$66M Kinkade estate dispute secretly settled






SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — Thomas Kinkade‘s widow and girlfriend have reached a settlement after a dispute over the late artist’s $ 66 million estate, their attorneys said Wednesday.


The San Jose Mercury News reports (http://bit.ly/Wq5kti ) that counsel for Nanette Kinkade and his girlfriend Amy Pinto announced the settlement but wouldn’t provide further details, leaving it unclear who will inherit Kinkade’s San Francisco Bay area mansion and his warehouse of paintings.






In a statement, they said the women kept Kinkade’s message of “love, spirituality and optimism” in their amicable resolution.


The dispute went public after the 54-year-old artist died April 6 from an accidental overdose of alcohol and prescription tranquilizers.


Pinto, who began dating Kinkade six months after his marriage of 28 years imploded, claimed Kinkade wrote two notes bequeathing her his mansion and $ 10 million to establish a museum of his paintings. Her lawyers filed court papers stating that she and Kinkade had planned to marry as soon as his divorce went through.


Nanette Kinkade disputed those claims and sought full control of the estate. She portrayed Pinto in court papers as a gold-digger who is trying to cheat the artist’s rightful heirs.


Kinkade, the self-described “Painter of Light,” was known for sentimental scenes of country gardens and pastoral landscapes. His work led to a commercial empire of franchised galleries, reproduced artwork and spin-off products that was said to fetch some $ 100 million each year in sales.


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Funerals become routine in shattered town


NEWTOWN, Conn. (AP) — One by one by one by one, each with fresh heartbreak, hearses crisscrossed two New England towns on Wednesday, bearing three tiny victims of the Sandy Hook school massacre and a heroic teacher in a seemingly never-ending series of funeral processions.


"The first few days, all you heard were helicopters," said Dr. Joseph Young, an optometrist who attended one funeral and would go to several more. "Now at my office all I hear is the rumble of motorcycle escorts and funeral processions going back and forth throughout the day."


As more victims from the slaughter of 20 children and six adults were laid to rest, long funeral processions clogged the streets of Newtown, where Christmas trees were turned into memorials and a season that should be a time of joy was marked by heart-wrenching loss.


At least nine funerals and wakes were held Wednesday for those who died when gunman Adam Lanza, armed with a military-style assault rifle, broke into the school Friday and opened fire on their classrooms. Lanza killed his mother at her home before the attack and committed suicide at the school as police closed in.


At St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church, mourners arrived for Caroline Previdi, an auburn-haired 6-year-old with an impish smile, before the service had even ended for Daniel Barden, a 7-year-old who dreamed of being a firefighter.


"It's sad to see the little coffins," said the Rev. John Inserra, a Catholic priest who worked at St. Rose for years before transferring to a church in Greenwich.


He returned to his old parish to comfort families wondering how a loving God could permit such carnage and has attended several of the funerals.


"It's always hard to bury a child," Inserra said of the seemingly unrelenting cycle of sorrow and loss. "God didn't do this. God didn't allow this. We allowed it. He said, 'Send the little children to me.' But he didn't mean it this way."


Hundreds of firefighters formed a long blue line outside the church for little Daniel's funeral. Two of his relatives work at the Fire Department of New York, and the gap-toothed redhead had wanted to join their ranks one day.


"If me being here helps this family or this community just a little bit, it's worth it," said Kevin Morrow, a New York firefighter and father of two young girls. "He wanted to be a firefighter, as any young boy wants to be."


Family friend Laura Stamberg, of New Paltz, N.Y., whose husband plays in a band with Daniel's father, said that on the morning of the shooting, Mark Barden taught his son to play a Christmas song on the piano.


"They played foosball and then he taught him the song and then he walked him to the bus and that was their last morning together," Stamberg said.


At Caroline's funeral, mourners wore pink ties and scarves — her favorite color — and remembered her as a New York Yankees fan who liked to kid around. "Silly Caroline" was how she was known to neighbor Karen Dryer.


"She's just a girl that was always smiling, always wanting others to smile," Dryer said.


Across town, at Christ the King Lutheran Church, hundreds gathered for the funeral of Charlotte Helen Bacon, many wearing buttons picturing the 6-year-old redhead. Speakers, including her grandfather, told of her love of wild animals, the family's golden retriever and the color pink.


She was "a beautiful little girl who could be a bit stubborn at times — just like all children," said Danbury resident Linda Clark as she left the service.


And in nearby Stratford, family and friends gathered to say goodbye to Victoria Soto, a first-grade teacher hailed as a hero for trying to shield her students, some of whom escaped. Musician Paul Simon, a family friend, performed "The Sound of Silence" at the service.


"She had the perfect job. She loved her job," said Vicky Ruiz, a friend since first grade.


Every year, Soto described her students the same way, Ruiz said.


"They were always good kids. They were always angels," she said, even if, like typical first-graders, they might not always listen.


In Woodbury, a line of colleagues, students and friends of slain Sandy Hook Principal Dawn Hochsprung, 47, wrapped around the block to pay their respects to the administrator, who rushed the gunman in an effort to stop him and paid with her life. U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan attended the service.


"She loved kids. She'd do anything to help them and protect them," said Joann Opulski, of Roxbury.


In emotion-charged Newtown, tempers flared as residents of the town of 27,000 navigated the hordes of reporters and camera crews that descended on the town. Some shouted at reporters outside the funerals Wednesday, urging them to leave their town in peace.


Cynthia Gubitose said the shooting and its aftermath have jolted what she described as a quintessential "Norman Rockwell, New England community."


"Nobody knew about Sandy Hook," Gubitose said as she placed flowers at a memorial with bouquets stacked chest-high. "Many of the people that live here like it that way."


The symbol of Christmas took on a new meaning in the town, where one memorial featured 26 Christmas trees — one for each victim at the school.


Edward Kish said he bought a Christmas tree two days before the shooting but hasn't had the heart to put it up or decorate it.


"I'll still put it up, probably," he said. "It doesn't seem right, and it doesn't seem like Christmas."


Mourners from across the country came to offer condolences. A jazz band from Alabama played at the main memorial site as local children played with a team of trained therapy dogs brought in to provide comfort.


At the Newtown Library, dozens of people gathered for a meeting of Newtown United, a grassroots community group formed in the wake of the shootings. The topic was gun legislation and how the community could push for a ban on assault weapons and other measures to make certain types of guns and ammunition more difficult to obtain.


There was a rumor that guests from Washington, D.C., would show up. About 10 minutes into the meeting Sen. Richard Blumenthal and Sen.-elect Chris Murphy walked into the room, to applause and surprised looks. They spoke and took questions for about a half-hour.


The school massacre continued to reverberate around America as citizens and lawmakers debated whether Newtown might be a turning point in the often-polarizing national discussion over gun control.


President Barack Obama promised he'd send Congress broad proposals for tightening gun laws and curbing violence and pressed Congress to reinstate an assault weapons ban that expired in 2004. He called for stricter background checks for people who seek to buy weapons and limited high-capacity clips.


"This time, the words need to lead to action," said Obama, who set a January deadline for the recommendations.


Authorities say the horrific events of Friday began when Lanza shot his mother, Nancy Lanza, at their home and then took her car and some of her guns to the nearby school.


Investigators have found no letters or diaries that could explain the attack.


However, Connecticut's chief medical examiner, Dr. H. Wayne Carver, told The Hartford Courant he is looking for genetic clues that might explain the behavior and is working with the University of Connecticut department of genetics.


___


Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Allen G. Breed, Helen O'Neill, John Christoffersen, Katie Zezima and Pat Eaton-Robb in Newtown; Michael Melia in Hartford; Larry Margasak in Washington and AP Business Writer Joshua Freed in Minneapolis.


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Worries grow in east Congo with fighter buildup






DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — Aid workers warned Wednesday that armed groups are setting up new front lines in and around the city of Goma in eastern Congo, where the U.N. said it now has documented at least 126 rape cases last month.


Thousands of fighters from the M23 rebel group withdrew several weeks ago from Goma, and the fighters have since taken steps toward negotiating with the Congolese government.






However, residents in Goma say M23 and other armed fighters are now positioning themselves in an around the city — including inside camps for people displaced by the violence.


The arrival of several thousand fighters within the last week is prompting fear among civilians, who already have experienced years of fighting and rebellions, said Tariq Riebl, Oxfam’s humanitarian coordinator there.


“They are very concerned — people are seeing this and they don’t know what it means,” he said. “I think what everyone is scared about is that it seems like people are ramping up, ramping up but for what purpose?”


Oxfam warns that more than 1 million people could come under attack if violence again flares in Goma, where more than 100,000 people already have fled from elsewhere in the region.


“Goma is typically the last refuge safe haven and now it’s being directly called into question. If Goma falls in a big battle, where are people going to go?” Riebl said.


“This is very, very disconcerting because you have a population of over 1 million people and if war were to break out, we’re looking at a horrific situation.”


The M23 rebel group, which is believed to be backed by neighboring Rwanda, is made up of hundreds of soldiers who deserted the Congolese army in April.


They took control of many villages and towns in the mineral-rich east over the last seven months, culminating in the seizure of Goma on Nov. 20. It took days of negotiations and intense international pressure, including from the U.N., for the thousands of fighters from M23 to finally withdraw from the regional capital.


The U.N. mission says it’s received allegations of serious rights violations, including killings and wounding of civilians, rape, looting, and forced recruitment of children, by elements of the M23 rebels in Goma and neighboring areas.


Congo’s armed forces are also blamed for a series of attacks as they fled Goma in retreat in late November.


The U.N. said Tuesday it now has been able to document at least 126 rapes during that period in the Minova area, about 60 kilometers (40 miles) south of Goma.


U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky said that two Congolese soldiers so far have been arrested in connection with the rapes, while seven others had been implicated in looting in the area.


“The Congolese Armed Forces have started investigating those human rights violations,” he said. “The U.N. Mission is supporting the military justice procedure in conducting thorough investigations into these allegations to ensure that the perpetrators are identified and held accountable.”


Rape has long been used as a brutal weapon of war in eastern Congo, where both soldiers and various armed groups use sexual violence to intimidate, punish and control the population.


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Brazilian company releases the ‘IPHONE’ after trademarking the name back in 2000









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Prominence Treatment Center Brings Hope to the Holidays






Malibu-Based drug & alcohol rehabilitation center announces a one-of-a-kind promotion to help patients fight drug and alcohol abuse.


Malibu, CA (PRWEB) December 20, 2012






The holidays can be stressful for the 23 million Americans who suffer from substance abuse. To help struggling patients and their families, Prominence Treatment Center is offering 10% off drug and alcohol rehab programs. While addiction knows no holiday, Prominence is committed to helping patients live healthier and more meaningful lives.


“This is the first year that Prominence has ever run this promotion,” said the Center’s CEO John Navab. “We know that the holidays can be very tough. Between family, financial strain, and end-of-year stress, substance abuse may feel like an escape. Drugs and alcohol may ‘take the edge off.’ It may feel easier to ‘escape’ than deal with your problems head-on.”


With the chaos of the holidays in full swing, substance abusers may be struggling to find the right time to get help. Rather than waiting until later, now is the right time to make a change.


“There is no better gift that you can give your family,” Navab said. “Get help while you still have a chance at recovery. So many addicts get DUIs, harm themselves, destroy their relationships, and overdose around the holidays. People with a history of depression become more depressed this time of year.”


What patients need most is a healthy and stable environment. Prominence eases the transition to recovery by providing the right atmosphere. Especially over the holidays, comfort and care are what set Prominence apart.


“The staff is supportive and provides tender loving care,” Navab said. “Most programs out there can feel like boot camp, but Prominence takes a different approach. Treatment is not about punishment. Patients who are addicted to drugs and alcohol punish themselves enough. While our program is structured, it is not overly structured.”


Prominence ensures that patients achieve balance in their lives. Even if you start in-patient treatment tomorrow, you’ll stay connected with your family over the holidays. You’ll be able to celebrate the season by keeping in close contact with your loved ones.


“Prominence allows regular cell phone usage so that patients can stay connected to friends and family,” Navab said. “Most rehab centers only allow two 15 minute calls per week.”


Prominence understands that the recovery process is hard work. It takes time, and it’s stressful. For that reason, substance abusers need an environment that truly embraces family values and supports the journey to recovery.


“Recovery takes time,” Navab said. “Be patient with each other. For parents who do not want to enter treatment because they have kids, you are teaching your children young and old the wrong lessons. You can’t take care of your problems by pretending they’re not there. We are never going to feel like going to treatment. We have to work against our feelings and go even if we do not feel like it. Action-oriented steps are what give us motivation. No matter what, do not give up.”


If you or a loved one needs help, contact our intake specialists at Prominence Treatment Center by calling (888) 394-2558. Mention this article, and get 10% off your treatment.


Jason Thomas
Xivic Inc.
888-394-2558
Email Information


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NY appeals court takes up Cameron Douglas case






NEW YORK (AP) — The Douglas name — first with patriarch Kirk and later with son Michael — has always meant gold for Hollywood. But drama for the third generation of the Douglas family has occurred mostly off-screen, where Cameron Douglas has battled drug addiction and legal troubles.


In papers submitted for appeals court arguments Wednesday, prosecutors and a lawyer for Cameron Douglas have retold in greater detail than before how a man who seemed to have so many advantages in life could land in prison for a decade on a drug conviction.






The dispute is over Manhattan Judge Richard M. Berman‘s decision to double Douglas’ five-year prison term after he committed several new drug infractions, including convincing a lawyer-turned-love interest to sneak drugs into prison for him in her bra on three or four occasions.


Berman said he had not “ever encountered a defendant who has so recklessly and wantonly and flagrantly and criminally acted in as destructive and (as) manipulative a fashion as Cameron Douglas has.”


In his brief, Douglas’ lawyer Paul Shechtman called the additional sentence “shockingly long,” saying it “may be the harshest sentence ever imposed on a federal prisoner for a drug possession offense.”


Douglas, 34, was originally accused of distributing and conspiring to distribute more than 4.5 kilograms of methamphetamine and 20 kilograms of cocaine from August 2006 until his July 28, 2009, arrest at a Manhattan hotel. At the time, he was so visibly high on heroin that he was taken first to a hospital before he was brought to court, and it was later learned he had been shooting heroin five to six times a day for five years, Shechtman noted.


He was released from custody on the condition that he remain under “house arrest” with a private security guard at his mother’s apartment, Shechtman said. Within days, he persuaded his girlfriend, Kelly Sott, to smuggle heroin to him, hidden in an electric toothbrush. Once discovered, his bail was revoked and he was incarcerated. Sott pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor in a plea deal and was sentenced to the seven months she had already served.


Still, Douglas gained leniency from what otherwise could have been a mandatory 10-year prison sentence by cooperating with the government, contacting his suppliers by telephone and text messages as law enforcement agents watched. As a result, two drug suppliers were arrested and convicted. Douglas testified at the trial of one supplier.


Douglas was sentenced to five years in prison for a Jan. 27, 2010, guilty plea to narcotics distribution charges even before his cooperation was completed.


At sentencing, Berman noted that the Douglas family had staged interventions for Douglas that he had refused and that two decades of drug addiction treatment had been unsuccessful. He said it appeared incarceration had produced the longest period of sobriety for Douglas since he was 13.


However, it was learned afterward that even prior to the April 20, 2010, sentencing, Douglas had persuaded one of his attorneys — a 33-year-old associate at a law firm with whom lawyers said he also had a romantic relationship — to smuggle Xanax pills to him in prison. Shechtman said she “apparently became enamored of Cameron during frequent visits.”


He admitted that he had shared the 30 Xanax pills with other inmates and that he had also smoked cigarettes, gambled, snorted substances and committed other infractions while in prison.


Shortly after testifying at the Oct. 3, 2011, trial of a drug supplier, prison staff caught Douglas with the opioid dependence medication Suboxone and a white powdery substance believed to be heroin. The prison punished him with disciplinary segregation for 11 months and canceled nearly three months of his good conduct time.


On Oct. 20, 2011, Douglas again pleaded guilty to drug possession, agreeing in a plea deal that the sentencing range should be an additional 12 to 18 months in prison. Prosecutors say that within a week of the plea, the government learned from a cooperating defendant in another case that Douglas had misled the government about how he obtained heroin while in prison.


Douglas had claimed he got it in a television room or at a church service or that he obtained the heroin by chance, picking it up off the floor after another inmate dropped it, the government said. But prosecutors say the cooperator revealed he had brought Douglas the drugs directly to his cell.


In court papers, Shechtman blamed Cameron Douglas’ long history of substance abuse and growing up with little parental support.


“While still a young teenager, he drank heavily and began selling drugs after his father sharply limited snorting cocaine,” he said. “He used illegal drugs to self-medicate — to ward off depression and panic attacks.”


He began using intravenous cocaine at age 20 and then started using heroin so that by age 25, “his life revolved around heroin,” Shechtman said.


His friends were fellow users, who gravitated to him because of his access to family money, which supported their habits, the lawyer said. His drug habit led him to be fired from a movie in which he had a minor role in 2006.


“Exasperated, his father gave him an ultimatum: enter a drug rehabilitation program or have his access to family money sharply limited. Cameron declined to enter treatment; his father carried out his threat; and Cameron turned to drug dealing to support his habit,” Shechtman wrote.


Shechtman argued that the judge had gone too far with Cameron Douglas, punishing an addict for something beyond his control.


“While we recognize that many of the words that the district court used to describe Cameron’s conduct — ‘reckless,’ ‘manipulative,’ ‘destructive,’ — were apt, the simple truth is that Cameron Douglas is a heroin addict who has yet to shake his habit,” he said.


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Rush to boost safety sparks flurry of ideas


(Reuters) - They began calling on Friday morning, even before confirmation of the death toll at Sandy Hook Elementary. Principals, district administrators, school police chiefs all asked the same pleading questions: What can we do? How do we stop this? How can we keep our children safe?


Michael Dorn, phone to his ear until 2 a.m., gave them all the same advice: Slow down.


Every horrific school shooting sets off a rush to bolster security, and Dorn, a widely respected school safety consultant, says he has seen hundreds of millions of dollars wasted in the frenzy to upgrade.


Principals spend lavishly on emergency response software, not realizing how impractical it is to fumble with a log-in during a crisis. Districts buy pricey metal detectors, only to switch them off because they cannot afford to deploy staff to do pat-downs and search book bags.


"People are frightened. They're trying so hard," said Dorn, a former schools police chief who runs the nonprofit consulting network Safe Havens International in Macon, Georgia. "But you want to build something that will last decades. Focus on making quality improvements rather than doing it quickly."


The horrific toll in Newtown has prompted administrators across the U.S. to reassess their safety protocols. Some have found obvious deficiencies that will take money to fix, such as classroom doors that don't lock. Bu t in many cases, security experts say districts can strengthen safety on campus without big spending.


In a survey conducted by the American Association of School Administrators in 2009 -- the 10th anniversary of the Columbine High School shootings -- fully a third of educators admitted they sometimes propped open doors to their schools, potentially giving intruders easy access. And almost 40 percent acknowledged they weren't training staff adequately in emergency response.


School safety consultants said such lapses remained common until the Newtown tragedy snapped administrators out of their complacency. "We tend to let our guard down as memories fade," said Paul Timm, president of RETA Security Inc, a consulting firm in Lemont, Illinois.


He and others said schools could greatly improve safety with a series of inexpensive measures: Keep all exterior doors shut and locked. Equip recess monitors with walkie-talkies to report signs of trouble. Regularly review emergency plans and practice for a variety of scenarios, not just an active shooter. Train all adults on campus to recognize behavior patterns that could indicate that a student is planning mischief or malice.


Hundreds of school districts and colleges across the U.S. have also adopted a more controversial approach to safety: teaching staff -- and students -- to fight back in the face of danger.


The ALICE protocol, developed a decade ago by a former police officer in response to a series of school shootings, rejects as inadequate the traditional response to an armed intruder, which prompts teachers and students to lock themselves in their classroom, turn out the lights and hide as best they can.


Greg Crane, the retired police officer who developed ALICE, says rather than fall back on that response, students and teachers must develop the confidence that allows them to think on their feet.


If they can escape the building quickly, through a window perhaps, why huddle in a darkened classroom? And if an intruder enters the classroom, why remain passive; why not run around, scream, throw books and desks at the gunman, even try to tackle him, Crane asks.


"If a predator tried to snatch a child off the street, what part of our advice is for him to remain quiet, static, passive?" Crane asked. "We want you throwing things, yelling, trying to get out of there," he said. The same should hold in a classroom, he said, arguing that even 5- and 6-year-olds can cause enough distraction to confuse a gunman and perhaps buy a few minutes for escape.


"Chaos is not a bad thing," Crane said. "We want to see chaos. That makes it very difficult for the shooter to operate."


The ALICE program -- it stands for Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, Evacuate -- has sparked concern in some communities, with parents protesting that terrified children can't be asked to confront crazed gunmen or make snap decisions about escape routes.


But Crane said his company, Response Options, which is based in Burleson, Texas, has been flooded with calls since Friday from officials eager to sign up for his $400 training workshop, which prepares participants to teach ALICE to students and teachers in their communities.


While the tragedy at Sandy Hook focused attention on the danger of armed intruders, safety consultants cautioned that schools must also remain vigilant about internal threats from students who may feel alienated or may be struggling with mental illness.


"The ultimate in safety is caring about one another and kids trusting you with information," said Bill Bond, a security consultant with the National Association of Secondary School Principals.


Bond was the principal at Heath High School in West Paducah, Kentucky, in 1997, when a student opened fire on a morning prayer circle, killing three girls. He advocates programs that connect children with adult mentors.


Such connections are harder to maintain in an era of tight budgets, however. There is just one school counselor for every 471 students in the U.S.; a few years ago, the ratio was 1 to 457, according to the American School Counselor Association. Faced with tight budgets, some districts have asked every adult connected with the school, including bus drivers, custodians and cafeteria workers, to pitch in with mentoring and monitoring kids.


"People want to be able to say, if we just do X, Y and Z in every school in America, we'll stop these," said Dorn, the security consultant in Georgia. There is no such solution, he said. Each school, and each threat, is too different.


But Dorn said he understands why the school officials who call him up are so eager to do something, anything, at once. "I have a 4-year-old. I took him to school this morning," Dorn said. "I understand the fear." (Reporting By Stephanie Simon. Editing by Douglas Royalty)



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NBC’s Engel, TV crew escape abduction in Syria






BEIRUT (AP) — NBC‘s chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel said Tuesday he and members of his network crew escaped unharmed after five days of captivity in Syria, where more than a dozen pro-regime gunmen dragged them from their car, killed one of their rebel escorts and subjected them to mock executions.


Appearing on NBC’s “Today” show, an unshaven Engel said he and his team escaped during a firefight Monday night between their captors and rebels at a checkpoint. They crossed into Turkey on Tuesday.






NBC did not say how many people were kidnapped with Engel, although two other men, producer Ghazi Balkiz and photographer John Kooistra, appeared with him on the “Today” show. It was not confirmed whether everyone was accounted for.


Engel said he believes the kidnappers were a Shiite militia group loyal to the Syrian government, which has lost control over swaths of the country’s north and is increasingly on the defensive in a civil war that has killed 40,000 people since March 2011.


“They kept us blindfolded, bound,” said the 39-year-old Engel, who speaks and reads Arabic. “We weren’t physically beaten or tortured. A lot of psychological torture, threats of being killed. They made us choose which one of us would be shot first and when we refused, there were mock shootings,” he added.


“They were talking openly about their loyalty to the government,” Engel said. He said the captors were trained by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and allied with Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite militant group, but he did not elaborate.


There was no mention of the kidnapping by Syria’s state-run news agency.


Both Iran and Hezbollah are close allies of the embattled Syrian government of President Bashar Assad, who used military force to crush mostly peaceful protests against his regime. The crackdown on protests led many in Syria to take up arms against the government, and the conflict has become a civil war.


Engel said he was told the kidnappers wanted to exchange him and his crew for four Iranian and two Lebanese prisoners being held by the rebels.


“They captured us in order to carry out this exchange,” he said.


Engel and his crew entered Syria on Thursday and were driving through what they thought was rebel-controlled territory when “a group of gunmen just literally jumped out of the trees and bushes on the side of the road.”


“There were probably 15 gunmen. They were wearing ski masks. They were heavily armed. They dragged us out of the car,” he said.


He said the gunmen shot and killed at least one of their rebel escorts on the spot and took the hostages into a waiting truck nearby.


Around 11 p.m. Monday, Engel said he and the others were being moved to another location in northern Idlib province.


“And as we were moving along the road, the kidnappers came across a rebel checkpoint, something they hadn’t expected. We were in the back of what you would think of as a minivan,” he said. “The kidnappers saw this checkpoint and started a gunfight with it. Two of the kidnappers were killed. We climbed out of the vehicle and the rebels took us. We spent the night with them.”


Engel and his crew crossed back into neighboring Turkey on Tuesday.


The network said there was no claim of responsibility, no contact with the captors and no request for ransom during the time the crew was missing.


NBC sought to keep the disappearance of Engel and the crew secret for several days while it investigated what happened to them. Major media organizations, including The Associated Press, adhered to a request from the network to refrain from reporting on the issue out of concern it could make the dangers to the captives worse. News of the disappearance did begin to leak out in Turkish media and on some websites on Monday.


Syria has become a danger zone for reporters since the conflict began.


According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, Syria is by far the deadliest country for the press in 2012, with 28 journalists killed in combat or targeted for murder by government or opposition forces.


Among the journalists killed while covering Syria are award-winning French TV reporter Gilles Jacquier, photographer Remi Ochlik and Britain’s Sunday Times correspondent Marie Colvin. Also, Anthony Shadid, a correspondent for The New York Times, died after an apparent asthma attack while on assignment in Syria.


The Syrian government has barred most foreign media coverage of the civil war in Syria. Those journalists whom the regime has allowed in are tightly controlled in their movements by Information Ministry minders. Many foreign journalists sneak into Syria illegally with the help of smugglers and travel with rebel escorts or drivers.


Engel joined NBC in 2003 and was named chief foreign correspondent in 2008. He previously worked as a freelance journalist for ABC News, including during the U.S. invasion of Iraq. He has lived in the Middle East since graduating from Stanford University in 1996.


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Instagram tests new limits in user privacy






SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Instagram, which spurred suspicions this week that it would sell user photos after revising its terms of service, has sparked renewed debate about how much control over personal data users must give up to live and participate in a world steeped in social media.


In forcefully establishing a new set of usage terms, Instagram, the massively popular photo-sharing service owned by Facebook Inc, has claimed some rights that have been practically unheard of among its prominent social media peers, legal experts and consumer advocates say.






Users who decline to accept Instagram’s new privacy policy have one month to delete their accounts, or they will be bound by the new terms. Another clause appears to waive the rights of minors on the service. And in the wake of a class-action settlement involving Facebook and privacy issues, Instagram has added terms to shield itself from similar litigation.


All told, the revised terms reflect a new, draconian grip over user rights, experts say.


“This is all uncharted territory,” said Jay Edelson, a partner at the Chicago law firm Edelson McGuire. “If Instagram is to encourage as many lawsuits as possible and as much backlash as possible then they succeeded.”


Instagram’s new policies, which go into effect January 16, lay the groundwork for the company to begin generating advertising revenue by giving marketers the right to display profile pictures and other personal information such as who users follow in advertisements.


The new terms, which allow an advertiser to pay Instagram “to display your username, likeness, photos (along with any associated metadata)” without compensation, triggered an outburst of complaints on the Web on Tuesday from users upset that Instagram would make money from their uploaded content.


The uproar prompted a lengthy blog post from the company to “clarify” the changes, with CEO Kevin Systrom saying the company had no current plans to incorporate photos taken by users into ads.


Instagram declined comment beyond its blog post, which failed to appease critics including National Geographic, which suspended new posts to Instagram. “We are very concerned with the direction of the proposed new terms of service and if they remain as presented we may close our account,” said National Geographic, an early Instagram adopter.


PUSHING BOUNDARIES


Consumer advocates said Facebook was using Instagram’s aggressive new terms to push the boundaries of how social media sites can make money while its own hands were tied by recent agreements with regulators and class action plaintiffs.


Under the terms of a 2011 settlement with the Federal Trade Commission, Facebook is required to get user consent before personal information is shared beyond their privacy settings. A preliminary class action lawsuit settlement with Facebook allows users to opt-out of being included in the “sponsored stories” ads that use their personal information.


Under Instagram’s new terms, users who want to opt-out must simply quit using the service.


“Instagram has given people a pretty stark choice: Take it or leave, and if you leave it you’ve got to leave the service,” said Kurt Opsahl, a senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a Internet user right’s group.


What’s more, he said, if a user initially agrees to the new terms but then has a change of mind, their information could still be used for commercial purposes.


In a post on its official blog on Tuesday, Instagram did not address another controversial provision that states that if a child under the age of 18 uses the service, then it is implied that his or her parent has tacitly agreed to Instagram’s terms.


“The notion is that minors can’t be bound to a contract. And that also means they can’t be bound to a provision that says they agree to waive the rights,” said the EFF’s Opsahl.


BLOCKING CLASS ACTION SUITS


While Facebook continues to be bogged in its own class action suit, Instagram took preventive steps to avoid a similar legal morass.


Its new terms of service require users with a legal complaint to enter arbitration, rather than take the company to court. It prohibits users from joining a class action lawsuit unless they mail a written “opt-out” statement to Facebook’s headquarters in Menlo Park within 30 days of joining Instagram.


That provision is not included in terms of service for other leading social media companies like Twitter, Google, YouTube or even Facebook itself, and it immunizes Instagram from many forms of legal liability, said Michael Rustad, a professor at Suffolk University Law School.


Rustad, who has studied the terms of services for 157 social media services, said just 10 contained provisions prohibiting class action lawsuits.


The clause effectively cripples users who want to legally challenge the company because lawyers will not likely represent an individual plaintiff, Rustad argued.


“No lawyers will take these cases,” Rustad said. “In consumer arbitration cases, everything is stacked against the consumer. It’s a pretense, it’s a legal fiction, that there are remedies.”


Instagram, which has 100 million users, allows consumers to tweak the photos they take on their smartphones and share the images with friends. Facebook acquired Instagram in September for $ 715 million.


Instagram’s take-it-or-leave-it policy pushes the envelope for how social networking companies treat user privacy issues, said Marc Rotenberg, the executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center.


“I think Facebook is probably using Instagram to see how far it can press this advertising model,” said Rotenberg. “If they can keep a lot of users, then all those users have agreed to have their images as part of advertising.”


(Additional reporting by Dan Levine; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)


Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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Los suplementos de soja no mejoran la calidad de vida en la menopausia






NUEVA YORK, 18 dic (Reuters) – En un estudio de Estados


Unidos, las mujeres menopáusicas que tomaron suplementos de soja






durante dos años no detectaron diferencias en su calidad de


vida.


Es posible que la soja pueda aportar algún beneficio en la


menopausia, según opinó la autora principal, doctora Paula


Amato, de Oregon Health and Science University, Portland, “pero


las mujeres con características similares a las participantes no


mejorarían su calidad de vida si usan los suplementos”.


En el estudio publicado en Menopause, el equipo de Amato no


se concentró en síntomas específicos, sino en la calidad de vida


de un grupo de mujeres saludables, de entre 50 y 60 años, y con


seis o más años desde la menopáusica.


Los autores les pidieron a varios cientos de mujeres que


tomaran suplementos de soja en píldoras tres veces por día


durante dos años; 126 de ellas recibieron una versión placebo


(sin extracto de soja), 135 tomaron píldoras con 80 mg/día de


proteína de soja y 123 ingirieron 120 mg/día.


Al inicio del estudio, al año y a los dos años, las


participantes respondieron un cuestionario sobre calidad de


vida, que incluía preguntas sobre la salud mental, física y


sexual, y los sofocos. En cada relevamiento, los tres grupos


obtuvieron resultados similares.


“A partir del estudio y la literatura médica disponible,


surge que el uso de suplementos de soja después de la menopausia


no mejora la calidad de vida”, dijo Amato. “Realmente, no


podemos recomendárselos a nuestras pacientes”, agregó.


Mark Messina, presidente de Nutrition Matters y profesor


adjunto de Loma Linda University, California, aconsejó no


interpretar que los ingredientes claves de los suplementos de


soja, las isoflavonas, carecen de efecto alguno en los sofocos.


Explicó que, por un lado, los niveles de un tipo de


isoflavona, la genisteína, utilizados en el estudio fueron más


bajos que en otros estudios que le habían atribuido beneficios a


los extractos de soja. Además, señaló que el objetivo original


del estudio era conocer los efectos de los extractos en la salud


ósea, por lo que el equipo no convocó mujeres con sofocos o con


alteraciones de la calidad de vida.


“De modo que, en mi opinión, el estudio no aporta


información útil sobre las isoflavonas y los sofocos”, dijo


Messina, que habitualmente asesora a las empresas que producen o


venden productos de soja.


Esas empresas comercializan los suplementos, que cuestan


unos 17 dólares por cada 90 píldoras de 50 mg, como productos


que “potencialmente” alivian los cambios asociados con la


menopausia.


Amato coincidió en que el estudio tiene algunas limitaciones


y dijo que los resultados no pueden generalizarse a todas las


formas de soja en todo tipo de mujeres.


FUENTE: Menopause, online 3 de diciembre del 2012.


Seniors/Aging News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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