PHOTO: Seth MacFarlane Lets Popcorn Fly in New Oscar Promo

02/21/2013 at 04:45 PM EST

Seth MacFarlane isn't crying over spilled popcorn.

Before he gets down to the business of hosting on Sunday's 85th Annual Academy Awards, MacFarlane 39, posed in a lighthearted set of promotional photos, leading up to Hollywood's biggest night.

In one of the shots, the Family Guy creator is holding a tub of popcorn – but in the next, the kernels are flying everywhere, much to the star's delight. In another shot, MacFarlane does his best impression of Oscar himself.

MacFarlane will make his Academy Awards hosting debut live on ABC from the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood.

Previously, MacFarlane shot a silly video promo pretending to be Daniel Day-Lewis.  

Seth MacFarlane

BOB D'AMICO / ABC

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Flu shot doing a poor job of protecting elderly

ATLANTA (AP) — It turns out this year's flu shot is doing a startlingly dismal job of protecting senior citizens, the most vulnerable age group.

The vaccine is proving only 9 percent effective in people 65 and older against the harsh strain of the flu that is predominant this season, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday.

Health officials are baffled as to why this is so. But the findings help explain why so many older people have been hospitalized with the flu this year.

Despite the findings, the CDC stood by its recommendation that everyone over 6 months get flu shots, the elderly included, because some protection is better than none, and because those who are vaccinated and still get sick may suffer less severe symptoms.

"Year in and year out, the vaccine is the best protection we have," said CDC flu expert Dr. Joseph Bresee.

Overall, across the age groups studied, the vaccine's effectiveness was found to be a moderate 56 percent, which means those who got a shot have a 56 percent lower chance of winding up at the doctor with the flu. That is somewhat worse than what has been seen in other years.

For those 65 and older, the vaccine was only 27 percent effective against the three strains it is designed to protect against, the worst level in about a decade. It did a particularly poor job against the tough strain that is causing more than three-quarters of the illnesses this year.

It is well known that flu vaccine tends to protect younger people better than older ones. Elderly people have weaker immune systems that don't respond as well to flu shots, and they are more vulnerable to the illness and its complications, including pneumonia.

But health officials said they don't know why this year's vaccine did so poorly in that age group.

One theory, as yet unproven, is that older people's immune systems were accustomed to strains from the last two years and had more trouble switching gears to handle this year's different, harsh strain.

The preliminary data for senior citizens is less than definitive. It is based on fewer than 300 people scattered among five states.

But it will no doubt surprise many people that the effectiveness is that low, said Michael Osterholm, a University of Minnesota infectious-disease expert who has tried to draw attention to the need for a more effective flu vaccine.

Among infectious diseases, flu is considered one of the nation's leading killers. On average, about 24,000 Americans die each flu season, according to the CDC.

This flu season started in early December, a month earlier than usual, and peaked by the end of year. Hospitalization rates for people 65 and older have been some of the highest in a decade, at 146 per 100,000 people.

Flu viruses tend to mutate more quickly than others, so a new vaccine is formulated each year to target the strains expected to be the major threats. CDC officials have said that in formulating this year's vaccine, scientists accurately anticipated the strains that are circulating this season.

Because of the guesswork involved, scientists tend to set a lower bar for flu vaccine. While childhood vaccines against diseases like measles are expected to be 90 or 95 percent effective, a flu vaccine that's 60 to 70 percent effective in the U.S. is considered pretty good. By that standard, this year's vaccine is OK.

For senior citizens, a flu vaccine is considered pretty good if it's in the 30 to 40 percent range, said Dr. Arnold Monto, a University of Michigan flu expert.

A high-dose version of the flu shot was recently made available for those 65 and older, but the new study was too small to show whether that has made a difference.

The CDC estimates are based on about 2,700 people who got sick in December and January. The researchers traced back to see who had gotten shots and who hadn't. An earlier, smaller study put the vaccine's overall effectiveness at 62 percent, but other factors that might have influenced that figure weren't taken into account.

The CDC's Bresee said there is a danger in providing preliminary results because it may result in people doubting — or skipping — flu shots. But the figures were released to warn older people who got shots that they may still get sick and shouldn't ignore any serious flu-like symptoms, he said.

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Online:

CDC report: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr

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Wall Street ends lower on growth worries

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks fell for a second straight day on Thursday and the S&P 500 posted its worst two-day loss since November after reports cast doubt over the health of the U.S. and euro-zone economies.

But a late-day rally helped stocks erase some of their losses with most of the pullback concentrated in the technology- heavy Nasdaq. The move suggested investors were still willing to buy on dips even after the sharp losses in the last session.

In Europe, business activity indexes dealt a blow to hopes that the euro zone might emerge from recession soon, showing the downturn across the region's businesses unexpectedly grew worse this month.

"The PMI numbers out of Europe were really a blow to the market," said Jack De Gan, chief investment officer at Harbor Advisory in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. "The market was expecting signs that recovery is still there, but the numbers just highlighted that the euro-zone problem is still persistent."

U.S. initial claims for unemployment benefits rose more than expected last week while the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia said its index of business conditions in the U.S. mid-Atlantic region fell in February to the lowest in eight months.

Gains in Wal-Mart Stores Inc shares helped cushion the Dow. The shares gained 1.5 percent to $70.26 after the world's largest retailer reported earnings that beat expectations, though early February sales were sluggish.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> fell 46.92 points, or 0.34 percent, to 13,880.62 at the close. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> lost 9.53 points, or 0.63 percent, to 1,502.42. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> dropped 32.92 points, or 1.04 percent, to close at 3,131.49.

The two-day decline marked the U.S. stock market's first sustained pullback this year. The Standard & Poor's 500 has fallen 1.8 percent over the period and just managed to hold the 1,500 level on Thursday. Still, the index is up 5.3 percent so far this year.

The abrupt reversal in markets, which started on Wednesday after minutes from the Federal Reserve's January meeting suggested stimulus measures may end earlier than thought, looks set to halt a seven-week winning streak for stocks that had lifted the Dow and the S&P 500 close to all-time highs.

Wall Street will soon face another test with the upcoming debate in Washington over the automatic across-the-board spending cuts put in place as part of a larger congressional budget fight. Those cuts, set to kick in on March 1 unless lawmakers agree on an alternative, could depress the economy.

Semiconductor stocks ranked among the weakest of the day, pressuring the Nasdaq as the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index <.sox> fell 1.8 percent. Intel Corp fell 2.3 percent to $20.25 while Advanced Micro Devices lost 3.7 percent to $2.60 as the S&P 500's biggest percentage decliner.

The Dow also got a helping hand from personal computer maker Hewlett-Packard Co , which rose 2.3 percent to end the regular session at $17.10. The company was scheduled due to report first-quarter results after the closing bell.

Shares of Boeing Co rose 1.6 percent to $76.01 as a senior executive was set to meet with the head of the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration on Friday and present a series of measures to prevent battery failures that grounded its 787 Dreamliner fleet, according to a source familiar with the plans.

In other company news, shares of supermarket operator Safeway Inc jumped 14.1 percent to $22.97 after the company reported earnings that beat expectations.

Shares of VeriFone Systems Inc tumbled nearly 43 percent to $18.24 after the credit-card swipe machine maker forecast first- and second-quarter profits well below expectations.

Of the 427 companies in the S&P 500 that have reported results so far, 69.3 percent have exceeded analysts' expectations, compared with a 62 percent average since 1994 and 65 percent over the past four quarters, according to Thomson Reuters data through Thursday morning.

Fourth-quarter earnings for S&P 500 companies are estimated to have risen 5.9 percent, according to the data, above a 1.9 percent forecast at the start of the earnings season.

Berry Petroleum Co jumped 19.3 percent to $46.02 after oil and gas producer Linn Energy LLC said it would buy the company in an all-stock deal valued at $4.3 billion, including debt. Linn Energy shares advanced 2.8 percent to $37.68.

About two stocks fell for everyone that rose on the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq. About 7.64 billion shares changed hands on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and NYSE MKT, well above the 20-day moving average of around 6.6 billion shares.

(Editing by Jan Paschal)

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Iran Upgrading Nuclear Equipment, Inspectors Say

WASHINGTON — Just days before Iran enters its first nuclear talks with the West since the summer, international nuclear inspectors said Thursday that the country had begun installing a new generation of equipment to enrich uranium that could speed its ability to produce nuclear fuel.

The installation, at the Natanz nuclear enrichment center, which is highly vulnerable to bombing, came after a half-decade of delays in production made worse by Western sanctions and sabotage. The new centrifuges are four to five times more powerful than the aging design that Iran has been using for years. The advance has worried American, European and Israeli officials who fear Iran might decide to race toward making fuel for nuclear weapons.

But the evidence collected by the International Atomic Energy Agency, as recently as Tuesday, suggests that the Iranian authorities are deliberately slowing the accumulation of medium-enriched uranium, which could most quickly be converted to bomb fuel. According to the agency, the Iranian nuclear authorities have diverted much of that production to make specialized fuel for a research reactor — more fuel than they need to power the reactor.

The result is that Iran has delayed the day when it would reach what Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, defined as his latest “red line”: the accumulation of enough medium-enriched fuel to make a single nuclear weapon. Mr. Netanyahu spoke of the line — the point Iran would not be allowed to pass — at the United Nations last fall, when it appeared that Iran would accumulate that amount — about 240 or 250 kilograms of uranium enriched to 20 percent purity — by early this summer. The agency’s latest evidence pushes that date to the fall, allowing more time for diplomacy.

Still on Thursday the prime minister’s spokeswoman called the new assessment of the inspectors “a very grave report, which proves that Iran is continuing to make rapid progress toward the red line.” She added that “the first subject” Mr. Netanyahu will discuss with President Obama during his planned visit to Israel next month is preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear arms.

The report also indicated no evidence of any explosion or other setback at the deep-underground nuclear facility called Fordo, which is regularly visited by inspectors. Reports, fueled by a right-wing Web site with ties to the Iranian opposition, had suggested a major explosion at the site; that report, which appeared in a number of European newspapers, now appears to have been false.

The new centrifuges are known as IR-2, short for Iranian second generation. Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, disclosed research on the equipment more than six years ago, boasting that it would quadruple Iran’s enrichment powers.

Testing the new centrifuges at the Natanz site in the Iranian desert began at a pilot plant in early 2008, and reached an advanced stage in 2011. But until recently, a range of technical problems had delayed their introduction into the cavernous underground halls of the production plant, which is roughly half the size of the Pentagon.

One mystery is why Iran is installing the new centrifuges at Natanz. It is just barely underground, and vulnerable to air attack. It is also the plant that was struck by a series of American and Israeli cyberattacks, part of a classified program called Olympic Games that resulted in a temporary setback for the program.

Centrifuges spin extraordinarily fast to capture the rare isotope of uranium that can fuel atom bombs or nuclear reactors.

The IR-2 is based on Pakistan’s second-generation model. The rotor of the Pakistani machine, made of superhard steel, can spin much faster than the original model, speeding the pace of enrichment.

But Iran had great difficulty building the machines and obtaining the special steel. Mostly in secret, it instead developed its own version, the IR-2. It is partly indigenous, signaling that the Iranians have achieved new levels of technical skill.

Western experts say the IR-2 is roughly half the height of Iran’s original centrifuge but spins twice as fast. Its rotor is made not of superstrong steel but carbon fibers, which Iran has also experienced difficulty making and importing from abroad because of Western sanctions.

If they work properly, 1,000 of the new machines would be able to enrich the same amount of uranium as 4,000 to 5,000 of the old model. Iran currently has about 10,000 of the old machines spinning away at Natanz.

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Apple’s Retina display for the next-gen iPad mini is reportedly already in development

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Can You Guess Which Star Was First To Wear Elizabeth Taylor's $6 Million Emerald Necklace?

Stylewatch
Style News Now

02/20/2013 at 11:15 AM ET

Nate Beckett/Splash News Online; Popperfoto/Getty

On Tuesday night, Julianne Moore did what few women would be able to: She did justice to one of Elizabeth Taylor‘s most prized pieces of jewelry.

The dazzling emerald-and-diamond necklace, purchased for Taylor by future husband Richard Burton while they were on location for Cleopatra in Rome, was a staple in the legendary star’s wardrobe; she even wore it to accept her Oscar in 1967.

It was one of eight Bulgari pieces that the jewelry house purchased from her 2011 Christie’s auction and now have on display at their Rodeo Drive flagship.

“The room absolutely stopped when [Moore] entered” in the necklace, a source at Bulgari’s pre-Oscars party, thrown to celebrate Taylor’s jewels, tells PEOPLE. “Kirsten Dunst exclaimed, ‘Are you wearing one of her pieces?’”

And Moore looked lovely in the necklace, which sold for more than $6 million at auction, though she went a distinctly non-Taylor route by offsetting it with sleek hair and a very simple Alexander McQueen dress. Regardless, we bet Taylor, who wore her fanciest jewelry to sit around the house, would have been pleased.

Tell us: What would you wear with Taylor’s $6 million emerald necklace?

–Alex Apatoff, reporting by Jennifer Garcia

PHOTOS: SEE MORE OF ELIZABETH TAYLOR’S JAW DROPPING JEWELRY HERE!

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Obama administration tackles colonoscopy confusion

WASHINGTON (AP) — It's one part of the new health care law that seemed clear: free coverage for preventive care under most insurance plans.

Only it didn't turn out that way.

So on Wednesday, the Obama administration had to straighten out the confusion.

Have you gone for a colonoscopy thinking it was free, only to get a hefty bill because the doctor removed a polyp?

No more.

Taking out such precancerous growths as part of a routine colon cancer screening procedure will now be considered preventive care.

"Polyp removal is an integral part of a colonoscopy," the Department of Health and Human Services said in guidance posted on its website. That conclusion has the backing of several leading medical societies, the department noted.

Also addressed in the notice was genetic testing for breast cancer, coverage of over-the-counter products such as aspirin for heart care and nicotine patches for smoking, and birth control for women. Unlike formal regulations, the guidance does not have the force of law, but advocates for patients say insurers would be ill-advised to ignore it.

President Barack Obama's health care law required most private health plans to cover preventive care at no additional charge to patients. It also expanded preventive coverage without copayments for Medicare recipients. For workers and their families, the expense is borne by the company health plan, which passes on some of those costs in the form of higher premiums. Advocates say preventive care saves the health care system money over time.

Colonoscopy is an expensive test that can cost more than $1,000. It's recommended for adults 50 and over, and has become a rite of passage for aging baby boomers.

News that it would be covered free under the health care law got attention, but that was followed quickly by a letdown when many insurers started charging if a polyp or two was discovered and removed during the procedure.

"Insurers were reclassifying it from a preventive test to a diagnostic procedure," said Stephen Finan, policy director for the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network. "In some cases the cost-sharing was a significant amount of money."

His group was among several that complained to the administration.

Other free preventive services addressed in Wednesday's guidance:

—Insurers must cover testing, if ordered by a doctor, for rare BRCA genes that dramatically increase the risk of breast cancer. Such tests can cost as much as $3,000.

—Over-the-counter products such as aspirin for heart care and nicotine patches for smoking cessation are covered with a doctor's prescription.

—Insurers won't be able to fulfill the law's requirement to cover contraception as preventive care for women if they only pay for birth control pills. A full range of FDA-approved methods must be covered, including long-acting implant and intrauterine devices. Birth control methods for men are not covered as preventive care.

If a health plan does not have a network doctor who performs a particular preventive service, a patient can see a doctor out-of-network without facing copays or additional charges.

Also Wednesday, the government came out with final rules on the benefits that health plans catering to individuals and small businesses will have to offer starting next year, when new insurance markets called exchanges open in each state.

The coverage generally is better than what's now available to people buying individual policies, but close to what medium-size companies offer, with some important improvements in areas such as mental health care.

Benefits include hospital and outpatient care, emergency services, maternity and newborn care, prescriptions, prevention, rehabilitation and ongoing assistance for people with potentially disabling conditions, and dental and vision care for children.

All plans will have to cover the same benefits, but their premiums and cost sharing will vary. There will be four level of coverage — bronze, silver, gold and platinum. Bronze plans will cover 60 percent of expected costs while platinum plans will cover 90 percent.

___

Online:

Health and Human Services Department: http://tinyurl.com/au6lzeo

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Wall Street ends down sharply after Fed minutes

DEAR ABBY: My boyfriend, "Doug" (24), and I (22) have been in a long-distance relationship for a year, but we were friends for a couple of years before that. I had never had a serious relationship before and lacked experience. Doug has not only been in two other long-term relationships, but has had sex with more than 15 women. One of them is an amateur porn actress.I knew about this, but it didn't bother me until recently. Doug had a party, and while he was drunk he told one of his buddies -- in front of me -- that he should watch a certain porn film starring his ex-girlfriend. ...

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Promises of Tax Cuts Popular With Italian Voters

ROME — In recent days, millions of Italians received an official-looking envelope that boldly read “IMPORTANT NOTICE. Reimbursement of IMU 2012” with a letter inside explaining that an unpopular property tax levied last year would be refunded either through a bank transfer or in cash.

Reading the fine print, however — or noticing the small logo in the corner — Italians discovered that the sender was not the revenue agency but rather the party of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, and that the letter was merely a final campaign promise ahead of the national vote this weekend.

The initiative met with howls of protest.

The departing prime minister, Mario Monti, accused Mr. Berlusconi of trying to “buy the votes of Italians with the state’s money.” Luigi Bersani, leader of the Democratic Party and the front-runner, according to polls, condemned the letter as a “fraud.”

But the letter underscored a cause — promises of lower taxes and tax amnesties — that has taken hold among not only Mr. Berlusconi’s main opponents but also smaller groups that are new to the electoral process and are garnering serious attention.

One of those is Act to Stop the Decline, a pro-business, liberal-libertarian political movement that is participating in the elections for the first time and is advocating for reducing the tax burden on Italians by 5 percent in five years. The difference with other political parties, many say, is that Stop the Decline actually has a credible road map for achieving its objectives — eliminating a regional tax and using money recovered from tax evaders to lower income taxes.

“This is one of the few parties that not only has a program that sets out what it will do, but also how they’re going to go about it.

Other parties are mostly vague,” Aldo Parisi, a bus driver, said Tuesday night at a Rome theater where Stop the Decline staged “An Italian Dinner,” a play dealing with myriad social problems, from youth unemployment to the lack of a welfare system.

One of the group’s other central goals is to reduce Italy’s staggering national debt by 20 percent of gross domestic product in five years.

To this end, the group would sell off state assets and state shares in formerly public companies, and reduce public expenditures.

The play is one of the quirky campaign strategies — also including flash mobs and an adept use of social media — that have propelled Stop the Decline into the public sphere. Founded in a matter of months last summer by a group of Italian economists, mostly university professors abroad, it has garnered 100,000 members and injected tough-economic-love messages into the electoral debate.

“We shared a sense of urgency that people who know the economy have with regards to Italy,” said Oscar Giannino, a journalist turned economic pundit who is the party’s candidate for prime minister.

The economists who founded the party include Michele Boldrin of Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri; Sandro Brusco of Stony Brook University in New York State; and Andrea Moro of Vanderbilt University in Tennessee.

Nearly two decades of ineffectual policies that slowed Italy’s economic growth into a near standstill convinced them that the country was taking the wrong path, and that they could suggest alternative — and untested — remedies.

The movement is unlikely to make huge inroads in the election, with some polls predicting it will win less than 2 percent of the vote. The big winner is expected to be the Democratic Left, at least in the lower house, followed by what most pollsters say will be the unexpected success of the comedian Beppe Grillo’s Five Star Movement, which is mining the deep disaffection that Italians have for their political class. Mr. Monti, who is supported by a centrist coalition, will probably trail Mr. Berlusconi in the vote.

But Stop the Decline was showing strong inroads in Lombardy, one of the swing regions, though the group’s popularity might be dented somewhat by the revelations this week that Mr. Giannino lied about his academic credentials. He resigned as party president but remains the candidate for prime minister.

Even with the resignation, a rare occurrence in Italy, Mr. Giannino has retained a loyal following.

“He has ideas, ideologies, and I think he’ll be a good leader in the future if not now,” said Camilla Beretta, 18, a Milanese student taking university courses in Rome.

“Italy needs new faces, young people, honest people,” she said. “I have to be hopeful. Even if really I am not.”

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MTV Fake-Hacks Its Own Twitter Handle, Proving That MTV Is Still Terrible

On Tuesday afternoon, just as the week of the big-brand Twitter hack was getting as old as it was useful to the “victims,” the Twitter feeds of BET and MTV — both owned by the media conglomerate Viacom — were “hacked.” Except they weren’t, in fact, hacked. They were stunt-hacked in a pre-planned, inter-office joke that turned into a viral marketing ploy gone bad.

RELATED: 4 Reasons To Praise Twitter’s New URL Shortener

On Monday hackers took to Burger King’s Twitter feed in a fake McDonald’s takeover that gained the brand 30,000 followers and a whole lot of social-media brand recognition, almost by accident. By midday Tuesday, Jeep had been “taken over” by hackers posing as Cadillac, and thousands of followers came with the very similar “attack.” But the social-media teams at BET and MTV had already noticed the bump, and had some “fun” in store. Which, because this is Twitter and jokes last about a day, didn’t end up much fun for anyone involved — and because this is MTV, definitely ended up in making the network look even more behind the times than usual.

RELATED: Does Google Have a Double Agent at Twitter?

We spotted this message (since deleted) from BET’s “social media pugilist”:

RELATED: The New York Times’s Bill Keller Riles Up Twitter

And there was this evidence, from an MTV marketing director’s feed minutes before the reality-TV channel was hacked:

MTV Marketing Director @schoprah tweets about the #MTVhack 4 minutes before the first “hacked” @mtv post:twitpic.com/c563h6

— Ellie Hall (@ellievhall) February 19, 2013

And have at these musings that MTV’s social media manger, Tom Fischman, tweeted after Burger King was hacked yesterday:

Is there any real downside to the @burgerking hack? Mistake leaving the account suspended all day, would have seen a nice follower windfall.

— Thomas Fishman (@Tom_Fishman) February 18, 2013

@mcbc Nobody thinks BK tweeted that stuff, doesn’t really reflect on them at all. Just bought them a ton of publicity, sympathy if anything.

— Thomas Fishman (@Tom_Fishman) February 18, 2013

The stunt certainly earned MTV and BET a bunch of publicity — like this post that you’re reading! — but came with the price of Twitter’s scorn … and no real bump in followers to either feed, either up or down:

I knew MTV wasn’t hacked when their content continued to still be complete crap.

— Andrew Kaczynski (@BuzzFeedAndrew) February 19, 2013

I hope @twitter suspends @mtv and @bet just for being asshats

— Peter Ha (@ThePeterHa) February 19, 2013

It’s days like today that make me hate the Internet.

— Jared Keller (@jaredbkeller) February 19, 2013

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