so-called fiscal cliff - nearly $600 billion of tax increases and spending cuts set to take effect in January that could cause a sharp slowdown in growth or even a recession - are keeping some traders and analysts from taking Christmas holidays because any deal could have a big impact on markets.
"A lot of firms are saying to their trading desks, 'You can take days off for Christmas, but you are on standby to come in if anything happens.' This is certainly different from previous years, especially around this time of the year when things are supposed to be slowing down," said J.J. Kinahan, chief derivatives strategist at TD Ameritrade in Chicago.
"Next week is going to be a Capitol Hill-driven market."
With talks between President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner at an apparent standstill, it was increasingly likely that Washington will not come up with a deal before January 1.
Gordon Charlop, managing director at Rosenblatt Securities in New York, will also be on standby for the holiday season.
"It's a 'Look guys, let's just rotate and be sensible" type of situation going on," Charlop said.
"We are hopeful there is some resolution down there, but it seems to me they continue to walk that political tightrope... rather than coming up with something."
Despite concerns that the deadline will pass without a deal, the S&P 500 has held its ground with a 12.4 percent gain for the year. For this week, though, the S&P 500 fell 0.3 percent.
BEWARE OF THE WITCH
This coming Friday will mark the last so-called "quadruple witching" day of the year, when contracts for stock options, single stock futures, stock index options and stock index futures all expire. This could make trading more volatile.
"We could see some heavy selling as there is going to be a lot of re-establishing of positions, reallocation of assets before the year-end," Kinahan said.
RETHINKING APPLE
Higher tax rates on capital gains and dividends are part of the automatic tax increases that will go into effect next year, if Congress and the White House don't come up with a solution to avert the fiscal cliff. That possibility could give investors an incentive to unload certain stocks in some tax-related selling by December 31.
Some market participants said tax-related selling may be behind the weaker trend in the stock price of market leader Apple . Apple's stock has lost a quarter of its value since it hit a lifetime high of $705.07 on September 21.
On Friday, the stock fell 3.8 percent to $509.79 after the iPhone 5 got a chilly reception at its debut in China and two analysts cut shipment forecasts. But the stock is still up nearly 26 percent for the year.
"If you owned Apple for a long time, you should be thinking about reallocation as there will be changes in taxes and other regulations next year, although we don't really know which rules to play by yet," Kinahan said.
But one indicator of the market's reduced concern about the fiscal cliff compared with a few weeks ago, is the defense sector, which will be hit hard if the spending cuts take effect. The PHLX Defense Sector Index <.dfx> is up nearly 13 percent for the year, and sits just a few points from its 2012 high.
(Reporting by Angela Moon; Additional reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Jan Paschal)
With E.C.B. in Spotlight, Bundesbank Finds Itself in the Shadows
Label: World
Mustafah Abdulaziz for The New York Times
The Bundesbank, Germany’s central bank, built in 1967 in Frankfurt.
FRANKFURT — The exposed-concrete slab of the Bundesbank headquarters stands like a bulwark outside the downtown financial district here, a stolid, Brutalist structure that in its sheer mass evokes not just the German central bank’s stubborn resistance to change but, above all, its obsessive commitment to crushing inflation.
Built 45 years ago, the modernist building is hardly old by European standards, yet it is a temple to tradition, embodying the ethos of this most conservative of institutions. “We are trying to keep it just the way it is,” said Reiner Bruckhaus, head of the bank’s centralized construction management division.
That starts with the granite floors, the Barcelona chairs in the lobby (designed by the Bauhaus great Ludwig Mies van der Rohe), and the grand, white Carrara marble by the elevators, and goes all the way up to the wood grid ceilings on the top floor. “You will find not even the slightest changes,” Mr. Bruckhaus said.
When the building was erected in 1967, the Bundesbank’s dominance in European monetary policy went unchallenged. But in the hazy distance of the Frankfurt skyline, significant change is evident in the outline of two towers and three cranes, the new headquarters of the European Central Bank — a visible reminder of the institution that has supplanted the Bundesbank, just as the euro replaced the German mark.
European leaders established the European Central Bank’s headquarters in Frankfurt as a symbol of its status as heir to the Bundesbank. But the danger posed by Europe’s continuing debt crisis demanded improvisations at odds with the Bundesbank’s conservative teachings.
Over the summer the E.C.B.’s president, Mario Draghi, pursued an expansive policy that was anathema to the old guard, whose cause was championed by the Bundesbank’s youthful president, Jens Weidmann. He and his supporters base their views not, they say, on rigid orthodoxy but on experience gleaned from the disaster of hyperinflation and the success of adhering to a hard-money path.
In an increasingly uncomfortable pairing, the Bundesbank functions as the largest piece of the E.C.B. puzzle. With more than 9,500 full-time workers, the Bundesbank dwarfs the 1,600-strong central bank. Because of that limited staff, the E.C.B. depends on the Bundesbank to handle many of the back-office functions of the common currency.
But the European Central Bank’s influence continues to grow. Euro-zone finance ministers agreed to a deal Thursday to put 100 to 200 of their largest banks under its direct supervision.
The arranged marriage between the two banks will take enormous effort and flexibility. As its massive headquarters suggests, the Bundesbank is capable of enormous and sustained effort, but flexibility may be inimical to its nature.
Founded in 1957, the Bundesbank quickly grew into one of Germany’s most respected institutions. The rank-and-file behind Mr. Weidmann, 44, represent an unusually tight-knit group, almost like a monastic order, and they are steeped in the bank’s secular religion — often at the bank’s own school, a kind of Hogwarts for its future financial wizards, in a hilltop 12th-century castle in the town of Hachenburg.
“You hear it in the first lecture,” said Silke Frühklug, 32, a graduate and Bundesbank employee. “You hear it in the last lecture and every day in between: price stability.”
Ms. Frühklug married a classmate and in her free time plays on the central bank’s badminton team, which on a recent evening practiced in a gymnasium on the Bundesbank campus right after the handball team. The bank also has a theater society and “hobby artists” club, which exhibits in the lobby of the headquarters. It owns apartments for workers in tight real-estate markets like Munich and here in Frankfurt. Retired employees still lunch at the cafeteria, helping to nurture the all-important continuity.
“People feel connected with the goals of the bank,” said Matthias Endres, 43, editor of the Bundesbank’s internal magazine. Like Ms. Frühklug, he married a fellow graduate from the school in Hachenburg. He has vacationed with his wife and their three children at all three of the Bundesbank getaways, on the North Sea, in the Black Forest and on a lake in Bavaria.
Mr. Endres’s wife, Simone, works part-time in the headquarters’ Money Museum, which houses some 350,000 objects, of which roughly 1,300 are on display, including the worthless bills in denominations of millions and billions from the hyperinflation of the Weimar-era and examples of commodity money, like a gold bar, a tea brick and even a preserved cow standing near the entrance, a silent bovine greeter.
Sony’s PlayStation 4 could lose to the next Xbox before it’s even released
Label: TechnologyI love all game consoles equally. My Xbox 360 is used equally as much as my PlayStation 3. The Wii — oh, I’ll just leave it at that. The current generation of consoles is all but over — 10-year life cycle be damned — and new consoles are rumored to be coming next fall. If not next fall, then in 2014. Whatever is the case, Sony (SNE) can’t afford to lag in third place again. Sure, the Xbox 360 and PS3 are neck-in-neck in global lifetime sales, and the Xbox 360 did have a one year head start, but coming off the disappointing PS Vita, “confidence is less high” that Sony will deliver a console next year in time to compete with Microsoft (MSFT), according to Kotaku.
[More from BGR: Has the iPhone peaked? Apple’s iPhone 4S seen outselling iPhone 5]
I want a new console just as much as any other gamer. There’s a reason people are still pouncing on those Wii U consoles and flipping them on eBay. Six years is unusually long for a console to still be kicking around.
[More from BGR: Apple execs said to be ‘seething’ over Google Maps praise]
According to the well-informed Stephen Totilo, Editor-in-Chief of Kotaku, the game blog that first broke news on the next-gen Xbox, Microsoft’s “Durango” is ”on the mark” and “Sony appears to inspire less confidence…due to the on-and-off troubles of the PlayStation 3 and the struggles of the Vita vs. how much lost confidence is due to any problems looming for PS4.“
Totilo says “confidence is high that the next Xbox will be out in time for next Christmas” and confidence is low that the PS4 will be right there on store shelves next to it.
The “on-and-off troubles of the PlayStation 3″ Totilo is referring to is the anchor that’s weighed the console down since launch: tougher development due to the Cell processor and less available RAM – 256MB vs. 512MB in the Xbox 360.
In the months before the PS3′s launch in 2006, Sony said the console would be the most powerful console ever created, and here we are six years later and multi-platform games on the console consistently end up being buggier and uglier than on the Xbox 360 in many cases. Cases in point: Skyrim, Mass Effect 3 and Call of Duty: Black Ops II.
Sony’s in a rut right now. It has the chops to build beautiful and powerful hardware that’s a developer’s dream (ex: PS Vita), but at the same time, it’s always launching after the competition nowadays.
If Sony’s learned any lessons in the last half a decade, it better apply them to the PS4. The console needs to offer next-level processing and graphics. It needs to be backward-compatible with PS3 games and play Blu-ray discs. It should be small and quiet. It should have a strong online platform, support a greater array of apps and most importantly be easy for developers to program for.
Game exclusives will always be important, but now that games are million-dollar productions, multi-platform will be where developers hope to reap back their costs.
With Microsoft said to be preparing an “Xbox 720″ and an “Xbox Lite,” Sony can’t make the mistake of launching late or pricing the console too high. A launch in spring of 2014 would mean Sony will miss Black Friday and Cyber Monday, the two biggest shopping days of the year that bring in massive sales.  Ceding sales and market share to Microsoft and Nintendo by launching late would be disastrous.
The PS3 screwed up too many times. At this point, the PS4 needs to be perfect out of the door.
This article was originally published by BGR
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Gaming News Headlines – Yahoo! News
Let's Talk About Kristen Stewart's Sheer Dress, Shall We?
Label: Lifestyle
Stylewatch
Style News Now
12/14/2012 at 02:00 PM ET
Michael N. Todaro/FilmMagic (3); FameFlynet
So kudos to Kristen Stewart for having an amazing body and a stylist who helps her take risks. She’s gone a little out of the box on her recent On the Road press tour, and it’s been fun to watch.
But Stewart’s most recent look — a bra top and boy shorts combo covered with a sheer, floral-print overlay, worn to a premiere in New York Thursday night — has us a little stumped. The Erdem spring 2013 creation — seen on the runway this fall — was for spring, when it’s not 40 degrees in New York. And that’s not the only issue we have with the dress:
1. The midriff. Stewart has one of the hottest bodies in Hollywood, yet her toned tummy is looking a little scrunched in this bra top, thanks to the low bra band, high boy short waistline and satin material, all of which are very unforgiving.
2. The side. The back of the dress is solid, made in the same ice blue as the bra top and shorts. That means an unsightly side seam that makes the dress even busier, and cuts her profile in a strange way.
3. The length. On the runway, this dress was knee-length, making it more appropriate and much more feminine. Though we’d give anything to have Stewart’s killer legs, cutting the dress right at the middle of her thighs isn’t particularly flattering — or ladylike.
On the plus side? Her hair and makeup are flawless, and we’re lusting after those hot heels. But sorry, Stewart: We’re going to have to call this one a major miss. Tell us: How do you feel about this confusing dress?
PHOTOS: SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON MORE STAR LOOKS IN ‘LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT?’
APNewsBreak: Texas cancer probe draws NCI scrutiny
Label: HealthAUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The National Cancer Institute confirmed Friday that federal officials are taking a closer look at a troubled $3 billion cancer-fighting effort in Texas that is under a criminal investigation over a lucrative taxpayer-funded grant awarded by the state agency.
The Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas has coveted status as an NCI-approved funding entity — an exclusive group headlined by the nation's most prominent cancer organizations. The list is fewer than two dozen and includes the American Cancer Society, Susan G. Komen for the Cure and federal entities like the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
The designation is a federal seal-of-approval that signals high peer review standards and conflict of interest policies. Yearlong turmoil within the Texas institute, or CPRIT, reached a new peak this week when the agency's beleaguered chief executive asked to resign and prosecutors opened cases following an $11 million grant to a private company that was revealed to have bypassed an independent review.
NCI spokeswoman Aleea Farrakh Khan told The Associated Press that officials are "evaluating recent events" at CPRIT. She said officials have not made decisions or contacted the agency directly.
Members of CPRIT's governing board did not immediately return an email seeking comment.
NCI designation is not required for CPRIT to continue running the nation's second-largest pot of cancer research dollars, Khan said. But jeopardizing that status — and especially losing it — would be a severe blow to CPRIT's reputation, which already has been battered by sweeping resignations, internal accusations of politics trumping science and now a criminal investigation.
A recent internal audit at CPRIT discovered an $11 million funding request from Dallas-based Peloton Therapeutics was approved without the agency ever scrutinizing the proposal's merits. The revelation came only months after two Nobel laureates and other top scientists left the agency in protest over a $20 million grant some accused of being rushed to approval without a proper peer review.
While CPRIT is funded by taxpayers, donors to cancer nonprofits might look to an NCI designation for assurance that their money is in good hands.
"It says, 'If I'm donating money to this agency, if NCI is approving them, that means NCI says it's handling its money well,'" Khan said.
Khan added that CPRIT's inclusion on the list does not mean all of its funding mechanisms are NCI-approved.
An entire page of CPRIT's website is devoted to boasting its NCI designation. The agency says the status is important because it means cancer centers in Texas seeking its own NCI designation — so as to reassure patients or bolster recruitment — can include CPRIT research dollars in their calculations to maintain levels needed to be NCI approved.
"This enhances Texas' ability to leverage additional federal funding for cancer research and raises Texas' profile as a center for cancer research," according to the website.
Executive Director Bill Gimson submitted his resignation letter Tuesday but offered to stay on through January. He has described Peloton's improper funding as an honest mistake and said no one associated with CPRIT stood to personally profit from the company's award.
Prosecutors have not made any specific criminal allegations. Launching separate investigations into CPRIT are the Texas attorney general's office and the Travis County district attorney's public integrity unit, which investigates criminal misconduct within state government.
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Follow Paul J. Weber on Twitter: www.twitter.com/pauljweber
Wall Street succumbs to Apple's fall, "cliff" uncertainty
Label: BusinessNEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks fell on Friday as another slide in Apple took a toll and investors unloaded some shares because of the uncertainty surrounding the "fiscal cliff" negotiations.
For the Nasdaq, this marked the second losing week in a row. All three major U.S. stock indexes ended the week slightly lower.
Apple's stock slid 3.8 percent to $509.79 after UBS cut its price target on the stock to $700 from $780. The stock of the most valuable U.S. company has been hit hard in the last three months. On Friday, Apple's stock fell after a tepid reception for the iPhone 5 in China.
The S&P Information Technology Index <.gspt> lost 1 percent as Apple fell and Jabil Circuit Inc
The possibility of a fiscal cliff deal not taking place until early 2013 is rising. The back-and-forth negotiations over the fiscal cliff in Washington have kept markets on hold in what would already be a quiet period for stocks.
"We're faced with uncertainty ... and that's going to continue now into January. It basically puts everybody on hold and (you) just have the markets kind of thrash around," said Larry Peruzzi, senior equity trader at Cabrera Capital Markets Inc in Boston.
President Barack Obama and U.S. House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner held a "frank" meeting on Thursday at the White House to discuss how to avoid the tax hikes and spending cuts set to kick in early in 2013.
The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> slipped 35.71 points, or 0.27 percent, to 13,135.01 at the close. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> fell 5.87 points, or 0.41 percent, to 1,413.58. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> lost 20.83 points, or 0.70 percent, to close at 2,971.33.
For the week, the Dow slipped 0.2 percent, while the S&P 500 fell 0.3 percent and the Nasdaq declined 0.2 percent.
Among other Nasdaq decliners, shares of chipmaker Qualcomm
American Express Co shares fell 1.9 percent to $56.65 and ranked as the heaviest weight on the Dow.
Investors are concerned that going over the cliff could tip the economy back into recession. While a deal is expected to ultimately be reached, a drawn-out debate - like the one over 2011's debt ceiling - can erode confidence.
Best Buy Co Inc
Among the day's economic data, consumer prices fell in November for the first time in six months, indicating U.S. inflation pressures were muted. A separate report showed manufacturing grew at its swiftest pace in eight months in December.
Data out of China was encouraging, as Chinese manufacturing grew at its fastest pace in 14 months in December. The news was deemed as helpful for U.S. materials companies, including U.S. Steel
Volume was roughly 5.8 billion shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and the NYSE MKT, compared with the year-to-date average daily closing volume of 6.52 billion.
Decliners outnumbered advancers on the NYSE by a ratio of about 8 to 7. On the Nasdaq, decliners barely held an edge over advancers, with 1,241 stocks falling and 1,196 shares rising.
(Reporting by Caroline Valetkevitch; Editing by Jan Paschal)
Senate Panel Approves Findings on Prisoner Interrogations
Label: World
WASHINGTON — The Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday approved a highly critical, classified report on the Central Intelligence Agency’s detention and interrogation program, the most comprehensive review of the brutal treatment of Qaeda prisoners in the years after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
After the committee voted 9 to 6 in a closed meeting, mostly along party lines, the Democratic chairwoman, Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, issued a statement saying the long-awaited 6,000-page report “uncovers startling details about the C.I.A. detention and interrogation program and raises critical questions about intelligence operations and oversight.”
“I strongly believe that the creation of long-term, clandestine ‘black sites’ and the use of so-called enhanced-interrogation techniques were terrible mistakes,” Ms. Feinstein said, referring to the agency’s secret overseas prisons and coercive methods, including waterboarding, widely condemned as torture. “The majority of the committee agrees,” she said.
She said the report, with 20 official conclusions and 35,000 footnotes, “includes details of each detainee in C.I.A. custody, the conditions under which they were detained, how they were interrogated, the intelligence they actually provided and the accuracy — or inaccuracy — of C.I.A. descriptions about the program to the White House, Department of Justice, Congress and others.”
The committee’s Republican vice chairman, Senator Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, said he voted no because the C.I.A. had not yet fact-checked the report. He said it contained “significant errors, omissions, assumptions and ambiguities — as well as a lot of cherry-picking,” in part because it was based exclusively on documents and not interviews with agency officials.
“I believe the committee has made a mistake in passing judgment without hearing from those involved, and it is the committee’s reputation, the C.I.A.’s reputation and our national security that will pay the price,” he said.
The report now goes to the White House, the C.I.A. and other agencies for review and comment. After that is complete in mid-February, the committee will vote again on how much of the report should be declassified.
One Republican, Senator Olympia J. Snowe of Maine, who is retiring, joined all the committee’s Democrats in voting for the report. In addition, Senator John McCain of Arizona, who as the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee is a nonvoting member of the Intelligence Committee, gave it a strong endorsement.
Mr. McCain, who was tortured as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam and has been an outspoken critic of the C.I.A.’s former methods, wrote Intelligence Committee members urging them to “finalize and declassify this report, so that all Americans can see the record for themselves, which I believe will finally close this painful chapter for our country.”
Mr. McCain added: “What I have learned confirms for me what I have always believed and insisted to be true — that the cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of prisoners is not only wrong in principle and a stain on our country’s conscience, but also an ineffective and unreliable means of gathering intelligence.”
The committee’s inquiry began as a bipartisan effort in March 2009, but Republicans withdrew their support after the Justice Department began a criminal investigation of the interrogation program. That investigation closed earlier this year without prosecutions.
President Obama banned coercive interrogation methods when he took office in 2009, but the government still treats them as secret. Last week, Col. James L. Pohl, the military judge at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, who is overseeing the prosecution of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four others accused of conspiring in the Sept. 11 attacks, granted a request by prosecutors to treat anything the detainees say about their C.I.A. interrogations as classified.
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