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VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Benedict XVI marked the end of a difficult year Monday by saying that despite all the death and injustice in the world, goodness prevails.
Benedict celebrated New Year’s Eve with a vespers service in St. Peter’s Basilica to give thanks for 2012 and look ahead to 2013. He appeared tired during the service and used a cane afterward — an indication that the busy Christmas season may be taking a toll on the 85-year-old Benedict.
In his homily, Benedict said it’s tough to remember that goodness prevails when bad news — death, violence and injustice — “makes more noise than good.” He said taking time to meditate in prolonged reflection and prayer can help “find healing from the inevitable wounds of daily life.”
This past year was full of highs and lows for the pope, including a successful trip to Mexico and Cuba but also the betrayal of his butler, convicted in October of stealing Benedict’s personal papers and leaking them to a journalist.
After the service, Benedict was brought out in a covered car to pray before the Vatican’s main nativity scene in St. Peter’s Square. Walking with a cane in the chilly piazza, Benedict chatted animatedly with the artist who crafted the scene, which recreated an entire village from the poor, southern Italian region of Basilicata which donated this year’s crèche.
The Vatican gladly accepted Basilicata’s donation after the €550,000 price tag the Vatican paid for the 2009 nativity scene was revealed in the documentation leaked by Benedict’s ex-butler Paolo Gabriele.
Gabriele was convicted of aggravated theft by a Vatican tribunal and sentenced to 18 months in prison. He received a pre-Christmas papal pardon and is expected to soon leave his Vatican City apartment for a new home and job elsewhere.
On Tuesday morning, Benedict celebrates a New Year’s Day Mass, which the Catholic Church celebrates as its world day of peace.
Europe News Headlines – Yahoo! News
SHANGHAI (Reuters) – China‘s 2012 box office was dominated by foreign films for the first time in four years as a deal cemented earlier this year saw more Hollywood film screened on the mainland, squeezing out domestic competition.
China’s box office receipts are expected to reach 16.8 billion yuan ($ 2.7 billion) in 2012 and about 8 billion yuan ($ 1.28 billion), or slightly less than half the receipts, are from domestic films, the official People’s Daily reported on Monday, quoting estimates from the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television.
It is the first time in four years that domestic film receipts totaled less than 50 percent of the market and signals that the February trade agreement to allow more Hollywood movies to be screened in China is having a significant impact on the country’s movie industry.
Last year, domestic films made up 54 percent of box office receipts, down slightly from 56 percent in 2010, local media reported. China agreed in February to open its market to more American movies, permitting 14 premium format films such as IMAX or 3D to be exempt from the annual 20 foreign film quota.
Last month, Tian Jin, China’s vice minister of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, said the U.S. film industry was reaping massive profits due to the February concession while domestic producers were under pressure.
However, the best-selling film this year is a low-budget, domestically-produced comedy called “Lost in Thailand” about two rival businessmen. The movie drew a bigger audience in China than James Cameron’s “Avatar”, the People’s Daily said.
($ 1 = 6.2335 Chinese yuan)
(Reporting by Melanie Lee; Editing by Matt Driskill)
Movies News Headlines – Yahoo! News
LONDON/NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. regulators approved 39 new drugs in 2012, the most in 16 years, suggesting that pharmaceutical makers are poised for growth after losing billions of dollars in recent years to generic drug makers because of patent expirations.
There were eight approvals in December alone, including a new treatment from Johnson & Johnson called Sirturo for drug-resistant tuberculosis approved on Monday, the first new TB drug in decades.
The pharmaceutical sector badly needs a pick-up in productivity as companies try to refill their medicine chests after heavy losses to generic manufacturers, which have benefited from a string of patent expirations that peaked in 2012. When generics go on the market at a lower cost, sales of name brand drugs plummet.
The tally of 39 new drugs and biological products approved by the Food and Drug Administration compares with 30 in 2011 and just 21 in 2010. At least 10 of the drugs had fast track status in 2012, which enabled them to be reviewed more quickly.
It is the highest number since 1996, when 53 so-called new molecular entities won a green light. For a graphic on new drugs approvals see: http://link.reuters.com/nuz84t
The FDA has met and exceeded its drug review goals under the Prescription Drug User Fee Act, in which drug companies help fund the drug approval process in return for an agreement by the Food and Drug Administration to meet regulatory deadlines, FDA spokeswoman Sandy Walsh said in an e-mailed statement.
She said the “pipeline of new drugs under development remains strong and is growing.”
Major U.S. drug companies have lost about $ 21 billion in revenue this year from lucrative medicines coming off patent, while the hit for European businesses is about $ 10 billion, according to ratings agency Standard & Poor’s.
This year’s expirations have included Plavix, a heart drug made by Sanofi and Bristol-Myers Squibb, and Seroquel, an antipsychotic made by AstraZeneca.
Winning approval from regulators, however, is only part of the battle for drugmakers.
Investors will also be watching closely to see how the new drugs perform commercially once they reach the market, since securing payment for innovative medicines is an increasingly tough fight.
“The patent exposure will be less going forward, but where there is still a little bit of uncertainty is how much better the pipelines have become and how strong the recently approved products are,” said Damien Conover, the director of pharmaceutical research at research firm Morningstar Inc.
The 2012 approvals included some medicines that are forecast by analysts to become multibillion-dollar sellers, such as Eliquis for reducing stroke risk in patients with irregular heartbeats from Bristol Myers-Squibb and Pfizer Inc.
But many others are for rare diseases, underscoring the drug industry’s increased focus on specialized, niche products.
They include treatments such as a Kalydeco from Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc for a rare form of the lung disorder cystic fibrosis and Signifor from Novartis AG for Cushing’s disease, caused by over-production of the hormone cortisol.
The last drug approval of the year on Monday afternoon was for a drug to relieve symptoms of diarrhea in patients with HIV and AIDS made by Salix Pharmaceuticals Ltd.
There are also encouraging signs that the pick-up in new drug approvals could continue in 2013. The European Medicines Agency said on December 18 that it expected 54 new drug applications in 2013, up from 52 in 2012, 48 in 2011 and 34 in 2010.
(Editing by Jilian Mincer and Steve Orlofsky)
Medications/Drugs News Headlines – Yahoo! News
President Barack Obama discusses the negotiations with Capitol Hill on the looming fiscal cliff in front of middle …With 2013 barely hours old, the U.S. Senate voted Tuesday on an 11th-hour deal to avert income tax hikes on all but the richest Americans and stall painful spending cuts as part of a compromise to avoid the economically toxic "fiscal cliff."
But after months of squabbling in the polarized Congress, even a last-minute charm offensive by Vice President Joe Biden to sell wary Democratic senators on the compromise could not keep the country from technically tumbling over the so-called cliff. The House of Representatives was not due to return to work to take up the measure until midday on Tuesday. But with financial markets closed for New Year's Day, quick action by lawmakers was expected to limit the economic damage.
Senators started voting shortly before 1:45 a.m. in Washington.
Biden, evidently in good spirits after playing a central role in crafting the deal, said little on his way into or out of a roughly one hour and 45 minute meeting behind closed doors with his party's senators. "Happy New Year," he said on the way in. Asked on the way out what his selling point had been, the vice president reportedly replied: "Me."
Hours earlier, a Democratic Senate aide told Yahoo News that "the White House and Republicans have a deal," while a source familiar with the negotiations said President Barack Obama had discussed the compromise with Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Democratic House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and "they both signed off."
But the House’s Republican leaders including Speaker John Boehner hinted in an unusual joint statement that they might amend anything that clears the Senate – a step that could kill the deal.
“Decisions about whether the House will seek to accept or promptly amend the measure will not be made until House members -- and the American people -- have been able to review the legislation,” they said.
Under the compromise arrangement, taxes would rise on income above $400,000 for individuals and $450,000 for households, while exemptions and deductions the wealthiest Americans use to reduce their tax bill would face new limits. The accord would also raise the taxes paid on large inheritances from 35% to 40% for estates over $5 million. And it would extend by one year unemployment benefits for some two million Americans.
Biden, a 36-year Senate veteran, worked out the agreement with McConnell after talks between Obama and Boehner collapsed and a similar effort between McConnell and Reid followed suit shortly thereafter. With the deal mostly done, Obama made a final push at the White House.
“Today, it appears that an agreement to prevent this New Year's tax hike is within sight, but it's not done,” Obama said in hastily announced midday remarks at the White House. “There are still issues left to resolve, but we're hopeful that Congress can get it done – but it’s not done.”
"One thing we can count on with respect to this Congress is that if there is even one second left before you have to do what you’re supposed to do, they will use that last second," he said.
Obama’s remarks – by turns scolding, triumphant, and mocking of Congress – came after talks between McConnell and Biden appeared to seal the breakthrough deal.
The middle class will still see its taxes go up: The final deal did not include an extension of the payroll tax holiday. And the overall package will deepen the deficit by hundreds of billions of dollars by extending the overwhelming majority of the Bush tax cuts. Many Democrats had opposed those measures in 2001 and 2003. Obama agreed to extend them in 2010.
Efforts to modify the first installment of $1.2 trillion in cuts to domestic and defense programs over 10 years -- the other portion of the “fiscal cliff,” known as sequestration -- had proved a sticking point late in the game. Democrats had sought a year-long freeze but appeared to have caved to Republican pressure and signed on to just a two-month delay.
That would put the next major battle over spending cuts right around the time that the White House and its Republican foes are battling it out over whether to raise the country's debt limit. Republicans have vowed to push for more spending cuts, equivalent to the amount of new borrowing. Obama has vowed not to negotiate as he did in 2011, when a bruising fight threatened the first-ever default on America's obligations and resulted in the first-ever downgrade of the country's credit rating. Biden sent that message to Democrats in Congress, two senators said.
Experts had warned that the fiscal cliff's tax increases and spending cuts, taken together, could plunge the still-fragile economy into a new recession.
“I can report that we’ve reached an agreement on all of the tax issues,” McConnell said on the Senate floor. “We are very, very close to an agreement.”
The Kentucky Republican later briefed Republicans on the details of the deal. Lawmakers emerged from that closed-door session offered hopeful appraisals that, after clearing a few last-minute hurdles, they could vote on New Year’s Eve or with 2013 just hours old.
“Tonight, I hope,” Republican Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee told reporters. “It may be at 1, 2, 3, 4 in the morning. Oh, I guess that’s technically tomorrow.”
Republican Senators said negotiators were still working on a way to forestall two months of the “sequester” spending cuts, about $20 billion worth. And some expressed disquiet that the tentative compromise ran high on tax increases and low on spending cuts -- while warning that failure to act, triggering some $600 billion in income tax increases on all Americans who pay it and draconian spending cuts, was the worse option.
McConnell earlier had called for a vote on the tax component of the deal.
“Let me be clear: We’ll continue to work on finding smarter ways to cut spending, but let’s not let that hold up protecting Americans from the tax hike,” McConnell urged. “Let’s pass the tax relief portion now. Let’s take what’s been agreed to and get moving.”Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., followed by Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., second from right, leaves …
The final compromise needed to clear the Democratic-led Senate and Republican-held House. Aides in both chambers doubted that could happen by midnight – but emphasized that there was no need to move the family into the Doomsday bunker in the back yard. Yet.
Unlike a college student who writes an end-of-semester paper overnight before a morning deadline, then drops the assignment off hours after it was due, Congress can write its own rules to minimize the damage – and Americans whose taxes are staying the same won’t see a change in their bottom line.
“It’s basically a matter of saying it’s effective January 1,” one senior Republican aide shrugged.
But passage was not a sure thing: Both the AFL-CIO labor union and the conservative Heritage Action organization argued against the package.
The breakthrough came after McConnell announced Sunday that he had started to negotiate with Biden in a bid to "jump-start" stalled talks to avoid the fiscal cliff.
Under their tentative deal, the top tax rate on household income above $450,000 would rise from 35 percent to 39.6 percent -- where it was under Bill Clinton, before the reductions enacted under George W. Bush in 2001 and 2003.
Some congressional liberals had expressed objections to extending tax cuts above the $250,000 income threshold Obama cited throughout the 2012 campaign. Democrats were huddling in private as well to work out whether they could support the arrangement.
Possibly with balking progressives in mind, Obama trumpeted victories dear to the left of his party. "The potential agreement that’s being talked about would not only make sure the taxes don’t go up on middle-class families, it also would extend tax credits for families with children. It would extend our tuition tax credit that’s helped millions of families pay for college. It would extend tax credits for clean energy companies that are creating jobs and reducing our dependence on foreign oil. It would extend unemployment insurance to 2 million Americans who are out there still actively looking for a job."
Obama said he had hoped for "a larger agreement, a bigger deal, a grand bargain," to stem the tide of red ink swamping the country’s finances – but shelved that goal.
"With this Congress, that was obviously a little too much to hope for at this time," he said. "It may be we can do it in stages. We’re going to solve this problem instead in several steps."
The president also looked ahead to his next budgetary battle with Republicans, warning that “any future deficit agreement” will have to couple spending cuts with tax increases. He expressed a willingness to reduce spending on popular programs like Medicare, but said entitlement reform would have to go hand in hand with new tax revenues.
“If Republicans think that I will finish the job of deficit reduction through spending cuts alone … then they’ve another thing coming,” Obama said defiantly. “That’s not how it’s going to work.”
“If we’re serious about deficit reduction and debt reduction, then it’s going to have to be a matter of shared sacrifice. At least as long as I’m president. And I’m going to be president for the next four years, I hope,” he said.
Designer: PabloDeLaRocha.com, BlueStacks
She has freckles, a normal-sized head, wears t-shirts and jeans. She is also “awkwardly dressed” and “pretty cute.” She is the average female Mac user, according to an infographic complied and released by software start-up BlueStacks.
The company, which makes software that allows Android apps to run on computers, just released a new version of its Mac app. Install the program and you can access Android apps right from Apple’s OS X operating system – Angry Birds, Instagram, all your favorites.
But the company didn’t want to just release the software. In honor of the announcement, it created an infographic based on data from its Facebook users about what Ms. Mac looks like.
According to the graphic, which you can view below, 27 percent of female Mac users have long hair, 48 percent wear glasses and 52 percent are under 20. Forty percent use Mac OS X Lion, 14 percent OS X Mountain Lion, 20 percent OS X Leopard, and 8 percent Snow Leopard.
However, you should take these findings with a grain of salt; they are based primarily on responses from BlueStacks’ 1.1 million Facebook fans. Some of it is based on data from Nielsen, but BlueStacks confirmed that the majority of the information was pulled from its own users and its social media fans.
“We have a lot of early adopter fans who were into helping,” BlueStacks VP of marketing, John Gargiulo, told ABC News. “We also hired a data scientist who has been parsing through the data and talking with people who use BlueStacks. We like to do things that are a bit fun and different.”
BlueStacks created a similar infographic about Android users last year. Not surprisingly, 70 percent of male Android users wear t-shits and 62 percent wear jeans. (It’s like that line from that ’90s movie “Can’t Hardly Wait”: “He is sort of tall, with hair and wears t-shirts sometimes.”)
Regardless, if you’re looking for a fun infographic / full body image of the alleged Ms. Mac 2012, you can click the image below.
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Wireless News Headlines – Yahoo! News
PESHWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) – Pakistani militants, who have escalated attacks in recent weeks, killed at least 41 people in two separate incidents, officials said on Sunday, challenging assertions that military offensives have broken the back of hardline Islamist groups.
The United States has long pressured nuclear-armed ally Pakistan to crack down harder on both homegrown militants groups such as the Taliban and others which are based on its soil and attack Western forces in Afghanistan.
In the north, 21 men working for a government-backed paramilitary force were executed overnight after they were kidnapped last week, a provincial official said.
Twenty Shi’ite pilgrims died and 24 were wounded, meanwhile, when a car bomb targeted their bus convoy as it headed toward the Iranian border in the southwest, a doctor said.
New York-based Human Rights Watch has noted more than 320 Shias killed this year in Pakistan and said attacks were on the rise. It said the government’s failure to catch or prosecute attackers suggested it was “indifferent” to the killings.
Pakistan, seen as critical to U.S. efforts to stabilize the region before NATO forces withdraw from Afghanistan by the end of 2014, denies allegations that it supports militant groups like the Afghan Taliban and Haqqani network.
Afghan officials say Pakistan seems more genuine than ever about promoting peace in Afghanistan.
At home, it faces a variety of highly lethal militant groups that carry out suicide bombings, attack police and military facilities and launch sectarian attacks like the one on the bus in the southwest.
Witnesses said a blast targeted their three buses as they were overtaking a car about 60 km (35 miles) west of Quetta, capital of sparsely populated Baluchistan province.
“The bus next to us caught on fire immediately,” said pilgrim Hussein Ali, 60. “We tried to save our companions, but were driven back by the intensity of the heat.”
Twenty people had been killed and 24 wounded, said an official at Mastung district hospital.
CONCERN OVER EXTREMIST SUNNI GROUPS
International attention has focused on al Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban.
But Pakistani intelligence officials say extremist Sunni groups, lead by Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) are emerging as a major destabilizing force in a campaign designed to topple the government.
Their strategy now, the officials say, is to carry out attacks on Shi’ites to create the kind of sectarian tensions that pushed countries like Iraq to the brink of civil war.
As elections scheduled for next year approach, Pakistanis will be asking what sort of progress their leaders have made in the fight against militancy and a host of other issues, such as poverty, official corruption and chronic power cuts.
Pakistan’s Taliban have carried out a series of recent bold attacks, as military officials point to what they say is a power struggle in the group’s leadership revolving around whether it should ease attacks on the Pakistani state and join groups fighting U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan.
The Taliban denies a rift exists among its leaders.
In the attack in the northwest, officials said they had found the bodies of 21 men kidnapped from their checkpoints outside the provincial capital of Peshawar on Thursday. The men were executed one by one.
“They were tied up and blindfolded,” Naveed Anwar, a senior administration official, said by telephone.
“They were lined up and shot in the head,” said Habibullah Arif, another local official, also by telephone.
One man was shot and seriously wounded but survived, the officials said. He was in critical condition and being treated at a local hospital. Another had escaped before the shootings.
Taliban spokesman Ihsanullah Ihsan claimed responsibility for the attacks.
“We killed all the kidnapped men after a council of senior clerics gave a verdict for their execution. We didn’t make any demand for their release because we don’t spare any prisoners who are caught during fighting,” he said.
The powerful military has clawed back territory from the Taliban, but the kidnap and executions underline the insurgents’ ability to mount high-profile, deadly attacks in major cities.
This month, suicide bombers attacked Peshawar’s airport on December 15 and a bomb killed a senior Pashtun nationalist politician and eight other people at a rally on December 22.
(Additional reporting by Saud Mehsud in DERA ISMAIL KHAN and Gul Yousufzai in QUETTA; Writing by Katharine Houreld; Editing by Michael Georgy and Ron Popeski)
World News Headlines – Yahoo! News
LONDON (Reuters) – James Arthur, winner of this year’s British version of the “X Factor” TV talent show, saw his debut single climb back to number one in the British pop charts on Sunday.
Arthur’s “Impossible” shot straight to the top earlier this month but was overtaken last week by a tribute song to the victims of the 1989 Hillsborough football stadium disaster, “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother”, a version of the ballad that was a worldwide hit for The Hollies.
That song has now slipped to fifth position, according to the Official Charts Company listings.
“Scream and Shout” by will.i.am, featuring Britney Spears, stayed at two while Psy’s monster video hit “Gangnam Style” was up three places to third.
In the album charts, British singer Emeli Sande stayed top with “Our Version Of Events”, with Olly Murs‘ “Right Place, Right Time” unchanged at two.
Rihanna was up three places to third with “Unapologetic”.
(Reporting by Stephen Addison; Editing by Alison Williams)
Music News Headlines – Yahoo! News
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Despite no federal or uniform state requirements to do so, all school districts should have a doctor to oversee school health services, according to a policy statement from a group of American pediatricians.
“Our hope is that a policy statement like this will start to get people talking,” said Dr. Cynthia Devore, a co-author of the statement from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP).
“New York – and the northeast in general – tends to spell out in legislation that school districts shall hire a medical director to oversee health services,” she told Reuters Health. “That’s ideal. It should be legislated, but not every state does that,” said Devore, a board-certified pediatrician in Rochester, New York.
The statement published in the journal Pediatrics on Monday encourages pediatricians to “advocate that all school districts should have a school physician” and their roles should be “well defined, fairly compensated and outlined in a written contract.”
Basically, Devore said, the group recommends having a doctor in every school district and a nurse in every school.
The American Medical Association also recommends that all schools have a nurse to provide healthcare and have a doctor available on a regular basis.
School doctors are not a new concept. In fact, the statement says, they have been around since the 1800s, and Devore said they are one of the oldest groups within the AAP.
But the roles of school doctors depend on the school district’s needs.
“Some physicians are hired by schools and have full-time jobs… Some physicians might be a consultant,” said Devore.
In addition to being full- or part-time employees and consultants, the statement says doctors can play a role as an independent contractor or a volunteer on a school health advisory group.
Ideally, the doctor should have an expertise in pediatrics or be a board-certified pediatrician, according to the statement.
The group says it’s critical the doctors know about, among other things, disease outbreak control, risk management, immunizations and sports medicine.
Previous studies have found that having a school doctor is linked to better attendance for some students, especially those with chronic health conditions like asthma.
“Because states fund schools on a basis of student attendance, a school physician can potentially save schools money by decreasing absenteeism through advocacy and education,” the statement says.
It also suggests doctors can save school districts money by preventing costly litigation through better health services and protocols.
“Unfortunately when budgets are tight, money is short and education jobs are at risk, some people view health services as an expendable cut, and we don’t see it that way,” Devore said.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/HjQ8dI Pediatrics, online December 31, 2012.
Health News Headlines – Yahoo! News
(REUTERS/Gary Cameron) U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton delivers remarks at the State Department in Washington …Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has been admitted to a New York hospital for treatment of a blood clot, her spokesman said Sunday.
State Department Spokesman Philippe Reines said Clinton had entered the hospital following a medical examination for a concussion she sustained earlier this month.
"In the course of a follow-up exam today, Secretary Clinton's doctors discovered a blood clot had formed, stemming from the concussion she sustained several weeks ago," Reines said in a statement. "She is being treated with anti-coagulants and is at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital so that they can monitor the medication over the next 48 hours."
Reines added, "Her doctors will continue to assess her condition, including other issues associated with her concussion. They will determine if any further action is required."
Clinton was scheduled to return to work this week after treatment for the concussion. She is set to step down from her post shortly after President Barack Obama's inauguration on January 21. Last week, Obama announced he had chosen Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry to replace Clinton as the nation's top diplomat.
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