Brad Pitt turns designer for high-end furniture collection

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Actor Brad Pitt has turned his talents to creating furniture for a luxury design house with a high-end collection inspired by both Art Nouveau and Art Deco, according to Architectural Digest.

Pitt, who collaborated on the collection with U.S. furniture designer Frank Pollaro, discussed his inspirations for the capsule collection in the December issue of the magazine.

“I’m drawn to furniture design as complete architecture on a minor scale,” Pitt said. “I am obsessively bent on quality, to an unhealthy degree.”

Pitt said it was his obsession that introduced him to Pollaro, whom he said embodies the “same mad spirit of the craftsmen of yore, with their obsessive attention to detail.”

The dozen-piece collection, which will be unveiled by the Pollaro furniture house in New York between November 13 and 15, will include tables, chairs, an elaborate bed and a bathtub made of marble.

The 48-year-old “Fight Club” actor said he was influenced by Scottish architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s Glasgow Rose, drawn with a continuous line. He designed his collection with the fluidity of a single line, be it geometric or circular.

“There is something more grand at play, as if you could tell the story of one’s life with a single line — from birth to death, with all the bloody triumphs and perceived humiliating losses, even boredoms, along the way,” the actor said.

Pitt has previously worked with well-known architects for his Make It Right foundation to create affordable quality housing for the victims of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. He also designed a diamond ring for his partner, Angelina Jolie, when the couple got engaged earlier this year.

The actor also became the latest and first male face of Chanel’s iconic women’s fragrance Chanel No.5 last month, mystifying critics and fashionistas with an enigmatic video commercial.

(Reporting By Piya Sinha-Roy; editing by Patricia Reaney, Bernard Orr)

Celebrity News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Long, bitter White House race finally in voters' hands

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney face the verdict of voters on Tuesday after a long and bitter White House campaign, with polls showing them deadlocked in a race that will be decided in a handful of states where it is extraordinarily close.

At least 120 million Americans are expected to vote on giving Obama a second term or replacing him with Romney. Their decision will set the country's course for four years on spending, taxes, healthcare and foreign policy challenges like the rise of China and Iran's nuclear ambitions.

National opinion polls show Obama and Romney in a virtual dead heat, although the Democratic incumbent has a slight advantage in several vital swing states - most notably Ohio - that could give him the 270 electoral votes he needs to win.

Romney, the multimillionaire former head of a private equity fund, would be the first Mormon president and one of the wealthiest Americans to occupy the White House. Obama, the first black president, is vying to be the first Democrat to win a second term since Bill Clinton in 1996.

Fueled by record spending on negative ads, the battle between the two men was focused primarily on the lagging economic recovery and persistent high unemployment, but at times it turned personal.

Polls will begin to close in Indiana and Kentucky at 6 p.m. ESTon Tuesday, with voting ending across the country over the next six hours.

The first results, by tradition, were tallied in Dixville Notch and Hart's Location, New Hampshire, shortly after midnight . Obama and Romney each received five votes in Dixville Notch. In Hart's Location, Obama got 23 votes to 9 votes for Romney and two votes for Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson.

The close presidential race raises fears of a disputed outcome similar to the 2000 election, which was decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. Both campaigns have assembled legal teams to deal with possible voting problems, challenges or recounts.

The balance of power in the U.S. Congress will also be at stake in Senate and House of Representatives races that could impact the outcome of "fiscal cliff" negotiations on spending cuts and tax increases, which kick in at the end of the year unless a deal is reached.

Obama's Democrats are now expected to narrowly hold their Senate majority, while Romney's Republicans are favored to retain House control.

Despite the weak economy, Obama appeared in September to be cruising to a relatively easy win after a strong party convention and a series of stumbles by Romney, including a secretly recorded video showing the Republican writing off 47 percent of the electorate as government-dependent victims.

But Romney rebounded in the first debate on October 3 in Denver, where his sure-footed criticism of the president and Obama's listless response started a slow rise for Romney in polls. Obama seemed to regain his footing in recent days at the head of federal relief efforts for victims of the storm Sandy.

The presidential contest is now likely to be determined by voter turnout - specifically, what combination of Republicans, Democrats, white, minority, young, old and independent voters shows up at polling stations.

Obama and Romney raced through seven battleground states on the final day of campaigning to hammer home their final themes, urge supporters to get to the polls and woo the last remaining undecided voters.

'WE KNOW WHAT CHANGE LOOKS LIKE'

Obama focused on Wisconsin, Ohio and Iowa, the three Midwestern swing states that, barring surprises elsewhere, would give him 270 electoral votes. Romney visited the must-win states of Florida, Virginia and Ohio before finishing in New Hampshire, where he launched his presidential run in June 2011.

After two days of nearly round-the-clock travel, Obama wrapped up his final campaign tour in Des Moines, Iowa, with a speech that hearkened back to his 2008 campaign.

"I've come back to Iowa one more time to ask for your vote. I came back to ask you to help us finish what we've started, because this is where our movement for change began," he told a crowd of some 20,000 people.

Obama's voice broke and he wiped away tears from his eyes as he reflected on those who had helped his campaign.

Romney's final day included stops in Florida, Virginia, Ohio and New Hampshire. The former governor of Massachusetts ended the day at a raucous "Final Victory" rally in Manchester, New Hampshire, the city where he launched his campaign last year.

"We're one day away from a fresh start. We're one day away from a new beginning," the candidate, sounding hoarse at his fifth rally of the day, told the crowd of 12,000 at a sports arena in the center of the city.

Obama ridiculed Romney's claims to be the candidate of change and said the challenger would be a rubber stamp for a conservative Tea Party agenda. "We know what change looks like, and what he's selling ain't it," he said in Columbus, Ohio.

Romney argued he was the candidate who could break the partisan gridlock in Washington, and said four more years of Obama could mean another economic recession.

"His plan for the next four years is to take all the ideas from the first term - the stimulus, the borrowing, Obamacare, all the rest - and do them over again," he said in Lynchburg, Virginia.

The common denominator for both candidates was Ohio, the most critical of the battlegrounds, particularly for Romney. Without the state's 18 electoral votes, the path to victory becomes very narrow for the Republican.

Polls have shown Obama with a small but steady lead in the state for months, sparked in part by his support for a federal bailout of the auto industry, which accounts for one of every eight jobs in Ohio, and by a strong state economy with an unemployment rate lower than the 7.9 percent national rate.

That undercut the central argument of Romney's campaign - that his business experience made him uniquely qualified to create jobs and lead an economic recovery. Obama fought back through the summer with ads criticizing Romney's experience at the equity fund Bain Capital and portraying him as out of touch with ordinary Americans.

That was part of a steady barrage of advertising in the most heavily contested battleground states from both candidates and their party allies, who raised a combined $2 billion.

The rise of "Super PACs," unaffiliated outside groups that can spend unlimited sums on behalf of candidates, also helped fuel the record spending on political ads that swamped swing-state voters.

Romney planned to vote at home in Massachusetts on Tuesday morning before a final trip to Ohio and Pennsylvania, a Democratic-leaning state that he has tried to put in play in recent weeks.

Obama, who voted in October, will spend the day at his home in Chicago.

The two candidates took a break from campaign rallies to tape interviews that aired during halftime of Monday Night Football, a U.S. television institution.

Romney said the New England Patriots were his favorite football team and jokingly said that, as a former Massachusetts governor, he took credit for the team's Super Bowl victories.

Obama expressed faith that his hometown team, the Chicago Bears, can make it to the Super Bowl championship in January because they have the "best defense in the league."

(Additional reporting by Jeff Mason in Iowa and Patricia Zengerle and Herb Swanson in New Hampshire; Editing by Alistair Bell, Christopher Wilson and Paul Simao)

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Methane warnings ignored before NZ mine disaster

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — A New Zealand coal mining company ignored 21 warnings that methane gas had accumulated to explosive levels before an underground explosion killed 29 workers two years ago, an investigation concluded.

The official report released Monday after 11 weeks of hearings on the disaster found broad safety problems in New Zealand workplaces and said the Pike River Coal company was exposing miners to unacceptable risks as it strove to meet financial targets.

“The company completely and utterly failed to protect its workers,” New Zealand Prime Minister John Key said Monday.

The country’s labor minister, Kate Wilkinson, resigned from her labor portfolio after the report’s release, saying she felt it was the honorable thing to do after the tragedy occurred on her watch. She plans to retain her remaining government responsibilities.

The Royal Commission report said New Zealand has a poor workplace safety record and its regulators failed to provide adequate oversight before the explosion.

At the time of the disaster, New Zealand had just two mine inspectors who were unable to keep up with their workload, the report said. Pike River was able to obtain a permit with no scrutiny of its initial health and safety plans and little ongoing scrutiny.

Key said he agrees with the report’s conclusion that there needs to be a philosophical shift in New Zealand from believing that companies are acting in the best interests of workers to a more proscriptive set of regulations that forces companies to do the right thing.

The commission’s report recommended a new agency be formed to focus solely on workplace health and safety problems. It also recommended a raft of measures to strengthen mine oversight.

Key said his government would consider the recommendations and hoped to implement most of them. He would not commit on forming a new agency. Workplace safety issues are currently one of the responsibilities of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment.

In the seven weeks before the explosion, the Pike River company received 21 warnings from mine workers that methane gas had built up to explosive levels below ground and another 27 warnings of dangerous levels, the report said. The warnings continued right up until the morning of the deadly explosion.

The company used unconventional methods to get rid of methane, the report said. Some workers even rigged their machines to bypass the methane sensors after the machines kept automatically shutting down — something they were designed to do when methane levels got too high.

The company made a “major error” by placing a ventilation fan underground instead of on the surface, the report found. The fan failed after the first of several explosions, effectively shutting down the entire ventilation system. The company was also using water jets to cut the coal face, a highly specialized technique than can release large amounts of methane.

The report did not definitively conclude what sparked the explosion itself, although it noted that a pump was switched on immediately before the explosion, raising the possibility it was triggered by an electrical arc.

The now-bankrupt Pike River Coal company is not defending itself against charges it committed nine labor violations related to the disaster. Former chief executive Peter Whittall has pleaded not guilty to 12 violations and his lawyers say he is being scapegoated.

An Australian contractor was fined last month for three safety violations after its methane detector was found to be faulty at the time of the explosion.

Australia / Antarctica News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Apple sells three million iPads over first weekend

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Congressional panels to hold hearings on meningitis outbreak

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Two congressional oversight committees will hold hearings next week on the deadly U.S. meningitis outbreak linked to tainted steroid injections and one panel has invited an official from the compounding pharmacy involved, aides said on Monday.

The House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee expects to hear testimony from Food and Drug Administration commissioner Margaret Hamburg on November 14.

The Republican-led panel has also invited Barry Cadden, co-owner of the New England Compounding Center, and James Coffey of the Massachusetts Board of Registration in Pharmacy, to appear.

A spokeswoman for the Massachusetts Department of Health did not say immediately whether Coffey would testify. A lawyer for Cadden was not immediately available for comment.

On November 15, the Democratic-controlled Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee will hold its own hearing. It has invited a half-dozen witnesses including Hamburg, Cadden and health officials from Massachusetts and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Both committees have been investigating the outbreak that has sickened 419 people, killing 30, in 19 states, according to the CDC.

Lawmakers are trying to determine why NECC was allowed to continue operating after federal and state officials had identified problems at its facility including potential health risks posed by its production of injectable drugs.

The committees are also considering possible legislative action to enhance the FDA’s oversight powers over compounding pharmacies, which are regulated mainly by state pharmacy boards.

(Reporting by David Morgan and Toni Clarke; Editing by Mohammad Zargham)

Medications/Drugs News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Not wrecked by Sandy, ‘Ralph’ tops box office

NEW YORK (AP) — The weekend box office was not only undeterred by the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy, it was buoyed by it.

Disney’s “Wreck-It Ralph” opened strongly with $ 49.1 million and Robert Zemeckis‘ “Flight,” starring Denzel Washington, soared to a $ 25 million debut. Both opened above expectations, capitalizing on East Coast audiences looking for distraction amid the recovery from the storm.

“Wreck-It Ralph,” a 3-D animated family film about a video game villain who tries to break free of his role, is the largest box-office opening ever for Walt Disney Animation, which has produced countless cartoon classics (though doesn’t include Disney‘s lucrative Pixar Animation).

Though the hurricane had forced the closure of hundreds of movie theaters in the New York, New Jersey area, most were open for business by the weekend. As many as 100 theaters were still closed on Friday, but many of those were restored during the weekend.

“We didn’t really have a playbook for this,” said Hollywood.com box office analyst Paul Dergarabedian. “But the numbers show that audiences across the country, and particularly in the Northeast, wanted to go to the movies and they did.”

With many East Coast children out of school on Friday, Disney saw an uptick of business for Friday matinees to the well-reviewed “Wreck-It Ralph.”

“‘Wreck-It Ralph‘ became something of a distraction and an opportunity for families to do something separate of the storm,” said Dave Hollis, Disney‘s head of distribution. “Schools being shut down on Friday also played a role as parents were looking for things to entertain the kids and keep them out of the cold.”

Paramount’s “Flight,” which had a smaller opening — 1,884 theaters, or about half the number of “Wreck-It Ralph” — might have been expected to be more harmed by Sandy, considering adult dramas generally depend heavily on the New York City market. But the film, which has found critical raves and Oscar buzz, proved particularly enticing to moviegoers, many of whom were surely pulled in by the star power of Washington, who plays an airline pilot of both heroic skill and debilitating alcoholism.

“When you look up his filmography — it doesn’t matter whether it was yesterday or 20 years ago — Denzel opens movies,” said Paramount distribution head Don Harris.

Harris said the studio counted only about 15 theaters lost to “Flight” due to power outages.

Aside from the draw of Washington, “Flight” is also the first live-action film in 12 years for Zemeckis. The director, whose films include the “Back to the Future” trilogy and “Cast Away,” had spent the last decade on performance-capture animated films like “The Polar Express” and “A Christmas Carol.” Harris called the return “spectacular” and said: “It’s almost like: Where have you been?”

Ben Affleck’s Iran hostage tale “Argo,” in its fourth week of release, expanded to 2,774 theaters. The Warner Bros. film added $ 10.2 million, bringing its cumulative gross to $ 75.9 million — a healthy haul for a film expected to be in the thick of the Oscar hunt.

The Universal kung fu flick “The Man With the Iron Fists,” directed by RZA of the hip hop group Wu-Tang Clan, opened with a debut of $ 8.2 million.

Overseas, the James Bond film “Skyfall” continued to dominate. It took in $ 156 million over the weekend bringing its international total to $ 287 million. The film opens in North America on Friday.

The strong box-office weekend — up 21 percent from the same weekend last year — bodes well for Hollywood ahead of the arrival of “Skyfall” and the upcoming holiday movie season.

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Hollywood.com. Where available, latest international numbers are also included. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.

1. “Wreck-It Ralph,” $ 49.1 million.

2. “Flight,” $ 25 million.

3. “Argo,” $ 10.2 million.

4. “The Man With the Iron Fists,” $ 10.2 million.

5. “Taken 2,” $ 6 million.

6. “Cloud Atlas,” $ 5.3 million.

7. “Hotel Transylvania,” $ 4.5 million.

8. “Paranormal Activity 4,” $ 4.3 million.

9. “Here Comes the Boom,” $ 3.6 million.

10. “Silent Hill: Revelation,” $ 3.3 million.

___

Estimated weekend ticket sales at international theaters (excluding the U.S. and Canada) for films distributed overseas by Hollywood studios, according to Rentrak:

1. “Skyfall,” $ 156 million.

2. “Paranormal Activity 4,” $ 14.3 million.

3. “Hotel Transylvania,” $ 13.7 million.

4. “Wreck-It Ralph,” $ 12 million.

5. “Madagascar 3,” $ 7.9 million.

6. “A Werewolf Boy,” $ 7.5 million.

7. “Asterlix and Obelix: God Save Britannia” $ 6.8 million.

8. “The Bourne Legacy,” $ 6.7 million.

9. “Taken 2,” $ 6.2 million.

10. “Frankenweenie,” $ 5.3 million.

___

Online:

http://www.hollywood.com

http://www.rentrak.com

___

Universal and Focus are owned by NBC Universal, a unit of Comcast Corp.; Sony, Columbia, Sony Screen Gems and Sony Pictures Classics are units of Sony Corp.; Paramount is owned by Viacom Inc.; Disney, Pixar and Marvel are owned by The Walt Disney Co.; Miramax is owned by Filmyard Holdings LLC; 20th Century Fox and Fox Searchlight are owned by News Corp.; Warner Bros. and New Line are units of Time Warner Inc.; MGM is owned by a group of former creditors including Highland Capital, Anchorage Advisors and Carl Icahn; Lionsgate is owned by Lions Gate Entertainment Corp.; IFC is owned by AMC Networks Inc.; Rogue is owned by Relativity Media LLC.

Entertainment News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Despite storm damage, election officials in N.Y., N.J. remain hopeful

NEW YORK (AP) — Power generators are being marshaled, polling locations moved and voting machines hurriedly put into place as officials prepare to hold an national election in storm-ravaged sections of New York and New Jersey barely a week after Superstorm Sandy.

Organizers expressed guarded confidence Sunday that the presidential vote will proceed with no major disruptions in most areas hit by the storm, though it was unclear whether the preparations would be enough to avoid depressed turnout in communities where people still lack power or have been driven from their damaged homes.

Some voters will be casting ballots in places different from their usual polls.

In Long Beach, N.Y., a barrier-island city that was inundated with water during the storm, the number of polling places will be cut to four, down from the usual 11. Residents of the devastated borough of Sea Bright, on the New Jersey shore, will have to drive two towns over to vote.

But with two days to go until Election Day, officials in both states said Sunday that they were overcoming many of their biggest challenges.

Hundreds of emergency generators have been rushed into place to ensure power at polling places, even if the neighborhoods around them are still dark. Electric utilities were putting a priority on restoring power to others and had assured election officials they would be up and running by Monday.

Of the 1,256 polling locations in New York City, only 59 needed to be moved or closed, said Valerie Vazquez, a spokeswoman for the city's Board of Elections. Most were in coastal areas of Brooklyn and Queens or other neighborhoods where buildings normally used for voting had been turned into shelters.

Some New York City leaders remained worried. Mayor Michael Bloomberg noted that the polling-place changes would affect some 143,000 New Yorkers.

"Over the next day, it's going to be critical that the Board of Elections communicate this new information to their poll workers," he said.

The board, which is independent of the mayor's office, has historically had problems opening all voting locations on time, even in a normal year, the mayor noted.

Just east of the city, in Nassau County, Elections Commissioner William Biamonte warned that some voting locations would have a "paramilitary look," with portable toilets, emergency lighting and voting machines running off a generator.

As of Sunday morning, the county had 266,000 homes and business without power — more than anyplace else in the state. Some 30 to 40 polling locations, out of 375 in the county, were expected to be changed because of storm problems.

But Biamonte said he didn't expect that the problems would keep large numbers of people from casting ballots.

"I think people will be voting in less-than-optimal situations, but they will not be voting in a way that disenfranchises them," Biamonte said.

Yet for some residents of the hardest-hit areas, the hassle of having to travel even a few miles to find an open polling place was likely to be one burden too many.

William Agosto, who lost everything he owned when his basement apartment in the Far Rockaway area of Queens flooded, said he hoped to vote but couldn't guarantee he would have the energy or the time.

"I'm going to try," he said, clutching a garbage bag filled with donated clothing. "I have so much on my mind. What I'm going through, it's too much."

On Staten Island, where two polling locations were being relocated due to storm problems, bus driver Jim Holden said the election should be postponed.

"People can't get out to vote. Half these cars are under water," he said.

New Jersey residents driven from their homes by the storm were being given extra voting options. Registered voters will be able to apply for an absentee ballot by fax or email right through 5 p.m. on Election Day, and cast it via fax or email until 8 p.m. Displaced voters can also cast provisional ballots at any polling place in the state.

Monmouth County spokeswoman Laura Kirkpatrick said elections officials there had consolidated some polling locations and moved others, but expected to have working polls for all 53 municipalities come Election Day. She said the county was confident enough that it was encouraging people to vote in person, rather than scramble to file an absentee ballot by email.

"We are looking very good," she said.

Kirkpatrick said officials were somewhat concerned that residents might misunderstand the email voting option and try casting write-in ballots by sending messages to election officials, rather than go through the formal process of obtaining, signing and scanning an official ballot.

John Conklin, a spokesman for the New York Board of Elections, said some counties were training additional poll workers. The companies that make the state's electronic voting machines had sent scores of generators from other parts of the country to ensure enough power. And each polling location will be able to switch to paper ballots, if there is an unexpected loss of power on Election Day.

Utility companies in Connecticut promised that all polling places in that state would have power Tuesday.

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Newspaper discloses new Cameron text messages

LONDON (AP) — A British lawmaker says he’s asked the country’s media ethics inquiry to consider newly disclosed text messages sent between Prime Minister David Cameron and Rebekah Brooks, the ex-chief executive of Rupert Murdoch‘s British newspaper division.

The Mail on Sunday newspaper on Sunday published two previously undisclosed messages exchanged between the pair, who are friends and neighbors.

Brooks is facing trial on conspiracy charges linked to Britain’s phone hacking scandal, which saw Murdoch close down The News of The World tabloid.

In one newly disclosed message, Cameron thanked Brooks in 2009 for allowing him to borrow a horse, joking it was “fast, unpredictable and hard to control but fun.”

Opposition lawmaker Chris Bryant has asked a judge-led inquiry scrutinizing ties between the press and the powerful to examine the messages.

Europe News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Google's Android software in 3 out of 4 smartphones

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California GMO measure may fail after food industry fights back

(Reuters) – Major food and seed companies appear to be on the verge of defeating a California ballot initiative that, if passed on Tuesday, would create the first labeling requirement for genetically modified foods in the United States.

In a campaign reminiscent of this summer’s successful fight against a proposed tobacco tax in California, opposition funded by Monsanto Co, DuPont, PepsiCo Inc and others unleashed waves of TV and radio advertisements against Proposition 37 and managed to turn the tide of public opinion.

Four weeks ago, the labeling initiative was supported by more than two-thirds of Californians who said they intended to vote on November 6, according to a poll from the California Business Roundtable and Pepperdine University’s School of Public Policy. On Tuesday, their latest poll showed support had plummeted to 39 percent, while opposition had surged to almost 51 percent.

The swing in sentiment in the final weeks was predicted by pollsters, based on the power of a $ 46 million “No on 37″ campaign, one of the best-funded for a California ballot measure fight. The ads claim the “badly written” initiative would increase the average family’s grocery bills by $ 400 annually and hobble California farmers. Opponents also take aim at what they call “special interest exemptions” for restaurant food and products from animals fed with grain containing genetically modified organisms, popularly known as GMOs.

Backers of the labeling initiative say consumers have the right to know what is in the food they eat. They dispute opponents’ cost projections and say labeling would not be burdensome to families or businesses.

They could still prevail on Tuesday if the polling turns out to be wrong, or if a last minute push by grassroots supporters takes root.

Many processed foods sold in the United States are made at least in part with corn, soybeans or other crops that have been genetically modified – crossed with DNA from other species to do things like make them resistant to insects or weed killer.

Each side accuses the other of resorting to desperate measures to mislead voters and using science that falls short of rigorous standards.

Such polarized debate is common in California, where ballot measures play a big role in governing. But labeling proponents say it also speaks to the research gap around GMOs, specifically a lack of mandated government studies that would show whether long-term consumption of GMOs causes health problems.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has determined labels are not needed for GM crops that are “substantially equivalent” to non-GM crops. The United States does not require labeling or mandatory independent pre-market safety testing for GMOs. At least three dozen countries require labeling and mandatory pre-market safety testing, said Michael Hansen, senior scientist from watchdog group Consumer Reports.

Some food and agriculture experts predict food companies would remove genetically modified ingredients rather than label them just for California – a move that would hit the multi-billion genetically modified seed business, where Monsanto and DuPont are market leaders.

Monsanto, the largest backer of the campaign with more than $ 8 million in funding, and DuPont say Proposition 37 would mislead consumers. PepsiCo referred reporters to the “No on 37″ campaign.

TARGETING FLAWS IN INITIATIVE

Consumer advocates say the “No on 37″ campaign has employed many of the same tactics the tobacco industry used this summer in California in a $ 47 million campaign that defeated Proposition 29, which would have raised cigarette taxes by $ 1 per pack to fund cancer research and other health efforts.

Opponents of the tobacco tax overcame early support approaching 70 percent by flooding airwaves with ads, including one featuring a doctor in a white coat warning that tobacco tax proceeds would not be spent on cancer treatment and could be shipped out of state. Outgunned supporters said those claims were false.

The food and tobacco industry campaigns both employed messages that weren’t “arguing with the premise of the initiatives, but rather making picky criticisms of the details of the initiatives,” said anti-smoking activist Stanton Glantz, a professor and researcher at the University of California-San Francisco.

“No on 37″ spokeswoman Kathy Fairbanks rejects the notion of copycat tactics and said the similarities between the two campaigns are limited to pointing out flaws in the initiatives and spending significant money on ads.

Backers of Proposition 37, including thousands of individual donors, organic food companies and natural health news provider Joseph Mercola, have been outspent roughly six to one, according to campaign reports filed with the California Secretary of State. In their final push, they are trying to trumpet cases where they say opponents have used misinformation to sway the public.

MISSTEPS ON BOTH SIDES

Both sides have made missteps.

Supporters of Proposition 37 got a boost when the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics said “No on 37″ inaccurately stated in the California official voter information guide that the academy had concluded that GMOs were safe.

“We are concerned that California’s voters are being misled to believe the nation’s largest organization of food and nutrition professionals is against Proposition 37, when in fact, the academy does not have a position on the issue,” its president said in a statement in early October.

“No on 37″ said it based its information on a policy statement on the academy’s website and that it was not aware the position had expired in 2010.

The FDA also set the record straight on a “No on 37″ mailer that put the FDA’s logo below a quote criticizing efforts like the California labeling measure as “inherently misleading.” The use of the quote next to the logo made it appear that FDA had weighed in on the fight.

FDA spokeswoman Morgan Liscinsky said the agency made no such statement and had no position on the initiative. “Yes on 37″ also asked the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate the allegedly fraudulent misuse of FDA’s seal in that mailer – something that won’t be resolved until well after the election.

Then, just four days before the vote, supporters of Proposition 37 fumbled the facts about the status of its DOJ request, releasing a statement titled: “FBI opens investigation into No on 37 shenanigans.”

The U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of California quickly responded: “Neither the FBI nor this office has a pending investigation related to this matter.”

“Yes on 37″ said it issued its statement after a field agent for the FBI called its attorney. It later revised its statement to say that the U.S. Attorney’s office had referred the matter to the FDA, which like other federal agencies has its own criminal investigations unit.

(Editing by Mary Milliken and Stacey Joyce)

Health News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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