Boston Priest to Lead Vatican’s Oversight of Sexual Abuse Claims





Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday appointed as the Vatican’s new sexual crimes prosecutor a priest who handled clergy sexual abuse cases in the Roman Catholic Church in Boston at the height of the scandal and for years afterward.




The pope also pardoned his former butler, who was serving a prison term after leaking confidential documents in the Vatican’s most embarrassing security breach in decades.


The Vatican said the new prosecutor, the Rev. Robert W. Oliver, the top canon lawyer at the Archdiocese of Boston under Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley, would be the “promoter of justice” at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican’s doctrinal office that reviews all abuse cases.


In a statement released by the Archdiocese of Boston, Father Oliver said, “It is with deep humility and gratitude that I received the news that the Holy Father is entrusting me with this service to the church.”


Father Oliver was among the canon lawyers brought in to advise Cardinal Bernard F. Law on sexual abuse cases in Boston, where the church’s abuse scandal erupted anew in 2002. He was put in charge of the office investigating charges against accused priests after the cardinal was forced to resign in 2002 amid an uproar over revelations that he had kept abusive priests working in parishes.


Father Oliver helped write the archdiocese’s new abuse prevention policy in 2003. He has been serving as the top canon lawyer for the archdiocese and as a visiting professor of canon law at Catholic University of America in Washington.


Advocates for abuse victims in the Boston archdiocese criticized his record on Saturday. Anne Barrett Doyle, co-director of Bishop Accountability, a watchdog group that maintains an archive of abuse cases and documents, said in an interview, “Reverend Oliver is a champion of accused priests, which obviously does not bode well for the job he will do as promoter of justice.”


She said that under that under Father Oliver’s guidance, the Boston archdiocese reported that between 2003 and 2005 it had cleared 32 of 71 accused priests, about 45 percent, saying it did not find “probable cause” to pursue abuse cases against them. That was a far higher clearance rate than the 10 percent reported by other dioceses nationwide, according to a report in 2005 by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.


She also said the new policy on abuse that Father Oliver helped write in 2003 allows accused priests to remain in the ministry without being publicly identified while allegations against them are investigated. In contrast, laypeople suspected of abuse who work or volunteer for the church are to be immediately suspended.


Father Oliver is not expected to grant any interviews, said Terrence C. Donilon, a secretary for communications for the Archdiocese of Boston. But, he said, “any attacks on Father Oliver’s distinguished track record of service to the church and his many contributions to the response to clergy sexual abuse are unfounded and just plain wrong.”


As for the archdiocese’s policy and record, Mr. Donilon also said, “We do not have any priests in active ministry who have been credibly accused of child abuse.” He added that the archdiocese immediately turns over all allegations to civil authorities and has put in place many measures to prevent abuse.


Father Oliver succeeds Msgr. Charles Scicluna, 53, who was promoted to auxiliary bishop in his native Malta in October. A friendly canon lawyer, Monsignor Scicluna found himself in the eye of the storm after being named promoter of justice in 2002.


The year before, Pope John Paul II decreed that all abuse cases be sent directly to the doctrinal office, then led by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict.


When the scandal erupted in Europe in 2010, with cases emerging in Ireland and the pope’s native Germany — including some that called into question how Benedict handled an abuse case when he was archbishop of Munich in 1980 — the Vatican issued new guidelines, essentially telling bishops to report abuse cases to the police where local laws required it.


The Vatican also said Saturday that Benedict had pardoned his former butler, Paolo Gabriele, 46, who had been sentenced to prison after admitting to leaking confidential documents that formed the basis of a tell-all book on alleged misdeeds, financial mismanagement, back-stabbing and infighting within the Vatican.


On Saturday, Benedict met with Mr. Gabriele in the Vatican police barracks and set him free, said the Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi.


Laurie Goodstein reported from New York, and Rachel Donadio from Rome.



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Facebook releases ‘Poke’ for the iPhone to compete with Snapchat









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Drew Barrymore: My Dogs Are So Protective of Baby Olive






Only on People.com








12/22/2012 at 05:30 PM EST







Drew Barrymore, Will Kopelman and dog Douglas


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She may have been a nervous wreck after baby Olive arrived this fall, but the Drew Barrymore could have rested easy because her dogs had everything under control.

"They're so protective of her. They're so sweet," she tells PEOPE of her pups, Douglas and shepherd mix Oliver. "And Douglas, the little blonde one, just comes and licks [Olive's] head, and it's just so goofy and silly and I always say, 'Douglas, is this your baby?' "

The first-time mom, 37, and her husband Will Kopelman were careful when it came to introducing their furbabies to the real baby.

"We brought her stuff home to them to sniff and play with," she tells PEOPLE. "I put her with them right away. I was holding her and protective but there are all these wonderful studies that kids that grow up with dogs have better immunities because of the dander and the pollen. And it's a proven fact that dogs just improve the quality of your life."

In just a few months, Douglas has assumed the role of bodyguard over 10-week-old Olive, whom Barrymore calls "Super Baby" because she sleeps and eats so well.

"He's literally sitting [and] looking out the window," she says, "in, like, a guard dog position."

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Predicting who's at risk for violence isn't easy


CHICAGO (AP) — It happened after Columbine, Virginia Tech, Aurora, Colo., and now Sandy Hook: People figure there surely were signs of impending violence. But experts say predicting who will be the next mass shooter is virtually impossible — partly because as commonplace as these calamities seem, they are relatively rare crimes.


Still, a combination of risk factors in troubled kids or adults including drug use and easy access to guns can increase the likelihood of violence, experts say.


But warning signs "only become crystal clear in the aftermath, said James Alan Fox, a Northeastern University criminology professor who has studied and written about mass killings.


"They're yellow flags. They only become red flags once the blood is spilled," he said.


Whether 20-year-old Adam Lanza, who used his mother's guns to kill her and then 20 children and six adults at their Connecticut school, made any hints about his plans isn't publicly known.


Fox said that sometimes, in the days, weeks or months preceding their crimes, mass murderers voice threats, or hints, either verbally or in writing, things like "'don't come to school tomorrow,'" or "'they're going to be sorry for mistreating me.'" Some prepare by target practicing, and plan their clothing "as well as their arsenal." (Police said Lanza went to shooting ranges with his mother in the past but not in the last six months.)


Although words might indicate a grudge, they don't necessarily mean violence will follow. And, of course, most who threaten never act, Fox said.


Even so, experts say threats of violence from troubled teens and young adults should be taken seriously and parents should attempt to get them a mental health evaluation and treatment if needed.


"In general, the police are unlikely to be able to do anything unless and until a crime has been committed," said Dr. Paul Appelbaum, a Columbia University professor of psychiatry, medicine and law. "Calling the police to confront a troubled teen has often led to tragedy."


The American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry says violent behavior should not be dismissed as "just a phase they're going through."


In a guidelines for families, the academy lists several risk factors for violence, including:


—Previous violent or aggressive behavior


—Being a victim of physical or sexual abuse


—Guns in the home


—Use of drugs or alcohol


—Brain damage from a head injury


Those with several of these risk factors should be evaluated by a mental health expert if they also show certain behaviors, including intense anger, frequent temper outbursts, extreme irritability or impulsiveness, the academy says. They may be more likely than others to become violent, although that doesn't mean they're at risk for the kind of violence that happened in Newtown, Conn.


Lanza, the Connecticut shooter, was socially withdrawn and awkward, and has been said to have had Asperger's disorder, a mild form of autism that has no clear connection with violence.


Autism experts and advocacy groups have complained that Asperger's is being unfairly blamed for the shootings, and say people with the disorder are much more likely to be victims of bullying and violence by others.


According to a research review published this year in Annals of General Psychiatry, most people with Asperger's who commit violent crimes have serious, often undiagnosed mental problems. That includes bipolar disorder, depression and personality disorders. It's not publicly known if Lanza had any of these, which in severe cases can include delusions and other psychotic symptoms.


Young adulthood is when psychotic illnesses typically emerge, and Appelbaum said there are several signs that a troubled teen or young adult might be heading in that direction: isolating themselves from friends and peers, spending long periods alone in their rooms, plummeting grades if they're still in school and expressing disturbing thoughts or fears that others are trying to hurt them.


Appelbaum said the most agonizing calls he gets are from parents whose children are descending into severe mental illness but who deny they are sick and refuse to go for treatment.


And in the case of adults, forcing them into treatment is difficult and dependent on laws that vary by state.


All states have laws that allow some form of court-ordered treatment, typically in a hospital for people considered a danger to themselves or others. Connecticut is among a handful with no option for court-ordered treatment in a less restrictive community setting, said Kristina Ragosta, an attorney with the Treatment Advocacy Center, a national group that advocates better access to mental health treatment.


Lanza's medical records haven't been publicly disclosed and authorities haven't said if it is known what type of treatment his family may have sought for him. Lanza killed himself at the school.


Jennifer Hoff of Mission Viejo, Calif. has a 19-year-old bipolar son who has had hallucinations, delusions and violent behavior for years. When he was younger and threatened to harm himself, she'd call 911 and leave the door unlocked for paramedics, who'd take him to a hospital for inpatient mental care.


Now that he's an adult, she said he has refused medication, left home, and authorities have indicated he can't be forced into treatment unless he harms himself — or commits a violent crime and is imprisoned. Hoff thinks prison is where he's headed — he's in jail, charged in an unarmed bank robbery.


___


Online:


American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry: http://www.aacap.org


___


AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner


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Wall Street Week Ahead: A lump of coal for "Fiscal Cliff-mas"

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wall Street traders are going to have to pack their tablets and work computers in their holiday luggage after all.


A traditionally quiet week could become hellish for traders as politicians in Washington are likely to fall short of an agreement to deal with $600 billion in tax hikes and spending cuts due to kick in early next year. Many economists forecast that this "fiscal cliff" will push the economy into recession.


Thursday's debacle in the U.S. House of Representatives, where Speaker John Boehner failed to secure passage of his own bill that was meant to pressure President Obama and Senate Democrats, only added to worry that the protracted budget talks will stretch into 2013.


Still, the market remains resilient. Friday's decline on Wall Street, triggered by Boehner's fiasco, was not enough to prevent the S&P 500 from posting its best week in four.


"The markets have been sort of taking this in stride," said Sandy Lincoln, chief market strategist at BMO Asset Management U.S. in Chicago, which has about $38 billion in assets under management.


"The markets still basically believe that something will be done," he said.


If something happens next week, it will come in a short time frame. Markets will be open for a half-day on Christmas Eve, when Congress will not be in session, and will close on Tuesday for Christmas. Wall Street will resume regular stock trading on Wednesday, but volume is expected to be light throughout the rest of the week with scores of market participants away on a holiday break.


For the week, the three major U.S. stock indexes posted gains, with the Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> up 0.4 percent, the S&P 500 <.spx> up 1.2 percent and the Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> up 1.7 percent.


Stocks also have booked solid gains for the year so far, with just five trading sessions left in 2012: The Dow has advanced 8 percent, while the S&P 500 has climbed 13.7 percent and the Nasdaq has jumped 16 percent.


IT COULD GET A LITTLE CRAZY


Equity volumes are expected to fall sharply next week. Last year, daily volume on each of the last five trading days dropped on average by about 49 percent, compared with the rest of 2011 - to just over 4 billion shares a day exchanging hands on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and NYSE MKT in the final five sessions of the year from a 2011 daily average of 7.9 billion.


If the trend repeats, low volumes could generate a spike in volatility as traders keep track of any advance in the cliff talks in Washington.


"I'm guessing it's going to be a low volume week. There's not a whole lot other than the fiscal cliff that is going to continue to take the headlines," said Joe Bell, senior equity analyst at Schaeffer's Investment Research, in Cincinnati.


"A lot of people already have a foot out the door, and with the possibility of some market-moving news, you get the possibility of increased volatility."


Economic data would have to be way off the mark to move markets next week. But if the recent trend of better-than-expected economic data holds, stocks will have strong fundamental support that could prevent selling from getting overextended even as the fiscal cliff negotiations grind along.


Small and mid-cap stocks have outperformed their larger peers in the last couple of months, indicating a shift in investor sentiment toward the U.S. economy. The S&P MidCap 400 Index <.mid> overcame a technical level by confirming its close above 1,000 for a second week.


"We view the outperformance of the mid-caps and the break of that level as a strong sign for the overall market," Schaeffer's Bell said.


"Whenever you have flight to risk, it shows investors are beginning to have more of a risk appetite."


Evidence of that shift could be a spike in shares in the defense sector, expected to take a hit as defense spending is a key component of the budget talks.


The PHLX defense sector index <.dfx> hit a historic high on Thursday, and far outperformed the market on Friday with a dip of just 0.26 percent, while the three major U.S. stock indexes finished the day down about 1 percent.


Following a half-day on Wall Street on Monday ahead of the Christmas holiday, Wednesday will bring the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index. It is expected to show a ninth-straight month of gains.


U.S. jobless claims on Thursday are seen roughly in line with the previous week's level, with the forecast at 360,000 new filings for unemployment insurance, compared with the previous week's 361,000.


(Wall St Week Ahead runs every Friday. Questions or comments on this column can be emailed to: rodrigo.campos(at)thomsonreuters.com)


(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos; Additional reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Jan Paschal)



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The Lede Blog: Bahrain Welcomes European Delegation, Not Delegates' Calls to Free Dissidents

As The Lede reported on Wednesday, a delegation from the European Parliament visited Bahrain this week to discuss human rights, just as the kingdom jailed a rights advocate for documenting a protest on Twitter.

Bahrain’s state media presented the visit as evidence that the kingdom is committed to human rights — one report showed the delegates meeting with the head of an official human rights organization established by royal decree, another their briefing by the royal who oversees the police force “on human rights reforms that have been implemented within the interior ministry.”

What the country’s official news agency did not report, however, is that the head of the delegation, Inese Vaidere of Latvia, called for the release of all “prisoners of conscience” currently being detained for their role in the protest movement.

Ms. Vaidere’s call was joined by at least two other members of the delegation, Richard Howitt of Britain and Ana Gomes of Portugal, who issued a joint statement calling on the government to immediately release up to 800 “political prisoners” and begin direct talks with the opposition.

Ms. Gomes was barred from entering Bahrain at the airport when she attempted to visit the kingdom in April to meet with rights activists.

Throughout the three-day visit, Mr. Howitt posted a stream of updates on the delegation’s meetings with Bahraini officials and detained opposition members on his Twitter feed. He said that he questioned the treatment of human rights activists like Said Yousif al-Muhafda, who was jailed on Monday for tweeting about a protest.

Mr. Howitt also described meetings with detained rights activists, including Nabeel Rajab, the president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights — who was jailed for “inciting” antigovernment protests in speeches and Twitter updates — and the same rights group’s founder, Abdulhadi al-Khawaja — who was sentenced to life in prison by a military court last year for his role in the 2011 protests. Claims that the men are confined in luxurious surroundings are untrue, he reported.

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TSX ends flat as RIM buckles, gold miners bounce






TORONTO (Reuters) – Canada‘s main stock index ended little changed on Friday as gold miners gained on safe-haven buying amid U.S. budget uncertainty, while BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd plunged more than 20 percent.


The index’s materials sector, which includes miners, rose 0.4 percent. Even though the price of gold was near its lowest level in four months, the gold-mining sub-sector added 0.9 percent as investors fretted over stalled U.S. budget talks that could throw Canada’s largest trading partner back into recession.






“As our tiptoes are over the (U.S.) fiscal cliff and we’re looking over the abyss, the markets are upset obviously, and this is sort of putting a damper on the stocks,” said John Ing, president of Maison Placements Canada.


“But we’ve had a mixed reaction in Canada, mainly because the resources have been much better, like gold for example, which is hedging into the uncertainty (around the budget talks),” he said, noting gold miners had been under pressure for the last two weeks.


Miner Barrick Gold Corp edged up 0.2 percent to C$ 33.29. Centerra Gold Inc jumped more than 3 percent to C$ 9.10.


Gold miners are playing catch-up after underperforming throughout the year and could rise further in 2013, said Gavin Graham, president at Graham Investment Strategy.


Shares of RIM dropped 22.2 percent to C$ 10.86 on fears that a new fee structure for its high-margin services segment could put pressure on the business that has set the company apart from its competitors.


The Toronto Stock Exchange‘s S&P/TSX composite index <.gsptse> fell 3.01 points, or 0.02 percent, to end at 12,385.70. It gained 0.7 percent for the week.</.gsptse>


Efforts to avoid the looming U.S. “fiscal cliff” were thrown into disarray on Friday with finger-pointing lawmakers fleeing Washington for Christmas vacations even as the year-end deadline for action edged ever closer.


Graham said that until a deal is reached in the U.S. budget talks, investors will avoid economically sensitive Canadian stocks and those most closely tied to the U.S. economy: auto parts manufacturers, forestry companies and resource stocks generally.


“The resource sectors in Canada, which is half of the index, is going to be adversely affected, correctly or not,” he said.


“Chinese demand is likely to pick up somewhat now with the new leadership there but people will be focused on the U.S. given that it is still by far the most important export market for Canada.”


($ 1=$ 0.99 Canadian)


(Additional reporting by Claire Sibonney, Julie Gordon and Jeffrey Hodgson; Editing by Peter Galloway)


Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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See If You Can Spot the One Color That Popped on the Carpet This Week







Style News Now





12/21/2012 at 12:00 PM ET











Lauren Bush Lauren Beauty ProductsGetty; Splash News Online; WireImage


Even though we didn’t see as many stars on the red carpet this week as last — it’s quiet in Hollywood this holiday season! — we still saw some strong trends emerge at various events. What were they? Let’s get to it!



Up: Pops of red. You can thank the holidays for this festive mini-trend, which we spotted on Hailee Steinfeld’s purse, Bella Heathcote’s dress and Rose Byrne’s jacket. Adding just a hint of the bold hue to your outfit is an easy way to look all holiday-y without going overboard.




Up: Head-to-toe black. What, are stars sick of sequined dresses already? This week we saw nearly one dozen leading ladies wear all black: Britney Spears, Demi Lovato, LeAnn Rimes, Alexa Chung, Jessica Chastain, Miley Cyrus, Krysten Ritter and Kerry Washington … to name a few. As New Yorkers, we’re always happy to see all-black ensembles en force, and it is a look that’s usually pretty failsafe — and slimming.



Down: Stick-straight hair. Rita Ora was the only woman we saw with pin-straight locks this week; everyone else went for bouncy curls and elegant updos (and cropped cuts, if you count Miley Cyrus!). With Christmas and New Year’s Even upon us, we predict we’ll be seeing a lot more exciting hairdos and less of the minimalist straight looks.


Tell us: Which color are you more likely to wear at the holidays: red or black?






Want more Trend Report? Click to hear our thoughts on mini dresses, cut-outs and collars.


FIND ALL THE LATEST RED CARPET NEWS AND PHOTOS HERE!




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AP IMPACT: Big Pharma cashes in on HGH abuse


A federal crackdown on illicit foreign supplies of human growth hormone has failed to stop rampant misuse, and instead has driven record sales of the drug by some of the world's biggest pharmaceutical companies, an Associated Press investigation shows.


The crackdown, which began in 2006, reduced the illegal flow of unregulated supplies from China, India and Mexico.


But since then, Big Pharma has been satisfying the steady desires of U.S. users and abusers, including many who take the drug in the false hope of delaying the effects of aging.


From 2005 to 2011, inflation-adjusted sales of HGH were up 69 percent, according to an AP analysis of pharmaceutical company data collected by the research firm IMS Health. Sales of the average prescription drug rose just 12 percent in that same period.


___


EDITOR'S NOTE — Whether for athletics or age, Americans from teenagers to baby boomers are trying to get an edge by illegally using anabolic steroids and human growth hormone, despite well-documented risks. This is the second of a two-part series.


___


Unlike other prescription drugs, HGH may be prescribed only for specific uses. U.S. sales are limited by law to treat a rare growth defect in children and a handful of uncommon conditions like short bowel syndrome or Prader-Willi syndrome, a congenital disease that causes reduced muscle tone and a lack of hormones in sex glands.


The AP analysis, supplemented by interviews with experts, shows too many sales and too many prescriptions for the number of people known to be suffering from those ailments. At least half of last year's sales likely went to patients not legally allowed to get the drug. And U.S. pharmacies processed nearly double the expected number of prescriptions.


Peddled as an elixir of life capable of turning middle-aged bodies into lean machines, HGH — a synthesized form of the growth hormone made naturally by the human pituitary gland — winds up in the eager hands of affluent, aging users who hope to slow or even reverse the aging process.


Experts say these folks don't need the drug, and may be harmed by it. The supposed fountain-of-youth medicine can cause enlargement of breast tissue, carpal tunnel syndrome and swelling of hands and feet. Ironically, it also can contribute to aging ailments like heart disease and Type 2 diabetes.


Others in the medical establishment also are taking a fat piece of the profits — doctors who fudge prescriptions, as well as pharmacists and distributors who are content to look the other way. HGH also is sold directly without prescriptions, as new-age snake oil, to patients at anti-aging clinics that operate more like automated drug mills.


Years of raids, sports scandals and media attention haven't stopped major drugmakers from selling a whopping $1.4 billion worth of HGH in the U.S. last year. That's more than industry-wide annual gross sales for penicillin or prescription allergy medicine. Anti-aging HGH regimens vary greatly, with a yearly cost typically ranging from $6,000 to $12,000 for three to six self-injections per week.


Across the U.S., the medication is often dispensed through prescriptions based on improper diagnoses, carefully crafted to exploit wiggle room in the law restricting use of HGH, the AP found.


HGH is often promoted on the Internet with the same kind of before-and-after photos found in miracle diet ads, along with wildly hyped claims of rapid muscle growth, loss of fat, greater vigor, and other exaggerated benefits to adults far beyond their physical prime. Sales also are driven by the personal endorsement of celebrities such as actress Suzanne Somers.


Pharmacies that once risked prosecution for using unauthorized, foreign HGH — improperly labeled as raw pharmaceutical ingredients and smuggled across the border — now simply dispense name brands, often for the same banned uses. And usually with impunity.


Eight companies have been granted permission to market HGH by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which reviews the benefits and risks of new drug products. By contrast, three companies are approved for the diabetes drug insulin.


The No. 1 maker, Roche subsidiary Genentech, had nearly $400 million in HGH sales in the U.S. last year, up an inflation-adjusted two-thirds from 2005. Pfizer and Eli Lilly were second and third with $300 million and $220 million in sales, respectively, according to IMS Health. Pfizer now gets more revenue from its HGH brand, Genotropin, than from Zoloft, its well-known depression medicine that lost patent protection.


On their face, the numbers make no sense to the recognized hormone doctors known as endocrinologists who provide legitimate HGH treatment to a small number of patients.


Endocrinologists estimate there are fewer than 45,000 U.S. patients who might legitimately take HGH. They would be expected to use roughly 180,000 prescriptions or refills each year, given that typical patients get three months' worth of HGH at a time, according to doctors and distributors.


Yet U.S. pharmacies last year supplied almost twice that much HGH — 340,000 orders — according to AP's analysis of IMS Health data.


While doctors say more than 90 percent of legitimate patients are children with stunted growth, 40 percent of 442 U.S. side-effect cases tied to HGH over the last year involved people age 18 or older, according to an AP analysis of FDA data. The average adult's age in those cases was 53, far beyond the prime age for sports. The oldest patients were in their 80s.


Some of these medical records even give explicit hints of use to combat aging, justifying treatment with reasons like fatigue, bone thinning and "off-label," which means treatment of an unapproved condition


Even Medicare, the government health program for older Americans, allowed 22,169 HGH prescriptions in 2010, a five-year increase of 78 percent, according to data released by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in response to an AP public records request.


"There's no question: a lot gets out," said hormone specialist Dr. Mark Molitch of Northwestern University, who helped write medical standards meant to limit HGH treatment to legitimate patients.


And those figures don't include HGH sold directly by doctors without prescriptions at scores of anti-aging medical practices and clinics around the country. Those numbers could only be tallied by drug makers, who have declined to say how many patients they supply and for what conditions.


First marketed in 1985 for children with stunted growth, HGH was soon misappropriated by adults intent on exploiting its modest muscle- and bone-building qualities. Congress limited HGH distribution to the handful of rare conditions in an extraordinary 1990 law, overriding the generally unrestricted right of doctors to prescribe medicines as they see fit.


Despite the law, illicit HGH spread around the sports world in the 1990s, making deep inroads into bodybuilding, college athletics, and professional leagues from baseball to cycling. The even larger banned market among older adults has flourished more recently.


FDA regulations ban the sale of HGH as an anti-aging drug. In fact, since 1990, prescribing it for things like weight loss and strength conditioning has been punishable by 5 to 10 years in prison.


Steve Kleppe, of Scottsdale, Ariz., a restaurant entrepreneur who has taken HGH for almost 15 years to keep feeling young, said he noticed a price jump of about 25 percent after the block on imports. He now buys HGH directly from a doctor at an annual cost of about $8,000 for himself and the same amount for his wife.


Many older patients go for HGH treatment to scores of anti-aging practices and clinics heavily concentrated in retirement states like Florida, Nevada, Arizona and California.


These sites are affiliated with hundreds of doctors who are rarely endocrinologists. Instead, many tout certification by the American Board of Anti-Aging and Regenerative Medicine, though the medical establishment does not recognize the group's bona fides.


The clinics offer personalized programs of "age management" to business executives, affluent retirees, and other patients of means, sometimes coupled with the amenities of a vacation resort. The operations insist there are few, if any, side effects from HGH. Mainstream medical authorities say otherwise.


A 2007 review of 31 medical studies showed swelling in half of HGH patients, with joint pain or diabetes in more than a fifth. A French study of about 7,000 people who took HGH as children found a 30 percent higher risk of death from causes like bone tumors and stroke, stirring a health advisory from U.S. authorities.


For proof that the drug works, marketers turn to images like the memorable one of pot-bellied septuagenarian Dr. Jeffry Life, supposedly transformed into a ripped hulk of himself by his own program available at the upscale Las Vegas-based Cenegenics Elite Health. (He declined to be interviewed.)


These promoters of HGH say there is a connection between the drop-off in growth hormone levels through adulthood and the physical decline that begins in late middle age. Replace the hormone, they say, and the aging process slows.


"It's an easy ruse. People equate hormones with youth," said Dr. Tom Perls, a leading industry critic who does aging research at Boston University. "It's a marketing dream come true."


___


Associated Press Writer David B. Caruso reported from New York and AP National Writer Jeff Donn reported from Plymouth, Mass. AP Writer Troy Thibodeaux provided data analysis assistance from New Orleans.


___


AP's interactive on the HGH investigation: http://hosted.ap.org/interactives/2012/hgh


___


The AP National Investigative Team can be reached at investigate(at)ap.org


EDITOR'S NOTE _ Whether for athletics or age, Americans from teenagers to baby boomers are trying to get an edge by illegally using anabolic steroids and human growth hormone, despite well-documented risks. This is the second of a two-part series.


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Wall Street Week Ahead: A lump of coal for "Fiscal Cliff-mas"

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wall Street traders are going to have to pack their tablets and work computers in their holiday luggage after all.


A traditionally quiet week could become hellish for traders as politicians in Washington are likely to fall short of an agreement to deal with $600 billion in tax hikes and spending cuts due to kick in early next year. Many economists forecast that this "fiscal cliff" will push the economy into recession.


Thursday's debacle in the U.S. House of Representatives, where Speaker John Boehner failed to secure passage of his own bill that was meant to pressure President Obama and Senate Democrats. This only added to worry that the protracted budget talks will stretch into 2013.


Still, the market remains resilient. Friday's decline on Wall Street, triggered by Boehner's fiasco, was not enough to prevent the S&P 500 from posting its best week in four.


"The markets have been sort of taking this in stride," said Sandy Lincoln, chief market strategist at BMO Asset Management U.S. in Chicago, which has about $38 billion in assets under management.


"The markets still basically believe that something will be done," he said.


If something happens next week, it will come in a short time frame. Markets will be open for a half-day on Christmas Eve, when Congress will not be in session, and will close on Tuesday for Christmas. Wall Street will resume regular stock trading on Wednesday, but volume is expected to be light throughout the rest of the week with scores of market participants away on a holiday break.


For the week, the three major U.S. stock indexes posted gains, with the Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> up 0.4 percent, the S&P 500 <.spx> up 1.2 percent and the Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> up 1.7 percent.


IT COULD GET A LITTLE CRAZY


Equity volumes are expected to fall sharply next week. Last year, daily volume on each of the last five trading days dropped on average by about 49 percent, compared with the rest of 2011 - to just over 4 billion shares a day exchanging hands on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and NYSE MKT in the final five sessions of the year from a 2011 daily average of 7.9 billion.


If the trend repeats, low volumes could generate a spike in volatility as traders keep track of any advance in the cliff talks in Washington.


"I'm guessing it's going to be a low volume week. There's not a whole lot other than the fiscal cliff that is going to continue to take the headlines," said Joe Bell, senior equity analyst at Schaeffer's Investment Research, in Cincinnati.


"A lot of people already have a foot out the door, and with the possibility of some market-moving news, you get the possibility of increased volatility."


Economic data would have to be way off the mark to move markets next week. But if the recent trend of better-than-expected economic data holds, stocks will have strong fundamental support that could prevent selling from getting overextended even as the fiscal cliff negotiations grind along.


Small and mid-cap stocks have outperformed their larger peers in the last couple of months, indicating a shift in investor sentiment toward the U.S. economy. The S&P MidCap 400 Index <.mid> overcame a technical level by confirming its close above 1,000 for a second week.


"We view the outperformance of the mid-caps and the break of that level as a strong sign for the overall market," Schaeffer's Bell said.


"Whenever you have flight to risk, it shows investors are beginning to have more of a risk appetite."


Evidence of that shift could be a spike in shares in the defense sector, expected to take a hit as defense spending is a key component of the budget talks.


The PHLX defense sector index <.dfx> hit a historic high on Thursday, and far outperformed the market on Friday with a dip of just 0.26 percent, while the three major U.S. stock indexes finished the day down about 1 percent.


Following a half-day on Wall Street on Monday ahead of the Christmas holiday, Wednesday will bring the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index. It is expected to show a ninth-straight month of gains.


U.S. jobless claims on Thursday are seen roughly in line with the previous week's level, with the forecast at 360,000 new filings for unemployment insurance, compared with the previous week's 361,000.


(Wall St Week Ahead runs every Friday. Questions or comments on this column can be emailed to: rodrigo.campos(at)thomsonreuters.com)


(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos; Additional reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Jan Paschal)



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Syrian Forces Lobbing More Scud Missiles at Rebels, U.S. Says





WASHINGTON — Forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad of Syria have resumed firing Scud ballistic missiles against rebel positions in recent days, American officials said on Thursday.




“We’ve been clear that we have seen the regime in Syria use Scud missiles against its own people, and that continues,” a senior State Department official said.


American officials said that was no indication that the missiles were armed with chemical weapons. They had no information on possible casualties.


Contacts inside Syria said that one Scud attack took place on Thursday near Maara, a town in a rebel-held area north of Aleppo near the Turkish border. The missile appeared to have missed its target, and the initial accounts were that nobody was hurt. American officials, who have been monitoring Mr. Assad’s military actions via aerial surveillance and other methods, did not corroborate those details but disclosed that the Scud firings, which they first reported last week, had resumed.


“We know they’ve been firing Scuds and continue to fire them,” said a Defense Department official.


American officials said on Dec. 12 that the Syrian military had fired six Scud missiles at the Sheikh Suleiman base north of Aleppo, which rebel forces had occupied. It is unclear whether the Scuds, which are Soviet-era designed missiles not known for their precision, hit the intended target.


The Syrian foreign minister, Walid al-Moallem, later issued a statement denying that Syria had used Scuds. It called the reports “untrue rumors.”


There appeared to a lull in the Scud firings after the first reports, but now the Syrian government is firing them again.


NATO recently approved the deployment of American, Dutch and Germany Patriot antimissile batteries to Turkey, a neighbor of Syria that has become one of Mr. Assad’s most ardent critics, to protect against a possible Syrian missile attack. The United States is sending two Patriot batteries and 400 troops to operate them.


Syria has several types of Scuds, including Scud-B systems that were provided by Russia and Scud-C’s and Scud-D’s that were developed with the assistance of Iran and North Korea, according to Joseph Holliday, an expert on Syria at the Institute for the Study of War, a nongovernmental research group.


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Video game shares down in wake of shooting






LOS ANGELES (AP) — Shares of video game makers and sellers fell Thursday in the aftermath of a mass shooting at a Connecticut elementary school, which has renewed debate about violent games and their potential influence on crime.


Shares of GameStop Corp., whose stores sell video games as well as systems like the Xbox and Wii, fell 5 percent in afternoon trading.






Investors are seen as being increasingly concerned that the government may impose tougher rules on the sales of games rated for “mature” and older audiences.


Investors may be worried that parents will also avoid buying first-person shooter games like “Call of Duty: Black Ops 2″ after the tragedy Friday morning at Sandy Hook Elementary, in which 20 children and six adults were shot and killed by 20-year-old Adam Lanza.


“Maybe there will be more stringent efforts to make sure youth are not playing games that they’re not old enough to play,” said Mike Hickey, an analyst with National Alliance Securities. “Maybe there will be a greater effort by parents in managing the content their kids are playing.”


Shares of companies involved in the video game industry, many of which had been dropping since the shooting, declined further Thursday.


GameStop stock lost $ 1.37, or 5 percent, to $ 26.18. Shares have barely changed since last Thursday’s close, the day before the shooting, to Wednesday’s close.


— Shares of Activision Blizzard Inc., the publisher of “Call of Duty: Black Ops 2,” fell 9 cents to $ 10.70. The stock had already dropped 5.6 percent.


Electronic Arts Inc. shares fell 41 cents, or 2.9 percent, to $ 13.99. Shares had dropped 5.6 percent.


— Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. shares slipped 29 cents, or 2.5 percent, to $ 11.69. The stock had dropped 8 percent.


The declines came as broader markets rose. The Dow Jones industrial average was up 0.3 percent at 13,295.


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Danielle Fishel Graduates College















12/20/2012 at 06:00 PM EST



Danielle Fishel has successfully taken on more this year than just the comical role of Lindsay Lohan playing Elizabeth Taylor.

The upcoming Girl Meets World star, 31, announced on Wednesday that she is "super proud" to be done with college!

"I'm officially a college graduate," she wrote on her Tumblr, explaining that she decided to go back to school four years ago, despite initial hesitation.

"I was too afraid of being the old lady in class – of being whispered about and especially of not remembering how to do simple math equations," she wrote. "After my 27th birthday, I made the decision to stop letting fear be a factor in fulfilling my dreams and living the life I wanted."

Although she admits some of her biggest fears of going back to school came true, in the end, she reached one of her "proudest achievements in life," explaining, "You will lose a lot of social time (shout outs to all my friends I've barely seen in the last four years!) and you will wonder why you decided to do this whole school thing again. But you will gain so much more in the long run."

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AP IMPACT: Steroids loom in major-college football


WASHINGTON (AP) — With steroids easy to buy, testing weak and punishments inconsistent, college football players are packing on significant weight — 30 pounds or more in a single year, sometimes — without drawing much attention from their schools or the NCAA in a sport that earns tens of billions of dollars for teams.


Rules vary so widely that, on any given game day, a team with a strict no-steroid policy can face a team whose players have repeatedly tested positive.


An investigation by The Associated Press — based on interviews with players, testers, dealers and experts and an analysis of weight records for more than 61,000 players — revealed that while those running the multibillion-dollar sport say they believe the problem is under control, that control is hardly evident.


The sport's near-zero rate of positive steroids tests isn't an accurate gauge among college athletes. Random tests provide weak deterrence and, by design, fail to catch every player using steroids. Colleges also are reluctant to spend money on expensive steroid testing when cheaper ones for drugs like marijuana allow them to say they're doing everything they can to keep drugs out of football.


"It's nothing like what's going on in reality," said Don Catlin, an anti-doping pioneer who spent years conducting the NCAA's laboratory tests at UCLA. He became so frustrated with the college system that it was part of the reason he left the testing industry to focus on anti-doping research.


___


EDITOR'S NOTE — Whether for athletics or age, Americans from teenagers to baby boomers are trying to get an edge by illegally using anabolic steroids and human growth hormone, despite well-documented risks. This is the first of a two-part series.


___


While other major sports have been beset by revelations of steroid use, college football has operated with barely a whiff of scandal. Between 1996 and 2010 — the era of Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Marion Jones and Lance Armstrong — the failure rate for NCAA steroid tests fell even closer to zero from an already low rate of less than 1 percent.


The AP's investigation, drawing upon more than a decade of official rosters from all 120 Football Bowl Subdivision teams, found thousands of players quickly putting on significant weight, even more than their fellow players. The information compiled by the AP included players who appeared for multiple years on the same teams.


For decades, scientific studies have shown that anabolic steroid use leads to an increase in body weight. Weight gain alone doesn't prove steroid use, but very rapid weight gain is one factor that would be deemed suspicious, said Kathy Turpin, senior director of sport drug testing for the National Center for Drug Free Sport, which conducts tests for the NCAA and more than 300 schools.


Yet the NCAA has never studied weight gain or considered it in regard to its steroid testing policies, said Mary Wilfert, the NCAA's associate director of health and safety.


The NCAA attributes the decline in positive tests to its year-round drug testing program, combined with anti-drug education and testing conducted by schools.


The AP's analysis found that, regardless of school, conference and won-loss record, many players gained weight at exceptional rates compared with their fellow athletes and while accounting for their heights.


Adding more than 20 or 25 pounds of lean muscle in a year is nearly impossible through diet and exercise alone, said Dan Benardot, director of the Laboratory for Elite Athlete Performance at Georgia State University.


In nearly all the rarest cases of weight gain in the AP study, players were offensive or defensive linemen, hulking giants who tower above 6-foot-3 and weigh 300 pounds or more. Four of those players interviewed by the AP said that they never used steroids and gained weight through dramatic increases in eating, up to six meals a day. Two said they were aware of other players using steroids.


"I ate 5-6 times a day," said Clint Oldenburg, who played for Colorado State starting in 2002 and for five years in the NFL. Oldenburg's weight increased over four years from 212 to 290.


Oldenburg told the AP he was surprised at the scope of steroid use in college football, even in Colorado State's locker room. "There were a lot of guys even on my team that were using." He declined to identify any of them.


The AP found more than 4,700 players — or about 7 percent of all players — who gained more than 20 pounds overall in a single year. It was common for the athletes to gain 10, 15 and up to 20 pounds in their first year under a rigorous regimen of weightlifting and diet. Others gained 25, 35 and 40 pounds in a season. In roughly 100 cases, players packed on as much 80 pounds in a single year.


In at least 11 instances, players that AP identified as packing on significant weight in college went on to fail NFL drug tests. But pro football's confidentiality rules make it impossible to know for certain which drugs were used and how many others failed tests that never became public.


Even though testers consider rapid weight gain suspicious, in practice it doesn't result in testing. Ben Lamaak, who arrived at Iowa State in 2006, said he weighed 225 pounds in high school. He graduated as a 320-pound offensive lineman and said he did it all naturally.


"I was just a young kid at that time, and I was still growing into my body," he said. "It really wasn't that hard for me to gain the weight. I love to eat."


In addition to random drug testing, Iowa State is one of many schools that have "reasonable suspicion" testing. That means players can be tested when their behavior or physical symptoms suggest drug use. Despite gaining 81 pounds in a year, Lamaak said he was never singled out for testing.


The associate athletics director for athletic training at Iowa State, Mark Coberley, said coaches and trainers use body composition, strength data and other factors to spot suspected cheaters. Lamaak, he said, was not suspicious because he gained a lot of "non-lean" weight.


But looking solely at the most significant weight gainers also ignores players like Bryan Maneafaiga.


In the summer of 2004, Bryan Maneafaiga was an undersized 180-pound running back trying to make the University of Hawaii football team. Twice — once in pre-season and once in the fall — he failed school drug tests, showing up positive for marijuana use but not steroids.


He'd started injecting stanozolol, a steroid, in the summer to help bulk up to a roster weight of 200 pounds. Once on the team, he'd occasionally inject the milky liquid into his buttocks the day before games.


"Food and good training will only get you so far," he told the AP recently.


Maneafaiga's former coach, June Jones, said it was news to him that one of his players had used steroids. Jones, who now coaches at Southern Methodist University, believes the NCAA does a good job rooting out steroid use.


On paper, college football has a strong drug policy. The NCAA conducts random, unannounced drug testing and the penalties for failure are severe. Players lose an entire year of eligibility after a first positive test. A second offense means permanent ineligibility for sports.


In practice, though, the NCAA's roughly 11,000 annual tests amount to a fraction of all athletes in Division I and II schools. Exactly how many tests are conducted each year on football players is unclear because the NCAA hasn't published its data for two years. And when it did, it periodically changed the formats, making it impossible to compare one year of football to the next.


Even when players are tested by the NCAA, experts like Catlin say it's easy enough to anticipate the test and develop a doping routine that results in a clean test by the time it occurs. NCAA rules say players can be notified up to two days in advance of a test, which Catlin says is plenty of time to beat a test if players have designed the right doping regimen. By comparison, Olympic athletes are given no notice.


Most schools that use Drug Free Sport do not test for anabolic steroids, Turpin said. Some are worried about the cost. Others don't think they have a problem. And others believe that since the NCAA tests for steroids their money is best spent testing for street drugs, she said.


Doping is a bigger deal at some schools than others.


At Notre Dame and Alabama, the teams that will soon compete for the national championship, players don't automatically miss games for testing positive for steroids. At Alabama, coaches have wide discretion. Notre Dame's student-athlete handbook says a player who fails a test can return to the field once the steroids are out of his system.


The University of North Carolina kicks players off the team after a single positive test for steroids. Auburn's student-athlete handbook calls for a half-season suspension for any athlete caught using performance-enhancing drugs.


At UCLA, home of the laboratory that for years set the standard for cutting-edge steroid testing, athletes can fail three drug tests before being suspended. At Bowling Green, testing is voluntary.


At the University of Maryland, students must get counseling after testing positive, but school officials are prohibited from disciplining first-time steroid users.


Only about half the student athletes in a 2009 NCAA survey said they believed school testing deterred drug use. As an association of colleges and universities, the NCAA could not unilaterally force schools to institute uniform testing policies and sanctions, Wilfert said.


"We can't tell them what to do, but if went through a membership process where they determined that this is what should be done, then it could happen," she said.


___


Associated Press writers Ryan Foley in Cedar Rapids, Iowa; David Brandt in Jackson, Miss.; David Skretta in Lawrence, Kan.; Don Thompson in Sacramento, Calif., and Alexa Olesen in Shanghai, China, and researchers Susan James in New York and Monika Mathur in Washington contributed to this report.


___


Contact the Washington investigative team at DCinvestigations (at) ap.org.


Whether for athletics or age, Americans from teenagers to baby boomers are trying to get an edge by illegally using anabolic steroids and human growth hormone, despite well-documented risks. This is the first of a two-part series.


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Wall Street bounces back on hope for "cliff' solution

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks rebounded from early losses on Thursday after Republican House Speaker John Boehner said he would keep working on a solution to the "fiscal cliff" while also slamming President Barack Obama's approach to budget talks.


NYSE Euronext was the S&P 500's biggest gainer, surging 34 percent to $32.25 after IntercontinentalExchange Inc said it would buy the operator of the New York Stock Exchange for $8.2 billion.


ICE shares shot up 1.4 percent to $130.10.


Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives pushed ahead with their own plan to avoid a series of steep tax hikes and spending cuts due in early 2013, complicating negotiations with the White House. Obama has vowed to veto the plan.


Investors have hoped for an agreement soon between policymakers, but progress has been slow. Boehner said he expected to continue to work with Obama, but repeated his charge that the president and Senate Democrats were trying to "slow walk" the country over the fiscal cliff.


"Speaker Boehner went on the air and basically told us he doesn't like what the president's doing or not doing, and the markets rallied on that, which was kind of weird," said Stephen Guilfoyle, a trader at Meridian Equity Partners, in New York.


The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> gained 59.75 points, or 0.45 percent, to 13,311.72 at the close. The S&P 500 <.spx> rose 7.88 points, or 0.55 percent, to 1,443.69. The Nasdaq Composite <.ixic> climbed 6.02 points, or 0.20 percent, to 3,050.39.


Stocks rallied earlier in the week on signs of progress in the fiscal cliff negotiations. But with the S&P 500 up 14.8 percent so far this year, investors are taking the opportunity to engage in some hedging as 2012 comes to a close.


Herbalife lost 9.6 percent to $33.74 following news that hedge fund manager Bill Ackman was betting against the company as part of his big end-of-the-year short.


The S&P Financial Index <.gspf> gained 1.4 percent.


The U.S. economy grew 3.1 percent in the third quarter, faster than previously estimated, while the number of Americans filing new claims for jobless benefits rose more than expected in the latest week.


Existing home sales jumped 5.9 percent in November, more than expected, and by the fastest monthly pace in three years. An index of housing shares <.hgx> gained 0.78 percent.


But KB Home slid 6.4 percent to $15.60 as the company reported higher homebuilding costs and expenses in the fourth quarter.


About 6.4 billion shares changed hands on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and NYSE MKT, roughly in line with the daily average so far this year of about 6.46 billion shares.


On the NYSE, advancers outnumbered decliners by a ratio of about 2 to 1. On the Nasdaq, five stocks rose for every three that fell.


(Additional reporting by Ryan Vlastelica and Leah Schnurr; Editing by Jan Paschal)



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China Arrests Christian Sect Members Over Doomsday Chat


Ed Jones/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images


A few entrepreneurial Chinese have focused on ways to survive an apocalypse, like Liu Qiyuan’s reinforced pods







BEIJING — By the time Saturday rolls around (or not) it will be self-evident whether the doomsday predictions espoused by some Christian sects and New Age followers of the Mayan end-of-world prophecy were off the mark.




The Chinese authorities are not willing to wait until then.


Alarmed by spreading fears in China that Dec. 21 will bring global apocalypse, security officials across the country have been rounding up members of a renegade Christian group whose members have been aggressively promoting the notion that devastating earthquakes and tsunamis will coincide with the end of the 5,125-year Mayan Long Count calendar.


In recent days, the police in nine provinces have arrested more than 900 devotees of the clandestine sect, the Church of Almighty God, whose adherents recently have begun holding outdoor prayer vigils and handing out pamphlets that warn nonbelievers that the only way to avoid extinction is to join their ranks.


Branded an “evil cult” by the Communist Party and maligned by mainstream Christian groups for claiming that God has returned to earth as a Chinese woman, the Church of Almighty God latched onto the Mayan end-of-days legend soon after the Hollywood disaster film “2012” took Chinese theaters by storm.


The movie, which gives China’s military a starring role as the savior of mankind, was a huge success here three years ago. A 3-D version that opened last month across the country has already earned $22 million, a substantial box office take in China.


It is impossible, of course, to gauge how many Chinese have been swept up by doomsday mania, or the less catastrophic version popular here that portends three continuous days of darkness, accompanied by a collapse of the nation’s electrical grid. Stores across the country have reported panic buying of candles, and a few entrepreneurs have made out well peddling survival kits or portable “Noah’s Arks.”


Liu Ye, a Beijing office worker, said he had already filled up the cataclysm-proof bunker he built in the mountains near Lhasa, in Tibet. The entry fee to his sanctuary was $8,000.


Yang Zhongfu, a businessman in coastal Zhejiang Province who usually makes a living producing scarves, says he has sold 26 steel-and-fiberglass floating spheres that each can contain and sustain as many as nine people for months. He said one anxious customer ordered 15 of the motorized vessels, which include oxygen tanks, solar lighting and seat belts to reduce jostling as passengers ride out a hypothetical deluge. The most expensive model, at $800,000, includes sacks of soil for growing vegetables.


“I told buyers I think they are overreacting to this so-called doomsday thing but I respect their decision,” Mr. Yang said.


The fear among security officials that apocalypse fever might get out of hand is not entirely unfounded. Last week, a mentally unstable man who slashed students at a primary school in the central province of Henan told investigators that his rampage was prompted by end-of-world jitters.


Public security officials across the country have been broadcasting warnings about purveyors of apocalyptic doom, some of whom are demanding money in exchange for salvation. “The end of the world is purely a rumor,” the Shanghai police said in a microblog message. “Do not believe it. Do not fall for the scam.”


But the brunt of the official crackdown has fallen on members of the Almighty God sect.


In an online notice posted Tuesday, provincial security officials described Almighty God as a criminal gang responsible for sowing social panic, preaching heresies and breaking up families. “It is a social cancer and a plague on humankind,” the notice said.


The sect, also known as Eastern Lightning and founded two decades ago in China’s frigid Heilongjiang Province, has long faced persecution. Although much about the group remains murky, some estimates suggest a membership of nearly one million.


Critics, including clerics from established Christian congregations, accuse Almighty God evangelists of strong-armed conversion tactics that include kidnapping and study sessions lasting days that they describe as brainwashing. Among the group’s central tenets is a belief that the messiah has arrived and that she is in hiding somewhere in China.


Shi Da contributed research.



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Experts: Kids are resilient in coping with trauma


WASHINGTON (AP) — They might not want to talk about the gunshots or the screams. But their toys might start getting into imaginary shootouts.


Last week's school shooting in Connecticut raises the question: What will be the psychological fallout for the children who survived?


For people of any age, regaining a sense of security after surviving violence can take a long time. They're at risk for lingering anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder.


But after the grief and fear fades, psychiatrists say most of Newtown's young survivors probably will cope without long-term emotional problems.


"Kids do tend to be highly resilient," said Dr. Matthew Biel, chief of child and adolescent psychiatry at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital.


And one way that younger children try to make sense of trauma is through play. Youngsters may pull out action figures or stuffed animals and re-enact what they witnessed, perhaps multiple times.


"That's the way they gain mastery over a situation that's overwhelming," Biel explained, saying it becomes a concern only if the child is clearly distressed while playing.


Nor is it unusual for children to chase each other playing cops-and-robbers, but now parents might see some also pretending they're dead, added Dr. Melissa Brymer of the UCLA-Duke National Center for Child Traumatic Stress.


Among the challenges will be spotting which children are struggling enough that they may need professional help.


Newtown's tragedy is particularly heart-wrenching because of what such young children grappled with — like the six first-graders who apparently had to run past their teacher's body to escape to safety.


There's little scientific research specifically on PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder, in children exposed to a burst of violence, and even less to tell if a younger child will have a harder time healing than an older one.


Overall, scientists say studies of natural disasters and wars suggest most children eventually recover from traumatic experiences while a smaller proportion develop long-term disorders such as PTSD. Brymer says in her studies of school shootings, that fraction can range from 10 percent to a quarter of survivors, depending on what they actually experienced. A broader 2007 study found 13 percent of U.S. children exposed to different types of trauma reported some symptoms of PTSD, although less than 1 percent had enough for an official diagnosis.


Violence isn't all that rare in childhood. In many parts of the world — and in inner-city neighborhoods in the U.S., too — children witness it repeatedly. They don't become inured to it, Biel said, and more exposure means a greater chance of lasting psychological harm.


In Newtown, most at risk for longer-term problems are those who saw someone killed, said Dr. Carol North of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, who has researched survivors of mass shootings.


Friday's shootings were mostly in two classrooms of Sandy Hook Elementary School, which has about 450 students through fourth-grade.


But those who weren't as close to the danger may be at extra risk, too, if this wasn't their first trauma or they already had problems such as anxiety disorders that increase their vulnerability, she said.


Right after a traumatic event, it's normal to have nightmares or trouble sleeping, to stick close to loved ones, and to be nervous or moody, Biel said.


To help, parents will have to follow their child's lead. Grilling a child about a traumatic experience isn't good, he stressed. Some children will ask a lot of questions, seeking reassurance, he said. Others will be quiet, thinking about the experience and maybe drawing or writing about it, or acting it out at playtime. Younger children may regress, becoming clingy or having tantrums.


Before second grade, their brains also are at a developmental stage some refer to as magical thinking, when it's difficult to distinguish reality and fantasy. Parents may have to help them understand that a friend who died isn't in pain or lonely but also isn't coming back, Brymer said.


When problem behaviors or signs of distress continue for several weeks, Brymer says it's time for an evaluation by a counselor or pediatrician.


Besides a supportive family, what helps? North advises getting children back into routines, together with their friends, and easing them back into a school setting. Studies of survivors of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks found "the power of the support of the people who went through it with you is huge," she said.


Children as young as first-graders can benefit from cognitive-behavioral therapy, Georgetown's Biel said. They can calm themselves with breathing techniques. They also can learn to identify and label their feelings — anger, frustration, worry — and how to balance, say, a worried thought with a brave one.


Finally, avoid watching TV coverage of the shooting, as children may think it's happening all over again, Biel added. He found that children who watched the 9/11 clips of planes hitting the World Trade Center thought they were seeing dozens of separate attacks.


___


EDITOR'S NOTE — Lauran Neergaard covers health and medical issues for The Associated Press in Washington.


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Wall Street falls as "cliff" talks sour, but hopes remain

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks sold off late in the day to close at session lows on Wednesday as talks to avert a year-end fiscal crisis turned sour, even as investors still expect a deal.


The S&P 500 slipped after a two-day rally that took the benchmark index to its highest close in two months. Defensive-oriented shares led the decliners, including health care and consumer staples.


General Motors bucked the overall weakness to surge 6.6 percent to $27.18 after the automaker said it will buy back 200 million of its shares from the U.S. Treasury, which plans to sell the rest of its GM stake over the next 15 months.


President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans are struggling to come up with a deal to avoid early 2013 tax hikes and spending cuts that many economists say could send the U.S. economy into recession.


House Speaker John Boehner, the top Republican in Congress, said in a one-minute press conference that his chamber will pass a proposal that Obama had already threatened to veto as it spares many wealthy Americans from tax hikes needed to balance the budget. Obama has already agreed to reductions in benefits for senior citizens.


"My guess is they're close to a deal, and right before, it looks like the deal is about to blow up either on manufactured or legitimate reasons," said Uri Landesman, president of hedge fund Platinum Partners in New York.


He said if the market thought a deal was in real danger, the S&P 500 would slide below 1,400. It stands now near 1,435, not far from a two-month high.


The CBOE Volatility Index <.vix> surged 11.5 percent to 17.36, but has remained relatively stable. Its 14- 50- and 200-day averages are all within 1.1 points.


Landesman said the VIX's stability indicates "the bulls have control of this market still."


Banks and energy shares - groups that outperform during periods of economic expansion - have led recent gains, indicating a shift to focusing on a growing economy as Wall Street looks past the budget talks.


Defensive sectors led Wednesday's downturn, with the S&P health care sector index <.gspa> down 1.1 percent.


The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> dropped 98.99 points, or 0.74 percent, to 13,251.97. The S&P 500 <.spx> lost 10.98 points, or 0.76 percent, to 1,435.81. The Nasdaq Composite <.ixic> fell 10.17 points, or 0.33 percent, to 3,044.36.


Herbalife Ltd shares tumbled 12.1 percent to $37.34 after William Ackman, one of the world's biggest hedge fund managers, said he is shorting the stock of the weight management products company.


Oracle shares helped cap the Nasdaq's loss after the company reported earnings that beat expectations on strong software sales growth. Oracle jumped 3.7 percent to $34.09.


Knight Capital Group Inc climbed 5.4 percent to $3.51 after it agreed to be bought by Getco Holdings in a deal valued at $1.4 billion. The stock, which nearly collapsed after a trading error in August, remains down about 70 percent so far this year.


Shares of Chinese display advertising provider Focus Media Holding Ltd jumped 6.7 percent to $25.52 after it agreed to be bought by a consortium of private equity funds led by the Carlyle Group for about $3.6 billion.


Data showed homebuilding permits touched their highest level in nearly 4-1/2 years in November. The PHLX housing index <.hgx> fell 0.8 percent, but has gained 66.4 percent this year as the housing market has turned the corner.


About 6.9 billion shares changed hands on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and NYSE MKT, slightly above the daily average so far this year of about 6.45 billion shares.


Advancing and declining issues were almost even on both the NYSE and the Nasdaq.


(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos; Editing by Jan Paschal)



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African National Congress Chooses Business Tycoon as Deputy President





BLOEMFONTEIN, South Africa — In South Africa, a nation where the gap between the rich and poor yawns wider than just about anywhere in the world, Cyril Ramaphosa might seem an unlikely savior to a political party whose base is the poor. His fortune is estimated to top $500 million. He sits on the board of the mining company whose 34 workers were killed in a harsh police crackdown on an illegal strike protesting low pay and miserable living conditions.




Yet when all the votes were counted at the African National Congress’s leadership conference here on Tuesday, Mr. Ramaphosa, a union leader turned business tycoon, had won more than 75 percent of the vote to become deputy president of the party, making him heir apparent to the top job and South Africa’s presidency once the nation’s leader, Jacob Zuma, ultimately leaves office.


Mr. Zuma, who is embattled but popular among the party faithful who attended the conference, easily won a second term as president of the party, beating back a challenge from his deputy, Kgalema Motlanthe.


The vote caps a tumultuous year for the A.N.C. It began with celebrations of the centenary of the party’s founding but quickly descended into party infighting and economic chaos after a series of violent wildcat strikes met the harsh police crackdown that killed the 34 miners. Revelations of corrupt deals and state-sponsored renovations on Mr. Zuma’s house in his home village tarnished his image as the son of a poor family who rose to the highest office in the land.


While the party met, the man who in many ways remains its symbolic and moral center, Nelson Mandela, who led the country out of apartheid and into multiracial democracy, remained in the hospital, 94 and in frail health.


And as if to underscore the uncertainty the nation faces, four men associated with a right-wing Afrikaner group seeking a separate state for whites were charged with treason in court here in Bloemfontein on Tuesday, accused of plotting to bomb the leadership conference and assassinate Mr. Zuma in a plot they code-named “The Slaughter of Mangaung,” a reference to the municipal region where the conference was held.


As was widely expected, the 4,000 delegates here opted to return Mr. Zuma as the party president, making him almost certain to win the presidential election to be held in 2014.


His victory was greeted by wild cheering in the vast tent erected on the campus of a university to hold the delegates. Beneath yellow, black and green bunting, the colors of the A.N.C., they sang “Zuma is the one,” and stomped their feet, waving two fingers in the air, a symbol of support for Mr. Zuma’s second term.


Less expected until recent weeks was the re-emergence of Mr. Ramaphosa on the political stage. As a young lawyer in the 1980s, Mr. Ramaphosa founded the National Union of Mineworkers and led the country’s biggest mine strike in 1987. He played a crucial role in negotiating the transition from white rule to democracy after Mr. Mandela was released from prison in 1990. He also helped draft the country’s Constitution.


He was widely touted as Mr. Mandela’s most likely successor but was passed over in favor of Thabo Mbeki, and went into business instead. His investment company, Shanduka, has made him enormous wealth, with investments ranging from mining to fast food to mobile telecommunications.


Mr. Ramaphosa is in many respects the embodiment of the contradictions and divisions that have rived the A.N.C. in the decades since apartheid ended. He fought alongside other stalwarts of the struggle who remained in South Africa while the A.N.C. and other opposition parties were banned, spending 11 months in solitary confinement as a young man for his agitation against the state. He sacrificed what could have been a lucrative career working for white-owned companies for poorly paid union work.


But his wealth and power since the end of apartheid have also made him an emblem of a party that has gone from resisting a brutally oppressive government to being the dominant party in government and, increasingly, in business. Investment deals made under policies designed to encourage black ownership in the economy have made Mr. Ramaphosa a very prominent member of the new black elite that is viewed with envy and suspicion by millions of poor blacks left far behind.


Recent events have sharpened this perception. Mr. Ramaphosa serves on the board of directors of Lonmin, the platinum mining company whose workers were killed by the police during a wildcat strike in August. He was also widely criticized for bidding more than $2 million to buy a prize buffalo for breeding, though his supporters argue it was an investment, not a vanity purchase, and in any case another farmer outbid him.


“It hasn’t been a particularly good year for him,” said Trevor Manuel, a top A.N.C. leader who has worked closely with Mr. Ramaphosa for years, most recently on South Africa’s Planning Commission, where Mr. Ramaphosa was his deputy.


Some here question whether his vast wealth and long absence from retail politics have put him out of touch with the rank and file of the A.N.C.


“In a party that is grappling above all with inequality, how does it look to have a deputy president who is a billionaire?” asked Adam Habib, a political analyst who has just been named vice chancellor of the University of the Witwatersrand.


Mr. Ramaphosa has bridged the world of white capital and black working people for most of his career. He is a lawyer by training and never actually worked as a miner.


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Kristen Stewart Apologizes for Making Everyone 'So Angry'















12/18/2012 at 06:30 PM EST







Kristen Stewart


Lorenzo Bevilaqua/Disney/Getty


Kristen Stewart is once again saying she's sorry.

A few months after publicly expressing regret over cheating on boyfriend Robert Pattinson with her Snow White and the Huntsman director Rupert Sanders, the actress has some words for everybody else.

"I apologize to everyone for making them so angry," the typically press-shy On the Road star, 22, tells Newsweek. "It was not my intention."

Stewart, who has been the subject of both vitriolic criticism and tremendous support from fans, adds, "It's not a terrible thing if you're either loved or hated."

But at the end of the day, the former Twilight star is primarily focused on her craft.

"I don't care [about people's opinions]," she explains. "It doesn't keep me from doing my s–––."

Addressing her most famous role, that of Bella Swan in the Twilight franchise, she says, "The only relief when it comes to Twilight is that the story is done ... I start every project to finish the mother––, and to extend that [mentality] over a five-year period adapting all of these treasured moments over four books, it was constantly worrying."

As for always being know to a generation of moviegoers as Bella, she says, "As long as people's perspective of me doesn't keep me from doing what I want to do, it doesn’t matter.”

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