C. African Republic president seeks foreign help

BANGUI, Central African Republic (AP) — The president of Central African Republic on Thursday urgently called on France and other foreign powers to help his government fend off rebels who are quickly seizing territory and approaching the capital, but French officials declined to offer any military assistance.

The developments suggest Central African Republic could be on the brink of another violent change in government, something not new in the history of this resource-rich, yet deeply impoverished country. The current president, Francois Bozize, himself came to power nearly a decade ago in the wake of a rebellion.

Speaking to crowds in Bangui, a city of some 600,000, Bozize pleaded with foreign powers to do what they could. He pointed in particular to France, Central African Republic’s former colonial ruler.

About 200 French soldiers are already in the country, providing technical support and helping to train the local army, according to the French defense ministry.

“France has the means to stop (the rebels) but unfortunately they have done nothing for us until now,” Bozize said.

French President Francois Hollande said Thursday that France wants to protect its interests in Central African Republic and not Bozize’s government. The comments came a day after dozens of protesters, angry about a lack of help against rebel forces, threw rocks at the French Embassy in Bangui and stole a French flag.

Paris is encouraging peace talks between the government and the rebels, with the French Foreign Ministry noting in a statement that negotiations are due to “begin shortly in Libreville (Gabon).” But it was not immediately clear what, if any, dates have been set for those talks.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, meanwhile, spoke via phone with Bozize, asking the president to take responsibility for the safety of French nationals and diplomatic missions in Central African Republic.

U.S. officials said Thursday the State Department would close its embassy in the country and ordered its diplomatic team to leave. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were unauthorized to discuss the evacuation publicly.

The United Nations Security Council issued a press statement late Thursday reiterating its concern about the situation in the country and condemned the attacks.

“The members of the Security Council reiterate their demand that the armed groups immediately cease hostilities, withdraw from captured cities and cease any further advance towards the city of Bangui,” the statement reads.

Bozize’s government earlier reached out to longtime ally Chad, which pledged to send 2,000 troops to bolster Central African Republic’s own forces. But it was unclear if the Chadian troops had all arrived, and even then, it is far from certain if the combined government forces could withstand rebel attacks.

At least four different rebel groups are involved, though their overall numbers could not immediately be confirmed.

Central African Republic, a landlocked nation of some 4.4 million people, is roughly the size of France. It has suffered decades of army revolts, coups and rebellions since gaining independence in 1960 and remains one of the poorest countries in the world.

The rebels behind the most recent instability signed a 2007 peace accord allowing them to join the regular army, but insurgent leaders say the deal wasn’t fully implemented.

Already, the rebel forces have seized at least 10 towns across the sparsely populated north of the country, and residents in the capital now fear the insurgents could attack at any time, despite assurances by rebel leaders that they are willing to engage in dialogue instead of attacking Bangui.

The rebels have claimed that their actions are justified in light of the “thirst for justice, for peace, for security and for economic development of the people of Central African Republic.”

Despite Central African Republic’s wealth of gold, diamonds, timber and uranium, the government remains perpetually cash-strapped. Filip Hilgert, a researcher with Belgium-based International Peace Information Service, said rebel groups are unhappy because they feel the government doesn’t invest in their areas.

“The main thing they say is that the north of the country, and especially in their case the northeast, has always been neglected by the central government in all ways,” he said.

But the rebels also are demanding that the government make payments to ex-combatants, suggesting that their motives may also be for personal financial gain.

Bozize, a former military commander, came to power in a 2003 rebel war that ousted his predecessor, Ange-Felix Patasse. In his address Thursday, Bozize said he remained open to dialogue with the rebels, but he also accused them and their allies of financial greed.

Those allies, he implied, are outside Central African Republic.

“For me, there are individuals who are being manipulated by an outside hand, dreaming of exploiting the rich Central African Republic soil,” he said. “They want only to stop us from benefiting from our oil, our diamonds, our uranium and our gold.”

___

Larson reported from Dakar, Senegal. Associated Press writer Sarah DiLorenzo in Paris contributed to this report.

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Apple still said to account for 87% of North American tablet traffic as Kindle Fire, Nexus 7 gain

Apple’s (AAPL) share of the global tablet market is in decline now that low-cost Android slates are proliferating, but the iPad still appears to be the most used tablet by a huge margin. Ad firm Chitika regularly monitors tablet traffic in the United States and Canada and in its latest report, Apple’s iPad was responsible for almost 90% of all tablet traffic across the company’s massive network.

[More from BGR: Samsung looks to address its biggest weakness in 2013]

Using a sample of tens of millions of impressions served to tablets between December 8th and December 14th this year, Chitika determined that various iPad models collectively accounted for 87% of tablet traffic in North America. That figure is down a point from the prior month but still represents a commanding lead in the space.

[More from BGR: New purported BlackBerry Z10 specs emerge: 1.5GHz processor, 2GB RAM, 8MP camera]

The next closest device line, Amazon’s (AMZN) Kindle Fire tablet family, had a 4.25% share of tablet traffic during that period, up from 3.57% in November. Samsung’s (005930) Galaxy tablets made up 2.65% of traffic, up from 2.36%, and Google’s (GOOG) Nexus 7 and Nexus 10 tablets combined to account for 1.06% of tablet traffic in early December.

“Despite these gains by some of the bigger players in the tablet marketplace, there has been a negligible impact to Apple’s dominant usage share,” Chitika wrote in a post on its blog.

This article was originally published by BGR

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Singer Travis pleads not guilty to assault

SAN ANTONIO (Reuters) – Country singer Randy Travis pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor assault in a municipal courtroom in the Dallas suburb of Plano on Friday, his lawyer said.

Lawyer Peter A. Schulte told Reuters his client is “absolutely not guilty of this crime.”

Police say Travis assaulted a man in a church parking lot in Plano in August while attempting to intervene in a disagreement between a woman he was with and the woman’s estranged husband.

“He was actually being a good Samaritan at the time, stepping in to save two women from being assaulted,” Schulte said. He said the woman Travis was with and his daughter were being harassed by two men.

The charge against Travis carries a maximum $ 500 fine and no jail time. The case is set for trial March 11.

The altercation occurred during a bad stretch for the 53-year-old Grammy winner. Earlier in August, Travis was arrested on suspicion of drunken driving after he was found lying naked near his wrecked car along a north Texas highway. He also was accused of threatening to shoot and kill the troopers investigating the case, according to a police report.

The North Carolina-born country singer, known for hits such as “Forever and Ever, Amen,” also was arrested in February for drunken driving while sitting in his car in the parking lot of another north Texas church.

Schulte said Travis has been doing well since the two August incidents. He said his client was upbeat as he left the courtroom Friday.

“He turned and wished everybody who was there a merry Christmas and a happy and healthy New Year,” he said.

(Editing by Corrie MacLaggan and Bill Trott)

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Brazil president, cancer survivor, pronounced healthy

BRASILIA (Reuters) – Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, who survived lymphoma cancer in 2009, was pronounced healthy by doctors after a routine exam on Friday.

Rousseff’s health was “within normal levels,” according to a statement released by her office following the check-up at the Sirio-Libanes Hospital in Sao Paulo, one of South America‘s leading cancer treatment centers.

Rousseff underwent chemotherapy in 2009 and briefly wore a wig, but the cancer went into remission and she appeared to be in good health by the time she staged her winning campaign for the presidency in 2010.

Concerns over her health have faded since then, although a bout with pneumonia and a lengthy recovery in 2011 have kept the issue on some investors’ radar screens.

(Reporting by Ana Flor, Writing by Brian Winter; Editing by Doina Chiacu)

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Pending home sales hit two-and-half year high in November

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Contracts to buy previously owned U.S. homes rose in November to their highest level in 2-1/2 years, an industry group said on Friday, further evidence of a strengthening housing market recovery.

The National Association of Realtors said its Pending Home Sales Index, based on contracts signed last month, increased 1.7 percent to 106.4 – the highest level since April 2010 when the home-buyer tax credit expired.

Economists polled by Reuters had expected signed contracts, which become sales after a month or two, to rise 1.0 percent after a revised 5.0 percent increase in October. It was the third straight month of gains.

“Home sales are recovering now based solely on fundamental demand and favorable affordability conditions,” said NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun.

Pending home sales were up 9.8 percent in the 12 months through November.

The housing market has turned the corner after a dramatic collapse, which dragged the economy through its worst recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Home sales and prices are rising, encouraging builders to undertake new construction projects.

Home resale contracts were up in three of the country’s four regions. They were unchanged in the South.

(Reporting By Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Neil Stempleman)

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Cuba has much to lose as ally Chavez fights cancer

HAVANA (AP) — Cubans who were tuned in to the nightly soap opera on a recent Saturday received a sudden burst of bad news, from the other side of the Caribbean.

State TV cut to the presidential palace in Caracas, Venezuela, where President Hugo Chavez revealed that his cancer had returned. Facing his fourth related surgery in 18 months, he grimly named Vice President Nicolas Maduro as his possible successor.

The news shocked not only Venezuelans but millions of Cubans who have come to depend on Chavez’s largesse for everything from subsidized oil to cheap loans. Venezuela supplies about half of Cuba‘s energy needs, meaning the island’s economy would be in for a huge shock and likely recession if a post-Chavez president forced the island to pay full price for oil.

Despite the drama, the news likely wasn’t a surprise to Cuba’s Communist government, and not only because Chavez has been receiving medical care on the island.

Havana learned important lessons about overdependence when the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union threw the country into a deep crisis. Trying to avoid the consequences of a similar cut, the Cuban government has been diversifying its portfolio of economic partners in recent years, looking to Asia, Europe and other Latin American nations, and is only about half as dependent on Caracas as it was on the former Soviet Union.

Cuba is also working to stimulate its economy back home by allowing more private-sector activity, giving a leg up to independent and cooperative farming, and decentralizing its sugar industry. A stronger Cuban economy would in theory have more hard currency to pay for energy and other imports.

Also getting off the ground is an experiment with independent nonfarm collectives that should be more efficient than state-run companies. And next year, another pilot program is planned for decentralized state enterprises that will enjoy near-autonomy and be allowed to control most of their income.

“This could have good results,” said a Cuban economist who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to talk to the foreign media. Cuba “is also thinking of boosting foreign investment in areas of the national economy, including in restricted areas like the sugar industry.”

One of the country’s top goals has been to make the island’s struggling economy less dependent on a single benefactor.

Under the leadership of Chavez, who regularly calls former Cuban President Fidel Castro his ideological father and has followed parts of the Communist leader’s governance playbook, Venezuela has sent billions of dollars a year to Cuba through trade and petro-aid.

Bilateral trade stood at a little over $ 8 billion last year, much of it in Cuban imports of oil and derivatives. In return, Havana primarily provides Venezuela with technical support from Cuban teachers, scientists and other professionals, plus brigades of health care workers. Analysts say those services are overvalued by outside standards, apparently costing as much as $ 200,000 per year per doctor. Experts peg the total Venezuelan subsidy to Cuba at around $ 2 billion to $ 4 billion a year.

While business with Venezuela makes up 40 percent of all Cuban trade, it’s still a far cry from the days when the Communist Eastern Bloc accounted for an estimated 80 percent.

“A (loss of) $ 2 billion to $ 4 billion would definitely pinch. But it is not the same relative weight as the sudden complete withdrawal of the Soviet subsidies in the early ’90s,” said Richard E. Feinberg, a professor of international political economy at the University of California, San Diego. “Cuba’s not going to go back to the days of bicycles. Could it throw the Cuban economy into recession? Yes.”

That kind of resilience would result largely from Cuba’s successes in courting foreign investors for joint ventures.

Last month, authorities announced a deal with a subsidiary of Brazil’s Odebrecht to manage a sugar refinery, a rare step in an industry that has long been largely off limits to foreign involvement.

China has invested in land-based oil projects, and along with Canada is a key player in Cuba’s important nickel industry. Spain has ventures in tourist hotels and tobacco, while French company Pernod Ricard helps export Cuban liquors. And since 2009, Brazil has been a partner in a massive project to modernize and expand the port at Mariel, west of the capital.

Trade with China alone was $ 1.9 billion and rising in 2010, and Raul Castro paid a visit to Chinese and Vietnamese leaders earlier this year to help cement Asian relationships.

But while Havana says it wants to boost foreign investment, obstacles remain. The approval process for investment projects can be long and cumbersome, and pilferage, disincentives to productivity and government intervention can cut into efficiencies. Foreign companies also pay a sky-high payroll tax.

Feinberg, who wrote a report on foreign investment in Cuba published this month by the U.S. think tank the Brookings Institution, said that while a number of foreign companies are successfully doing business with the island, others have run into problems, sending a chilly message to would-be investors. In particular he noted the recent cases of a government takeover of a food company run by a Chilean businessman accused of corruption, and contentious renegotiations of a contract with Dutch-British personal and home care products giant Unilever amid shifting government demands.

“The Cuban government has to decide that it wants foreign investment unambiguously. I think now there seem to be divisions among the leadership,” Feinberg said. “Some are afraid that foreign investment compromises sovereignty, creates centers of power independent of the leadership or is exploitative.”

He estimated Cuba has left on the table about $ 20 billion in missed investment over the past decade by not following practices typical of other developing nations. Instead, Cuba received $ 3.5 billion in foreign investment in that period.

Experts say a worst-case scenario for Chavez wouldn’t automatically translate into the oil spigot shutting off overnight.

If Chavez’s hand-picked successor, Vice President Maduro, were to take office, he would likely seek to continue the special relationship.

Opposition leader Henrique Capriles has said he wants to end the oil-for-services barter arrangements, but could find that easier said than done should he win. The two countries are intertwined in dozens of joint accords, and poor Venezuelans who benefit from free care by Cuban doctors would be loath to see that disappear.

“You can’t flip the switch on a relationship like this,” said Melissa Lockhart Fortner, a Cuba analyst at the Pacific Council on International Policy, a Los Angeles-based institute that focuses on global affairs. “It would be terrible politics for him. … Switching that off would really endanger his support far too much for that to be really a feasible option.”

For Cuba, Chavez’s latest health scare capped off a year of disappointments in the island’s attempt to wean itself from Venezuelan energy.

Three deep-water exploratory oil wells drilled off the west coast failed to yield a strike, and last month the only oil rig in the world capable of drilling there without violating U.S. sanctions sailed away with no return in sight.

Yet time and again Havana has shown that it’s nothing if not resilient, weathering everything from U.S.-backed invasion and assassination plots in the 1960s to the austere “Special Period” in the early 1990s, when the Soviet collapse sent Cuba’s GDP plummeting 33 percent over four years. When hurricanes damaged the country’s agriculture sector and the global financial crisis squeezed tourism four years ago, Cuba tightened its belt, slashed imports and survived.

“Some people are saying the demise of Chavez is also going to be the demise of Communism in Cuba because the regime’s going to collapse and the people are going to rise up,” Feinberg said. “That’s probably yet another delusion of the anti-Castro exile community.”

Still, many Cubans are nervously tuning into the near-daily updates about Chavez’s health, carried prominently in state media.

“I don’t know what would happen here,” said 52-year-old Havana resident Magaly Ruiz. “We might end up eating grass.”

___

Associated Press writers Andrea Rodriguez and Anne-Marie Garcia in Havana contributed to this report.

___

Peter Orsi on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Peter_Orsi

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Police using Twitter to offer virtual ridealongs

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — Riding side by side as a police officer answers a call for help or investigates a brutal crime during a ridealong gives citizens an up close look at the gritty and sometimes dangerous situations officers can experience on the job.

But a new approach to informing the public about what officers do is taking hold at police departments across the United States and Canada 7/8— one that is far less dangerous for citizens but, police say, just as informative.

With virtual ridealongs on Twitter, or tweetalongs, curious citizens just need a computer or smartphone for a glimpse into law enforcement officers‘ daily routines.

Tweetalongs typically are scheduled for a set number of hours, with an officer — or a designated tweeter like the department’s public information officer— posting regular updates to Twitter about what they are seeing as they perform their normal on-duty routine. The tweets, which also include photos and links to videos of the officers, can encompass an array of activities — everything from an officer responding to a homicide to a noise complaint.

Police departments say virtual ridealongs reach a wider range of people at once and help add transparency to the job.

“People spend hard-earned money on taxes to allow the government to provide services. That’s police, fire, water, streets, the whole works, and there should be a way for those government agencies to let the public know what they’re getting for their money,” said Steve Allender, chief of the Rapid City Police Department in South Dakota, which started offering tweetalongs several months ago after watching departments like those in Seattle, Kansas City, Mo., and Las Vegas do so.

On the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, Tarah Heupel, the public information officer for the Rapid City Police Department, rode alongside Street Crimes Officer Ron Terviel as he patrolled Rapid City. Heupel posted regular updates every few minutes about what Terviel was doing, including the officer citing a woman for public intoxication, responding to a call of three teenagers attempting to steal cough syrup and body spray from a store and locating a man who ran from the scene of an accident. Photos were included in some of the tweets.

Michael Taddesse, a 34-year-old university career specialist in Arlington, Texas, has done several ridealongs with police and regularly follows multiple departments that conduct tweetalongs.

“I think the only way to effectively combat crime is to have a community that is engaged and understands what’s going on,” he said.

Ridealongs where “you’re out in the elements” are very different than sitting behind a computer during a tweetalong and the level of danger is “dramatically decreased,” he said. But in both instances, the passenger gains new information about the call, what laws may or may not have been broken and what transpires, he added.

For police departments, tweetalongs are just one more way to connect directly with a community through social media.

More than 92 percent of police departments use social media, according to a survey of 600 agencies in 48 states conducted by the International Association of Chiefs of Police’s Center for Social Media. And Nancy Kolb, senior program manager for IACP, called tweetalongs a “growing trend” among departments of all sizes.

There is no set protocol and departments are free to conduct the tweetalong how they see fit, she said.

In Ontario, Canada, the Niagara Regional Police Service conducted their first virtual ridealong in August over a busy eight-hour Friday night shift. The police department‘s followers were able to see a tweet whenever the police unit was dispatched to one of the more than 140,000 calls received that night.

Richard Gadreau, the social media officer for the police department, said officers routinely take people out on real ridealongs, but there is a waiting list and preference is given to people interested in becoming an officer.

With tweetalongs, many calls also mean many tweets. Kolb said departments are cognizant of cluttering peoples’ Twitter feeds.

That’s why the Rapid City Police Department decided to create a separate account for the tweetalong, Allender said.

Kolb also said officers are careful not to tweet personal or sensitive information. Officers typically do not tweet child abuse or domestic abuse cases, and they usually only tweet about a call after they leave the scene to protect officers and callers.

But Allender, the chief of police in Rapid City, said tweetalongs also show some of the more outrageous calls police deal with on a regular basis — like the kid who breaks out the window of a police car while the officer is standing on the sidewalk.

“Real life is funnier than any comedy show out there and not to make fun of people, embarrass them or humiliate them, but people do funny things,” Allender said. “… I mean, that guy deserves a little bit of ridicule, and everyone who would be watching would agree. That’s just good clean fun to me.”

___

Follow Kristi Eaton on Twitter at http://twitter.com/kristieaton

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Christmas box-office haul paces Hollywood for record year

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – A strong Christmas-day box office performance by musical “Les Miserables” and western “Django Unchained” put Hollywood on pace to set an all-time box office record with $ 10.8 billion in annual revenue, box-office tracker Hollywood.com said on Wednesday.

Universal Pictures‘ star-studded “Les Miserables” took in a weekday Christmas record of $ 18.2 million in the United States and Canada when it opened on Tuesday, according to studio estimates of weekday ticket sales.

Quentin Tarantino‘s spaghetti western “Django Unchained,” starring Jamie Foxx and Leonardo DiCaprio, hauled nearly $ 15 million for The Weinstein Co.

Studios “are definitely on the road to a record year with $ 10.8 billion expected (up 6 percent over last year and beating the previous record of $ 10.6 billion in 2009),” Hollywood.com analyst Paul Dergarabedian told Reuters in an email, adding that the number of tickets sold should climb 6 percent from 2011 to 1.36 billion.

Dergarabedian credits a successful marketing year for studios as a chief reason for the projected box-office record, as well as spring and summer smashes “The Hunger Games” and “The Avengers” helping boost revenue.

“It was not just the fact that most of the movies delivered, it was the timing of their release dates and the marketing was obviously effective as well with social media continuing to provide an outlet for the movie-going peer group to talk about their favorite flicks,” Dergarabedian said.

“The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,” based on the J.R.R. Tolkein classic fantasy novel, brought in $ 11.4 million on Christmas day after ruling the box office with nearly $ 37 million in sales over the weekend.

Billy Crystal family film “Parental Guidance” debuted in fourth place with about $ 6.4 million in Christmas sales while Tom Cruise’s “Jack Reacher,” which featured author Lee Child’s character in an investigation into a sniper shooting, was fifth with some $ 5.3 million.

“The Hobbit” was distributed by Time Warner Inc’s Warner Bros. Studio. News Corp’s 20th Century Fox released “Parental Guidance” and Paramount Pictures, a unit of Viacom, released “Jack Reacher.” Universal Pictures is owned by Comcast Corp.

(Reporting by Eric Kelsey; Edited by Ronald Grover and Andrew Hay)

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Kenya Hospital Imprisons New Moms Who Can’t Pay

The director of the Pumwani Maternity Hospital, located in a hardscrabble neighborhood of downtown Nairobi, freely acknowledges what he’s accused of: detaining mothers who can’t pay their bills. Lazarus Omondi says it’s the only way he can keep his medical center running.

Two mothers who live in a mud-wall and tin-roof slum a short walk from the maternity hospital, which is affiliated with the Nairobi City Council, told The Associated Press that Pumwani wouldn’t let them leave after delivering their babies. The bills the mothers couldn’t afford were $ 60 and $ 160. Guards would beat mothers with sticks who tried to leave without paying, one of the women said.

Now, a New York-based group has filed a lawsuit on the women’s behalf in hopes of forcing Pumwani to stop the practice, a practice Omondi is candid about.

“We hold you and squeeze you until we get what we can get. We must be self-sufficient,” Omondi said in an interview in his hospital office. “The hospital must get money to pay electricity, to pay water. We must pay our doctors and our workers.”

“They stay there until they pay. They must pay,” he said of the 350 mothers who give birth each week on average. “If you don’t pay the hospital will collapse.”

The Center for Reproductive Rights, which filed the suit this month in the High Court of Kenya, says detaining women for not paying is illegal. Pumwani is associated with the Nairobi City Council, one reason it might be able to get away with such practices, and the patients are among Nairobi’s poorest with hardly anyone to stand up for them.

Maimouna Awuor was an impoverished mother of four when she was to give birth to her fifth in October 2010. Like many who live in Nairobi’s slums, Awuor performs odd jobs in the hopes of earning enough money to feed her kids that day. Awuor, who is named in the lawsuit, says she had saved $ 12 and hoped to go to a lower-cost clinic but was turned away and sent to Pumwani. After giving birth, she couldn’t pay the $ 60 bill, and was held with what she believes was about 60 other women and their infants.

“We were sleeping three to a bed, sometimes four,” she said. “They abuse you, they call you names,” she said of the hospital staff.

She said saw some women tried to flee but they were beaten by the guards and turned back. While her husband worked at a faraway refugee camp, Awuor’s 9-year-old daughter took care of her siblings. A friend helped feed them, she said, while the children stayed in the family’s 50-square-foot shack, where rent is $ 18 a month. She says she was released after 20 days after Nairobi’s mayor paid her bill. Politicians in Kenya in general are expected to give out money and get a budget to do so.

A second mother named in the lawsuit, Margaret Anyoso, says she was locked up in Pumwani for six days in 2010 because she could not pay her $ 160 bill. Her pregnancy was complicated by a punctured bladder and heavy bleeding.

“I did not see my child until the sixth day after the surgery. The hospital staff were keeping her away from me and it was only when I caused a scene that they brought her to me,” said Anyoso, a vegetable seller and a single mother with five children who makes $ 5 on a good day.

Anyoso said she didn’t have clothes for her child so she wrapped her in a blood-stained blouse. She was released after relatives paid the bill.

One woman says she was detained for nine months and was released only after going on a hunger strike. The Center for Reproductive Rights says other hospitals also detain non-paying patients.

Judy Okal, the acting Africa director for the Center for Reproductive Rights, said her group filed the lawsuit so all Kenyan women, regardless of socio-economic status, are able to receive health care without fear of imprisonment. The hospital, the attorney general, the City Council of Nairobi and two government ministries are named in the suit.

———

Associated Press reporter Tom Odula contributed to this report.

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US ‘heading over fiscal cliff’

27 December 2012 Last updated at 11:40 ET

“It looks like that’s where we’re headed,” Harry Reid said of the fiscal cliff

The US appears to be heading over the “fiscal cliff”, with prospects dim for a deal to avoid tax rises and spending cuts, the US Senate leader says.

Speaking on the Senate floor, Democrat Harry Reid said there did not seem to be enough time to craft a deal before Monday night’s end-of-year deadline.

Senators and President Barack Obama have returned to Washington, while the House of Representatives is in recess.

Analysts say heading over the “cliff” could tip the US into recession.

Bickering over the cliff has divided Washington in recent weeks, with President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner unable to reach a deal before Christmas.

The president wants to ensure that taxes do not rise for Americans earning under $ 400,000 (£250,000), and insists on raising new tax revenue in any deal.

‘Dictatorship of the speaker’

But many Republicans oppose new taxes, and an alternative plan proposed by Mr Boehner – which would have seen taxes rise only on those earning over $ 1m – failed in the House late last week.

Continue reading the main story

• On 1 January 2013, tax increases and huge spending cuts are due to come into force – the so-called fiscal cliff


• Deadline was put in place in 2011 to force president and Congress to agree ways to save money over the next 10 years


• Fear is that raising taxes while massively cutting spending will have huge impact on households and businesses


• Experts believe it could push the US into recession, and have a global impact on growth

Republicans left Washington for Christmas and said responsibility for avoiding the cliff rested with the Democratic-led Senate.

But in the Senate chamber on Thursday Mr Reid said the requirement to get at least 60 of 100 votes to move to a vote on any legislation almost certainly doomed any new plan unless Republicans gave it strong backing.

“It looks like that’s where we’re headed,” Mr Reid said of the fiscal cliff.

The Senate leader said the House of Representatives was “being operated with a dictatorship of the speaker”, accusing Mr Boehner of holding up a vote on a Senate-passed bill to avoid the fiscal cliff.

“John Boehner seems to care more about keeping his speakership than about keeping the nation on sound financial footing,” Mr Reid said. Mr Boehner faces an internal re-election contest among House Republicans on 3 January.

The term fiscal cliff refers to the combination of almost $ 600bn (£370bn) of tax rises and spending cuts due to come into force on 1 January if Congress does not pass new legislation.

Sweeping tax cuts passed during the presidency of George W Bush will expire, affecting people of all income levels.

‘Extraordinary accounting’

In addition, spending cuts mandated by a law passed to break a previous fiscal impasse in Congress will come into force.

The cuts are expected to affect federal government departments and the defence sector, as well as hitting unemployment insurance and veterans’ support.

On Wednesday, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner warned Congress the Treasury would have to enact a series of extraordinary accounting measures to free up about $ 200bn from the government’s official borrowing figure.

Those measures would stop the government from hitting its $ 16.4tn “debt ceiling” – the legal limit set by Congress on how much the US government can borrow – for about another two months beyond 31 December.

But Mr Geithner warned that without them, the government would run out of cash on Monday and “the United States would otherwise default on its legal obligations”.

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VP says Chavez up, walking; doubts persist

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Vice President Nicolas Maduro surprised Venezuelans with a Christmas Eve announcement that President Hugo Chavez is up and walking two weeks after cancer surgery in Cuba, but the news did little to ease uncertainty surrounding the leader’s condition.

Sounding giddy, Maduro told state television Venezolana de Television that he had spoken by phone with Chavez for 20 minutes Monday night. It was the first time a top Venezuelan government official had confirmed talking personally with Chavez since the Dec. 11 operation, his fourth cancer surgery since 2011.

“He was in a good mood,” Maduro said. “He was walking, he was exercising.”

Chavez supporters reacted with relief, but the statement inspired more questions, given the sparse information the Venezuelan government has provided so far about the president’s cancer. Chavez has kept secret various details about his illness, including the precise location of the tumors and the type of cancer. His long-term prognosis remains a mystery.

Dr. Michael Pishvaian, an oncologist at Georgetown University’s Lombardi Cancer Center in Washington, said it was an encouraging sign that Chavez was walking, and it indicated he would be able to return to Venezuela relatively soon. But he said the long term outlook remained poor.

“It’s definitely good news. It means that he is on the road to recover fully from the surgery,” Pishvaian said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. “The overall prognosis is still pretty poor. He likely has a terminal diagnosis with his cancer that has come back.”

Pishvaian and other outside doctors have said that given the details Chavez has provided about his cancer, it is most likely a soft-tissue sarcoma.

Chavez first underwent surgery for an unspecified type of pelvic cancer in Cuba in June 2011 and went back this month after tests had found a return of malignant cells in the same area where tumors were previously removed.

Venezuelan officials said that, following the six-hour surgery two weeks ago, Chavez suffered internal bleeding that was stanched and a respiratory infection that was being treated.

Maduro’s announcement came just hours after Information Minister Ernesto Villegas read a statement saying Chavez was showing “a slight improvement with a progressive trend.”

Dr. Carlos Castro, director of the Colombian League against Cancer, an association that promotes cancer prevention, treatment and education, said Maduro’s announcement was too vague to paint a clear picture of Chavez’s condition.

“It’s possible (that he is walking) because everything is possible,” Castro told AP. “They probably had him sit in up in bed and take two steps.”

“It’s unclear what they mean by exercise. Was it four little steps?” he added. “I think he is still in critical condition.”

Maduro’s near-midnight announcement came just as Venezuelan families were gathering for traditional late Christmas Eve dinners and setting off the usual deafening fireworks that accompany the festivities. There was still little outward reaction on a quiet Christmas morning.

Danny Moreno, a software technician watching her 2-year-old son try out his new tricycle, was among the few people at a Caracas plaza who said she had heard Maduro’s announcement. She said she saw a government Twitter message saying an announcement was coming and her mother rushed to turn on the TV.

“We all said, thank God, he’s okay,” she said, smiling.

Dr. Gustavo Medrano, a lung specialist at the Centro Medico hospital in Caracas, said if Chavez is talking, it suggests he is breathing on his own despite the respiratory infection and is not in intensive care. But Medrano said he remained skeptical about Maduro’s comments and could deduce little from them about Chavez’s prognosis for recovery.

“I have no idea because if it was such a serious, urgent, important operation, and that was 14 days ago, I don’t think he could be walking and exercising after a surgery like that,” Medrano said.

Over the weekend, Chavez’s ally, Bolivian President Evo Morales, made a lightning visit to Cuba that only added to the uncertainty.

Journalists had been summoned to cover his arrival and departure in Havana, but hours later that invitation was canceled. No explanation was given, though it could have been due to confusion over Morales’ itinerary as he apparently arrived later than initially scheduled.

Cuban state media published photos of President Raul Castro receiving Morales at the airport and said he came “to express his support” for Chavez, his close ally, but did not give further details. He left Sunday without making any public comments.

For the second day in a row Tuesday, Morales made no mention of his trip to Cuba during public events in Bolivia.

Yet more questions surround Chavez’s political future, with the surgery coming two months after he won re-election to a six-year term.

If he is unable to continue in office, the Venezuelan Constitution calls for new elections to be held. Chavez has asked his followers to back Maduro, his hand-picked successor, in that event.

Venezuelan officials have said Chavez might not return in time for his Jan. 10 inauguration.

Opposition leaders have argued that the constitution does not allow the president’s swearing-in to be postponed, and say new elections should be called if Chavez is unable to take the oath on time.

But government officials have said the constitution lets the Supreme Court administer the oath of office at any time if the National Assembly is unable to do it Jan. 10 as scheduled.

___

Associated Press writers Peter Orsi in Havana, Vivian Sequera in Caracas, Camilo Hernandez in Bogota, Colombia, and Paola Flores in La Paz, Bolivia, contributed to this report.

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Ouch, Charlie! YouTube Sensation Kids Talk Christmas Toys

The infamous “Charlie Bit My Finger” video has surpassed half a billion views on YouTube — not bad for a 56-second clip of a one-year-old kid biting his older brother’s finger.

Charlie and Harry, now six and eight, returned to the web earlier this year with a new series through Viral Studios. The mini-episodes focus on the boys and their younger brother, Jasper, as they talk about toys, viral videos and — of course — biting things.

[More from Mashable: 8 Festive Christmas Tumblrs, Presented by Santa Dogs]

Mashable sat down for a Skype interview with the three boys last week. Unfortunately, the Internet connection wasn’t the greatest — Harry twice referred to me as a “man made out of boxes” because of the spotty video quality — but they were still able to talk about what toys they were most excited about this holiday season. Check ‘em out below:

[More from Mashable: Now and Then: 10 Awesome Past and Present Pics]

Charlie’s Pick: Playmobil Large Pirate Ship

Price: $ 95.50

Image courtesy of Playmobil

Harry’s Pick: Thomas & Friends Take-n-Play The Great Quarry Climb

Price: $ 19.99

Image courtesy of Fisher-Price

Jasper’s Pick: Turbo Snake Remote Control

Price: £38.45 (only available in the U.K.)

Image courtesy of Amazon

You can catch all the episodes on the “Charlie Bit Me!” series on their YouTube page. Which toys or gadgets did you score this year? Tell us below.

BONUS: 10 Gifts for People You Hate

1. 50 Used Toilet Paper Rolls

Price: $ 19.99 Mother Earth appreciates a little holiday upcycling. Your mother-in-law, on the other hand, may not. Cheaper DIY alternative: Your own toilet paper rolls.

Click here to view this gallery.

Image courtesy of Viral Studios

This story originally published on Mashable here.

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Britain’s royal family attends Christmas services

LONDON (AP) — Britain‘s royal family is attending Christmas Day church services — with a few notable absences.

Wearing a turquoise coat and matching hat, Queen Elizabeth II arrived at St. Mary Magdelene Church on her sprawling Sandringham estate in Norfolk. She was accompanied in a Bentley by granddaughters Beatrice and Eugenie.

Her husband, Prince Philip, walked from the house to the church with other members of the royal family.

Three familiar faces were missing from the family outing. Prince William is spending the holiday with his pregnant wife Kate and his in-laws in the southern England village of Bucklebury. Prince Harry is serving with British troops in Afghanistan.

Later Tuesday, the queen will deliver her traditional, pre-recorded Christmas message, which for the first time will be broadcast in 3D.

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Obama, Congress set for late push on “fiscal cliff”

WASHINGTON/HONOLULU (Reuters) – President Barack Obama is due back in Washington early Thursday for a final effort to negotiate a deal with Congress to avert or at least postpone the “fiscal cliff” of tax increases and government spending cuts set to begin next week.

No specific bill dealing with the cliff was on the schedule of either the U.S. Senate or House of Representatives, which are expected to return on Thursday after the holiday break. In Congress, the corridors were almost empty and the doors to members’ rooms were locked.

Investors are closely watching the talks, concerned that going over the cliff could throw the economy into recession. U.S. stocks slipped on Wednesday after retailers reported disappointing holiday sales as shoppers tightened belts possibly due to fiscal cliff worries.

Aides and members of Congress have said that a modest, last-minute measure to avoid the spending cuts and most of the tax hikes could pass the Democratic-controlled Senate if Republicans agree not use a procedural roadblock known as a filibuster, a commitment that Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell has so far not made.

The legislative focus continues to shift from deficit reduction to averting the immediate shock of the December 31 cliff dive.

“This is the ‘Break Glass’ scenario that we have long believed would rise in probability the closer we go to December 31, which essentially calls for extending all the rates for those individuals making under $ 200K and households under $ 250K and does not address the debt ceiling or the deficit,” analyst Chris Krueger of Guggenheim Securities wrote in a research note.

But to win approval in the Republican-controlled House of any bill that raises taxes on anyone, a rare bipartisan vote would be required. All 191 Democrats would have to team with up with at least 26 Republicans to get a majority if the bill included tax hikes on the wealthiest Americans, as Obama is demanding.

Some of those votes could conceivably come from among the 34 Republican members who are either retiring or were defeated in the November elections and no longer have to worry about the political fallout.

JANUARY SCRAMBLE?

In the alternative, Congress could let income taxes go up on everyone as now scheduled and then during the first week of January, scramble and get a quick deal to cut them back except for the highest brackets, along with a measure putting off the $ 109 billion in automatic spending cuts that most lawmakers want to avoid.

Once the clock ticks past midnight on December 31, no member of Congress would have to vote for a tax increase on anyone – taxes would have risen automatically – and the only votes would be to decrease tax rates for most Americans back to their 2012 levels.

Americans’ optimism that Obama and congressional leaders will reach a budget agreement before January 1 has waned in recent days, according to a Gallup poll released on Wednesday. Fifty percent believe a deal will be reached – a drop of 7 percentage points from the previous week – and 48 percent are doubtful. The poll was taken just after talks ran into trouble last week.

Obama and congressional lawmakers left Washington on Friday for the Christmas holiday with negotiations to avert the fiscal cliff in limbo.

The president will cut short his vacation in Hawaii and leave for Washington later on Wednesday, arriving in the capital early on Thursday.

Obama is expected to turn to a trusted Democratic ally, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, to help craft a quick deal.

White House aides began discussing details of the year-end budget measure with Senate Democratic counterparts early this week.

Starbucks Chief Executive Howard Schultz is urging workers in the company’s roughly 120 Washington-area coffee shops to write “come together” on customers’ cups on Thursday and Friday to send a message to sharply divided politicians.

“We’re paying attention, we’re greatly disappointed in what’s going on and we deserve better,” Schultz told Reuters.

(Additional reporting by Thomas Ferraro and Richard Cowan in Washington and Lisa Baertlein in Los Angeles; Editing by Eric Beech)

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How to Keep New Year’s Resolutions: Make Them in August

Here’s some bad news for those making New Year’s resolutions now: January is the worst month to try to change your life, according to data from StickK, one of several websites designed to help people achieve personal goals. “Everybody wants to make a New Year’s resolution,” says Jordan Goldberg, chief executive of the 18-employee New York company, which see its traffic triple at the start of the year as thousands of people commit to exercising more, losing weight, and quitting smoking. “Their willpower to do so varies considerably.”

The best month to try to change, according to StickK’s data, is August, when students are preparing to go back to school and many people are settling into new routines.

There’s no clinical research on the ideal time of year to make improvements, says John Norcross, a psychologist at the University of Scranton and author of Changeology, a new book on behavior change. One explanation for January’s high failure rate: “People rushing in are likely to fail,” Norcross says. That can demoralize them and make it harder to modify their habits later. “They should be changing when they’re prepared,” he says.

The good news: Those who keep their commitments for at least three months tend to stick long-term, no matter what time of year they’re made. Here’s a chart of data from a 1989 study of resolutions Norcross published in the Journal of Substance Abuse, showing when people relapse:

Goldberg agrees that when you make a resolution is less important to succeeding than how you do it. StickK lets you set up a contract that will cost you money if you fail to meet your goals. The funds are charged to a credit card entered when you set the goal and forfeits go to a charity or a person you designate; if you claim success, you lose nothing. For added incentive, you can pick an “anti-charity” whose cause you oppose. (Some British soccer fans even select a rival football club to get their cash if they fail.) Unless the money is going to another individual, StickK takes a cut of about 20 percent to 30 percent; it also makes money by selling its techniques to corporate wellness programs.

For a further layer of enforcement, StickK lets you designate a friend to hold you accountable and post your progress on social networks. “It’s about having skin in the game,” says Goldberg. With money on the line and a friend nudging you along, your chances of success rise from 29 percent to 74 percent, according to StickK’s data, based on users’ self-reported results.

Goldberg says he made two resolutions at the start of 2012: to go to the gym three times a week and to get to bed earlier. He says he’s succeeded at the first, but getting enough rest has been trickier. “When you’re running a startup, doing a lot of traveling, it’s tough to maintain a good sleep schedule,” he says. Maybe he should try again next August.

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U.N. General Assembly voices concern for Myanmar’s Muslims

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – The U.N. General Assembly expressed serious concern on Monday over violence between Rohingya Muslims and Buddhists in Myanmar and called upon its government to address reports of human rights abuses by some authorities.

The 193-nation General Assembly approved by consensus a non-binding resolution, which Myanmar said last month contained a “litany of sweeping allegations, accuracies of which have yet to be verified.”

Outbreaks of violence between ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and the Rohingyas have killed dozens and displaced thousands since June. Rights groups also have accused Myanmar security forces of killing, raping and arresting Rohingyas after the riots. Myanmar said it exercised “maximum restraint” to quell the violence.

The unanimously adopted U.N. resolution “expressing particular concern about the situation of the Rohingya minority in Rakhine state, urges the government to take action to bring about an improvement in their situation and to protect all their human rights, including their right to a nationality.”

At least 800,000 Muslim Rohingyas live in Rakhine State along the western coast of Myanmar, also known as Burma. But Buddhist Rakhines and other Burmese view them as illegal immigrants from neighboring Bangladesh who deserve neither rights nor sympathy.

The resolution adopted on Monday is identical to one approved last month by the General Assembly’s Third Committee, which focuses on human rights. After that vote, Myanmar’s mission to the United Nations said that it accepted the resolution but objected to the Rohingyas being referred to as a minority.

“There has been no such ethnic group as Rohingya among the ethnic groups of Myanmar,” a representative of Myanmar said at the time. “Despite this fact, the right to citizenship for any member or community has been and will never be denied if they are in line with the law of the land.”

(Reporting By Louis Charbonneau; Editing by Paul Simao)

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China may require real name registration for internet access

BEIJING (Reuters) – China may require internet users to register with their real names when signing up to network providers, state media said on Tuesday, extending a policy already in force with microblogs in a bid to curb what officials call rumors and vulgarity.

A law being discussed this week would mean people would have to present their government-issued identity cards when signing contracts for fixed line and mobile internet access, state-run newspapers said.

“The law should escort the development of the internet to protect people’s interest,” Communist Party mouthpiece the People’s Daily said in a front page commentary, echoing similar calls carried in state media over the past week.

“Only that way can our internet be healthier, more cultured and safer.”

Many users say the restrictions are clearly aimed at further muzzling the often scathing, raucous – and perhaps most significantly, anonymous – online chatter in a country where the Internet offers a rare opportunity for open debate.

It could also prevent people from exposing corruption online if they fear retribution from officials, said some users.

It was unclear how the rules would be different from existing regulations as state media has provided only vague details and in practice customers have long had to present identity papers when signing contracts with internet providers.

Earlier this year, the government began forcing users of Sina Corp’s wildly successful Weibo microblogging platform to register their real names.

The government says such a system is needed to prevent people making malicious and anonymous accusations online and that many other countries already have such rules.

“It would also be the biggest step backwards since 1989,” wrote one indignant Weibo user, in apparent reference to the 1989 pro-democracy protests bloodily suppressed by the army.

Chinese internet users have long had to cope with extensive censorship, especially over politically sensitive topics like human rights, and popular foreign sites Facebook, Twitter and Google-owned YouTube are blocked.

Despite periodic calls for political reform, the ruling Communist Party has shown no sign of loosening its grip on power and brooks no dissent to its authority.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard and Huang Yan; Editing by Michael Perry)

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Character actor, World War Two hero Charles Durning dies at 89

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Charles Durning, a World War Two hero who became one of Hollywood’s top character actors in films like “The Sting,” “Tootsie” and “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas,” has died, a New York City funeral home said on Tuesday. He was 89.

Durning, who was nominated for nine Emmys for his television work as well as two Academy Awards, died of natural causes at his New York City home on Monday, his agent told People magazine. Frank E. Campbell Funeral Chapel in Manhattan confirmed Durning‘s death to Reuters.

Durning also was an accomplished stage actor and once said he preferred doing plays because of the immediacy they offered. He gained his first substantial acting experience through the New York Shakespeare Festival starting in the early 1960s and won a Tony Award for playing Big Daddy in a 1990 Broadway revival of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.”

Durning did not start amassing film and TV credits until he was almost 40 but went on to appear in more than 100 movies, in addition to scores of TV shows.

Durning’s first national exposure came playing a crooked policeman who gets conned by Robert Redford in the 1973 movie “The Sting.” He got the role after impressing director George Roy Hill with his work in the Pulitzer- and Tony-winning Broadway play “That Championship Season.”

Durning had everyday looks – portly, thinning hair and a bulbous nose – and was a casting director’s delight, equally adept at comedy and drama.

Durning was nominated for supporting-actor Oscars for playing a Nazi in the 1984 Mel Brooks comedy “To Be or Not to Be” and the governor in the musical “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas” in 1983. “Whorehouse” was one of 13 movies Durning made with friend Burt Reynolds, as well as Reynolds’ 1990s TV sitcom “Evening Shade.”

Other notable Durning movie roles included a cop in “Dog Day Afternoon,” a man who falls in love with Dustin Hoffman’s cross-dressing character in “Tootsie,” “Dick Tracy,” “Home for the Holidays,” “The Muppet Movie,” “North Dallas Forty” and “O Brother Where Art Thou?”

He was nominated for Emmys for the TV series “Rescue Me,” “NCIS,” “Homicide: Life on the Street,” “Captains and the Kings” and “Evening Shade,” as well as the specials “Death of a Salesman,” “Attica” and “Queen of the Stardust Ballroom.”

Durning was a fan of Jimmy Cagney and after returning from harrowing service in World War Two he tried singing, dancing, and stand-up comedy. He attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts until he was kicked out.

“They basically said you have no talent and you couldn’t even buy a dime’s worth of it if it was for sale,” Durning told The New York Times.

D-DAY INVASION

He worked a number of make-do jobs – cab driver, dance instructor, doorman, dishwasher, telegram deliveryman, bridge painter, tourist guide – all while waiting for a shot at an acting career. Occasional stage roles led him to Joseph Papp, the founder of the New York Shakespeare Festival, who became his mentor.

“Joe said to me once, ‘If you hadn’t been an actor, you would have been a murderer,’” Durning told the Times. “I don’t know what that meant. I hope he was kidding. He said I couldn’t do anything else but act.”

Durning grew up in Highland Falls, New York, and was 12 years old when his Irish-born father died of the effects of mustard gas exposure in World War One. He had nine siblings and five of his sisters died of smallpox or scarlet fever – three within a two-week period.

Durning was part of the U.S. force that landed at Omaha Beach during the D-Day invasion in June 1944. A few days later he was shot in the hip – he said he carried the bullet in his body thereafter – and after six months of recovery was sent to the Battle of the Bulge.

Durning, who was wounded twice more, was captured and was one of the few survivors of the Malmedy massacre when German troops opened fire on dozens of American prisoners. In addition to three Purple Heart medals for his wounds, Durning was presented the Silver Star for valor.

At an observation of the 60th anniversary of D-Day in Washington, Durning told of the terror he felt and carnage he saw when hitting the beach on D-Day. He said he had to jettison his weapon and gear in order to swim ashore and saw mortally wounded comrades offering themselves as human shields.

“I forget a lot of stuff now but I still wake up once in a while and it’s still there,” he said. “I can’t count how many of my buddies are in the cemetery at Normandy.”

Durning was married twice and had three children.

(Reporting by Ellen Wulfhorst; Writing by Bill Trott; Editing by Eric Beech)

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‘Bumping’ Your Way to Safer Sex With a Smartphone App

Reported by Dr. Lauren Browne:

Let’s face it.  Teens have sex.  Parents may choose to ignore it, and teens may choose to deny it, but almost 50 percent of American high school students are having sex, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. And each year, millions of those sexually active teens contract sexually transmitted diseases such as chlamydia, gonorrhea, syphilis, herpes and HIV.

Now one doctor hopes to curb the spread of STDs in this tech savvy group with a smartphone app that lets users “bump” their STD status.

It’s called ‘safe bumping,’” said Dr. Michael Nusbaum, the New Jersey developer of MedXSafe, a feature of the new app called MedXCom.  “If you happen to be out at a bar or a fraternity house or wherever, and you meet someone, you can then bump phones and exchange contact information and STD status.”

The app’s special feature, according to Nussbaum, encourages dating singles to go to the doctor for regular STD checks.  Those who screen negative can ask their doctors to document their STD-free status on the app, allowing users to share the information with whomever they choose.

An alarming 19 million new sexually transmitted infections occur each year, and rates of chlamydia and gonorrhea are on the rise, according to a new report released this month by the CDC.  More than 1.4 million chlamydia infections were reported in 2011, up 8 percent from the previous year.  Cases of gonorrhea were up by 4 percent, marking the second consecutive year of increases.

Nearly half of all infections occur in young people, between the ages of 15 to 24, a group that can be particularly devastated by the associated health effects.

“[Some] undetected and untreated STDs can increase a person’s risk for HIV and cause other serious health consequences, such as infertility,” said Mary McFarlane, an acting chief in the Division of STD Prevention at the CDC.  Harnessing modern social networking technology to prevent these infections may appeal to a younger tech-savvy generation.

MedXSafe is just one of several Internet-based programs devoted to easing confidential STD-status sharing between sexual partners.  Services like Qpid.me, whose slogan is Spread the Love, Nothing Else and U Should Know, designed by a former college student and his girlfriend, also allow their users to check on a partner’s STD status.

But could these services offer a false sense of security to teens who believe that, with a simple phone bump, they have the green light to have unprotected sex?

“It can take months for HIV to show up on a test,” said Renee Williams, executive director of SAFE, a nonprofit organization dedicated to abstinence education.  “So you can test negative today, go out on Friday night and have sex, and then get retested later and find out that you had HIV all along.”

The app does nothing to prevent unplanned pregnancy, and may even encourage high-risk behaviors that young people might otherwise not have been tempted to try, said Williams.

Nor is the app likely to be completely reliable, said Dr. J. Joseph Speidel, director of communication at the Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health.

“Does it come with a condom?” asked Dr. Richard Besser, ABC’s chief health and medical editor, who’s also a pediatrician and former acting director at the CDC.

But the app’s creator said it does promote regular STD testing and encourages potential partners to openly discuss safe sex practices.

“We’re recognizing that this behavior is going to take place no matter what we do or what we say,” said Nusbaum.  “I have friends that are nuns and I’ve run this by them, and they also agree that it’s promoting safer behaviors.”

Although each program promises to keep health information strictly confidential, none are immune from cyber attacks.

But such attacks would not expose any users who have an STD, according to Nusbaum.  MedXSafe does not allow doctors to upload information about any tests that come back positive, including HIV.  A user with an infection is simply treated for the STD and then retested.  And that user is only confirmed STD-free via the app once subsequent test results come back negative.

Still, it is too early to tell whether these services will become popular with teens.  Lingering social stigma surrounding STDs might make potential partners reluctant to mention such an app when out at a party.

“It’s a big personal step to bring up using such an app,” said Noah Bloom, creator of a smartphone app called Jiber, which uses the same “bump” technology to electronically connect new friends.  “Who really wants anything in the way of getting lucky?”

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The Jim Cramer of China

When Hu Bin started his blog in early 2008, he was a skinny 22-year-old college dropout with a perpetually skeptical look on his face and little doubt he’d soon be a household name. The previous year the Shanghai Stock Exchange had been flooded by speculators. For a brief period, it was the second-busiest exchange in the world. It was also beginning a dramatic fall ushered in by the global financial crisis. Hu says he considered the market, considered his audience, and sensed it was time to make his mark. “It really started when Premier Wen Jiabao announced a 4 trillion renminbi rescue plan for the economy,” Hu says. “I knew I just needed to be clever and use this chance of high liquidity in the market to make myself famous.”

Now 26, Hu is China’s most popular online market commentator. His blog has gotten more than 400 million visits. His posts are equal parts outlandish and thoughtful, and employ liberal use of bolded, multicolored text and exclamation points. Hu writes under the name Yerongtian—a character from a real estate-themed Hong Kong soap opera—and has been known to pick fights with other commentators, whom he says suffer from a “lack of emotion.” He has posted at least one picture of cats, and multiple pictures of himself wearing sunglasses to help illustrate his opinions. In 2009 the state-run newspaper China Daily listed him (under his alias) among the 10 people in the nation with the most influence on China’s stock market. “Back then,” Hu says of 2008, “any eccentric behavior would attract people’s attention. If you understood this vital point, you could control people’s minds.”

Hu grew up in Kunming, a southwestern city of 6.4 million that’s far from China’s centers of finance. He learned about the stock market, he says, by watching his mother invest in her spare time. She put money into the market in the 1990s, early days for Chinese investment, and lost it all. “Now she invests her money in gold,” Hu says.

He started at Kunming University, intending to study philosophy and Marxism, but quit, thinking he would take up investing himself. “I was interested in psychology,” he says. “I wanted to know why everyone wanted to bet their future on an uncontrollable thing.”

Hu admits that in the early days of his blog, his knowledge of the market was thinner than it is now. He has always, however, understood his audience and how to keep it interested. Hu’s approach to his blog is purposefully bombastic, earning him vocal critics along with followers. In 2009 he got into a spat with another stock commentator, a man named Hou Ning. Hou, at least according to Chinese news reports from the time, holds the record for the longest nickname of any stock commentator in history—“Commander in Chief of the Stock Market Army.” The two made a 1 million yuan (roughly $ 160,000) bet on the future of the Shanghai Stock Exchange Composite Index, with Hu wagering it would reach 4000 by the end of the year. It didn’t, and Hu didn’t pay, but he got what he wanted out of the rivalry. “Who would have paid attention to me if I had said 3000?” he asks. “Everyone already knew it would reach 3000.” In 2010 he promised to throw himself off one of Shanghai’s tallest buildings if the SSE Composite Index didn’t reach 5800 by the end of the year. It didn’t: Hu is still with us.

Photograph by Ka Xiaoxi“Chinese investors aren’t as mature as American investors, and I write to meet their immediate needs,” says Hu

Stunts aside, Hu has spent the last four years working through his thinking on the ups and downs of China’s economy in public, slipping thoughtful essays in between bouts of hyperbole. He spent his early days predicting the rise of the Shanghai Stock Exchange and now foresees its continuing decline. One recent headline: “Doomsday Runs Wild, the Stock Market will likely drop 200 points!!” In another post, he explains that a drop in the market may not be bad. It could give the authorities some space to make reforms without worrying about overheating, and help to attract more foreign investment. “The stock market is not only an economic weather vane,” he writes. “It is a political weather vane.”

Hu says he is not a financial rabble-rouser. Most laypeople, he says, should stay away from investing in individual stocks. The people who read his blog, however, are generally not professionals; retail investors make up the majority of the volume of trading in the Chinese market. According to the Chinese Securities Regulatory Commission, there are around 72 million retail investors in China, accounting for three-quarters of the trading on domestic exchanges. And according to China’s state media, the majority of these investors have less than 1 million yuan in the market. It’s a group of people Hu says he understands well, even if it means giving sometimes conflicting advice. He may advise them to stay out of the market, but he knows the irresistible pull of equities on the newly wealthy, particularly in a country where there are few opportunities for investment. In effect, he’s giving advice to people he knows probably shouldn’t be in the market but are going to invest anyway.

“The stock market in the United States is managed by regulations,” Hu says. “The Chinese market is managed by humans. Chinese investors aren’t as mature as American investors, and I write to meet their immediate needs.”

Hu’s interest in the human story behind the market sets him apart from other bloggers, at least in his eyes. “They regard their blogs as livelihood, while I take my blog as my friend and pour my emotions and love into it. The emotion is what connects me to the readers—they feel more attached to my words.” The connection is important in part, says Hu, because Chinese investors have been taught that networking can solve anything. Even in the stock market, relationships are the deciding factor. “When it comes to stock investment, Chinese people always try to get inside information from someone within their social network. Americans like to read through financial statements, but Chinese people like to believe that their stocks go up because they have more inside information than anyone else.”

Today, Hu spends most of his time in Beijing, where he moved in 2009. On a recent Sunday, he is drinking tea at one of Beijing’s most expensive hotels, wearing a tie and a tan Calvin Klein puffy jacket that he does not take off. Instead, he stuffs his hands in his jacket pockets while he talks, looking exactly like what he is—a blogger who’s hit it big, though he’s coy about, financially, how big. His sense of humor is also just slightly out of step with the tie. When asked about online nicknames, he says he’s not aware of any and then, unblinking and serious, says: “I prefer the nickname Batman.”

For all his success, Hu still considers blogging a hobby, not a career. “Fame is vanity,” he says, “while investment asks for real competence.” He’s now in the process of raising money for a private equity fund that, over the next few decades, he hopes to build into something like Berkshire Hathaway (BRK/A). Again, he won’t say how much he’s raised. Although his blog posts are currently predicting dark times, Hu has faith that the Chinese market will recover, and he’s optimistic about the market and the future in general. “New Chinese leaders are going to take over, which will offer China economic opportunity in the following 10 years,” he says. China’s new leader, Xi Jinping, has promised the country will push forward with reforms, something that Hu is excited about. He’s also upbeat about China’s recent leadership transition. Political stability, he says, is a market good. “The opportunity will be mainly in China’s capital market, because it’s still in an initial stage,” he says. “I need to take advantage of this initial stage before everyone realizes there’s a gold mine when the market matures.”

Hilgers is a Bloomberg Businessweek contributor.

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