U.S. FDA finds bacteria in New England Compounding drugs

(Reuters) – U.S. health officials have found bacteria in lots of an injected steroid and a heart drug made by New England Compounding Center, the pharmacy linked to contaminated steroids that have claimed the lives of at least 28 people.

The Food and Drug Administration said it identified different types of bacteria in three separate recalled batches of NECC‘s preservative-free betamethasone and in a single batch of NECC-supplied cardioplegia solution.

Betamethasone is an injectable steroid, while cardioplegia is used during heart surgery.

The FDA had previously confirmed the presence of a deadly fungus in two different NECC batches of a different injectable steroid tied to the national fungal meningitis outbreak. That drug, preservative-free methylprednisolone acetate, was used to treat back and joint pain.

The agency said it did not know how significant the bacterial contamination was in terms of the risk for human disease and said it had not received reports of confirmed cases of infection related to the organisms found in the two products.

However, the findings “reinforce the FDA’s concern about the lack of sterility in products produced at NECC’s compounding facility,” the agency said in a statement.

Federal health officials previously said they were investigating whether two other NECC products could be linked to fungal infections in three patients, including two who had undergone heart surgery.

NECC, located in Framingham, Massachusetts, shut down in early October and recalled all of its products.

The FDA said tests for fungus in the lots of betamethasone and cardioplegia are still underway.

The latest tally from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lists 386 cases of fungal meningitis and 28 deaths linked to injections of NECC steroids.

(Reporting by Deena Beasley; Editing by Andre Grenon and Lisa Shumaker)

Medications/Drugs News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Will final jobs report affect the election?

President Barack Obama and Republican rival Mitt Romney on Friday seized on the last jobs report before Election Day to reinforce their political arguments about the economy. Neither side, however, expected that the better-than-expected news would change many minds.

In a statement, Romney said that come Tuesday the choice would be "between stagnation and prosperity."

Obama, meanwhile, in front of a rowdy crowd of cheering supporters at the Franklin County Fairgrounds in Hilliard, Ohio, said, "This morning we learned that companies hired more workers in October than at any time in the last eight months.

"We've made real progress--but we are here today because we know we've got more work to do," Obama continued. "As long as there's a single American who wants a job and can't find one, as long as there are families working harder but falling behind, as long as there's a child anywhere in this country who's languishing in poverty and barred from opportunity, our fight goes on, we've got more work to do."

Neither campaign expected the new figure to do much to change the dynamic of the race. Aides on both sides have said in recent weeks that Americans' views of the economy are essentially fixed by now, barring a dramatic change.

The Labor Department's monthly jobs report did not provide such a tectonic shift. It showed that the economy added more jobs than experts had predicted and bolstered Obama's argument that he has overseen a slow but steady recovery from the 2007-2008 global economic meltdown.

At the same time, Republicans led by Romney seized on the news to charge that the incumbent has failed to bring about sturdier growth. At the current rate, it would take years to return to pre-recession levels. And no incumbent has faced the voters with unemployment this high since Franklin D. Roosevelt.

"On Tuesday, America will make a choice between stagnation and prosperity," Romney also said. "For four years, President Obama has told us that things are getting better and that we're making progress. For too many American families, those words ring hollow. We can do better."

Non-farm payrolls added 171,000 jobs last month, beating forecasts of about 125,000. The Labor Department also revised its previous estimates of employment growth in August and September upward by 84,000 jobs.

The unemployment rate ticked up from 7.8 percent to 7.9 percent, but chiefly as a result of more Americans getting off the sidelines and looking for work (those not looking are not counted in the jobless rate). Democrats emphasized that Obama had inherited a disastrous economy from George W. Bush and reversed what had been accelerating jobs losses. Republicans noted that the unemployment rate when Obama took office was 7.8 percent.

"Today's increase in the unemployment rate is a sad reminder that the economy is at a virtual standstill," Romney added. "The jobless rate is higher than it was when President Obama took office, and there are still 23 million Americans struggling for work."

One of the political challenges for Romney was that unemployment was lower than the national average in some critical battleground states. In September, it was 7 percent in Ohio, and 5.9 percent in Virginia.

An ABC News/Washington Post poll released on Thursday painted a mixed picture of voters' views about the economy. Fifty-four percent of likely voters expressed confidence that the economy would improve under Romney, against 47 percent for Obama. But 51 percent of those surveyed still blamed George W. Bush for the current conditions, against 36 percent for Obama. The Democrat has made tying Romney to Bush a centerpiece of his closing argument.

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Mexico’s Day of Dead brings memories of missing

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Maria Elena Salazar refuses to set out plates of her missing son’s favorite foods or orange flowers as offerings for the deceased on Mexico‘s Day of the Dead, even though she hasn’t seen him in three-and-a-half years.

The 50-year-old former teacher is convinced that Hugo Gonzalez Salazar, a university graduate in marketing who worked for a telephone company, is still alive and being forced to work for a drug cartel because of his skills.

“The government, the authorities, they know it, that the gangs took them away to use as forced labor,” said Salazar of her then 24-year-old son, who disappeared in the northern city of Torreon in July 2009.

The Day of the Dead — when Mexicans traditionally visit the graves of dead relatives and leave offerings of flowers, food and candy skulls — is a difficult time for the families of the thousands of Mexicans who have disappeared amid a wave of drug-fueled violence.

With what activists call a mix of denial, hope and desperation, they refuse to dedicate altars on the Nov. 1-2 holiday to people often missing for years. They won’t accept any but the most certain proof of death, and sometimes reject even that.

Numbers vary on just how many people have disappeared in recent years. Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission says 24,000 people have been reported missing between 2000 and mid-2012, and that nearly 16,000 bodies remain unidentified.

But one thing is clear: just as there are households without Day of the Dead altars, there are thousands of graves of the unidentified dead scattered across the country, with no one to remember them.

An investigation conducted by the newspaper Milenio this week, involving hundreds of information requests to state and municipal governments, indicates that 24,102 unidentified bodies were buried in paupers’ or common graves in Mexican cemeteries since 2006. The number is almost certainly incomplete, since some local governments refused to provide figures, Milenio reported.

And while the number of unidentified dead probably includes some indigents, Central American migrants or dead unrelated to the drug war, it is clear that cities worst hit by the drug conflict also usually showed a corresponding bulge in the number of unidentified cadavers. For example, Mexico City, which has been relatively unscathed by drug violence, listed about one-third as many unidentified burials as the city of Veracruz, despite the fact that Mexico City’s population is about 15 times larger.

Consuelo Morales , who works with dozens of families of disappeared in the northern city of Monterrey, said that “holidays like this, that are family affairs and are very close to our culture, stir a lot of things up” for the families. But many refuse to accept the deaths of their loved ones, sometimes even after DNA testing confirms a match with a cadaver.

“They’ll say to you, ‘I’m not going to put up an altar, because they’re not dead,” Martinez noted. “Their thinking is that ‘until they prove to me that my child is dead, he is alive.”

Martinez says one family she works with at the Citizens in Support of Human Rights center had refused to accept their son was dead, even after three rounds of DNA testing and the exhumation of the remains.

“It was their son, he was very young, and he had been burned alive,” Martinez said by way of explanation.

The refusal to accept what appears inevitable may be a matter of desperation. Martinez said some families in Monterrey also believe their missing relatives are being held as virtual slaves for the cartels, even though federal prosecutors say they have never uncovered any kind of drug cartel forced-labor camp, in the six years since Mexico launched an offensive against the cartels.

But many people like Salazar believe it must be true. “Organized crime is a business, but it can’t advertise for employees openly, so it has to take them by force,” Salazar said.

While she refuses to erect an altar-like offering for her son, she does perform other rituals that mirror the Day of the Dead customs, like the one that involves scattering a trail of flower petals to the doorsteps of houses to guide spirits of the departed back home once a year.

Salazar and her family still live in the same home in Torreon, though they’d like to move, in the hopes that Hugo will return there. They pray three times a day for God to guide him home.

“We live in the same place, and we try to do the same things we used to,” said Salazar, “because he is going to come back to his place, his home, and we have to be waiting for him.”

Mistrust of officials has risen to such a point that some families may never get an answer they’ll accept.

The problem is that, with forensics procedures often sadly lacking in Mexican police forces, the dead my never be connected with the living, which is the whole point of the Mexican traditions.

“As long as the authorities don’t prove the opposite, for us they’re still alive,” Salazar said. “Let them prove it, but let us have some certainty, not just the authorities saying ‘here he is.’ We don’t the government to just give us bodies that aren’t theirs, and that has happened.”

Latin America News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Apple's Cook fields his A-team before a wary Wall Street

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Apple Inc Chief Executive Tim Cook's new go-to management team of mostly familiar faces failed to drum up much excitement on Wall Street, driving its shares to a three-month low on Wednesday.

The world's most valuable technology company, which had faced questions about a visionary-leadership vacuum following the death of Steve Jobs, on Monday stunned investors by announcing the ouster of chief mobile software architect Scott Forstall and retail chief John Browett -- the latter after six months on the job.

Cook gave most of Forstall's responsibilities to Macintosh software chief Craig Federighi, while some parts of the job went to Internet chief Eddy Cue and celebrated designer Jony Ive.

But the loss of the 15-year veteran and Jobs's confidant Forstall, and resurgent talk about internal conflicts, exacerbated uncertainty over whether Cook and his lieutenants have what it takes to devise and market the next ground-breaking, industry-disrupting product.

Apple shares ended the day down 1.4 percent at 595.32. They have shed a tenth of their value this month -- the biggest monthly loss since late 2008, and have headed south since touching an all-time high of $705 in September.

For investors, the management upheaval from a company that usually excels at delivering positive surprises represents the latest reason for unease about the future of a company now more valuable than almost any other company in the world.

Apple undershot analysts targets in its fiscal third quarter, the second straight disappointment. Its latest Maps software was met with widespread frustration and ridicule over glaring mistakes. Sources told Reuters that Forstall and Cook disagreed over the need to publicly apologize for its maps service embarrassment.

And this month, Apple entered the small-tablet market with its iPad mini, lagging Amazon.com Inc and Google Inc despite pioneering the tablet market in 2010.

Investor concerns now center around the demand, availability and profitability of new products, including the iPad mini set to hit stores on Friday.

"The sudden departure of Scott Forstall doesn't help," said Shaw Wu, an analyst with Sterne Agee. "Now there's some uncertainty in the management."

"There appears to be some infighting, post-Steve Jobs, and looks like Cook is putting his foot down and unifying the troops."

Apple declined to comment beyond Monday's announcement.

Against that backdrop, Cook's inner circle has some convincing to do. In the wake of Forstall's exit, iTunes maestro Eddy Cue -- dubbed "Mr Fixit", the sources say -- gets his second promotion in a year, taking on an expanded portfolio of all online services, including Siri and Maps.

The affable executive with a tough negotiating streak who, according to documents revealed in court, lobbied Jobs aggressively and finally convinced the late visionary about the need for a smaller-sized tablet, has become a central figure: a versatile problem-solver for the company.

Ive, the British-born award-winning designer credited with pushing the boundaries of engineering with the iPod and iPhone, now extends his skills into the software realm with the lead on user interface.

Marketing guru Schiller continues in his role, while career engineer Mansfield canceled his retirement to stay on and lead wireless and semiconductor teams. Then there's Federighi, the self-effacing software engineer who a source told Reuters joined Apple over Forstall's initial objections, and has the nickname "Hair Force One" on Game Center.

"With a large base of approximately 60,400 full-time employees, it would be easy to conclude that the departures are not important," said Keith Bachman, analyst with BMO Capital Markets. "However, we do believe the departures are a negative, since we think Mr. Forstall in particular added value to Apple."

TEAM COOK

Few would argue with Forstall's success in leading mobile software iOS and that he deserves a lot of credit for the sale of millions of iPhones and iPads.

But despite the success, his style and direction on the software were not without critics, inside and outside.

Forstall often clashed with other executives, said a person familiar with him, adding he sometimes tended to over-promise and under-deliver on features. Now, Federighi, Ive and Cue have the opportunity to develop the look, feel and engineering of the all-important software that runs iPhones and iPads.

Cue, who rose to prominence by building and fostering iTunes and the app store, has the tough job of fixing and improving Maps, unveiled with much fanfare by Forstall in June, but it was found full of missing information and wrongly marked sites.

The Duke University alum and Blue Devils basketball fan -- he has been seen courtside with players -- is deemed the right person to accomplish this, given his track record on fixing services and products that initially don't do well.

The 23-year veteran turned around the short-lived MobileMe storage service after revamping and wrapping it into the reasonably well-received iCloud offering.

"Eddy is certainly a person who gets thrown a lot of stuff to ‘go make it work' as he's very used to dealing with partners," said a person familiar with Cue. The person said Cue was suited to fixing Maps given the need to work with partners such as TomTom and business listings provider Yelp.

Cue's affable charm and years of dealing with entertainment companies may come in handy as he also tries to improve voice-enabled digital assistant Siri. He has climbed the ladder rapidly in the past five years and was promoted to senior vice president last September, shortly after Cook took over as CEO.

Both Cue and Cook will work more closely with Federighi, who spent a decade in enterprise software before rejoining Apple in 2009, taking over Mac software after the legendary Bertrand Serlet left the company in March last year

Federighi was instrumental in bringing popular mobile features such as notifications and Facebook integration onto the latest Mac operating system Mountain Lion, which was downloaded on 3 million machines in four days.

The former CTO of business software company Ariba, now part of SAP, worked with Jobs at NeXT Computer. Federighi is a visionary in software engineering and can be as good as Jobs in strategic decisions for the product he oversees, a person who has worked with him said.

His presentation skills have been called on of late, most recently at Apple annual developers' gathering in the summer.

Then there's Ive, deemed Apple's inspirational force. Among the iconic products he has worked on are multi-hued iMac computers, the iPod music player, the iPhone and the iPad.

Forstall's departure may free Ive of certain constraints, the sources said. His exit brought to the fore a fundamental design issue -- to do or not to do digital skeuomorphic designs. Skeuomorphic designs stay true to and mimic real-life objects, such as the bookshelf in the iBooks icon, green felt in its Game Center app icon, and an analog clock depicting the time.

Forstall, who will stay on as adviser to Cook for another year, strongly believed in these designs, but his philosophy was not shared by all. His chief dissenter was Ive, who is said to prefer a more open approach, which could mean a slightly different design direction on the icons.

"There is no one else who has that kind of (design) focus on the team," the person said of Ive. "He is critical for them."

(Additional reporting by Alistair Barr; Editing by Edwin Chan and Ken Wills)

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NBC to hold a benefit concert for Sandy victims

NEW YORK (AP) — NBC will hold a benefit concert Friday for victims of Hurricane Sandy featuring some artists native to the areas hardest hit.

Bruce Springsteen and Jon Bon Jovi of New Jersey and Billy Joel of Long Island are scheduled to appear at the concert, hosted by “Today” show co-host Matt Lauer.

Other performers include Christina Aguilera, Sting and Jimmy Fallon.

The telecast will benefit the American Red Cross and will be shown on NBC and its cable stations including Bravo, CNBC, USA, MSNBC and E! Other networks are invited to join in.

“Hurricane Sandy: Coming Together” will air at 8 p.m. EDT and will be taped-delayed in the West.

The telethon will be broadcast from NBC facilities in Rockefeller Center in New York City.

___

NBC is controlled by Comcast Corp.

Entertainment News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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La desvenlafaxina actúa contra los sofocos: estudio

NUEVA YORK (Reuters Health) – El antidepresivo

desvenlafaxina (Pristiq, de Pfizer) reduce los sofocos en las

mujeres postmenopáusicas, según señala un equipo médico.

A pesar de este resultado, que surge de un subestudio de un

ensayo aleatorio, la Administración de Alimentos y Medicamentos

de Estados Unidos (FDA, por su sigla en inglés) rechazó la

solicitud de Pfizer de aprobación de desvenlafaxina para el

tratamiento de los síntomas vasomotores de la menopausia, como

los sofocos, moderados a graves.

“El único tratamiento que aprobó la FDA para los sofocos de

la menopausia es la terapia con estrógeno”, dijo por e-mail la

autora principal, doctora JoAnn V. Pinkerton. “Las mujeres

necesitan alternativas no hormonales. Necesitan opciones”.

En Menopause, el equipo de Pinkerton, del Sistema de Salud

de University of Virginia, Charlottesville, publica los

resultados de un subestudio de efectividad de 12 semanas de

duración durante un estudio de un año con desvenlafaxina.

El grupo a tratar incluía 365 mujeres que, al azar, tomaron

100 mg/día de desvenlafaxina o placebo. Comparado con el

placebo, el fármaco redujo significativamente la cantidad y la

gravedad de los sofocos a la cuarta y la decimosegunda semanas.

A la semana número 12, desvenlafaxina redujo un 62 por

ciento la cantidad diaria de sofocos moderados y graves,

mientras que el placebo lo hizo un 38 por ciento, mientras que

la gravedad de los síntomas disminuyó, respectivamente un 25 y

12 por ciento.

Los autores analizaron también “una diferencia clínicamente

poco significativa”, es decir, una reducción de 5,35 sofocos

moderados y graves por día. Este resultado se obtuvo en el 64

por ciento de las mujeres tratadas con desvenlafaxina y en el 41

por ciento del grupo control.

“La desvenlafaxina es un tratamiento no hormonal seguro,

bien tolerado y efectivo, con reducciones estadísticamente y

clínicamente significativas de la frecuencia y la gravedad de

los sofocos en las mujeres postmenopáusicas con sofocos de

rápida aparición”, afirmó el equipo.

Pfizer retiró su solicitud de la FDA en febrero, pero el

producto sigue disponible para tratar el trastorno depresivo

mayor.

Pinkerton agregó por e-mail: “Es importante desarrollar

alternativas porque hasta el 75 por ciento de las mujeres padece

sofocos en la menopausia y el 25 por ciento de ellas necesita un

tratamiento”.

La autora comentó también que existen otros remedios no

hormonales. Dijo a Reuters Health que con su equipo evaluó la

gabapentina de liberación extendida (Serada, de Depomed) versus

placebo en un ensayo durante 24 semanas con 600 mujeres

postmenopáusicas.

La frecuencia y la intensidad de los sofocos disminuyeron

con gabapentina a las 12 y 24 semanas, y los sofocos “mejoraron

mucho” o “mejoraron” a las 24 semanas.

Los resultados fueron presentados este mes en la reunión

anual de la Sociedad Norteamericana de Menopausia. También este

mes, la FDA aceptó una nueva solicitud de aprobación para

Serada.

FUENTE: Menopause, online 25 de octubre del 2012

Seniors/Aging News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Storm death toll up, gas lines grow

(Reuters) - Rescuers searched flooded streets and swamped houses for survivors, drivers lined up for hours to get scarce gasoline and millions remained without power on Thursday as New York City and nearby coastal towns struggled to recover from one of the biggest storms ever to hit the United States.

New Yorkers heard the rumble of subway trains for the first time in four days as limited service resumed, but the lower half of Manhattan still lacked power and surrounding areas including Staten Island, the New Jersey shore and the city of Hoboken remained crippled from a record storm surge and flooding.

At least 87 people died in the "superstorm" that ravaged the northeastern United States on Monday night. Officials said the number could climb as rescuers searched house-to-house through coastal towns.

The hunt for gasoline added to a climate of uncertainty as the death toll and price tag of the storm rose.

"I'm so stressed out," said Jessica Bajno, 29, a school teacher from Elmont, Long Island, who was waiting in line for gas. "I've been driving around to nearby towns all morning, and being careful about not running out of gas in the process. Everything is closed. I'm feeling anxious."

More deaths were recorded overnight in the New York City borough of Staten Island, where authorities recovered 17 bodies after the storm lifted whole houses off their foundations. Among the dead were two boys, aged 4 and 2, who were swept from their mother's arms by the floodwaters, police said.

In all, 38 people died in New York City, officials said.

The financial cost of the storm also promised to be staggering. Disaster modeling company Eqecat estimates Sandy caused up to $20 billion in insured losses and $50 billion in economic losses, double its previous forecast.

At the high end of the range, Sandy would rank as the fourth-costliest catastrophe ever in the United States, according to the Insurance Information Institute, behind Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the September 11 attacks of 2001, and Hurricane Andrew in 1992.

JERSEY SHORE STAGGERS

In hard-hit New Jersey, where oceanside towns saw entire neighborhoods swallowed by seawater and the Atlantic City boardwalk was destroyed, the death toll doubled to 12.

Floodwaters finally receded from the streets of Hoboken, just across the Hudson River from Manhattan, leaving behind a stinky mess of submerged basements and displaced cars littering the sidewalks.

"The water was rushing in. It was like a river coming," said Benedicte Lenoble, a photo researcher from Hoboken. "Now it's a mess everywhere. There's no power. The stores aren't open. Recovery? I don't know."

In neighboring Jersey City, drivers negotiated intersections without traffic lights. Shops were shuttered and lines formed outside pharmacies while people piled sodden mattresses and furniture along the streets. The city imposed a curfew and banned driving from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m.

New Jersey favorite son Bruce Springsteen, along with Jon Bon Jovi and Sting, will headline a benefit concert for storm victims Friday night on NBC television, the network announced.

The U.S. government agreed to cover 100 percent of emergency power and public transportation costs through November 9 in eight New Jersey counties. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, which already pledged aid directly to victims and local governments, told New Jersey's U.S. senators of the decision, an aide to Senator Frank Lautenberg said.

Sandy started as a late-season hurricane in the Caribbean, where it killed 69 people, before smashing ashore in the United States with 80 mph winds. It stretched from the Carolinas to Connecticut and was the largest storm by area to hit the United States in decades.

About 4.6 million homes and businesses in 15 U.S. states were without power on Thursday, down from a record high of nearly 8.5 million.

Sandy made landfall in New Jersey with a full moon around high tide, creating a record storm surge that flooded lower Manhattan. By Thursday, the storm had dissipated over the North American mainland.

OBAMA BACK ON CAMPAIGN

After a four-day suspension to deal with the storm, President Barack Obama returned to the campaign trail. Polls show him locked in a virtual tie with Republican challenger Mitt Romney before Tuesday's presidential election.

The president toured devastated New Jersey areas on Wednesday with the state's Republican governor, Chris Christie, a vocal Romney supporter who nonetheless strongly praised Obama's response to the disaster.

Obama received an update on storm recovery efforts Thursday from his crisis management team, White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters on Air Force One.

More than 36,000 disaster survivors from New York, New Jersey and Connecticut have applied for federal disaster assistance and more than $3.4 million in direct assistance has already been approved, Carney said.

GASOLINE SCARCE

Fuel supplies into New York and New Jersey were being choked off in several ways. Two refineries that make up a quarter of the region's refining capacity were still idle due to power outages or flooding. The New York Harbor waterway that imports a fifth of the area's fuel was still closed to traffic, and major import terminals were damaged and powerless.

In addition, the main oil pipeline from the Gulf Coast, which pumps 15 percent of the East Coast's fuel, remained shut.

The scarcity of fuel, electricity and supplies made cleanup more daunting for barrier towns such as Seaside Heights, part of the Jersey Shore.

Seaside Heights residents who obeyed the mandatory evacuation order were cut off from their homes. The entire community was submerged by the storm surge that washed over the island and into the bay that separates it from the mainland.

"The bay met the ocean," said Frank Meszaros, 43, standing next to the closed bridge that kept him from returning home.

Chris Delman, 30, saw a photograph of his house in a local newspaper Wednesday, noticing it was still standing.

"We ain't living in Seaside no more, that's obvious," Delman said. "I just want to know what I have left."

(Additional reporting by Reuters bureaus throughout the U.S. Northeast; Writing by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Doina Chiacu)

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Syrian air force on offensive after failed truce

AMMAN (Reuters) – Syrian warplanes bombed rebel targets with renewed intensity on Tuesday after the end of a widely ignored four-day truce between President Bashar al-Assad‘s forces and insurgents.

State television said “terrorists” had assassinated an air force general, Abdullah Mahmoud al-Khalidi, in a Damascus suburb, the latest of several rebel attacks on senior officials.

In July, a bomb killed four of Assad‘s aides, including his brother-in-law Assef Shawkat and the defense minister.

Air strikes hit eastern suburbs of Damascus, outlying areas in the central city of Homs, and the northern rebel-held town of Maarat al-Numan on the Damascus-Aleppo highway, activists said.

Rebels have been attacking army bases in al-Hamdaniya and Wadi al-Deif, on the outskirts of Maarat al-Numan.

Some activists said 28 civilians had been killed in Maarat al-Numan and released video footage of men retrieving a toddler’s body from a flattened building. The men cursed Assad as they dragged the dead girl, wearing a colorful overall, from the debris. The footage could not be independently verified.

The military has shelled and bombed Maarat al-Numan, 300 km (190 miles) north of Damascus, since rebels took it last month.

“The rebels have evacuated their positions inside Maarat al-Numaan since the air raids began. They are mostly on the frontline south of the town,” activist Mohammed Kanaan said.

Maarat al-Numan and other Sunni towns in northwestern Idlib province are mostly hostile to Assad’s ruling system, dominated by his minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi’ite Islam.

Two rebels were killed and 10 wounded in an air strike on al-Mubarkiyeh, 6 km (4 miles) south of Homs, where rebels have besieged a compound guarding a tank maintenance facility.

Opposition sources said the facility had been used to shell Sunni villages near the Lebanese border.

“WE’LL FIX IT”

The army also fired mortar bombs into the Damascus district of Hammouria, killing at least eight people, activists said.

One video showed a young girl in Hammouria with a large shrapnel wound in her forehead sitting dazed while a doctor said: “Don’t worry dear, we’ll fix it for you.”

Syria’s military, stretched thin by the struggle to keep control, has increasingly used air power against opposition areas, including those in the main cities of Damascus and Aleppo. Insurgents lack effective anti-aircraft weapons.

U.N.-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi has said he will pursue his peace efforts despite the failure of his appeal for a pause in fighting for the Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday.

But it is unclear how he can find any compromise acceptable to Assad, who seems determined to keep power whatever the cost, and mostly Sunni Muslim rebels equally intent on toppling him.

Big powers and Middle Eastern countries are divided over how to end the 19-month-old conflict which has cost an estimated 32,000 dead, making it one of the bloodiest of Arab revolts that have ousted entrenched leaders in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya.

The United Nations said it had sent a convoy of 18 trucks with food and other aid to Homs during the “ceasefire”, but had been unable to unload supplies in the Old City due to fighting.

“We were trying to take advantage of positive signs we saw at the end of last week. The truce lasted more or less four hours so there was not much opportunity for us after all,” said Jens Laerke, a U.N. spokesman in Geneva.

The prime minister of the Gulf state of Qatar told al-Jazeera television late on Monday that Syria’s conflict was not a civil war but “a war of annihilation licensed firstly by the Syrian government and secondly by the international community”.

Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani said some of those responsible were on the U.N. Security Council, alluding to Russia and China which have vetoed three Western-backed U.N. draft resolutions condemning Assad.

He said that the West was also not doing enough to stop the violence and that the United States would be in “paralysis” for two or three weeks during its presidential election.

(Additional reporting by Raissa Kasolowsky in Abu Dhabi and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; Writing by Oliver Holmes; Editing by Alistair Lyon)

World News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Brad Pitt donates $100K for gay marriage effort

WASHINGTON (AP) — Brad Pitt has agreed to donate $ 100,000 to help the Human Rights Campaign raise money for its efforts to support same-sex marriage initiatives in several states.

The nation’s largest gay rights group announced Wednesday that Pitt agreed to match contributions from the group’s members up to $ 100,000.

In an e-mail to members of the Human Rights Campaign, Pitt wrote that it’s “unbelievable” that people’s relationships will be put to a vote on Election Day.

Same-sex marriage will be on the ballot in Maryland, Maine, Minnesota and Washington state.

The Washington, D.C.-based Human Rights Campaign says it has spent $ 8 million to push for marriage equality for gays and lesbians over the past two years, including $ 5 million in the four ballot measures this year.

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A little exercise may help kids with ADHD focus

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Twenty minutes of exercise may help kids with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) settle in to read or solve a math problem, new research suggests.

The small study, of 40 eight- to 10-year-olds, looked only at the short-term effects of a single bout of exercise. And researchers caution that they are not saying exercise is the answer to ADHD.

But it seems that exercise may at least do no harm to kids’ ability to focus, they say. And further studies should look into whether it’s a good option for managing some children’s ADHD.

“This is only a first study,” said lead researcher Matthew B. Pontifex, of Michigan State University in East Lansing.

“We need to learn how long the effects last, and how exercise might combine with or compare to traditional ADHD treatments” like stimulant medications, Pontifex explained.

He noted that there’s been a lot of research into the relationship between habitual exercise and adults’ thinking and memory, particularly older adults’. But little is known about kids, even though some parents, teachers and doctors have advocated exercise for helping children with ADHD.

So for their study, Pontifex and his colleagues recruited 20 children with diagnosed or suspected ADHD, and 20 ADHD-free kids of the same age and family-income level.

All of the children took a standard test of their ability to ignore distractions and stay focused on a simple task at hand – the main “aspect of cognition” that troubles kids with ADHD, Pontifex noted. The kids also took standard tests of reading, spelling and math skills.

Each child took the tests after either 20 minutes of treadmill exercise or 20 minutes of quiet reading (on separate days).

Overall, the study found, both groups of children performed better after exercise than after reading.

On the test of focusing ability, the ADHD group was correct on about 80 percent of responses after reading, versus about 84 percent after exercise. Kids without ADHD performed better – reaching about a 90 percent correct rate after exercise.

Similarly, both groups of kids scored higher on their reading and math tests after exercise, versus post-reading.

It’s hard to say what those higher one-time scores could mean in real life, according to Pontifex, who published his results in The Journal of Pediatrics.

One of the big questions is whether regular exercise would have lasting effects on kids’ ability to focus or their school performance, he said.

And why would exercise help children, with or without ADHD, focus? “We really don’t know the mechanisms right now,” Pontifex said.

But there is a theory that the attention problems of ADHD are related to an “underarousal” of the central nervous system. It’s possible that a bout of exercise helps kids zero in on a specific task, at least in the short term.

Parents and experts alike are becoming more and more interested in alternatives to drugs for ADHD, Pontifex noted. It’s estimated that 44 percent of U.S. children with the disorder are not on any medication for it.

And even when kids are using medication, additional treatments may help them cut down their doses. Pontifex said future studies should look at whether exercise fits that bill.

“We’re not suggesting that exercise is a replacement, or that parents should pull their kids off of their medication,” Pontifex said.

But, he added, they could encourage their child to be active for the overall health benefits, and talk with their doctor about whether exercise could help manage ADHD specifically.

“Exercise is beneficial for all children,” Pontifex noted. “We’re providing some evidence that there’s an additional benefit on cognition.”

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/RR5Dh3 The Journal of Pediatrics, online October 19, 2012.

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