VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – After weeks of anticipation, Pope Benedict sent his first tweet on Wednesday.
“Dear friends, I am pleased to get in touch with you through Twitter. Thank you for your generous response. I bless all of you from my heart.”
The tweet was sent when the 85-year-old pope tapped on a touch screen at the end of his weekly general audience in the Vatican before thousands of people.
(Reporting By Philip Pullella, editing by Paul Casciato)
Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News
The Voice
By Julia Haskins
12/12/2012 at 07:40 AM EST
From left: Judges Adam Levine, Cee Lo Green, Christina Aguilera and Blake Shelton
Trae Patton/NBC
Team Blake's Cassadee Pope and Terry McDermott and Team Cee Lo's Trevin Hunte and Nicholas David all awaited their fates during the elimination round to decide the top three, with the coaches seeming to be relieved that they would not have a role in the challenging decision.
McDermott was the first to learn that America's votes had guaranteed him another round of competition. To their coach's delight, Team Blake went two-for-two when Pope joined her teammate in celebration.
While Shelton's team remained intact, Green waited for his contestants' moment of truth. The coaches struggled to say goodbye to either one of the beloved singers.
Christina Aguilera advised Hunte and David to soak up all the lessons they learned on The Voice and move forward no matter what happened. Adam Levine opened up about his own regrets, having not turned his chair around the first time for the singers.
"I have grown to love you as people and love your talent so much," Levine said. "I was wrong not to turn around."
Their coach was also upset. "It's very disheartening and very difficult to see two of my best people on this show being pinned against each other," Green said.
David was the last contestant saved, while Hunte was sent home. "Thank you for pushing and motivating me." Hunte told his coach. "I love you, Cee Lo."
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Turmoil surrounding an unprecedented $3 billion cancer-fighting effort in Texas worsened Tuesday when its executive director offered his resignation and the state's chief public corruption prosecutor announced an investigation into the beleaguered agency.
No specific criminal allegations are driving the latest probe into the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas, said Gregg Cox, director of the Travis County district attorney's public integrity unit. But his influential office opened a case only weeks after the embattled agency disclosed that an $11 million grant to a private company bypassed review.
That award is the latest trouble in a tumultuous year for CPRIT, which controls the nation's second-largest pot of cancer research dollars. Amid the mounting problems, the agency announced Tuesday that Executive Director Bill Gimson had submitted his letter of resignation.
"Unfortunately, I have also been placed in a situation where I feel I can no longer be effective," Gimson wrote in a letter dated Monday.
Gimson said the troubles have resulted in "wasted efforts expended in low value activities" at the agency, instead of a focused fight against cancer. Gimson offered to stay on until January, and the agency's board must still approve his request to step down.
His departure would complete a remarkable house-cleaning at CPRIT in a span of just eight months. It began in May, when Dr. Alfred Gilman resigned as chief science officer in protest over a different grant that the Nobel laureate wanted approved by a panel of scientists. He warned it would be "the bomb that destroys CPRIT."
Gilman was followed by Chief Commercialization Officer Jerry Cobbs, whose resignation in November came after an internal audit showed Cobbs included an $11 million proposal in a funding slate without a required outside review of the project's merits. The lucrative grant was given to Dallas-based Peloton Therapeutics, a biomedical startup.
Gimson chalked up Peloton's award to an honest mistake and has said that, to his knowledge, no one associated with CPRIT stood to benefit financially from the company receiving the taxpayer funds. That hasn't satisfied some members of the agency's governing board, who called last week for more assurances that no one personally profited.
Cox said he has been following the agency's problems and his office received a number of concerned phone calls. His department in Austin is charged with prosecuting crimes related to government officials; his most famous cases include winning a conviction against former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay in 2010 on money laundering charges.
"We have to gather the facts and figure what, if any, crime occurred so that (the investigation) can be focused more," Cox said.
Gimson's resignation letter was dated the same day the Texas attorney general's office also announced its investigation of the agency. Cox said his department would work cooperatively with state investigators, but he made clear the probes would be separate.
Peloton's award marks the second time this year that a lucrative taxpayer-funded grant authorized by CPRIT instigated backlash and raised questions about oversight. The first involved the $20 million grant to M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston that Gilman described as a thin proposal that should have first been scrutinized by an outside panel of scientific peer-reviewers, even though none was required under the agency's rules.
Dozens of the nation's top scientists agreed. They resigned en masse from the agency's peer-review panels along with Gilman. Some accused the agency of "hucksterism" and charting a politically-driven path that was putting commercial product-development above science.
The latest shake-up at CPRIT caught Gilman's successor off-guard. Dr. Margaret Kripke, who was introduced to reporters Tuesday, acknowledged that she wasn't even sure who she would be answering to now that Gimson was stepping down. She said that although she wasn't with the agency when her predecessor announced his resignation, she was aware of the concerns and allegations.
"I don't think people would resign frivolously, so there must be some substance to those concerns," Kripke said.
Kripke also acknowledged the challenge of restocking the peer-review panels after the agency's credibility was so publicly smeared by some of the country's top scientists. She said she took the job because she felt the agency's mission and potential was too important to lose.
Only the National Institutes of Health doles out more cancer research dollars than CPRIT, which has awarded more than $700 million so far.
Gov. Rick Perry told reporters in Houston on Tuesday that he wasn't previously aware of the resignation but said Gimson's decision to step down was his own.
Joining the mounting criticism of CPRIT is the woman credited with brainstorming the idea for the agency in the first place. Cathy Bonner, who served under former Texas Gov. Ann Richards, teamed with cancer survivor Lance Armstrong in selling Texas voters in 2007 on a constitutional amendment to create an unprecedented state-run effort to finance a war on disease.
Now Bonner says politics have sullied an agency that she said was built to fund research, not subsidize private companies.
"There appears to be a cover-up going on," Bonner said.
Peloton has declined comment about its award and has referred questions to CPRIT. The agency has said the company wasn't aware that its application was never scrutinized by an outside panel, as required under agency rules.
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Follow Paul J. Weber on Twitter: www.twitter.com/pauljweber
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stock futures edged higher on Wednesday, setting Wall Street up for a sixth day of gains, as investors anticipated the U.S. Federal Reserve will announce a new round of bond buying to support the economy.
* The Fed is expected to unveil a fresh round of bond buying on Wednesday as part of efforts to support a fragile economic recovery threatened by political wrangling over the government's budget. The monetary policy committee's decision is expected around 12:30 p.m. ET.
* Negotiations intensified to avert the "fiscal cliff" - tax hikes and spending cuts that kick in early in 2013 - ahead of a year-end deadline as President Barack Obama and U.S. House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner spoke by phone on Tuesday after exchanging new proposals.
* On the macroeconomic front, import and export price data is due at 8:30 a.m. ET. Economists in a Reuters survey expect import prices edged down by 0.5 percent last month, while export prices remained flat.
* S&P 500 futures rose 2 points and were slightly above fair value, a formula that evaluates pricing by taking into account interest rates, dividends and time to expiration on the contract. Dow Jones industrial average futures gained 14 points, and Nasdaq 100 futures added 6.75 points.
* India's government announced an inquiry into lobbying practices by Wal-Mart Stores Inc.
* Costco Wholesale Corp
* Sprint Nextel Corp
* U.S. stocks rose on Tuesday, led by technology companies. The S&P 500 closed at its highest since Election Day on November 6.
(Reporting by Angela Moon; Editing by Bernadette Baum)
BAMAKO, Mali – Soldiers arrested Mali’s prime minister at his residence late Monday night, in new turmoil in a West African nation racked by military interference and an Islamist takeover in the north.
Prime Minister Cheikh Modibo Diarra appeared on state television and announced his government’s resignation on Tuesday.
Hours later, Prime Minister Cheikh Modibo Diarra appeared grim-faced on national television to announce his government’s resignation. A spokesman for soldiers who seized power earlier in the year — and later nominally relinquished to Mr. Diarra — confirmed the prime minister’s arrest on Tuesday morning, accusing him of “playing a personal agenda” while the country faced a crisis in the north.
Mr. Diarra was taken by soldiers late Monday to the military encampment at Kati, just outside Bamako, the capital, where Capt. Amadou Sanogo, the officer who led the March military coup, and others told him “there were proofs against him that he was calling for subversion,” said a military spokesman, Bakary Mariko.
On Tuesday morning, the streets of Bamako appeared calm following what appeared to be the country’s second coup d’état in less than a year. But the new upheaval was likely to be considered a setback in western efforts to help Mali regain control of territory lost to Al Qaeda-linked militants earlier in the year.
The west has watched with growing alarm as Islamists radicals have constructed a stronghold in the country’s vast north and the United Nations, regional African bodies, France and the United States have engaged to aid the faltering Malian army in a military strike to take back the lost north. Those efforts have so far not coalesced in a coherent plan, despite numerous meetings and United Nations resolutions. More meetings at the United Nations were planned for later this month.
The latest political turmoil in the capital will almost certainly slow down any campaign in the north, however. Already, the United States has expressed reluctance to provide too much direct military assistance, given the shakiness of the political order here. Those doubts will likely only increase following the latest upheaval.
Mr. Diarra — appointed last spring as a caretaker prime minister until new elections, interrupted by the coup, could be organized — was known to disagree with Captain Sanogo on military policy.
He has been an advocate of immediate international military assistance to recapture the north from the Islamists. Captain Sanogo has rebuffed suggestions that the Malian military was incapable of handling the job on its own. Indeed, the captain for weeks resisted the notion that troops from other African nations should even approach the capital.
While Mr. Diarra has made the rounds of foreign capitals, pleading for help to fight the increasingly aggressive Islamists, military leaders have remained at the Kati base, grumbling.
That conflict was evident in the declarations of the military’s spokesman on Tuesday. “Since he has been in power, he has been working simply to position his own family,” Mr. Mariko, the spokesman, said. “There has been a paralysis in government.”
On Monday night, around 11 p.m. here, as Mr. Diarra was preparing for a flight to Paris for a medical checkup exam when the soldiers appeared at his home, and took him to Kati, Mr. Mariko said. “He was getting ready to go to the airport,” Mr. Mariko said.
By Maggie Coughlan
12/11/2012 at 08:00 AM EST
"Channing [Tatum] was amazing. He's a superstar," the actress, 27, tells the January issue of InStyle about PEOPLE's 2012 Sexiest Man Alive.
Seyfried, who starred opposite Tatum in 2010's Dear John, is well-aware of her former costar's appeal.
"Everybody wants to have sex with him. And the only person he wants to have sex with is his wife, Jenna [Dewan-Tatum]. He's the most loyal husband," she says.
But while Tatum and Dewan-Tatum have managed to find marital bliss in spite of being in the spotlight, Seyfried admits she's not as lucky.
"The thing is, I can't date anybody without it being portrayed as a serious relationship in the tabloids. It sucks! Like Josh Hartnett and I were friends; we hung out, we dated. I don't actually have sex with every male I come into contact with," she says.
Another of Seyfried's costars getting a lot of attention is Anne Hathaway, who chopped off her locks and went on a drastic diet for her role in the upcoming Les Misérables, opening Dec. 25 (Seyfried plays Cosette, and Hathaway is Fantine).
"I would have done that for sure," Seyfried says of the haircut, but she draws the line there. "I probably wouldn't lose or gain weight for a role, though. I'm too health-conscious. And I don't think I could actually lose weight because I couldn't be on that kind of a diet. I would lose my mind."
"It's not about my body. It's not about me," she says of doing nude scenes. "You're playing somebody else. You're not going to believe a love scene if the people are dressed. You're not going to believe a stripper who has on a bra and underwear the whole time. At the same time, it has to do with how comfortable you are with letting people see your skin. For me, I'm okay with it."
Seyfried also says that being diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder – which she manages with Lexapro – has positively contributed to her acting.
"I don't feel like I'm struggling with it. I think OCD is a part of me that protects me. It's also the part of me that I use in my job, in a positive way," she tells the magazine. "The only thing I'd like to get beyond is my fear of driving over bridges and through tunnels. I can't overcome it."
• See Amanda Seyfried's best red carpet looks at Instyle.com
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stock futures were higher on Tuesday after unexpectedly cheery data out of Europe and as the Federal Reserve was set to kick off its two-day policy meeting.
Though the pace of talks in Washington to avert impending U.S. tax hikes and spending cuts quickened, senior politicians on both sides cautioned that an agreement on all the outstanding issues remained uncertain.
The lack of progress in negotiations about the "fiscal cliff" has kept investors from making aggressive bests in recent weeks, though most expect a deal will eventually be reached.
In Germany, analyst and investor sentiment rose sharply in December, entering positive territory for the first time since May, a leading survey showed. The data helped drive European shares higher.
"We've been getting a lot of the beginning of our day from seeing what Europe has been doing and I think that's going to hold true today," said Kim Forrest, senior equity research analyst at Fort Pitt Capital Group in Pittsburgh.
The Fed will begin its policy-setting meeting on Tuesday. The central bank is expected to announce a new round of Treasury securities purchases when the meeting ends on Wednesday, according to a Reuters poll. The program would replace its "Operation Twist" stimulus which expires at the end of the year.
S&P 500 futures rose 3.2 points and were above fair value, a formula that evaluates pricing by taking into account interest rates, dividends and time to expiration on the contract. Dow Jones industrial average futures gained 34 points, and Nasdaq 100 futures added 7 points.
The U.S. Treasury is selling its remaining stake in insurer American International Group Inc , bringing an end to government ownership of the company about four years after a $182 billion bailout. AIG's shares were up 1.2 percent at $33.75 in premarket trade.
Texas Instruments Inc
Also in the tech sector, Intel Corp
Morgan Stanley
On the macro front, U.S. international trade data for October is due at 8:30 am ET (1330 GMT) and wholesale inventories is due at 10:00 am ET (1500 GMT).
KESHOD, India
The prospects of the Indian National Congress party in the battleground state of Gujarat are dwindling by the day, analysts and potential voters say, a situation that could ultimately advance Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi’s bid to become prime minister.
Sonia Gandhi, the president of the Congress party, drew smaller-than-expected crowds in Gujarat this weekend, just days ahead of state elections, and important party members and aides have defected in recent weeks. Some supporters say they have lost hope.
“I’ve been a Congress supporter since I was in college,” said Meena Raval, 44, a homemaker from Rajkot who holds a master’s degree in English literature. “But there is a vast difference between Congress leaders of the 1980s and 1990s and those of today,” she said. “It’s hard to win an election, let alone come to power, without a strong, powerful leader.”
Unlike in Rajkot in early October, when Mrs. Gandhi’s rally attracted nearly 150,000 people, there were only about 15,000 attendees at a rally in Mandvi and 10,000 at Keshod this weekend. Many seemed to be local tribal women, who were keener to see how Mrs. Gandhi, probably India’s best-known politician, looked than to listen to what she had to say.
“I didn’t understand what she was saying,” said Ramaben Prajapati, 34, a vegetable seller from a village near Keshod. “But I thought she was very honest. I was impressed by her personality and body language.”
Gujarat voters go to the polls on Dec. 13 and 17th in a two-part election, when they will decide whether to re-elect Mr. Modi for a third term. How he fares in this election could help determine whether he becomes the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party’s candidate for prime minister in India’s next national elections.
Allegations that Mr. Modi encouraged, or did not do enough to stop, the 2002 riots in Gujarat which left hundreds dead, mostly Muslims, have dogged his political career and made him one of India’s most polarizing politicians. Still, the state’s ability to attract foreign investment and build infrastructure since he took power have gained accolades, and new supporters.
Mr. Modi’s no-expenses-spared state election campaign includes rallies across the state led by a three-dimensional avatar that speaks in numerous locations at once.
The political fight has become increasingly nasty in recent weeks, with Congress party members accusing Mr. Modi of hypocrisy and lying, and he, in turn, calling Congress and the Gandhi family a corrupt organization with no other political agenda but to criticize Mr. Modi.
Meanwhile, key members of the party in Gujarat are abandoning it. Members of the state’s legislative assembly and hundreds of party officials have switched from the Congress to the opposition in recent weeks. Defectors include lawmakers Kuvarji Halpati, Lalsinh Vadodia, Brijrajsinh Jadeja, Bhavsinh Rathod and party officials Mahendrasinh Rana, Ashok Dangar, Girish Parmar, Asifa Khan Pathan and Poonam Madam.
The most high-profile departure has been former deputy chief minister Narhari Amin, from Ahmedabad, who was at the forefront of the party’s election campaign until Nov. 30. On Dec. 6, he joined the B.J.P., along with many of his aides. Mr. Amin’s defection came after the party denied him a spot on the ballot from the state capital of Gandhinagar. “As a sincere and senior leader I felt insulted because the Congress gave tickets to unknown faces,” Mr. Amin said in an interview. “Is this the price of loyalty? There was no way I could have stayed in Congress after being so treated.”
Mrs. Gandhi and one of her close aides, Ahmed Patel, rushed several top Congress leaders from New Delhi to Gujarat to persuade Mr. Amin to change his mind, but he refused. Nearly 80 key Congress workers from Ahmedabad and another 100 from across Gujarat have joined the B.J.P. along with him, Mr. Amin said. “In all, nearly 20,000 people from Congress across Gujarat have joined the B.J.P. in the last few weeks,” he said, including mayors and chiefs of district and village councils.
“Congress just can’t stop the B.J.P. juggernaut,” Mr. Amin said. “We’ll ensure that Modi makes a hat-trick of a win in Gujarat.”
The Congress general secretary for Gujarat, Kashmira Nathwani, conceded in an interview that there have been “some cases” of defection and a “feeling of disappointment in some quarters.” Still, she said, “Congress is as strong as ever in Gujarat and it’s all thanks to its millions of supporters and strong leadership at the state as well as national level.”
Participants at last weekend’s rallies, though, said Mrs. Gandhi lacked the vigor and zeal she had displayed in Rajkot earlier this year.
“I was hoping she would forcefully answer some of the questions Narendra Modi had asked her at one of his public rallies,” said Manish Chauhan 22, an engineering student and Congress supporter from Junagadh, who had come to Keshod to hear her. “But she was a big disappointment. She appeared to be quite subdued and her attitude was defeatist.”
Some voters say that Congress has given them few reasons to vote for the party, instead telling them why they should vote against Mr. Modi.
“There are many issues the Congress leaders can take up, but all the time they are seen busy bashing Modi and hardly talking about any other serious matter,” said Popat Bharwad, 28, a roadside tea seller from Rajkot, who described himself as passionately interested in Indian politics and cricket. “This gives Modi more publicity and gradually distances people from Congress.”
Many Congress supporters in Gujarat now say they can’t see their party winning this state election, or any others in the near future.
“I’ve always been a Congress loyalist, but we have to face the reality – we have little hope to regain power in Gujarat,” said one sociology professor from Rajkot, who asked not to be identified because he did not want to offend associates from the Congress party. “The problem is Congress just doesn’t have a leader of Modi’s charisma and dynamism.”
Bharatiya Janata Party leaders, not surprisingly, agreed. “There is so much defection in Congress that it will be wiped out from Gujarat in coming years,” predicted Naresh Kanodiya, a Gujarati actor and a former member of the state legislative assembly for the B.J.P.
By Simon Perry
12/10/2012 at 07:45 AM EST
And expect fun and fireworks from the playful prince.
"He will be a wonderful uncle – [think of] the mischief he will want to get up to with the [children]!" a friend tells PEOPLE. "I can see it already."
That would match his behavior at that other great occasion in William and Kate's life – their wedding. It was Harry, 28, who had the young flower girls scurrying around his feet at the Palace reception, a guest told PEOPLE at the time.
Harry, who is serving as an Apache attack helicopter pilot on a tour of Afghanistan until early next year, has had to make do with phone calls to and from his brother and sister-in-law since they broke the happy news of their pregnancy.
And he is said to have sent Kate, who is recuperating at home following her attack of severe morning sickness, a get-well message from the frontline.
SEATTLE (AP) — The crowds of happy people lighting joints under Seattle's Space Needle early Thursday morning with nary a police officer in sight bespoke the new reality: Marijuana is legal under Washington state law.
Hundreds gathered at Seattle Center for a New Year's Eve-style countdown to 12 a.m., when the legalization measure passed by voters last month took effect. When the clock struck, they cheered and sparked up in unison.
A few dozen people gathered on a sidewalk outside the north Seattle headquarters of the annual Hempfest celebration and did the same, offering joints to reporters and blowing smoke into television news cameras.
"I feel like a kid in a candy store!" shouted Hempfest volunteer Darby Hageman. "It's all becoming real now!"
Washington and Colorado became the first states to vote to decriminalize and regulate the possession of an ounce or less of marijuana by adults over 21. Both measures call for setting up state licensing schemes for pot growers, processors and retail stores. Colorado's law is set to take effect by Jan. 5.
Technically, Washington's new marijuana law still forbids smoking pot in public, which remains punishable by a fine, like drinking in public. But pot fans wanted a party, and Seattle police weren't about to write them any tickets.
In another sweeping change for Washington, Gov. Chris Gregoire on Wednesday signed into law a measure that legalizes same-sex marriage. The state joins several others that allow gay and lesbian couples to wed.
The mood was festive in Seattle as dozens of gay and lesbian couples got in line to pick up marriage licenses at the King County auditor's office early Thursday.
King County and Thurston County announced they would open their auditors' offices shortly after midnight Wednesday to accommodate those who wanted to be among the first to get their licenses.
Kelly Middleton and her partner Amanda Dollente got in line at 4 p.m. Wednesday.
Hours later, as the line grew, volunteers distributed roses and a group of men and women serenaded the waiting line to the tune of "Chapel of Love."
Because the state has a three-day waiting period, the earliest that weddings can take place is Sunday.
In dealing with marijuana, the Seattle Police Department told its 1,300 officers on Wednesday, just before legalization took hold, that until further notice they shall not issue citations for public marijuana use.
Officers will be advising people not to smoke in public, police spokesman Jonah Spangenthal-Lee wrote on the SPD Blotter. "The police department believes that, under state law, you may responsibly get baked, order some pizzas and enjoy a 'Lord of the Rings' marathon in the privacy of your own home, if you want to."
He offered a catchy new directive referring to the film "The Big Lebowski," popular with many marijuana fans: "The Dude abides, and says 'take it inside!'"
"This is a big day because all our lives we've been living under the iron curtain of prohibition," said Hempfest director Vivian McPeak. "The whole world sees that prohibition just took a body blow."
Washington's new law decriminalizes possession of up to an ounce for those over 21, but for now selling marijuana remains illegal. I-502 gives the state a year to come up with a system of state-licensed growers, processors and retail stores, with the marijuana taxed 25 percent at each stage. Analysts have estimated that a legal pot market could bring Washington hundreds of millions of dollars a year in new tax revenue for schools, health care and basic government functions.
But marijuana remains illegal under federal law. That means federal agents can still arrest people for it, and it's banned from federal properties, including military bases and national parks.
The Justice Department has not said whether it will sue to try to block the regulatory schemes in Washington and Colorado from taking effect.
"The department's responsibility to enforce the Controlled Substances Act remains unchanged," said a statement issued Wednesday by the Seattle U.S. attorney's office. "Neither states nor the executive branch can nullify a statute passed by Congress."
The legal question is whether the establishment of a regulated marijuana market would "frustrate the purpose" of the federal pot prohibition, and many constitutional law scholars say it very likely would.
That leaves the political question of whether the administration wants to try to block the regulatory system, even though it would remain legal to possess up to an ounce of marijuana.
Alison Holcomb is the drug policy director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington and served as the campaign manager for New Approach Washington, which led the legalization drive. She said the voters clearly showed they're done with marijuana prohibition.
"New Approach Washington sponsors and the ACLU look forward to working with state and federal officials and to ensure the law is fully and fairly implemented," she said.
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Johnson can be reached at https://twitter.com/GeneAPseattle
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