Judge throws out lawsuit against Britney Spears and parents

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – A Los Angeles judge on Thursday dismissed a lawsuit by the one-time confidante of pop star Britney Spears, ruling there was insufficient evidence to go forward with the trial on allegations of defamation, assault and breach of contract.

“I really thought long and hard. It’s the right thing to do, so I am going to do it,” Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Suzanne Bruguera said, announcing her decision to throw out the case after hearing two weeks of evidence in the civil trial.

Bruguera’s ruling was a major victory for Spears and her family, despite damaging and sometimes humiliating testimony that lifted the lid on the singer’s controversial career and personal meltdown five years ago.

Sam Lutfi, the self-styled manager of the pop star for a brief period in 2007 and early 2008, had sued Spears’ mother, Lynne Spears, for defaming him in her 2008 book “Through the Storm.” Lynne Spears wrote that Lutfi controlled her daughter, cut her telephone lines and tried to cut the star off from her family.

Bruguera also dismissed claims filed by Lutfi against Spears. He said the singer hired him as her manager after they met in a nightclub in 2007, and he was entitled to a portion of her earnings.

Lutfi case against Spears’ father, Jamie Spears, was also thrown out. Lutfi alleged that Jamie Spears punched him in 2008 while the singer was in a Los Angeles psychiatric ward.

Lutfi, 38, said he would appeal the ruling.

Spears, 30, has since staged a comeback with world tours, hit albums and a new job as judge on Fox’s TV talent show “The X-Factor.” She did not attend the trial.

In testimony last week, Lutfi sobbed on the witness stand, saying he received death threats because of the villainous portrayal of him in the book. He also claimed he tried to get Spears off drugs and protect her from paparazzi photographers who hounded her day and night.

His most sensational claim was that Spears shaved her head in February 2007 because she feared her hair could be tested for drug use in her bitter child custody battle with ex-husband Kevin Federline.

Lutfi also told the court that he brought drug-sniffing dogs to her home and flushed a bag of white powder down the toilet.

Jamie Spears’ attorney told the court that his client was afraid that his daughter would die from drug abuse and believed that Lutfi was making her problems worse.

Lynne Spears testified that Lutfi crushed up drugs and put them into the singer’s food to help her sleep.

Spears’ meltdown led to her father’s conservatorship, which gives him legal control over her finances and health.

(Editing by Jill Serjeant and Stacey Joyce)

Music News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Many HIV patients skip medications to drink: study

(Reuters) – About half of HIV patients on antiretroviral therapy skipped their medications whenever they were drinking alcohol, according to a U.S. study – an ill-advised behavior that researchers say could lead to higher viral loads.

The study, published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, for a year followed nearly 200 people with HIV who were on antiretrovirals and drank alcohol. It found that 51 percent stopped taking their medications while drinking.

Lapses could be due to forgetfulness while under the influence, but a widespread – and erroneous – belief that mixing alcohol and HIV drugs can be toxic appears to play a role.

“The harms caused by missing their medications far outweigh the harms caused by mixing the two, if the person doesn’t have liver disease,” said Seth Kalichman, a professor at the University of Connecticut and lead author of the study.

Drinking has been known to interfere with people’s adherence to their medications, but researchers said the consequences of inconsistent use of HIV medications can be more severe.

Antiretroviral drugs suppress the HIV virus, and patients must take the medications continuously to prevent the virus from surging. Additionally, going on and off the drugs can lead to drug resistance.

“People living with HIV who deliberately stop their medications when they are drinking are at risk for treatment failure,” the researchers wrote.

Kalichman and his colleagues surveyed 178 people – about four out of five of them men – who were currently using antiretroviral therapy and reported that they drank alcohol.

At the beginning of the study, the researchers asked the participants about their alcohol-related beliefs, such as whether they thought their drugs wouldn’t work as well if the two mixed. They also asked whether people would not take both at the same time, either by avoiding alcohol or the medicines.

Over the following year, the team checked in with patients every month to see how well they were sticking to their prescriptions through a pill count, and every other month they called to ask how often the patient had been drinking recently.

Doctors’ offices measured each patient’s level of virus and measures of immune system health.

They found that 51 percent of the patients would avoid the medications when they drank, and half of the people in this group had poor adherence to their prescriptions. In addition, half of the group that skipped pills said they wouldn’t take them again until the alcohol was out of their system.

People who skipped medications while drinking were also more likely to have higher levels of HIV in their bodies and lower numbers of CD4 cells, a measure of immune system health.

“I think it’s pretty well demonstrated that alcohol use is tied to poor adherence, and I think most people think it’s because they’re impaired in some way or they forget… whereas here it shows they’re (often) intentionally missing their medications,” said Catherine Grodensky, a researcher at the Center for AIDS Research at the University of North Carolina.

“And it looks like it’s having some significant impacts on their treatment.”

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/SmCjq9

(Reporting from New York by Kerry Grens at Reuters Health; editing by Elaine Lies)

Sexual Health News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Fuel scarce as East Coast struggles to recover

NEW YORK/SEASIDE HEIGHTS, New Jersey (Reuters) - Rescuers searched flooded homes for survivors, drivers lined up for hours to get scarce gasoline and millions remained without power on Thursday as New York City and nearby towns struggled to recover from one of the biggest storms to hit the United States.

New York subway trains crawled back to limited service after being shut down since Sunday, but the lower half of Manhattan still lacked power and surrounding areas such as Staten Island, the New Jersey shore and the city of Hoboken remained crippled from a record storm surge and flooding.

At least 95 people died in the "superstorm" that ravaged the Northeastern United States on Monday. Officials said the number could rise as rescuers searched house-by-house in coastal towns.

"I worked all my life, and everything I had is right there," said Bob Stewart, 59, standing on the Jersey Shore beach in the town of Seaside Heights and looking at the pile of debris that was once his home. "I put my life right there."

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie said on Thursday that nearly a 1,000 people had been rescued by authorities.

In blackened New York City neighborhoods, some residents complained there was a lack of police and feared an increase in crime. Some were also concerned about traffic safety. New York police officials were not immediately available to comment.

"People feel safe during the day but as soon as the sun sets, people are extremely scared. The fact that Guardian Angels are on the streets trying to restore law just shows how out of control the situation is in lower Manhattan," said Wolfgang Ban, owner of Edi & The Wolf restaurant in Manhattan's Alphabet City neighborhood.

The Guardian Angels are a group of anti-crime volunteers.

More than 15 people in the borough of Queens were charged with looting, and a man was charged on Thursday with threatening another driver with a gun after he tried to cut in on a line of cars waiting for gas, Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said.

The financial cost of the storm promised to be staggering. Disaster modeling company Eqecat estimated Sandy caused up to $20 billion in insured losses and $50 billion in economic losses, double its previous forecast.

At the high end of the range, Sandy would rank as the fourth costliest U.S. catastrophe ever, according to the Insurance Information Institute, behind Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the September 11, 2001, attacks and Hurricane Andrew in 1992.

POWER OUT, GAS SHORTAGE

The presidential campaign was back in full swing on Thursday after being on hold for several days because of the storm. President Barack Obama, locked in a tight race with Republican challenger Mitt Romney head of next Tuesday's election, appeared to gain politically from his disaster relief performance.

Christie, a vocal Romney supporter, praised Obama, and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a political independent, endorsed Obama on Thursday.

In New York, U.N. headquarters suffered severe damage and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon offered recovery help to the United States and Caribbean nations affected by the storm.

The hunt for gasoline added to a climate of uncertainty as Sandy's death toll and price tag rose.

"I'm so stressed out," said Jessica Bajno, 29, a teacher from Elmont, Long Island, who was waiting in line for gas. "I've been driving around to nearby towns all morning, and being careful about not running out of gas in the process. Everything is closed. I'm feeling anxious."

Some residents may lack electricity for weeks. New York utility Consolidated Edison restored power to 250,000 customers, with 650,000 others still in the dark.

The vast majority will be restored by the weekend of November 10-11, but "the remaining customer restorations could take an additional week or more," the company said.

Advertising creative director Chris Swift, 37, lost power in his apartment in Manhattan's Chelsea district on Monday and by Thursday he was so fed up he got on a bus to Boston.

"I tried 20 (New York City) hotels on foot as couldn't call them with no battery left on my phone, but they were all booked. I tried to get to (friends in) Brooklyn but cabs would not take me as they we're running out gas," he said.

About 4.6 million homes and businesses in 15 U.S. states were without power on Thursday, down from a record high of nearly 8.5 million.

More deaths were recorded overnight in the New York borough of Staten Island, where authorities recovered 17 bodies after the storm lifted whole houses off their foundations. Among the dead were two boys, aged 4 and 2, who were swept from their mother's arms by the floodwaters, police said.

In all, 39 people died in New York City, officials said.

"It was like living through Titanic but on ground," said Krystina Berrios, 25, of Staten Island, looking at her bedroom caked in mud, furniture upended. "You would never think in a million years having to live through something like this."

JERSEY SHORE FLOORED

Sandy started as a late-season hurricane in the Caribbean, where it killed 69 people, before smashing ashore in the United States with 80-mile-per-hour (130-kph) winds. It stretched from the Carolinas to Connecticut and was the largest storm by area to hit the United States in decades.

In New Jersey, where entire neighborhoods in oceanside towns were swallowed by seawater and the Atlantic City boardwalk was destroyed, the death toll rose to 13.

Floodwaters receded from the streets of Hoboken, New Jersey, across the Hudson River from Manhattan, leaving behind a smelly mess of submerged basements and cars littering the sidewalks.

"The water was rushing in. It was like a river coming," said Benedicte Lenoble, a photo researcher from Hoboken. "Now it's a mess everywhere. There's no power. The stores aren't open. Recovery? I don't know."

New Jersey natives Bruce Springsteen and Jon Bon Jovi will headline a benefit concert for storm victims Friday on NBC television, the network announced.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency agreed to cover 100 percent of emergency power and public transportation costs through November 9 for affected areas of New York and New Jersey, up from the traditional share of 75 percent.

More than 36,000 disaster survivors from New York, New Jersey and Connecticut have applied for federal disaster assistance and more than $3.4 million in direct assistance has already been approved, White House spokesman Jay Carney said.

The Pentagon was airlifting power restoration experts and trucks from California to New York to assist millions of people still living in darkness.

Fuel supplies into New York and New Jersey were hit by idled refineries, a closed New York Harbor, damages to import terminals, and a closed oil pipeline.

The scarcity of fuel, electricity and supplies made cleanup more daunting for barrier towns.

Seaside Heights residents who obeyed the mandatory evacuation order were cut off from their homes. The entire community was submerged by the storm surge, which washed over the island and into the bay that separates it from the mainland.

Chris Delman, 30, saw a photograph of his house in a local newspaper on Wednesday. It was still standing.

"We ain't living in Seaside no more, that's obvious," Delman said. "I just want to know what I have left."

(Additional reporting by Reuters bureaus throughout the U.S. Northeast; Writing by Daniel Trotta and Michelle Nichols; Editing by Jim Loney and Peter Cooney)

Read More..

Clinton calls for overhaul of Syrian opposition

ZAGREB (Reuters) – The United States called on Wednesday for an overhaul of Syria‘s opposition leadership, saying it was time to move beyond the Syrian National Council and bring in those “in the front lines fighting and dying”.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, signaling a more active stance by Washington in attempts to form a credible political opposition to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, said a meeting next week in Qatar would be an opportunity to broaden the coalition against him.

“This cannot be an opposition represented by people who have many good attributes but who, in many instances, have not been inside Syria for 20, 30, 40 years,” she said during a visit to Croatia.

“There has to be a representation of those who are in the front lines fighting and dying today to obtain their freedom.”

Clinton’s comments represented a clear break with the Syrian National Council (SNC), a largely foreign-based group which has been among the most vocal proponents of international intervention in the Syrian conflict.

U.S. officials have privately expressed frustration with the SNC’s inability to come together with a coherent plan and with its lack of traction with the disparate internal groups which have waged the 19-month uprising against Assad’s government.

Senior members of the SNC, Free Syrian Army (FSA) and other rebel groups ended a meeting in Turkey on Wednesday and pledged to unite behind a transitional government in coming months.

“It’s been our divisions that have allowed the Assad forces to reach this point,” Ammar al-Wawi, a rebel commander, told Reuters after the talks outside Istanbul.

“We are united on toppling Assad. Everyone, including all the rebels, will gather under the transitional government.”

Mohammad Al-Haj Ali, a senior Syrian military defector, told a news conference after the meeting: “We are still facing some difficulties between the politicians and different opposition groups and the leaders of the Free Syrian Army on the ground.”

Clinton said it was important that the next rulers of Syria were both inclusive and committed to rejecting extremism.

“There needs to be an opposition that can speak to every segment and every geographic part of Syria. And we also need an opposition that will be on record strongly resisting the efforts by extremists to hijack the Syrian revolution,” she said.

Syria’s revolt has killed an estimated 32,000. A bomb near a Shi’ite shrine in a suburb of Damascus killed at least six more people on Wednesday, state media and opposition activists said.

NEW LEADERSHIP

The meeting next week in Qatar’s capital Doha represents a chance to forge a new leadership, Clinton said, adding the United States had helped to “smuggle out” representatives of internal Syrian opposition groups to a meeting in New York last month to argue their case for inclusion.

“We have recommended names and organizations that we believe should be included in any leadership structure,” she told a news conference.

“We’ve made it clear that the SNC can no longer be viewed as the visible leader of the opposition. They can be part of a larger opposition, but that opposition must include people from inside Syria and others who have a legitimate voice which must be heard.”

The United States and its allies have struggled for months to craft a credible opposition coalition.

U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration has said it is not providing arms to internal opponents of Assad and is limiting its aid to non-lethal humanitarian assistance.

It concedes, however, that some of its allies are providing lethal assistance – a fact that Assad’s chief backer Russia says shows western powers are intent on determining Syria’s future.

Russia and China have blocked three U.N. Security Council resolutions aimed at increasing pressure on the Assad government, leading the United States and its allies to say they could move beyond U.N. structures for their next steps.

Clinton said she regretted but was not surprised by the failure of the latest attempted ceasefire, called by international mediator Lakhdar Brahimi last Friday. Each side blamed the other for breaking the truce.

“The Assad regime did not suspend its use of advanced weaponry against the Syrian people for even one day,” she said.

“While we urge Special Envoy Brahimi to do whatever he can in Moscow and Beijing to convince them to change course and support a stronger U.N. action we cannot and will not wait for that.”

Clinton said the United States would continue to work with partners to increase sanctions on the Assad government and provide humanitarian assistance to those hit by the conflict.

(Additional reporting by Ayla Jean Yackley; editing by Andrew Roche)

World News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Apple's Cook fields his A-team before a wary Street

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Apple Inc Chief Executive Tim Cook's new go-to management team of mostly familiar faces failed to drum up much excitement on Wall Street, driving its shares to a three-month low on Wednesday.

The world's most valuable technology company, which had faced questions about a visionary-leadership vacuum following the death of Steve Jobs, on Monday stunned investors by announcing the ouster of chief mobile software architect Scott Forstall and retail chief John Browett -- the latter after six months on the job.

Cook gave most of Forstall's responsibilities to Macintosh software chief Craig Federighi, while some parts of the job went to Internet chief Eddy Cue and celebrated designer Jony Ive.

But the loss of the 15-year veteran and Jobs's confidant Forstall, and resurgent talk about internal conflicts, exacerbated uncertainty over whether Cook and his lieutenants have what it takes to devise and market the next ground-breaking, industry-disrupting product.

Apple shares ended the day down 1.4 percent at 595.32. They have shed a tenth of their value this month -- the biggest monthly loss since late 2008, and have headed south since touching an all-time high of $705 in September.

For investors, the management upheaval from a company that usually excels at delivering positive surprises represents the latest reason for unease about the future of a company now more valuable than almost any other company in the world.

Apple undershot analysts targets in its fiscal third quarter, the second straight disappointment. Its latest Maps software was met with widespread frustration and ridicule over glaring mistakes. Sources told Reuters that Forstall and Cook disagreed over the need to publicly apologize for its maps service embarrassment.

And this month, Apple entered the small-tablet market with its iPad mini, lagging Amazon.com Inc and Google Inc despite pioneering the tablet market in 2010.

Investor concerns now center around the demand, availability and profitability of new products, including the iPad mini set to hit stores on Friday.

"The sudden departure of Scott Forstall doesn't help," said Shaw Wu, an analyst with Sterne Agee. "Now there's some uncertainty in the management."

"There appears to be some infighting, post-Steve Jobs, and looks like Cook is putting his foot down and unifying the troops."

Apple declined to comment beyond Monday's announcement.

Against that backdrop, Cook's inner circle has some convincing to do. In the wake of Forstall's exit, iTunes maestro Eddy Cue -- dubbed "Mr Fixit", the sources say -- gets his second promotion in a year, taking on an expanded portfolio of all online services, including Siri and Maps.

The affable executive with a tough negotiating streak who, according to documents revealed in court, lobbied Jobs aggressively and finally convinced the late visionary about the need for a smaller-sized tablet, has become a central figure: a versatile problem-solver for the company.

Ive, the British-born award-winning designer credited with pushing the boundaries of engineering with the iPod and iPhone, now extends his skills into the software realm with the lead on user interface.

Marketing guru Schiller continues in his role, while career engineer Mansfield canceled his retirement to stay on and lead wireless and semiconductor teams. Then there's Federighi, the self-effacing software engineer who a source told Reuters joined Apple over Forstall's initial objections, and has the nickname "Hair Force One" on Game Center.

"With a large base of approximately 60,400 full-time employees, it would be easy to conclude that the departures are not important," said Keith Bachman, analyst with BMO Capital Markets. "However, we do believe the departures are a negative, since we think Mr. Forstall in particular added value to Apple."

TEAM COOK

Few would argue with Forstall's success in leading mobile software iOS and that he deserves a lot of credit for the sale of millions of iPhones and iPads.

But despite the success, his style and direction on the software were not without critics, inside and outside.

Forstall often clashed with other executives, said a person familiar with him, adding he sometimes tended to over-promise and under-deliver on features. Now, Federighi, Ive and Cue have the opportunity to develop the look, feel and engineering of the all-important software that runs iPhones and iPads.

Cue, who rose to prominence by building and fostering iTunes and the app store, has the tough job of fixing and improving Maps, unveiled with much fanfare by Forstall in June, but it was found full of missing information and wrongly marked sites.

The Duke University alum and Blue Devils basketball fan -- he has been seen courtside with players -- is deemed the right person to accomplish this, given his track record on fixing services and products that initially don't do well.

The 23-year veteran turned around the short-lived MobileMe storage service after revamping and wrapping it into the reasonably well-received iCloud offering.

"Eddy is certainly a person who gets thrown a lot of stuff to ‘go make it work' as he's very used to dealing with partners," said a person familiar with Cue. The person said Cue was suited to fixing Maps given the need to work with partners such as TomTom and business listings provider Yelp.

Cue's affable charm and years of dealing with entertainment companies may come in handy as he also tries to improve voice-enabled digital assistant Siri. He has climbed the ladder rapidly in the past five years and was promoted to senior vice president last September, shortly after Cook took over as CEO.

Both Cue and Cook will work more closely with Federighi, who spent a decade in enterprise software before rejoining Apple in 2009, taking over Mac software after the legendary Bertrand Serlet left the company in March last year

Federighi was instrumental in bringing popular mobile features such as notifications and Facebook integration onto the latest Mac operating system Mountain Lion, which was downloaded on 3 million machines in four days.

The former CTO of business software company Ariba, now part of SAP, worked with Jobs at NeXT Computer. Federighi is a visionary in software engineering and can be as good as Jobs in strategic decisions for the product he oversees, a person who has worked with him said.

His presentation skills have been called on of late, most recently at Apple annual developers' gathering in the summer.

Then there's Ive, deemed Apple's inspirational force. Among the iconic products he has worked on are multi-hued iMac computers, the iPod music player, the iPhone and the iPad.

Forstall's departure may free Ive of certain constraints, the sources said. His exit brought to the fore a fundamental design issue -- to do or not to do digital skeuomorphic designs. Skeuomorphic designs stay true to and mimic real-life objects, such as the bookshelf in the iBooks icon, green felt in its Game Center app icon, and an analog clock depicting the time.

Forstall, who will stay on as adviser to Cook for another year, strongly believed in these designs, but his philosophy was not shared by all. His chief dissenter was Ive, who is said to prefer a more open approach, which could mean a slightly different design direction on the icons.

"There is no one else who has that kind of (design) focus on the team," the person said of Ive. "He is critical for them."

(Additional reporting by Alistair Barr; Editing by Edwin Chan and Ken Wills)

Read More..

Evan Rachel Wood marries “Billy Elliot” star Jamie Bell

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Hollywood actress Evan Rachel Wood has quietly married Briton Jamie Bell – star of the 2000 “Billy Elliot” dance movie – in a ceremony in California, Wood’s spokeswoman said on Wednesday.

“The bride wore a custom dress by Carolina Herrera. It was a small ceremony with close family and friends,” the spokeswoman said in a statement, adding that the wedding took place on Tuesday.

In a Twitter posting on Wednesday, Wood, best known for her roles in “The Wrestler” and coming of age movie “Thirteen,” said “Words cannot describe the happiness I am feeling. Overwhelming.”

Wood, 25, first began dating Bell about seven years ago. But the pair broke up and Wood went on to have a highly publicized engagement with heavy metal rocker Marilyn Manson, who is almost twice her age.

Wood and Bell, 26, were rumored to have become engaged in January this year, but never confirmed their relationship.

Bell found fame as the teen star of “Billy Elliot” about a ballet dancer growing up in a tough coal mining town in northern England. He won a British BAFTA award for the role and has since appeared in adventure movies like “The Eagle” and “Jumper.”

(Reporting By Jill Serjeant; Editing by Sandra Maler)

Movies News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Bellevue Hospital Evacuates Patients

New York City’s Bellevue Hospital Center was evacuating hundreds of patients to other hospitals, according to city officials, making it the latest hospital in the city forced to transfer patients after damage from Superstorm Sandy.

The evacuations from Bellevue — perhaps the best known of the 11 hospitals that make up New York City’s public hospital system — followed other transfers from NYU Langone Medical Center on Monday and Coney Island Hospital on Tuesday.

When Sandy hit the New York area Monday night, Bellevue, located on 1st Avenue and 27th Street in flood-stricken Lower Manhattan, almost lost its generators. At least one got repaired just in time to stave off an evacuation, but it’s been difficult to keep the hospital going.

Photos: Assessing Sandy’s Destruction

Bellevue, its staff and its remaining patients have been struggling along in the aftermath of Sandy with failing power, partially lighted halls and no computers, making it difficult to locate patients within the facility, hospital staff told ABC News today. Staff members spoke of long walks up and down dark stairwells and hallways to treat patients.

“It’s Katrina-esque in there,” one nurse told ABC News.

Similar conditions existed at Metropolitan Hospital, another city facility that was running on backup generator power. That hospital is located on 1st Avenue and East 97th Street in Manhattan.

NYU Medical Center Forced to Evacuate Over 200 Patients Watch Video

For two days, the Bellevue staff and the city have been poised for an eventual evacuation, and that time now seems to have come, along with another quest for beds.

Hurricane Sandy: Full Coverage

“We learned this morning that Bellevue will now have to evacuate because of damage that it has sustained,” New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg told reporters. “They didn’t think the damage was that bad, and we did have a generator going, and the National Guard helped carry fuel up to the roof, because that’s where the fuel tank was and they were running out.

“But the bottom line is that when they got into the basement they realized there was more damage,” Bloomberg added. “It’s going to affect something like 500 patients. They had already discharged patients that didn’t require critical care. We are in the process of finding beds to move these patients to now and I want to thank the greater New York hospital association for their help in the process of relocating patients.”

The Mount Sinai Medical Center in Manhattan’s East Harlem neighborhood further uptown told ABC News it would be accepting some of Bellevue’s patients. The patients likely will be received at Mount Sinai’s emergency room.

Earlier, when Mount Sinai could no longer reach anyone at Bellevue, it sent a medical team of eight to Bellevue, a Mount Sinai spokesman told ABC News. When the group arrived, two cardiac physicians told the Mount Sinai team they had two very serious patients that needed help. Both of those patients were to be moved to Mount Sinai, along with other patients.

Today, Bellevue nurses could be seen walking up and down stairs with food trays and medicine. Some had to hike to the 17th floor, where some patients have “serious conditions.”

7 Devastating Hurricanes: Where Will Sandy Rank?

The highest floor patients had to be carried from was 18th floor, New York City Health and Hospital Corporation President Alan Aviles told reporters this evening. The National Guard was instrumental in carrying fuel up to the hospital’s rooftop generator and patients down the stairs, Aviles added.

Health News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Storm spins death, 'a lot of tears' in its path

Death blew in on the superstorm's wild winds and sea water torrents, claiming 90-year-olds and children with capriciously toppling trees, taking tall-ship adventurers in mountainous Atlantic waves and average folks just trying to deal with a freakish snowstorm. It felled both heroes rushing into harm's way and, ironically, people simply following advice to play it safe at home.

At least 72 died as the shape-shifting hurricane and winter storm ravaged the eastern U.S., and searchers continued looking for victims Wednesday.

In New York City, a college student went out to take pictures in the borough of Queens and was electrocuted by a downed power line, while across town on Staten Island, an off-duty policeman drowned after moving his family to safety.

Lauren Abraham, who went by the nickname LolaDiva on YouTube, was a makeup artist who worked out of a studio in her parents' Queens home. The recent beauty school graduate was studying at City University of New York's Lehman College, according to her Facebook page. "In her time of reflection she learned to find the beauty in even the darkest situations," her online bio reads.

As the superstorm ravaged New York and floodwater surged into his Staten Island house Monday evening, off-duty NYPD officer Artur Kasprzak, 28, shepherded six adult relatives and a baby to the attic.

Then, according to police, Kasprzak, a six-year veteran of the force, told one of the women he was going to check the basement. When he didn't return, she called 911. Police came quickly with a SCUBA unit, but couldn't access the home because power lines had fallen into the water.

"He went to the basement. And the water just started washing in," his sister Marta told the Daily News. "He was pushed into a window. ... The water just kept coming in."

Bunting draped a firehouse in Easton, Conn., honoring another first responder who rushed to help. Lt. Russell Neary was killed when an enormous tree crashed down on his fire truck as he and others tried to clear storm debris.

"We're a small volunteer department, and so everybody knew everybody," said Casey Meskers, the department vice president. Neary was the president. An insurance executive, he had volunteered for 13 years, and also helped with his children's sports teams.

"We've been on the soccer fields with each other with our kids," Meskers said Wednesday. "There's been a lot of tears shed, I'll tell you."

So many times, trees and heavy limbs that fell to the storm's powerful gusts left mourners along its path.

Two people died when a tree fell on their vehicle in Morris County, N.J., and many others perished inside homes, where they thought they'd be safe — from North Salem, N.Y., where two boys, 11 and 13, were killed when a tree fell on their home, to Pasadena, Md.

Donald Cannata Sr., 73, was at home in Pasadena, a leafy suburb between Baltimore and Annapolis, when the storm knocked a large tree into his house. The retired civil engineer lived alone with his cat and dog and had stepped into the kitchen just when the tree fell.

He loved photography and opera and was considerate, hardworking and selfless, said his son, Donald Jr., an opinion shared by neighbors. Cannata's son said his father's death "shook me so to the core," partly because they had talked about taking down the tree.

"We talked about it so many times. I said, 'Pop, the tree's getting pretty old,'" Cannata said.

An elderly man trimming a tree in Pennsylvania's Lancaster County was killed when a limb broke and fell on him, authorities said.

A limb fall also killed John Rose Sr. as he and his wife checked fences on his snow-covered 100-acre farm near Philippi, W.Va., on Tuesday. The storm had dumped about seven inches of snow in the region, where Rose was a Republican candidate for the House of Delegates. He had traveled to Charleston regularly to lobby lawmakers on farming and other issues, and he hoped to continue making the trip as a member.

Rose, 60, had previously run a power-washing business and worked as a coal miner, his son George Rose said.

"The whole county knew him," he said.

The storm's blizzard threat was still far off when, churning in the relatively warm Atlantic off Cape Hatteras, N.C., on Monday, Hurricane Sandy engulfed the replica tall ship HMS Bounty. The ship, which was featured in the films "Mutiny on the Bounty" and "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest," took on water and eventually went down.

Coast Guard rescuers saved most of the 17 crew members, but a search continues for the ship's captain, Robin Wallbridge.

Swept overboard with him was Claudene Christian, 42, who said she was a direct descendant of the man who led the infamous 1789 mutiny on the real HMS Bounty. In the 1962 Bounty film, Marlon Brando starred as lead mutineer Fletcher Christian.

Searchers found Christian — a novice sailor who was wearing an orange survival suit — unresponsive in the water late Monday, about eight nautical miles from where the Bounty sank. She was flown by helicopter to a hospital on the mainland, where she was pronounced dead.

A marketing specialist, she had lived in Alaska, Oklahoma and California. She was a member of the University of Southern California cheering squad, the Song Girls, from 1989 to 1991, said coach Lori Nelson. "Claudene will always be remembered for her energetic and bubbly personality on and off the field," the team posted on its Facebook page.

Endless accidents that would be described as freak twists of fate spun off from the superstorm.

Eugene "Rusty" Brooks, 42, of Woodstock, N.H., died Tuesday morning when a hillside construction site in the state's White Mountains collapsed beneath him. Brooks, owner of Pemmi Contracting, had been preparing a cellar on a home site on Loon Mountain in the ski resort town of Lincoln, said Police Chief Ted Smith. The cellar hole had filled up with rain from Sandy, and Brooks had just thrown a hose in to drain it off when the ground gave way.

"The retaining wall just liquefied with him standing there," Smith said. "He washed down with all the boulders, mud and water into the street."

When police and rescue workers arrived, they found a bystander performing CPR on Brooks, who could not be revived.

"It just basically was a freak, bizarre accident," the chief said. "It could have given way prior to him being there or afterwards."

The massive storm's unrelenting stress was blamed as a contributor to death by some loved ones, and in other cases the paralyzing wind and water compounded medical problems.

An Atlantic City, N.J., woman had a heart attack while she was being evacuated on Monday, officials reported.

In Pennsylvania's Lehigh County, an 86-year-old woman was pronounced dead of hypothermia after being found unresponsive in her yard following exposure to the storm, and a 48-year-old woman died of carbon monoxide poisoning in her home, the coroner's office reported.

A 90-year-old woman also died of carbon monoxide poisoning from a generator in the Philadelphia area, one of two claimed by the storm at age 90. The other was a Mansfield, Conn., woman who neighbors said left her home after a small tree snapped and was killed by a larger one.

In New York City, Herminia St. John, a 75-year-old grandmother of 14 who suffered from congestive heart failure and diabetes, died after her oxygen machine lost power and a backup failed. Her grandson, Claudio St. John, rushed into the street and tried unsuccessfully to flag down an ambulance. Finally, he went around the corner to Bellevue Hospital, where his mother worked as a food supervisor for 30 years. But by the time someone came it was too late.

"I hugged her and she hugged and kissed me," Elsa St. John, 54, told the Daily News. "She asked me to turn her to the window and she was gone."

___

Associated Press writers Allen G. Breed in Raleigh, N.C., Alex Dominguez in Pasadena, Md., Sharon Cohen in Chicago, Justin Pope in Ann Arbor, Mich., Lawrence Messina in Charleston, W.Va., and Vicki Smith in Philippi, W.Va., contributed to this report.

Read More..

Hurricane’s death toll rises to 65 in Caribbean

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — As Americans braced Sunday for Hurricane Sandy, Haiti was still suffering.

Officials raised the storm-related death toll across the Caribbean to 65, with 51 of those coming in Haiti, which was pelted by three days of constant rains that ended only on Friday.

As the rains stopped and rivers began to recede, authorities were getting a fuller idea of how much damage Sandy brought on Haiti. Bridges collapsed. Banana crops were ruined. Homes were underwater. Officials said the death toll might still rise.

“This is a disaster of major proportions,” Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe told The Associated Press, adding with a touch of hyperbole, “The whole south is under water.”

The country’s ramshackle housing and denuded hillsides are especially vulnerable to flooding. The bulk of the deaths were in the southern part of the country and the area around Port-au-Prince, the capital, which holds most of the 370,000 Haitians who are still living in flimsy shelters as a result of the devastating 2010 earthquake.

Santos Alexis, mayor of the southern city of Leogane, said Sunday that the rivers were receding and that people were beginning to dry their belongings in the sun.

“Things are back to being a little quiet,” Alexis said by telephone. “We have seen the end.”

Sandy also killed 11 in Cuba, where officials said it destroyed or damaged tens of thousands of houses. Deaths were also reported in Jamaica, the Bahamas and Puerto Rico. Authorities in the Dominican Republic said the storm destroyed several bridges and isolated at least 130 communities while damaging an estimated 3,500 homes.

Jamaica’s emergency management office on Sunday was airlifting supplies to marooned communities in remote areas of four badly impacted parishes.

In the Bahamas, Wolf Seyfert, operations director at local airline Western Air, said the domestic terminal of Grand Bahamas‘ airport received “substantial damage” from Sandy’s battering storm surge and would need to be rebuilt.

Latin America News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Disney to buy "Star Wars" producer for $4.05 billion

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Walt Disney Co agreed to buy filmmaker George Lucas's Lucasfilm Ltd and its "Star Wars" franchise for $4.05 billion in cash and stock, a blockbuster deal that includes the surprise promise of a new film in the series in 2015.

Disney Chief Executive Bob Iger told analysts on Tuesday that the plan is to release a new movie in the series every two to three years thereafter. The last "Star Wars" picture was "Revenge of the Sith" in 2005, and Lucas has in the past denied any plans for more.

Lucas, a Hollywood icon known for exercising control over the most minute details of the fictional universe he created, will remain as a creative consultant on the new films.

"It's now time for me to pass 'Star Wars' on to a new generation of filmmakers," he said in a statement. Lucas will become the second-largest individual holder of Disney shares, with a 2.2 percent stake.

Disney will pay about half the purchase price in cash and issue about 40 million shares at closing.

"This is one of the greatest entertainment properties of all time," Iger said. Like Disney's purchases of Marvel Entertainment and Pixar studio, LucasFilm will "drive long-term value to our shareholders," he said.

Chief Financial Officer Jay Rasulo said the deal would lower Disney's earnings per share by a low single-digits percentage in fiscal 2013 and 2014. He also said Disney would repurchase all of the issued shares on the open market within the next two years, on top of planned buybacks.

This agreement marks the third time in less than seven years that Disney has signed a massive deal to take over a beloved studio or character portfolio, part of its strategy to acquire brands that can be stretched across TV, movies, theme parks and the Internet.

In early 2006, Disney struck a deal to acquire "Toy Story" creator Pixar, and in the summer of 2009 it bought the comic book powerhouse Marvel.

"Disney already has a great portfolio and this adds one more," said Morningstar analyst Michael Corty. "They don't have any holes, but their past deals have been additive."

Iger said he and Lucas first discussed a possible sale about 18 months ago. Lucas was pondering his retirement, and Iger was looking to add another well-known brand to the Disney empire. The two signed the deal at Disney's Burbank, California, headquarters on Tuesday.

"Everywhere I went, 'Star Wars' was already there, and sometimes they got there ahead of us," said Iger in an interview. "I kept seeing that brand and decided maybe we should buy it."

He told analysts he believed there was "substantial pent-up demand" for new "Star Wars" movies. Each of the last three films in the series would have grossed $1.5 billion in today's dollars at the box office, CFO Rasulo estimated.

The film's iconic characters also will boost Disney's sales of toys and other consumer products, particularly overseas, executives said. Sales of "Star Wars" items such as Darth Vader and Yoda action figures total roughly $215 million a year, Rasulo said.

In 2005, the year the last "Star Wars" film was released, LucasFilm generated $550 million in operating income, Rasulo said.

Disney also will be able to extend the presence of the franchise at its theme parks around the globe, Iger said. The company's parks already feature rides based on "Star Wars" and "Indiana Jones," another Lucas property.

"Star Wars" characters also are likely to find a home on the Disney XD cable channel, which is aimed at young boys, Iger said.

Iger wouldn't commit to keeping the "Star Wars" operation separate from Disney, as he did with Pixar and Marvel.

And Lucas won't sit on the Disney board despite his 2.2 percent stake in the company, Iger said. The late Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who held a large stake in Disney after it bought his Pixar studio, had a seat on the Disney board.

From a fan's perspective, critics said there was sure to be at least some excitement at the prospect of episode seven in the saga of Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader.

"Do I want to see more Star Wars movies? Not really, but they're not making these movies for me," the film writer "Mr. Beaks" wrote on the well-regarded industry site Ain't It Cool News. "There's a whole new generation of Star Wars fans, and they worship the prequels like folks my age worshipped the original trilogy."

Besides "Star Wars," the Lucasfilm deal also includes rights to the "Indiana Jones" franchise, though Disney did not elaborate on any plans for that series.

(Additional reporting by Michael Erman in New York and Himank Sharma in Bangalore; Writing by Ben Berkowitz; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty and Ciro Scotti)

Read More..