NEWS

WWE Tough Enough - STONE COLDE JUDGE

2011-04-19T02:03:00.000-07:00

We dropped back in at WWE Tough Enough to see how this current incarnation of the reality series is holding up. From the looks of it, it’s settled into its intended groove. Stone Cold Steve Austin is still a gruff host; Bill DeMott, Trish Stratus, and Booker T are still busting butts into shape; and the contestants are still chasing that not-so-elusive dream of becoming a part of the WWE (except for Ariane and Matt, who are wearing belts with the word “KMart” on them instead of the word “Champion”).

On the NON-SPOILERY side: tonight’s episode will feature Mickael taking his hatred of Ryan to new heights, Rima continuing to shed her image of a beauty queen, and guest appearances by WWE Superstar The Big Show — who helps the contestants work on reversals and rolls — and WWE Diva Stacy Keibler — who teaches the contestants the technique of cheerleading (you will learn the many traits wrestling and cheerleading share).
On the SPOILERY side: There might be an emotional meltdown; Stone Cold might be nice for a change; and two thing happen that will get hardcore wrestling fans to go “YES!”

john Morrison breaks on through WWE’s walls

2011-04-19T01:46:00.000-07:00

By Scott Fishman

Miami Herald Writer

After winning the third season of WWE Tough Enough, John Morrison has become one of WWE’s top superstars.
Even with all the success, “The Guru of Greatness” is still looking for his first WWE championship, currently held by his former tag team championship partner The Miz.
The Los Angeles resident has used this hunger as motivation to work harder and tweak his persona in a more serious direction.
“I think the main reason people take me more seriously now is my beard,” Morrison joked.
“I think that is the thing that has made the John Morrison character turn the corner and become looked at as a title contender. As someone people see or could see me in the ring with John Cena, The Rock and Steve Austin, even The Miz. I can’t believe I just said that, but The Miz is there. He is the WWE champion.
“All those guys were or are at the top for a reason. The more serious attitude, the aggression and the anger is something Johnny Nitro never had and John Morrison had been lacking prior to this year. I think I tapped into some very real things as would any method actor would.”
The Prince of Parkour still uses his flashy moves, but now with a little more punch. Morrison believes the added edge will lead to finally reaching the top of the mountain.
“A good motivator for me is frustration of not achieving my goals at the rate I would like to achieve them,” Morrison said.
“When you get into sports entertainment, your goal is to become WWE champion. How do you get that? That is like asking someone how to get a promotion. There are a lot of answers, but there is no clear cut, ‘This is what you got to do.’
“It’s frustrating. I see myself as a perfectionist, an almost obsessive compulsive workout fiend. The things I can control I give a hundred percent all the time. I workout, pay attention and study. I do all that stuff. To not be able to achieve the level of success I want, dreamed of as a kid and feel I deserve is part of what really led me to show that aggressive streak and show that anger and frustration in the ring. It’s something that is real. It’s something that is really happening to me.”
Morrison saw Tough Enough as a great starting point and opportunity into WWE. He views the latest incarnation brining much of the same for someone else.
“Tough Enough equals opportunity,” Morrison said.
“I love that show, and I’m glad they brought it back. It’s something I think they should have brought back a while ago. I think a lot of people are glad it’s back. I’m really glad Bill DeMott is back on there. He is a good old hard %$#. It’s good to have him there because people who come into sports entertainment need to know it’s not easy. There is nobody better than Bill to show them that.
“I think it’s a great show because the opportunity it presents and the difficulty you have to pass through. It’s almost like you were to make a comparison to Joseph Campbell’s Hero with a Thousand Faces. The hero needs a call to action, which in this case is Tough Enough. Then there is motivation and reason to accept the call to action.
“Then it’s marginalization, which is like being hazed when you are joining a fraternity. Going through an experience like Tough Enough, where you are not accepted as a member of the sports entertainment business. You are not accepted yet, and you have to prove yourself. Tough Enough is where you do that. The process really shows someone’s true colors, what they have inside and how bad they want it. Tough Enough captures all of that, and I think that’s interesting.”

WWE Rankings: Ray Lewis and 15 Professional Athletes We Need in WWE

2011-04-19T01:43:00.001-07:00

NFL legend Lawrence Taylor took down Bam Bam Bigelow at WrestleMania 11

We've seen it so many times before: Professional athletes crossing over into the world of professional wrestling.
A lot of these guys grew up watching wrestling, and surely dreamed of stepping in the ring someday.
NBA-great Dennis Rodman embodied what a wrestling superstar really is. He tangled with the NBA's second-leading scorer of all time, the Mailman Karl Malone.
NFL legend Lawrence Taylor famously took down Bam Bam Bigelow at WrestleMania 11.
Hell, Kurt Angle won a Gold Medal in the Atlanta Olympics in 1996 before he crossed over into the world of professional wrestling.
There are countless examples of movie stars, athletes, and even reality TV stars (unfortunately) who have poked their heads into the world of professional wrestling.
But let's face the facts: We've all got our wish lists of professional athletes we think would be PERFECT for WWE.
Chances are most of these are pipe dreams, but with the looming NFL lockout, it may not be too far from reality for some guys.
So, without further delay, here are 15 professional athletes that absolutely need to be in the WWE. Enjoy!

WWE Mock Draft: 30 Picks Redrafting the Entire Roster with CSR Host

2011-04-19T01:42:00.000-07:00

As many of you may have heard, next Monday April 25, WWE will hold its annual draft.
In past years, there have been a few picks here and there throughout the show, but I think that idea is played out.
We need to shake things up dramatically, and that means redrafting the whole roster.
To do this, I brought in the big gun, my friend for nearly 15 years and co-host of Wrestlezone.com's Chair Shot Reality, Josh Isenberg.
For this draft, we did 15 rounds.
I selected for Raw and Josh selected for Smackdown. We each provided a reason why we picked and put more stock in long term ability rather than selecting short term star power (much like you would in a regular sports draft).
I let Josh choose first, mainly because I believe Smackdown needs the most help after Edge retired.
Note: The Rock, the Undertaker, and Triple H were all excluded because we are not sure if they will be returning to TV full-time. Therefore, it's not fair to pick them as if they are a normal spot on the roster.

New Alzheimer's guidelines tap precursors to the disease

2011-04-19T01:40:00.000-07:00

CHICAGO — The first new U.S. diagnostic guidelines for Alzheimer's disease released in 27 years paint the disorder as a disease that occurs gradually over many years, starting with changes in the brain, then mild memory problems and finally progressing to full-blown dementia.

Released on Tuesday by the National Institute on Aging and the Alzheimer's Association, the guidelines officially recognize mild cognitive impairment or MCI — first described more than a decade ago — as a precursor to the disease.

And they add a new research category known as preclinical Alzheimer's, the earliest stage of the disease when clumps of a protein called amyloid are just beginning to form in the brains of people who are otherwise healthy.

This preclinical stage about 10 years before dementia sets in is seen as the best place to intervene in the disease. It is why new imaging agents for PET scans, spinal fluid tests and other so-called biomarkers that predict Alzheimer's are becoming so important to researchers and drug companies.

Missing subtle sarcasm may signal dementia

The notion of different stages of the disease marks a stark contrast from the last set of guidelines published by government researchers in 1984, which only recognized the dementia phase of Alzheimer's — in which people lose their memories and the ability to care for themselves.

"The biggest difference between then and now is we now think of this process as a continuum that started many years before we make the diagnosis of dementia," Dr. Guy McKhann of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, who worked on the new guidelines, told a media briefing.

Including earlier phases of the disease is important in advancing Alzheimer's research, said Dr. Reisa Sperling of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, who led the group that wrote the guidelines for preclinical Alzheimer's.

"If we are ever really going to move towards prevention of Alzheimer's disease, we have to include people who don't yet have symptoms," Sperling said in a telephone interview.

Saying the 'A' word "I think the real piece of that is not being afraid to say the 'A' word (Alzheimer's)," said Sperling, who acknowledged that the diagnosis is frightening.

"I believe what changed in cancer 10 or 20 years ago is when people became less afraid of using the 'C' word (cancer). I think we have to move to the same thing in Alzheimer's disease," she said.

Sperling said being able to diagnose someone with preclinical Alzheimer's will allow for much earlier treatment and prevention efforts, in much the same way as people with high cholesterol take statin drugs to prevent heart disease.

Both Sperling and Marilyn Albert of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, who worked on the guidelines for mild cognitive impairment, said biomarker tests, while promising, are not ready for prime time.

"The reason we think they should not be used in the doctor's office now is there is not a lot of standardization. We don't have a very good sense of what we call a cutoff point — of what is normal and what is not," Albert said.

In January, advisers to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration rejected an Eli Lilly imaging agent, saying more data is needed before it can be approved for helping doctors rule out the presence of plaque linked to Alzheimer's disease.

Dr. John Ringman, an Alzheimer's researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles, who was not involved in drafting the guidelines, said defining the earlier phases of the disease gives researchers a common vocabulary.

"It's really a language researchers can use to talk to each other," he said.

Ringman said this will help companies select patients in earlier stages of the disease for clinical trials.

Many researchers believe most Alzheimer's drugs have failed because they were tried in people whose disease was too advanced to do any good.

'Hunger Games' casts Thresh and Rue -- EXCLUSIVE

2011-04-19T01:37:00.001-07:00

'Hunger Games' casts Thresh and Rue -- EXCLUSIVE

The Hunger Games adaptation has already found its District 12 tributes in Jennifer Lawrence (Katniss) and Josh Hutcherson (Peeta). Now, Lionsgate has set its sights on District 11: EW has confirmed exclusively that the studio has cast Hollywood newcomers Dayo Okeniyi and Amandla Stenberg as Thresh and Rue in the adaptation of the Suzanne Collins trilogy, directed by Gary Ross. Okeniyi, playing the intimidatingly strong tribute, has appeared in a short called Eyes to See and an upcoming horror film, Slew Hampshire. Stenberg, who is on board as Katniss’ arena ally Rue, has roles in the September’s Colombiana and the telefilm Taste of Romance.
The Hunger Games is due to release March 23, 2012.
Desperate to find out who makes up the rest of the tribute cast? You can check the progress of Lionsgate’s casting via the studio’s Hunger Games Tributes Casting Tab on Facebook. (A sneak peek of what to expect below.) And to get a look at all characters cast so far, check out EW’s Hunger Games cast gallery.

Syria's state of emergency

2011-04-19T01:33:00.001-07:00

Bashar al-Assad says his country's state of emergency will be lifted by next week. He made the announcement hours after his new cabinet was sworn in.

It came a day after tens of thousands of demonstrators rallied in the capital, Damascus, in one of the biggest turnouts since protests began a month ago.

The lifting of the 48-year-old emergency law has been a key demand of the protesters. The current unrest in Syria has been described as the most serious challenge facing Bashar al-Assad and his regime.

Lifting the emergency laws was the latest in a series of concessions made in a bid to satisfy the public.

Other concessions he has made include: Appointing a new cabinet, establishing committees to investigate the recent killing of civilians in the protests and granting Syrian citizenship to thousands of the country's Kurdish minority.

Inside Story, with presenter Darren Jordon, discusses with guests: Walid Saffour, the president of the Syrian Human Rights Committee; Ivan Eland, a senior fellow and director of the Centre on Peace and Liberty, at the Independent Institute.

This episode of Inside Story aired on Sunday, April 17, 2011.

Gamewatch: Portal 2, Mortal Kombat, Final Fantasy IV

2011-04-18T09:59:00.000-07:00

It should’ve launched with a bang, but it seems Valve’s crazy-AI physics-puzzler Portal 2 (PC, Mac, PS3, Xbox 360) could emerge later than expected. Valve teased an early release and set gamers to work crunching an ahead-of-schedule game launch, but the game may only beat its original release time by a few hours, emerging in the wee morning hours when no one’s around to care. Still, the early buzz on this one’s mostly positive, so there’s that. ETA: April 19

The once bloodiest fighting franchise celebrates its ninth release with Mortal Kombat (PS3, Xbox 360), a version designed to appeal to all stripes, casual to expert. Think one-on-one fighting along a 2D backplane, attack buttons mapped to limbs (like Tekken), new online modes, and given the Mature rating, plenty of gory finishing moves. ETA: April 19

Another year, another Final Fantasy IV (PSP) update. Instead of porting over the Nintendo DS 3D remake released a few years ago, this version cleans up the original 2D art so it jibes with the PSP’s widescreen 480 by 272 resolution. Square Enix subtitles this version “The Complete Collection” because it includes a visually enhanced version of Final Fantasy IV: The After Years, the sequel previously released for Japanese mobile phones in 2008. ETA: April 19

The rest due this week, by platform.
PC: Assassin's Creed Ultimate Collection (1 & 2), Brother's In Arms: Complete Collection, Elements of War
Xbox 360: Section 8: Prejudice (XBLA), Triple Pack: Xbox Live Arcade Compilation
PlayStation 3: Arcana Heart 3 (PSN), Prince of Persia Trilogy HD, SOCOM 4: U.S. Navy Seals
Wii: Conduit 2, My Little Baby (WiiWare), Remington Super Slam Hunting: Alaska
Nintendo DS: DodoGo! Robo (DSiWare), GO Series: Captain Sub (DSiWare), Trackmania Turbo: Build to Race
PlayStation Portable: Mad Blocker Alpha: Revenge of the Fluzzles (PSN)

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Photo Featuring Baraka

2011-04-18T09:58:00.000-07:00

Mortal Kombat: Legacy episode 1.1, "Episode 1" stars Michael Jai White, Darren Shahlavi, Tahmoh Penikett, Colin Corrigan, Shaun Balbar, Ian Anthony Dale, Serge Houde, Beatrice Ilg and is directed by Kevin Tancharoen.

'Rio' Soars To Box-Office #1 With Biggest Debut Of 2011

2011-04-18T09:56:00.000-07:00

Animated 3-D flick draws big bucks, while 'Scream 4' scares up disappointing #2.

By Ryan J. Downey

Hollywood accountants got just what they needed from two little bluebirds over the weekend as "Rio" enjoyed the biggest debut of any movie in 2011 thus far. The latest animated outing from the company behind the "Ice Age" franchise, about a pair of endangered South American birds, beat the weekend openings of rival kid flicks "Rango" and "Hop" with its estimated $40 million weekend.

Featuring the voice talents of Jesse Eisenberg, Anne Hathaway, Leslie Mann, George Lopez, will.i.am and more, "Rio" did 58 percent of its business in 3-D screenings, which helped lift the overall box office 11 percent, marking the first increase against 2010 numbers in eight weekends. The "Rio" debut is still far behind the opening of last spring's "How to Train Your Dragon" and previous Blue Sky Studios hits like the "Ice Age" series, "Robots" and "Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who!"
Meanwhile, the first "Scream" movie in 11 years fell well below expectations with its $19.2 million opening. "Scream 4" was #2 on the box office tally, according to studio estimates. Uniting returning castmembers Neve Campbell, David Arquette and Courtney Cox with a cast of younger newcomers wasn't enough to beat the debuts of either of the other sequels to the 1996 original.
"Scream 3" debuted with $34.7 million in 2000, which would be about $52 million adjusted for ticket price inflation. It remains to be seen whether Dimension Films, director Wes Craven and writer Kevin Williamson will forge ahead with more chapters of their self-referential horror franchise following the past weekend's numbers.
Robert Redford's post-Civil War drama "The Conspirator" was the weekend's other new release. It opened at #9 with $3.9 million in limited release, playing on just over 700 screens across the country, versus the 3,826 screens where people could see "Rio." Redford directed James McAvoy and Robin Wright Penn in the story about the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.
The Easter-themed "Hop" crossed the $80 million mark over the weekend with another $11.1 million in box office receipts. Featuring the voice of Russell Brand as a conflicted young Easter Bunny, the Universal Pictures mix of live action and animation has earned an estimated $82.6 million. On the other hand, the remake of the Dudley Moore classic "Arthur" (which features Brand in the title role) fell to #6 during its second weekend of release with just $6.9 million for a $22.3 million total.
Telling the true story of a teenage surfer who was back on the board one month after losing most of one arm in a shark attack, "Soul Surfer" was #4 with $7.4 million for a $19.9 million total. The faith-driven inspirational tale has recouped its estimated $18 million budget in just two weeks.
Teen assassin flick "Hanna" was just behind at #5 with $7.3 million for a $23.3 million total. Film critic Richard Roeper called "Hanna" a "kinetic, vibrant, sometimes completely insane adventure" and declared it "one of the best times you'll have at the movies this year."
Next weekend's new releases include best-selling-novel-turned-drama "Water for Elephants" with Reese Witherspoon, Robert Pattinson and Christoph Waltz; "Tyler Perry's Madea's Big Happy Family"; and a pair of documentaries: "African Cats" (narrated by Samuel L. Jackson) and "POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold" from "Supersize Me!" director Morgan Spurlock.

Superman shortcomings explained by Singer

2011-04-18T07:12:00.000-07:00

By Sean O’ConnellHollywoodnews.com: Given the fact that I thoroughly enjoyed Bryan Singer’s “Superman Returns,” I find myself in the vast minority.

Even Singer, himself, has come out and said that the picture – a sensitive, respectful tribute to Richard Donner’s films first, and the Superman lore second – didn’t connect with the audience the way he had planned.

“I think that ‘Superman Returns’ was a bit nostalgic and romantic, and I don’t think that was what people were expecting, especially in the summer,” Singer said in an interview with VoicesFromKrypton.com.

“What I had noticed is that there weren’t a lot of women lining up to see a comic book movie, but they were going to line up to see ‘The Devil Wears Prada,’ which may have been something I wanted to address. But when you’re making a movie, you’re not thinking about that stuff, you’re thinking, ‘Wow, I want to make a romantic movie that harkens back to the Richard Donner movie that I loved so much.’ And that’s what I did.”

All of this matters because a new “Superman” is in development with Zack Snyder at the helm. Given the fact that Snyder helmed “300” and “Sucker Punch,” the latter being dismissed as misogynistic by many reviewers, I’m guessing the last thing we’ll see is a “romantic” Man of Steel.

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Photo courtesy of PRPhotos.com.

Game of Thrones: Will You Keep Watching?

2011-04-18T07:09:00.000-07:00

Sean Bean as Ned Stark in Game of Thornes

Helen Sloan/HBO

Sex, swords and political intrigue!

HBO debuted its new series Game of Thrones Sunday night and introduced TV audiences to Westeros, the complex and sprawling world created by A Song of Ice and Fire writer George R.R. Martin.

The first episode, "Winter Is Coming," introduces the various families who will struggle for the power of the iron throne: The Starks of Winterfell, King Robert Baratheon and Queen Cersei, her scheming brothers the Lannisters and the banished blonde Targaryens.

Ned Stark has been named the King's Hand, a job that requires him to "run my kingdom while I eat, drink, and whore my way to an early grave," Robert tells him. Such activities will take Ned away from his home, which lies between the seven kingdoms of Westeros and the untamed, spooky winter wastelands to the north.

Meanwhile, across the Narrow Sea, Viserys Targaryen hopes to reclaim the throne by marrying his sister Daenerys off to the nomadic tribal leader Khal Drogo. The alliance, he hopes, will allow him to have an army large enough to rival the king's.

We also learn that Queen Cersei Baratheon and her twin brother, Ser Jaime Lannister, have a very inappropriate relationship, which Stark's young son Bran discovers. In order to keep their secret, Lannister attempts to kill the boy but he survives, and the incident sets in motion one of the show's major plotlines.

If it all sounds confusing, it is! Game of Thrones is not easy to follow at first but keeping up with the characters, the dialogue and the twists and turns is half the fun.

There are 10 episodes – nine more to go – in the show's first season but potentially much more if HBO will want to continue to tell the epic story contained in Martin's series of fantasy books.

Cette prime de 1000 euros qui va faire pschiiit

2011-04-18T07:07:00.001-07:00

Les précisions successives des différents ministres vident de sa substance le projet initial d'une prime de 1000 euros accordée dans les entreprises qui versent des dividendes. Tour d'horizon des derniers revirements.

La ministre de l'Economie Christine Lagarde et le ministre du Budget Francois Baroin.

Reuters/Charles Platiau

Mercredi dernier, François Baroin glissait au micro d'Europe 1 son intention d'obliger les entreprises qui versent des dividendes à accorder à leurs salariés une prime d'"au moins 1000 euros". Depuis, les contours pour le moins flous de la mesure ont laissé toute latitude aux autres ministres pour réinterpréter l'idée à leur guise. Et rectifier progressivement le tir face à l'hostilité immédiate du patronat. Moins d'une semaine après, la "prime de 1000 euros" n'a plus grand chose à voir avec son concept d'origine.

Pas de montant obligatoire

Fini le nombre rond des 1000 euros. Arme de communication efficace, présenté comme un remède tout fait aux inquiétudes sur le pouvoir d'achat, il a surtout nourri la polémique et l'opposition du patronat. Christine Lagarde s'est donc chargée d'éteindre ce premier incendie. "Je ne pense pas qu'on puisse donner [à la prime] un caractère obligatoire dans son montant", a rectifié ce lundi sur LCI la ministre de l'Economie. Les 1000 euros ne seraient plus un seuil minimal mais le plafond jusqu'auquel l'Etat accordera des exonérations de charges. "Tout à fait rassurant", s'est aussitôt félicitée Laurence Parisot, la présidente du Medef, sur France Inter.

Une application négociée

Selon les dernières déclarations de Xavier Bertrand, il y aura bien, avant l'été, une loi pour rendre "obligatoire" l'octroi d'une prime liée aux versements des dividendes. Mais pour le ministre du Travail comme pour Christine Lagarde, ses modalités seront négociées dans chaque entreprise, et ce tant sur le montant que sur les modalités. De quoi relativiser fortement la contrainte pour les employeurs.

Une prime seulement quand les dividendes augmentent "Si les dividendes augmentent, il faut donc une prime pour les salariés", a aussi précisé Xavier Bertrand. Ce qui sous-entend que la prime ne sera exigée que pour des dividendes en hausse, principalement dans les grandes entreprises. Le montant des dividendes versées par les sociétés du CAC 40 pour l'exercice 2010 a par exemple augmenté de 13%, à 40 milliards d'euros. Cette dérogation est donc en contradiction avec l'objectif initial, qui était de de cibler toutes les entreprises qui versent des dividendes - qu'ils soient en hausse ou en baisse.
Une simple extension de l'intéressement ?

Xavier Bertrand imagine le nouveau dispositif comme une "prime directe", "d'intéressement" ou de "participation". Difficile alors de saisir ce qu'il apportera à ceux qui existent déjà. Toute entreprise, quels que soient sa taille et son statut, peut verser une prime d'intéressement à ses salariés pour leur faire profiter de ses bons résultats. La nouvelle mesure reviendrait donc d'une certaine façon à leur forcer la main.

Selon les derniers chiffres de la Dares, la branche "statistiques" du ministère des Affaires sociales, 36% des salariés recevaient déjà un intéressement en 2008, un nombre en hausse constante depuis 2000. Plus la taille de l'entreprise diminue, plus leur part chute aussi. Un autre intérêt de la prime pourrait donc être de pousser au développement de ces dispositifs dans les petites entreprises. Sauf que selon un rapport de l'Insee, seuls 16,4% des PME versent des dividendes. On est donc là encore loin d'un dispositif "le plus large possible" tel que l'annonçait le gouvernement.

...ou une généralisation de la participation ?

Autre outil qui permet déjà le partage des richesses, la prime de participation est obligatoirement versée aux salariés quand l'entreprise enregistre des bénéfices. Toutes sauf celles de moins de 50 salariés. Or Christine Lagarde a répété ce lundi que la nouvelle prime serait bien maintenue pour les TPE, malgré l'inquiétude du patronat qui craint qu'elles ne puissent en supporter le coût. Le dispositif ressemblerait alors fortement à la prime exceptionnelle d'au moins 1000 euros tentée en 2008 dans les entreprises non assujetties à l'obligation de versement de la participation. Sauf que là, ce montant serait un maximum.

Un public de plus en plus réduit Le critère du versement des dividendes limite le spectre de la nouvelle prime. "70% des entreprises en France ne distribuent pas de dividendes, donc on est en train de réfléchir à un dispositif pour 30% des entreprises. Ca peut faire, selon les années, entre 7 et 9 millions de salariés, c'est à dire à peu près la moitié", a estimé Laurence Parisot qui ne prenait pas en compte les suggestions de Xavier Bertrand - lesquelles aboutiraient à minorer encore ce chiffre. François Chérèque, secrétaire général de la CFDT, a lui évoqué "15, 20% des salariés". En tout, 7,6 millions de salariés reçoivent déjà une prime ou bénéficie d'une abondement de leur employeur à leur épargne, à 92% dans des entreprises de plus de 500 salariés.

Voting for AV would be a backward step, warns David Cameron

2011-04-18T07:04:00.001-07:00

David Cameron listens as John Reid speaks against the alternative vote system at a campaign event in London. Photograph: Oli Scarff/PA

David Cameron shared a stage with the former Labour cabinet minister John Reid and urged Britain not to take the "backward step" of voting for the "second rate" alternative vote system in the 5 May referendum.

Reid – who admitted that sharing a platform with the Conservative prime minister was unusual – claimed defence of the first past the post system transcended party politics.
He said the issue turned on the right of the British people to be treated equally in deciding their government.

The high-profile event staged by the No campaign coincided with a similar press conference staged by the Yes camp, which featured the Labour leader, Ed Miliband, and the Liberal Democrat business secretary, Vince Cable.

Miliband acknowledged that AV was not a "magic remedy or a magic cure", but added: "It can make for a more accountable politics, a fairer politics and a politics with a different culture".
The rival events represented an attempt to inject new life into a campaign that could have important consequences for all three major political parties.
Reid argued that AV gave some voters more votes than others, adding: "It would not only be wrong, but it would be an outrage to try and secure a change to the electoral system for tactical party advantage by usurping the right of our citizens to an equal vote.
"For there is, I have to say, a growing and well-founded suspicion that that is exactly – at least part – the aims of the Yes campaign. I include in that the leadership of the Lib Dems."
Reid said the Lib Dems were seeking narrow self-interest by proposing a system that would give their supporters more votes.
He said the party was, in effect, trying to sack the electorate by changing the rules of the game. But, he argued, a democracy it works the other way round – it is the electorate that is the master.
Reid complained that AV meant "the first votes to be counted twice are of the least popular candidate".
He said losers in politics should pick themselves up and get back in the game. "They don't expect gold medal for finishing second, third or fourth," he said.
The No campaign team appears increasingly confident that the momentum of the campaign is with them and, if turnout reaches well over 30% in the May 5 local elections, they will win.
They expect a low turnout in London of around 20%, the strongest area for the Yes campaign, because there are no local elections in the capital. But the Evening Standard has backed the No side.

In questions after his speech in London, Cameron insisted that, if he lost the referendum, he would expect Tory MPs not to throttle legislation bringing in the change through parliament.
He warned that AV would take away the "decisive" power voters have to kick out governments, claiming debates about AV could become too "scientific" but politics was about how you feel in your "gut".
"For me, politics shouldn't be some mind-bending exercise," he added. "It's about how you feel in your gut, about the values you hold dear and the beliefs that you instinctively have.
"And I feel in my gut that AV is wrong. There are three big problems with AV that strike at the heart of how I believe our democracy should work.
"First, I believe that power should lie with the people, and AV will take some of that power away. Second, I believe there should be real accountability between the pledges politicians put in their manifestos and the action they take in government. AV would damage that chain of accountability.
"Third, I believe in the principle of one person, one vote, and AV would mean the votes of some people get counted more than others."
AV, he said, was "obscure, unfair and expensive" and "could mean that people who come third in elections will end up winning".
"It will make our politics less accountable, and I believe it would be a backward step for our country," he said.
Despite his strong defence of first past the post, he acknowledged he planned to publish proposals after the referendum to introduce a proportional voting system for the election of the Lords, and would do so without a referendum.
He said the difference was that first past the post was right for the formation of governments and was not necessary for other elections such as the leaderships of political parties.
Coalitions were not in themselves desirable since because they loosened the link between the politician and his manifesto, he added.

The prime minister distanced himself from attacks on the Liberal Democrat leader, Nick Clegg, by the No campaign and denied he was scaremongering.

"I don't run the No campaign, I run the Conservative No campaign," he said. "I certainly don't condone any personal attacks on anyone in this campaign."
He admitted, however, that many voters had so far shown little interest in the debate about voting reform.
"There is a problem out there which is that, I think, millions of people in our country aren't engaged in this debate or this argument at all," he said.
"It is up to us on the Yes and No side to fire people up and say this matters, and is about what sort of democracy we are." Reid also warned of a the possibility of a low turn-out.

Social environment linked to gay teen suicide risk

2011-04-18T05:47:00.001-07:00

(Reuters Health) - Lesbian, gay and bisexual teens are five times more likely to attempt suicide than their heterosexual peers - but those living in a supportive community might be a little better off, according to a new study.
The findings, published online today in Pediatrics, showed that lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) teens living in counties with a high proportion of gay and lesbian couples, and those who went to schools with gay-straight alliances and anti-discrimination policies, were less likely to attempt suicide than LGB teens living in less accepting environments.
The finding is "a call to action in providing a roadmap for how we can begin to reduce suicide in LGB youth," Mark Hatzenbuehler, the study's author from Columbia University in New York, told Reuters Health.
He said that while previous studies have shown that LGB teens are more likely to attempt suicide, those studies haven't been able to determine why exactly that's the case.
Hatzenbuehler used data from 3 years of health surveys given to teens in Oregon. The data covered more than 30,000 high school students across the state, all surveyed during 11th grade.
Teens answered questions about depression, alcohol use, and relationships with their peers and family, as well as their sexuality.
To evaluate teens' social environments, Hatzenbuehler gave each of the 34 counties where survey participants lived a score based on the proportion of same-sex couples living there, the county's percentage of registered Democrats, and the proportion of schools in the area that had gay-straight alliances and anti-discrimination and anti-bullying policies.
About 1400 -- or between 4 and 5 percent -- of teens surveyed identified themselves as being gay, lesbian, or bisexual.
Of those students, almost 22 kids out of every hundred said they had attempted suicide in the past year. That compared to about 4 of every hundred teens who identified as straight and said they had attempted suicide.
Suicide attempts were more common in LGB teens who reported being depressed and binge drinking, as well as those who had been victimized by their peers or physically abused by an adult.
But even accounting for all those factors, teens' social environment made a difference too. Those who lived in counties that scored poorly on measures of social environment were about 20 percent more likely to have attempted suicide than teens from high-scoring social environments.
"That challenges the myth that there's something inherent to being gay that puts (LGB teens) at risk for suicide attempts," Hatzenbuehler said.
The findings show that by making a few concrete changes to their policies, schools can improve the community for their LGB students and perhaps cut down on attempted suicides as well, Hatzenbuehler said.
Dr. Ritch Savin-Williams, a psychologist from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, questioned the notion that LGB youth are more likely to attempt suicide at all, and said the issue is more controversial than this study suggests.
He said that while LGB youth report suicide attempts more often than straight youth, their idea of a suicide attempt may be skewed. "We have given them the message that they are suicidal," Savin-Williams, who wasn't involved in the study, told Reuters Health.

One year after spill, where's the oil?

2011-04-18T05:45:00.000-07:00

One year ago this week, an oil-rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico touched off a deep-sea leak amounting to 2.5 million gallons of Louisiana light crude every day for months. In all, nearly 207 million gallons (4.9 million barrels) of oil are thought to have gushed from the leak, along with huge volumes of methane. So what's happened to all those petrochemicals over the past year? The answer is surprisingly complex and contentious.
Or maybe it shouldn't be so surprising. After all, the task requires figuring out what effect Mother Nature and millions of gallons of dispersants had on the plumes of oil and gas, as much as a mile beneath the sea's surface. What's more, the question carries policy implications: BP and the other companies that operated the well would have an interest in downplaying the spill's long-term legacy, while that's exactly the issue that BP's critics want to highlight.

The legal implications could also be huge. Scientists already are finding that their studies are being impeded by civil and criminal investigations into the spill and its effect. For instance, researchers looking into a spate of dolphin deaths that may be linked to oil-fouled seas were told by the National Marine Fisheries Service to keep mum about their findings. "Because of the seriousness of the legal case, no data or findings may be released, presented or discussed outside the UME [unusual mortality event] investigative team without prior approval," the agency told scientists in a letter.
Even the federal government's assessment of what happened to the oil, released last August and updated in November, has been widely criticized by experts who think it downplays the seriousness of the spill's impact. Georgia Tech biologist Joseph Montoya complained last year that the federal government's estimates "always seemed to be biased to the best case."
But here are a few statements that everyone can agree with: Some of the oil evaporated, some was gobbled up by microbes, some was burned, some washed up onto shore, some is still washing up as tar balls, some was dispersed in the sea, and some settled to the bottom of the ocean.
Most researchers also agree that the spill was a catastrophe, no matter how the percentages for those various categories add up. "This was an ecological disaster, no doubt about it," Terry Hazen, a microbial ecologist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, told me.
Can Mother Nature clean it up?
A study led by Hazen and published in the journal Science last August lines up on one side of the oil-spill controversy: He and his colleagues reported that a newly identified bacterial strain was digesting the oil at a faster-than-expected rate. "We took 170 samples from where the plume was and couldn't detect any oil in the water column," Hazen said. The researchers also saw no sign of oxygen depletion, which often arises as the result of microbial blooms.

Hazen said only 6 percent of his team's deep-sea core samples contained oil contamination that could be associated with the spill. Additional oil washed up on shorelines and sank into the soil, Hazen said, but he said it may be riskier to do "aggressive treatment" of that soil than to leave it alone.

"Nature does a pretty good job of cleaning herself up, and we shouldn't be mucking things up unless we know what we're doing," Hazen said.
He said that 400,000 barrels' worth of oil (1.7 million gallons) leaks into the Gulf of Mexico from natural seeps every year, and that the Gulf's ecosystem has evolved to handle such natural contamination. "This has been going on for millions of years, literally," he said. "The bacteria that degrade oil are naturally adapted to degrade this oil. They do it quite well."
Mucked up at the bottom of the seaStudies conducted by the University of Georgia's Samantha Joye and her colleagues tell a different tale: During diving expeditions on the Alvin submersible vessel, they found that areas of the seafloor around the spill site were covered with an oily muck and littered with dead organisms.
So how does Joye answer the "where's the oil" question? "A lot of it's on the bottom, and it's on the bottom all over the place," she told me. "The question is, how long does it stay on the bottom?"
Joye said her findings don't really contradict Hazen's. She stressed that the results from his team on microbial digestion were based on the degradation of a particular component of the oil known as alkane, in a particular zone of the Gulf waters. "His results were based on the deep-water plume, and some people have extrapolated that to the entire oil spill," she said. "And I think that's inappropriate."
She said the Deepwater Horizon blowout of 60,000 barrels a day dwarfed the natural seepage of 500 to 1,000 barrels a day, and doubted that "magic microbes" could have made much of a dent in last year's spillage.
Hazen acknowledged that the area around the spill site is all mucked up, but says his analysis of core samples led him to a different conclusion. He pointed out that during one phase of the response to the spill, millions of gallons of heavy drilling mud were pumped down into the well in an unsuccessful attempt to perform a "top kill" and stop the leak.
"We can see the oil there, but we can also see aluminates and silicates and clay," he told me. "What we're seeing in that layer close to the wellhead is oil that was trapped in the drilling mud."
The bottom line
For now, the best that Hazen, Joye and other researchers can do is agree with the federal government's estimate that roughly a quarter of the oil that leaked from the Deepwater Horizon well was captured or burned at the surface, and then keep trying to track down what happened to the other three-quarters. The federal estimate suggests that a little more than half of the oil has dispersed, evaporated or dissolved. That would leave a little less than a quarter as "residual" oil — that is, oil that looks like oil.

Joye thinks the federal estimate is too optimistic. "The majority of that stuff is still in the system and on the seabed," she said. But gathering the evidence to back up that view will take months or years — which is generally the way it works in science, especially when what you're studying is a mile deep.
"We have to evaluate and very carefully monitor the system to see how long it takes to recover," Joye told me, "because I don't think we can even begin to predict the recovery trajectory at this point."
How quickly will the Gulf recover? What do you think? Feel free to weigh in below with your comments as well as your pointers to other perspectives.
Extra credit: Last August's report from the U.S. Geological Survey and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration estimated that nearly 207 million gallons of oil leaked from the broken well, with nearly 35 million gallons' worth collected by a temporary containment cap. That implies that a little more than 172 million gallons actually leaked into the Gulf. Caveat: The federal report says there's a 10 percent uncertainty factor to its numbers, and as I've tried to make clear above, some researchers don't trust the federal figures

Violence Mars Nigerian Vote Count .

2011-04-18T05:42:00.000-07:00

ABUJA, Nigeria—As incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan closed in on an election victory Monday, groups of young men rioted in several northern Nigerian cities, burning tires, houses and a church in an apparent protest of the voting results.
The Nigerian security forces used batons and fired in the air to suppress the riots, according to witnesses. Although there were no immediate reports of casualties or injuries, the clashes in the northern cities of Kaduna, Kano and Zaria threaten to undermine what was largely a peaceful presidential election on Saturday.
"The situation has really degenerated," said Kaduna-based Nafiu Baba-Ahmed, the head of the Supreme Council for Sharia in Nigeria. "There is a complete breakdown of law and order in some parts."
On Monday, the governor of Kaduna state declared an immediate 24-hour curfew "in order to protect the lives and properties of all citizens of our dear state," according to a statement from the governor's office. Kaduna is the home state of current Nigerian Vice President Namadi Sambo.
Final results were expected later Monday, but Mr. Jonathan appears to have built an unassailable lead. Mr. Jonathan has won about 60% of the votes counted so far. His closest rival, former military ruler Muhammadu Buhari, has collected about 28% of the tallied votes so far. Local and international observers have deemed the vote the most credible Nigerian election in decades.
Still, the clashes offer a worrying sign of Nigeria's volatile political environment that some fear could undermine economic growth and scare off investors. In the past two months, nearly 100 people have been killed and millions of dollars of property damaged in campaign-related violence, according to New York-based Human Rights Watch and Nigerian political parties. Meanwhile, more than 1,000 people have been killed in clashes between Christians and Muslims in central and northern Nigeria over the past two years, according to rights groups.
The clashes appear to be a reaction to the impending loss of Mr. Buhari, who has widespread popular support in his native, mostly Muslim northern Nigeria. Mr. Jonathan is from the southern part of the country and is a Christian.

Syria protesters killed in Homs

2011-04-18T05:39:00.001-07:00

Syrian security forces have killed at least 13 pro-democracy protesters in the city of Homs, rights activists told the AFP news agency.
The killings on Sunday night come as demonstrations calling for the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad continue across the country.
Al Jazeera's correspondent Rula Amin, in Damascus, reported that the situation in Homs is very tense and "people are complaining that many of the wounded are not going to the hospital, they fear that the security forces will pick them up from their hospital bed.

"There is also a shortage of blood according to the people we have been talking to."

Funerals for the victims were planned following noon prayers on Monday in Al-Nour mosque, "but people are concerned that clashes might erupt following the processions," our correspondent said.

She also added that there is tension in the town of Talbiseh near Homs. "The government says that gunmen have been going near the highway blocking the road.

"When security forces went to control the situation they were attacked by gunmen, one policeman was killed and another one injured, and three gunmen killed," she said.

Outside forces blamed

Al Jazeera's correspondent says the government and the opposition are trading blames over the escalated tensions and the deadly clashes.

"The stories between the government and the protesters vary. It is very hard to get information from there because there are no journalists there to verify what is happening," she said.
The latest clashes came two days after the Syrian president said the country's decades-long emergency laws would be lifted within a week and also promised a number of other reforms.

Activists had called for protests across Syria on Sunday, which was Syria's Independence Day, commemorating the departure of the last French soldier 65 years ago.

The Damascus Declaration, an opposition umbrella group, called for peaceful protests in all Syrian cities and abroad to "bolster Syria's popular uprising and ensure its continuity".

In a statement posted on its website, the Damascus Declaration said the government was responsible for killing and wounding hundreds of Syrians who have been exercising their legitimate rights in the past month.

"The regime alone stands fully responsible for the blood of martyrs and all that will happen next in the country,'' the statement said.

Citigroup Posts $3 Billion First-Quarter Net on Reserve Release

2011-04-18T05:38:00.000-07:00

April 18 (Bloomberg) -- Citigroup Inc., the third-largest U.S. bank, reported a 32 percent drop in first-quarter earnings, a smaller decline than analysts estimated, as the bank reduced reserves for future losses and earnings from consumer banking increased.

Net income was $3 billion, or 10 cents a share, compared with $4.43 billion, or 15 cents, in the same period last year, the New York-based company said today in a statement. Twenty-one analysts surveyed by Bloomberg estimated per-share earnings of 9 cents.

Chief Executive Officer Vikram Pandit, 54, who was in charge when Citigroup lost a total of $29.3 billion in 2008 and 2009, has now presided over five straight profitable quarters since the end of the financial crisis. The rebound enabled Pandit, 54, to reinstate a 1-cent dividend starting next month, and analysts surveyed by Bloomberg estimate the bank will post $9.85 billion in adjusted profit for the rest of the year.

“After five quarters, you have to start giving management credit,” said David Knutson, a credit analyst with Legal & General Investment Management, which oversees about $85 million of Citigroup bonds. “These guys have put up a fairly respectable record of turning this institution around. As much as I was suspicious of their ability to do it, they’ve kept it together.”

Citigroup, the biggest recipient of U.S. taxpayer bailout support, announced the new dividend last month with a planned 1- for-10 reverse stock split. The company hasn’t paid a dividend since 2009.

Share Performance

Shares of the bank, which rose 43 percent last year after three consecutive annual declines, fell 6.6 percent this year through April 15 on the New York Stock Exchange.

The company has been relying on foreign consumer banking to make up for a slump in U.S. business. Citigroup may invest as much as $4 billion in consumer banking in the next three years, mainly in emerging markets, Manuel Medina-Mora, head of consumer banking for the Americas, told reporters in Santiago in March.

In Latin America, Chile, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico and Peru are attractive growth markets, while Panama is also “advancing very well,” Medina-Mora said.

Pandit is also targeting developing countries like China, which overtook Japan last year as the second-largest economy after growing almost fourfold during the past decade.

Bank of America Corp., the largest U.S. bank by assets, last week reported a $2.05 billion profit for the first quarter, while JPMorgan Chase & Co., the second-largest bank, made $5.56 billion. Wells Fargo & Co., the fourth-largest bank, may report a $3.66 billion profit on April 20, according to a Bloomberg survey of 18 analysts.

New studios create content for YouTube

2011-04-18T05:29:00.001-07:00

CULVER CITY, Calif. -- The film set was professional, even if the actors kept messing up the scene by laughing at the star, who was flailing in front of a green screen, pretending to be eaten alive.

"We need it clean," the sound man shouted. They shot it yet again, the actors holding back their hysterics until the cameras were off.

The scene, an episode of a sketch comedy show called "AsKassem," was destined not for theaters or TV, but for YouTube. But with the green screen, film crew, actors and expensive cameras and lights, it went far beyond the typical one-man YouTube videos filmed in a basement with a webcam.

It was produced by Maker Studios, one of several production houses that have sprung up to help create and distribute videos for the Web. Financed by venture capitalists and grants from Google's (GOOG) YouTube, these studios are trying to play the same role for the online video service that United Artists did almost a century ago for movies or MTV did for television in the 1980s.

"These are new-generation studios, folks that are growing up from the basement who are choosing to collaborate and form these networks," said Hunter Walk, head of product management at YouTube, which is owned by Google. "In many ways they are like the first cable stations 30 years ago." Maker

Studios' videos, for instance, have almost as many daily viewers as Nickelodeon.

It is a major shift in Google's strategy for YouTube. Google is taking a much greater role in aiding the creation of original content for the site by nurturing these studios because betting on professional content from established movie and TV studios has not panned out.

YouTube sorely needs more high-quality content to compete with video-streaming services like Netflix (NFLX) and Hulu for both viewers and advertisers.

"YouTube counts for the largest share of people's home video-watching, but once people start watching that professional content on Hulu or Netflix, it quickly expands to become the predominant viewing and takes time away from YouTube," said James L. McQuivey, a digital media analyst at Forrester Research.

Some YouTube video creators have been making money, in some cases lots of it, for a couple years. But as the site has exploded -- 35 hours of video are now uploaded every minute, according to YouTube -- it can be difficult for video creators to build regularly viewed channels, not just one-hit viral wonders.

The startup production companies -- including Maker, Machinima, Mahalo, Vuguru and Next New Networks, which YouTube recently bought -- try to help them. The studios are near but still outside the boundaries of Hollywood, both geographically and in the work they do.

They generally pluck talented video creators and help them make videos by providing the costumes, cameras and paychecks needed to make a more professional-looking video. They help build viewership with strategies like linking to their videos from other popular ones in the same network. YouTube sells ads and shares the revenue with the companies and creators.

Kassem Gharaibeh, the creator of "AsKassem," was working as at a Best Buy and doing stand-up on the weekends to crowds of 15 people at Chinese restaurants when he met the founders of Maker Studios. They paid him $1,000 a month, enough to pay his rent so he could quit his job and devote his time to posting videos more than once every three weeks.

Two of Maker's founders and well-known actors, Lisa Donovan and Shay Butler, known on YouTube as LisaNova and ShayCarl, appeared in his videos, introducing him to their audience. He gained access to editors and a camera crew, a house to shoot in (or sleep in), and closets overflowing with turquoise wigs and fake diamond crowns.

In a year, his YouTube audience ballooned from 50,000 to 1.3 million. "I honestly don't think I would have been able to reach those numbers myself," said Gharaibeh, who goes by KassemG on YouTube.

Tornado Aftermath: Midwest, South Cleans Up After Series of Twisters

2011-04-18T05:27:00.000-07:00

More than 243 twisters have caused extensive damage from Oklahoma to Virginia since Thursday. Parts of the Midwest and the South were hit by flash floods and hail.
Roofs were torn off and power was knocked out throughout the region as the string of twisters tore through Oklahoma, Arkansas and into the south. In North Carolina, which received the brunt of destruction, as many as 60 twisters were spotted -- the state's worst outbreak in more than 25 years.
North Carolina Gov. Beverly Perdue toured areas devastated by Saturday's historic tornadoes and declared a state of emergency to get federal assistance. "I was truly sad, almost to the point of being tearful at times, to talk to the people," she said.

Baby Survives Twister

In another survival story, a 3-month-old baby survived after a tornado destroyed the family's Dunn, N.C., home. The baby was being taken care of by his cousin Jonathan Robinson when the tornado started ripping apart his home.

"While I'm running to the closet, I hear nothing but glass shatter. So I grab him and I hold him, I cover him up to keep from stuff falling on him and the next thing you know the whole back side of my trailer came down," said Robinson.
Robinson held onto Ayden as tightly as he could but it wasn't enough.
"The wind just took him straight out of my arms," Robinson said.
After the tornado passed, Robinson later found Ayden lying on top of some wood crying; the infant was taken to the hospital with minor injuries.
In Raleigh, N.C., Donald Freeman was at work Saturday when a tornado slammed into downtown Raleigh. When the storm died down, he started to walk home and couldn't believe the damage he saw in a park
"I was devastated at what I saw. Tents was turned upside down, trees split in half. And as I'm walking down the street I'm thinking about my home," said Freeman.
But through all this destruction, stories of narrow escapes and outpouring of support among neighbors have emerged.

Amazing Escapes in North Carolina

Authorities say a manager's quick thinking helped save nearly 100 lives at a Lowe's store in North Carolina. The twister that hit the store measured EF3 - which has a maximum speed of 160 miles per hour.
"Luckily we got everybody to the back before it hit us but as it was hitting us, we were kind of running and the roof was kind of peeling off," Michael Hollowell, the manager of the Lowe's in Sanford, N.C., told ABC News Radio.
About 70 employees and customers screamed at the same time when a tornado ripped off the store's roof.