'Shrek' spinoff 'Puss in Boots' tops box office

NEW YORK (AP) ? The "Shrek" spinoff "Puss in Boots" landed on all fours, opening with an estimated $34 million to lead the box office.

The DreamWorks 3-D animated film, distributed by Paramount Pictures, proved the popular character voiced by Antonio Banderas was a big enough draw outside the "Shrek" franchise.

The PG-rated "Puss in Boots" scored with family audiences on the weekend before Halloween, and also drew a large Hispanic crowd, which made up 35 percent of its audience.

Though the box office for the top 12 movies was up 7.8 percent from the corresponding weekend last year, it was still affected by both the unseasonable winter storm on the East Coast and the appeal of the Game 7 broadcast of baseball's World Series on Friday night. DreamWorks estimated the storm took off several million from "Puss in Boots."

The new release on the weekend from 20th Century Fox, the Justin Timberlake sci-fi thriller "In Time," was down as much as 20 percent Saturday in markets like New York and Philadelphia.

But the largest estimated opening didn't happen in North America. "The Adventures of Tintin," which is being distributed overseas by Sony Pictures and Paramount Pictures, opened in 19 international markets and hauled in $55.8 million.

The performance-capture 3-D animated film, directed by Steven Spielberg and adapted from the beloved Belgian comic series, was especially popular in France, where its $21.5 million was the largest opening for a non-sequel Hollywood film. The film opens in the U.S. on Dec. 21.

"We're still waiting for the holiday season to kick in in earnest as we get into November," said Paul Dergarabedian, box-office analyst for Hollywood.com. "The holiday season is going to be very strong at the box office."

Paramount also claimed the weekend's second top performing movie with the low-budget horror film "Paranormal Activity 3." That film took in $18.5 million in its second week of release, bringing its cumulative total to $81.3 million. Paramount's "Footloose" was the fourth film on the weekend, adding $5.4 million for a three-week total of $38.4 million.

"In Time" opened with $12 million domestically but took in more ($14.5 million) overseas.

The biggest disappointment was "The Rum Diary," the Hunter S. Thompson adaption starring Johnny Depp. It opened weakly, earning just $5 million, a low figure for a film headlined by Depp and which cost an estimated $50 million to make.

But the solid opening for "Puss in Boots" was much needed for DreamWorks. The company said Tuesday its net income fell by half in the third quarter as its early summer release, "Kung Fu Panda 2," did not haul in as much at the box office as last year's "Shrek Forever After."

Reviews and audience reaction have been positive for "Puss in Boots." Its release date was moved up a week to essentially give the film more time to run in theaters before other large fall movies are released. It added $17 million internationally, with most of that coming from Russia.

"We always looked at this as a two-weekend release strategy, so we think we've got a good start on that plan," said Anne Globe, head of worldwide marketing and consumer products at DreamWorks. "Being the number one movie and the likely Halloween weekend record-breaker, we're well-positioned to go into week two as well as play through the holidays."

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. "Puss in Boots," $34 million. ($17 million international.)

2. "Paranormal Activity 3," $18.5 million. ($17 million international.)

3. "In Time," $12 million. ($14.5 million international.)

4. "Footloose," $5.4 million. ($1.4 million international.)

5. "The Rum Diary," $5 million.

6. "Real Steel," $4.7 million.

7. "The Three Musketeers," $3.5 million.

8. "The Ides of March," $2.7 million.

9. "Moneyball," $2.4 million.

10. "Courageous," $1.8 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. "The Adventures of Tintin," $55.8 million.

2. "Puss in Boots," $17 million.

3. "Paranormal Activity," $17 million.

4. "In Time," $14.5 million.

5. "The Three Musketeers," $12.8 million.

6. "Real Steel," $12.2 million.

7. "Johnny English Reborn," $12 million.

8. "Rise of the Planet of the Apes," $9.1 million.

9. "Contagion," $8.4 million.

10. "The Help," $3.5 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 Rainbow Media Holdings, a subsidiary of Cablevision Systems Corp.; Rogue is owned by Relativity Media LLC.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2011-10-30-Box%20Office/id-81c882dc0f7b4f20a4b858a89d5c9ed1

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Thai PM says Bangkok may dodge flood disaster (Reuters)

BANGKOK (Reuters) ? Receding floodwaters north of Bangkok have reduced the threat to the Thai capital, the prime minister said on Saturday, but high tides in the Gulf of Thailand will still test the city's flood defenses.

"If things go on like this, we expect floodwater in Bangkok to recede within the first week of November," Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra said on national television.

Bangkok's main waterway, the Chao Phraya River, overflowed its banks in some areas on Saturday during high tides in the Gulf of Thailand, about 20 km (12 miles) to the south. The high tides will last until Monday.

The city's normally bustling Chinatown was flooded, as were the streets around the glittering Grand Palace and Temple of the Reclining Buddha, areas usually thronged with tourists.

Buildings across Bangkok have been sand-bagged or walled off for protection. Many people have left their cars on elevated roads, although most of the inner city is dry.

Many others have taken advantage of a special five-day holiday to flee the city. Those left behind have stocked up on water, food, life jackets and even boats.

Thailand's worst floods in half a century have killed 381 people since July, wiped out a quarter of the main rice crop in the world's biggest rice exporter, forced up global prices of computer hard drives and caused delays in global auto production after destroying industrial estates.

The death toll rose overnight when a boat carrying a family of four capsized in strong wind, drowning the father, mother and eldest son in three-meter (10 feet) floodwater. Their 6-year-old daughter, the only one wearing a life vest, survived.

In Bangkok, which was sunny on Saturday, prices of eggs have quadrupled as jittery residents stockpile staples. Many shop shelves are empty but the government said flood victims would have enough bottled water, dairy products, pork and chicken.

Cash was also in heavy demand. The Bank of Thailand has repeated that there is enough money circulating to meet demand for three months following a crush of withdrawals. Nearly 400 bank branches have closed across the country due to the floods.

The floods, which followed unusually heavy monsoon rain, have submerged 4 million acres (1.6 million hectares) of land, an area roughly the size of Kuwait or Swaziland, turning some towns into urban reservoirs.

In some areas, crocodiles have escaped from flooded farms and snakes searching for dry land have slithered into homes.

Yingluck said the ebbing flood in northern provinces, thanks to the draining of water into the sea through canals and pumps, had reduced the risk of large volumes bearing down on Bangkok, which sits only two meters (6 ft) above sea level.

"In this critical situation, there is some good news for us. Our water-management plan went smoothly during previous days," she said, offering the city the first encouraging words in days.

MAINTAINING THE DIKES

Experts were also cautiously optimistic central Bangkok's network of embankments and sand-bag walls would hold.

"We have to conclude that it's under control but we still have to do as much as we can to maintain the dikes," said Anon Sanitwong Na Ayutthaya, an academic on the government's flood team.

Seree Supharatid, director of the Disaster Warning Center at Rangsit University, said coordination between city, provincial and national authorities was critical.

"If the government can manage the pumping system smoothly, with good cooperation, we may see the water receding by early November," he said.

Although Yingluck expressed confidence inner Bangkok could be spared, the city's suburbs faced growing misery.

Authorities expect the whole of Thonburi district, on the west bank of the Chao Phraya, to be inundated within three days and Yingluck said the water would remain high due to a lack of canals. Seventeen roads across Bangkok are closed.

The Pinklao district of Thonburi, packed with restaurants, shops and homes, was under waist-deep water. Some residents waded through the flood, lugging televisions and furniture.

People in Bangkok's northern Sai Mai district sat on rafts built of plastic bottles and wooden crates. Shop owners perched on sandbags, staring out at roads turned into rivers.

Water levels appeared to have risen in the riverside Bang Phlad district, also to the west, with many people using boats to make their way through the rubbish-strewn flow.

The Chao Phraya is rising as much as 2.6 metres (8.5 ft) above sea level over the high tides and many governments have warned their citizens against non-essential travel to the city of 12 million people. Singapore Airlines said it was suspending its Bangkok flights from next Tuesday to Thursday.

Authorities have called for evacuations in four of Bangkok's 50 districts. Japanese engineers have been flown in to advise on how to protect the main international airport and the subway. Authorities have built a 23.5 km (15 mile) dike around the airport and have reassured travelers it would hold.

Bangkok accounts for 41 percent of Thailand's $319 billion economy. But even if the inner city is spared, the deluge in industrialized provinces to the north has had a global impact.

Thailand is the second-largest exporter of computer hard drives and Southeast Asia's biggest auto production hub. Global prices for hard drives are rising due to a flood-related shortage of major components used in personal computers.

Drive manufacturers have raised prices by 20 to 40 percent since water poured into factories this month, Chuck Kostalnick, senior vice president of international electronics distributor Avnet Inc, told Reuters.

"The word we're getting is that prices are going to continue to go up," he said. "This isn't going to be a one-time event."

(Additional reporting by Martin Petty, Robert Birsel and Alan Raybould in BANGKOK and Noel Randewich in SAN FRANCISCO; Editing by Robert Birsel and Paul Tait)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111029/wl_nm/us_thailand_floods

october 21 2011

Defense witness: Michael Jackson caused own death (AP)

LOS ANGELES ? Attorneys for Michael Jackson's doctor dropped the bombshell Friday they've been hinting at for months ? an expert opinion accusing the legendary singer of causing his own death.

Dr. Paul White, the defense team's star scientific witness, said Jackson injected himself with a dose of propofol after an initial dose by Dr. Conrad Murray wore off. He also calculated that Jackson gave himself another sedative, lorazepam, by taking pills after an infusion of that drug and others by Murray failed to put him to sleep.

That combination of drugs could have had "lethal consequences," the researcher said.

White showed jurors a series of charts and simulations he created in the past two days to support the defense theory. He also did a courtroom demonstration of how the milky white anesthetic propofol could have entered Jackson's veins in the small dose that Murray claimed he gave the insomniac star.

White said he accepted Murray's statement to police that he administered only 25 milligrams of propofol after a night-long struggle to get Jackson to sleep with infusions of other sedatives.

"How long would that (propofol) have had an effect on Mr. Jackson?" asked defense attorney J. Michael Flanagan.

"If you're talking effect on the central nervous system, 10 to 15 minutes max," White said.

He then said Jackson could have injected himself with another 25 milligrams during the time Murray has said he left the singer's room.

"So you think it was self-injected propofol between 11:30 and 12?" asked Flanagan.

"In my opinion, yes," White said.

The witness, one of the early researchers of the anesthetic, contradicted testimony by Dr. Steven Shafer, his longtime colleague and collaborator. Shafer earlier testified Jackson would have been groggy from all the medications he was administered during the night and could not have given himself the drug in the two minutes Murray said he was gone.

"He can't give himself an injection if he's asleep," Shafer told jurors last week. He called the defense theory of self-administration "crazy."

White's testimony belied no animosity between the two experts, who have worked together for 30 years. Although White was called out by the judge one day for making derogatory comments to a TV reporter about the prosecution case, White was respectful and soft spoken on the witness stand.

When Flanagan made a mistake and called him "Dr. Shafer" a few times, White said, "I'm honored."

The prosecution asked for more time to study the computer program White used before cross-examining him. Superior Court Judge Michael Pastor granted the request, saying he too was baffled by the complicated simulations of Jackson's fatal dose. He recessed court early and gave prosecutors the weekend to catch up before questioning White on Monday.

The surprise disclosure of White's new theory caused a disruption of the court schedule, and the judge had worried aloud that jurors, who expected the trial to be over this week, were being inconvenienced. But the seven men and five women appeared engaged in the testimony and offered no complaints when the judge apologized for the delay.

Prosecutors could call Shafer back during their rebuttal case to answer White's assertions.

Among the key issues is how White calculated that a large residue of propofol in Jackson's body could have come from the small dose that Murray says he administered. Shafer assumed Murray had lied, and he estimated Jackson actually was given 1,000 milligrams of the drug by Murray, who he said left the bottle running into an IV tube under the pull of gravity. White disputed that, saying an extra 25 milligrams self-administered by Jackson would be enough to reach the levels found in his blood and urine.

White also said a minuscule residue of the sedative lorazepam in Jackson's stomach convinced him the singer took some pills from a prescription bottle found in his room. He suggested the combination of lorazepam, another sedative, midazolam, plus the propofol could have killed Jackson.

"It potentially could have lethal consequences," said White. "... I think the combination effect would be very, very profound."

White's testimony was expected to end Murray's defense case after 16 witnesses. It likely will be vigorously challenged by prosecutors, who spent four weeks laying out their case that Murray is a greedy, inept and reckless doctor who was giving Jackson propofol as a sleep aid in the singer's bedroom. Experts including Shafer have said propofol is not intended to treat insomnia and should not be given in a home.

White's theory was based on urine and blood levels in Jackson's autopsy, evidence found in Jackson's bedroom and Murray's long interview with police detectives two days after Jackson died while in his care.

While accepting Murray's account of drugs he gave Jackson, the expert's calculations hinged on the invisible quotient: Jackson's possible movements while his doctor was out of the room. With no witnesses and contradictory physical evidence, that has become the key question hanging over the case.

Those who knew the entertainer in his final days offered a portrait of a man gripped by fear that he would not live up to big plans for his comeback concert and worried about his ability to perform if he didn't get sleep. He was plagued by insomnia, and other medical professionals told of his quest for the one drug he believed could help him. He called it his "milk," and it was propofol.

Jurors have now seen it up close as both Shafer and White demonstrated its potential use as an IV infusion.

With White's testimony, the defense sought to answer strong scientific evidence by the prosecution. But they did not address other questions such as allegations that Murray was negligent and acting below the standard of care for a physician.

Flanagan, the defense attorney, produced a certificate from Sunrise Hospital in Las Vegas showing Murray was certified to administer moderate anesthesia, referred to as "conscious sedation." However, the document showed several requirements including that the physician "monitor the patient carefully" and "provide adequate oxygenation and ventilation for a patient that stops breathing."

Medical witnesses noted that Murray left his patient alone under anesthesia and did not have adequate equipment to revive him when he found him not breathing.

The coroner attributed Jackson's June 25, 2009, death to "acute propofol intoxication" complicated by other sedatives.

Murray, who had been hired as the singer's personal physician for his "This Is It" tour, has pleaded not guilty to involuntary manslaughter.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/entertainment/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111028/ap_en_ot/us_michael_jackson_doctor

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Kristen Stewart: 'Breaking Dawn' Sex Scenes Got R Rating

Move over wedding, birthing and vampire transformation scenes: There is nothing Twilight fans are looking forward to more than seeing Bella and Edward finally get it on in The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn -- Part 1. Judging by the trailer, the scene will be extremely steamy (yes, that is bed-breaking you see). But according to leading lady Kristen Stewart, she and Robert Pattinson might have made things too hot and heavy the first time around.

Source: http://www.ivillage.com/kristen-stewart-breaking-dawn-sex-scenes-got-r-rating/1-a-397065?dst=iv%3AiVillage%3Akristen-stewart-breaking-dawn-sex-scenes-got-r-rating-397065

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Redistricting updates (Offthekuff)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories News, RSS and RSS Feed via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/154620670?client_source=feed&format=rss

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Jackson dependent on painkiller, trial expert says (Reuters)

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) ? Michael Jackson was dependent on a painkiller that he received in large, regular shots, along with Botox treatments, in the months before his death, a Los Angeles court heard on Thursday.

But in the involuntary manslaughter trial of Dr. Conrad Murray, stemming from Jackson's 2009 overdose death, addiction specialist Dr. Robert Waldman could not say unequivocally whether he believed the singer was addicted to the painkiller.

Waldman was testifying as an expert witness for the defense as it neared wrapping up its case. The claim by Murray's attorneys that the "Thriller" singer was addicted to the painkiller Demerol and that he engaged in "doctor shopping" is a central part of the defense strategy.

Murray has admitted to giving Jackson nearly daily doses of the powerful anesthetic propofol as a sleep aid at the singer's Los Angeles mansion, and medical examiners found that was the chief cause of his June 25, 2009, death.

But Murray's attorneys argue that the physician was unaware the singer was getting shots of Demerol from a Beverly Hills dermatologist, and that it hampered Murray's efforts to get him to sleep.

Waldman said side-effects of Demerol withdrawal included anxiety and insomnia.

According to medical records presented on Thursday, Jackson received 900 milligrams of Demerol over three days in May 2009, from dermatologist Dr. Arnold Klein.

Klein's records show he also gave Jackson Botox and Restylane for wrinkles and excess perspiration for several months in 2009. Waldman described the Demerol shots as "stiff doses" that were not needed with skin treatment injections.

"I believe there is evidence that he was dependent on Demerol," Waldman said of Jackson, adding the pop star was "possibly" addicted to the painkiller.

LAST WITNESS

But during an aggressive cross-examination by prosecutors, Waldman could not say for certain that Jackson was addicted to the drug. He also acknowledged that he was not officially certified as an addiction specialist.

Dependence is characterized by a physical need for a drug, while addiction is more serious because it also involves a person continuing with destructive behavior and use of a substance, despite bad consequences, Waldman said.

Dr. Paul White, a leading expert on propofol who is expected to be the defense's last witness, undercut prosecutors' attempts on Thursday to show Murray acted dangerously by combining sedatives with propofol in his treatment of Jackson.

"In anesthesiology, it's what we do every day," White told the jury. "We're polypharmacists. We combine drugs to achieve better effect, with less medication."

White also said it seemed unusual that Jackson would have died from the relatively small dose of 25 milligrams of propofol that Murray told police he injected into the pop star hours before he stopped breathing.

Attorneys for Murray, whose specialty is cardiology, claimed in opening arguments last month that Jackson caused his own death by giving himself an extra dose of propofol without Murray's knowledge. But the defense has yet to address that point as it lays out its case in detail.

The doctor, who has pleaded not guilty, faces up to four years in prison if convicted.

(Editing by Jill Serjeant and Peter Cooney)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/celebrity/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111028/people_nm/us_michaeljackson

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Asteroid Lutetia May Have Heart of Hot Melted Metal (SPACE.com)

A new look at an?asteroid in deep space has revealed signs of a?molten-hot core, a smoldering remnant from the earliest days of the solar system that?could also help unlock secrets of some of Earth's weirdest meteorites, researchers say.

At the heart of the new study is the asteroid 21 Lutetia, one of the millions of rocks in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. ?The European Space Agency's Rosetta probe flew by 21 Lutetia in 2010, providing scientists with their first detailed look at a large asteroid.

Measurements of Lutetia have found it to be unusually dense for an asteroid. Because its surface appears porous, its density could be explained by a heart of molten metal, similar to those of planets like Earth.

If so, scientists say, Lutetia might be an example of arrested development: a body that, in the solar system's infancy, was on its way toward growing into a planet but never got there. It could also help explain the origins of mysterious magnetic meteorites on Earth, scientists added.

"The asteroid belt may be more interesting than it seems on the surface," said researcher Benjamin Weiss, a planetary scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. [Rosetta's photos of asteroid 21 Lutetia]

Heart of an asteroid

Asteroids in the main belt are mostly relatively small and light, with fissures and voids reaching all the way into their interiors that make them very porous. Close-up images of Lutetia taken by the probe revealed cracks and craters run across its battered surface, too.

The scientists created a model of Lutetia's shape based on images taken by ?Rosetta's Optical, Spectroscopic, and Infrared Remote Imaging System (OSIRIS). Holger Sierks at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Germany and his colleagues estimated the asteroid's size to be 75 miles long, 63 miles tall and 47 miles wide (121 by 101 by 75 kilometers).

The research team next calculated the asteroid's mass by noting how Lutetia's gravitational field distorted radio signals from Rosetta. The strength of a body's gravitational field is directly related to its mass, and the amount of distortion suggested the asteroid is 1.8 million billion tons (1.7 million billion metric tons).

Once the scientists knew the asteroid's volume and mass, they could determine its density. Martin P?tzold at the University of Cologne in Germany and his colleagues found the density to one of highest ever calculated for an asteroid: approximately 212 pounds per cubic foot (3,400 kilograms per cubic meter), or nearly as dense as diamond.

Since the huge fractures seen on Lutetia's surface hint that its crust is porous, researchers accounted for the asteroid's density by suggesting it has a molten core.

This could mean "that there is a whole spectrum of strange planetary beasts that formed in between primordial and fully differentiated bodies," Weiss told SPACE.com.

The scientists detailed their findings in three papers in the Oct. 28 issue of the journal Science.

Asteroid with an inner fire

If Lutetia does have a molten core, it would be the first asteroid known to be partially differentiated into a molten interior and cooler exterior, as Earth is. [7 Strangest Asteroids in the Solar System]

As the solar system began to form about 4.5 billion years ago, planets were born from collisions of dust and rock. The numerous chunks that stayed relatively small formed asteroids, while others eventually grew through accretion to the size of planets. These worlds once were extraordinarily hot, but they eventually cooled from the outside, forming a crust around a molten core.

Lutetia may be a case of arrested planetary development: a body large enough to develop and retain a molten core, yet not reach planetary size.

"The planets don't retain a record of these early differentiation processes," Weiss said. "This asteroid may be a relic of the first events of melting in a body."

Asteroids with molten cores could help explain mysteriously magnetic meteorites seen on Earth. Weiss and his colleagues have suggested that such magnetization most likely occurred in asteroids with a molten metallic core ? a big shift from the traditional picture of an asteroid as a primordial, unmelted objects.

"The origin of this magnetization has been a key unsolved problem for nearly five decades," Weiss said. "If asteroids are partially differentiated, they could have formed molten metallic cores that generated ancient magnetic fields. These fields could explain the magnetization observed in many kinds of primitive meteorites."

To confirm whether any given asteroid actually did have a molten core, scientists could take samples directly from it. A NASA team is currently planning to launch a probe in 2016 that will take a sample from an asteroid and return it to Earth.

"The challenge is, the body has to be big," Weiss said. "If it's not big, then it's not going to retain a molten interior. The problem then is, all the big bodies are not going to be easily excavated."

Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter?@Spacedotcom?and on?Facebook.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/space/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/space/20111027/sc_space/asteroidlutetiamayhaveheartofhotmeltedmetal

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Cannon Retrieved from Blackbeard's Pirate Ship (LiveScience.com)

A team of diving archaeologists completed their mission today (Oct. 26) to retrieve a cannon from Blackbeard's pirate ship.

The Queen Anne's Revenge sank off the coast of North Carolina in 1718 when?Blackbeard (Edward Teach)?ran it into the ground while entering an inlet.

The cannon, known as C13, is 8 feet (2.4 meters) long and weighs 2,000 pounds (900 kilograms).

One of the largest of the ship's 40 guns, cannon C23, was the real prize of the mission, but the team wasn't able to work it free, said Fay Mitchell, spokesperson for the . On the ocean floor, C23 was surrounded by a kettle, wooden deadeyes, a pewter plate, cannonballs and a number of unidentified objects, and the team wasn't able to remove the cannon in time to raise it to the surface. [See Images of Blackbeard's cannon.]

Bringing C13 to the surface was still a big win for the team, which had to deal with a long weather delay mid-mission.

"It was a wonderful day for the dive," Mitchell told OurAmazingPlanet. "Our team had great luck."

The raising of the cannon, which is covered in concrete-like accretions of sand and barnacles, attracted a throng of onlookers. Despite the frenzy, the cannon was safely retired and moved to be put on display in front of the North Carolina Maritime Museum in Beaufort, N.C.

Cracking through the accretions will take years, and the cannon will send at least 3 to 5 years under the care of conservationists at Eastern Carolina University. The team will study any artifacts that are stuck to the cannon.

The team has already found many other shipwreck artifacts, including what may be a shackle for a leg iron that held captives or enslaved Africans (the French ship was called Le Concorde when it was a slave trading ship). The team also found a small brass lid that fits on top of nesting weights. Nesting weights were used as counterbalances to weigh medicine or other powder onboard the ship. Archaeologists have discovered a nearly complete set of the nesting weights, minus the lids, at the site.

Using the North Carolina Marine Fisheries' Research Vessel Shell Point as the principal recovery vessel, the team began their 4-week mission on Oct. 3. After a week-long delay due to bad weather, the team has continued their excavation, documentation and recovery of artifacts.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/fossils/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20111026/sc_livescience/cannonretrievedfromblackbeardspirateship

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Craig Venter Sets X-Prize for Human Genome Sequencing

Venter: Breakthroughs wanted Image: jcvi.org

"Today we are learning the language with which God created life." President Bill Clinton made this remark on the White House lawn on June 2000 to recognize the decoding of the first human genome. As much as anything else, rapid DNA sequencing technology created in large part by geneticist Craig Venter and his colleagues galvanized the research community into finishing the project faster than originally expected. More than 11 years later, however, gene sequencing technology has failed to deliver on its promise to revolutionize preventative medicine, and Venter is not happy about it.

The idea was that gene sequencing would become so cheap?on the order of $1,000?that ordinary people could afford to have their individual genomes sequenced, which their family doctors would use to diagnose their predisposition for disease. Costs have fallen to about $4000, but the bigger problem is that results are often rife with errors. ?If [the technology] is going to achieve the level of really impacting medicine the way I?ve always envisioned that it could, it has to become far more accurate.?

To goose developers along, Venter?along with the X-Prize Foundation and Medco Health Systems, a health care firm?has put a bounty on the achievement: $10 million to the first team that can meet a standard for accuracy that Venter calls ?medical grade.? The task is to sequence the genomes of 100 centenarians, providing a baseline to which other genomes can be compared. Venter talked with Scientific American by phone about the award and his hopes for new technologies. Excerpts:

Scientific American: How did the idea for this prize come about?

Venter: This prize started out as a half million dollar prize out of the Venter Institute, in part after I sequenced the first version of the human genome. All the analysts and pundits were saying that genome sequencing was dead, there?s no use for it anymore?the human genome has been sequenced. To change that attitude, we started a prize to encourage development of new technology, to get [costs] down to a $1000 or less [per genome].

I was contacted by Larry Page and Peter Diamandis of the X Prize to see if we were interested in merging the Venter Prize with the X Prize. We did that and upped the ante to $10 million, which is significant.

Why is a prize necessary?

The technology is changing pretty rapidly, which is a good thing. But right now there?s no technology out there that meets the standards that we?ve set. If genome sequencing is going to have true medical impact, it needs to get up to [a higher] diagnostic quality level. And we?re a long way from that. So this announcement is a whole new set of guidelines and standards. We?re also working with the FDA trying to have our standards become their standards for sequencing. The fact that Medco has come in as a major sponsor shows that major medical enterprises are starting to recognize the future medical impact of this technology.

So the idea is to give the technology a little extra push?

It?s helpful to drive the technology forward. The cost is coming down, but one thing that hasn?t substantially changed is the completeness and accuracy. You can buy any two company?s machines right now, and if we sequencing a genome with two different technologies we?d get two different answers. That?s not good for diagnostic sequencing. Each technology has its own inherent errors. If [the technology] is going to achieve the level of really impacting medicine the way I?ve always envisioned that it could, it has to become far more accurate.

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=b103c0e7bf867686abfbbbf2945bd30e

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Sprint posts smallest quarterly loss in 4 years

NEW YORK (AP) ? Sprint Nextel Corp. on Wednesday reported its smallest quarterly loss in four years, as it continued a turnaround and kept getting better at keeping and attracting customers.

The country's No. 3 wireless carrier added a net 1.3 million subscribers in the July to September period, the best result since 2006. Sprint continued to lose subscribers from its lucrative contract-based plans, but at a relatively low rate: 44,000 in the quarter.

Sprint's total customer count, 53.4 million, is now back at where it was in 2007, before the exodus of Nextel customers turned into a torrent.

The Overland Park, Kan.-based company has made steady gains in the last year and a half. Unfortunately for the company, most of the new customers are low-paying ones. They buy service from Sprint's low-cost Virgin Mobile, Boost Mobile or Assurance Wireless brands, or from non-Sprint brands that use the company's network.

The latest subscriber results don't include the effect of the iPhone, which Sprint started selling Oct. 14. The phone is expected to further improve the carrier's ability to keep customers, but at a high price. Apple charges about $600 for a phone that Sprint sells for $200.

Sprint on Wednesday said it had raised the limit on its credit line by $150 million and amended the terms so that an increase in the total amount of phone discounts doesn't affect its creditworthiness. It said it had $1 billion undrawn on the line.

Sprint net loss was $301 million, or 10 cents per share, for the third quarter. That's down from $911 million, or 28 cents per share, a year ago. It was the best performance by Sprint since it reported a profit of $64 million in the third quarter of 2007.

Revenue rose 2.2 percent to $8.3 billion.

Analysts polled by FactSet expected a loss of 22 cents per share on $8.4 billion in revenue.

Its shares rose 7 cents, or 2.6 percent, to $2.77 in premarket trading.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/495d344a0d10421e9baa8ee77029cfbd/Article_2011-10-26-Earns-Sprint%20Nextel/id-e71f13cce35149709c0bddaf6b6fd67f

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Mexican presidential hopeful vows drugs war shift (Reuters)

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) ? A leading presidential candidate of Mexico's ruling party said on Wednesday he would break with government policy and withdraw the army from the fight against drug gangs if he wins the election in 2012.

Santiago Creel, a former interior minister belonging to the conservative National Action Party (PAN), told Reuters that President Felipe Calderon's military strategy had served its course and that he would change "everything" as leader.

"The direct, frontal, expansive strategy is a strategy that should end with this administration," said Creel, who is seeking the PAN's nomination for the presidency.

Deaths from drug-related violence in Mexico have surged since Calderon sent in the army to fight the cartels when he took office in December 2006, damaging support for his party and causing strains in relations with the United States.

Calderon has endured withering criticism from victims of the drug war and opposition lawmakers for his U.S.-backed military approach but he has stood firm, arguing the cartels would have become too powerful if he had not acted.

More than 44,000 people have died in the conflict to date, and Creel said that if elected in the July vote, he would start taking the Mexican army off the streets as soon as he took office in December 2012.

"By my calculations this would be a period of transition of around 24 months," said the 56-year-old Creel, a descendant of a U.S. immigrant to Mexico of Scottish origin.

Instead, he said priority should be given to attacking cartels' revenue streams, cracking down on money laundering and cleaning up Mexico's prisons, where top criminals are often able to continue running their crime gangs on the outside.

Creel, who also sought the PAN's candidacy for the 2006 election, was an early front runner this time, though some recent surveys have shown former education minister Josefina Vazquez Mota could be overtaking him.

Opinion polls also show the PAN trailing the opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which ruled Mexico for seven decades until 2000.

If the PRI won the election, it would be a serious setback for Latin America's second biggest economy, said Creel.

"People are going to think hard about what returning to the past means, returning to this model ... of agreements or shady deals with criminals," he said.

Calderon also said earlier this month that some in the PRI could consider making deals with organized crime, a practice the party's opponents say was widespread in Mexico in the past.

(Editing by Kieran Murray)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111026/wl_nm/us_mexico_election_creel

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George McGovern hospitalized in South Dakota (Providence Journal)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories News, News Feeds and News via Feedzilla.

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Asian stocks jump as Japan reports exports growth

BANGKOK (AP) ? Asian stock markets jumped Monday, buoyed by hopes of progress in resolving Europe's debt crisis and positive export figures from Japan that point toward a recovery from a devastating tsunami earlier this year.

Oil prices rose above $88 a barrel. The dollar fell against the euro but rose against the yen.

Japan's Nikkei 225 index added 1.8 percent to 8,830.63 after the government said exports grew for a second straight month in September.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng soared 3.9 percent to 18,731.74 and South Korea's Kospi climbed 2.9 percent to 1,892.40. Benchmarks in Singapore, Taiwan, Australia, India, Indonesia and the Philippines were also higher.

Mainland China's Shenzhen Composite Index slipped 0.8 percent to 951.89 while the Shanghai Composite Index for China's main stock market gained 0.4 percent to 2,325.30.

European leaders are to meet Wednesday to hammer out a concrete resolution to the region's debt problems, including ways to fortify the euro 440 billion ($600 billion) bailout fund to help prevent larger economies that use the euro common currency, such as Italy, from being dragged into the crisis.

Weeks of intensive discussions by European leaders have so far failed to produce a decisive outcome.

"Markets will remain nervous ahead of Wednesday's EU summit, hoping that officials can settle their differences and emerge with a concrete solution. In this respect, the risk of disappointment is high," Credit Agricole CIB said in a research note.

Japan's Finance Ministry said Monday that exports rose 2.4 percent in September compared with a year earlier, marking the second consecutive month of growth. Japan's exports suffered a five-month decline in the wake of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that devastated northeast Japan.

South Korean constructions shares rose on expectations that the death of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi would lead to the resumption of construction projects in the North African country, Yonhap News Agency reported. Daewoo surged 5 percent. Hyundai Heavy Industries jumped 6.4 percent.

Chinese banking shares soared ahead of earnings reports to be released this week, analysts said. Hong Kong-listed Agricultural Bank of China jumped 8.8 percent, and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China gained 5.8 percent.

Linus Yip, strategist at First Shanghai Securities in Hong Kong, said speculative investors appeared to be scooping up what were thought to be bargain-priced Hong Kong stocks.

"Today, there is some bargain-hunting for sectors like the Chinese insurance sector and Hong Kong property," he said. Hong Kong-listed Ping An Insurance gained 6.8 percent. China Overseas Land & Investment Ltd. was up 6.7 percent.

In the U.S. on Friday, enthusiasm for stocks was on the upswing amid some positive third-quarter earnings reports from U.S. companies, which come despite a weak economy. Among S&P 500 companies reporting so far, seven out of ten have posted higher profits than expected.

The Dow Jones industrial average jumped 267.01 points, or 2.3 percent, to 11,808.79. The Dow is now up 2 percent from where it started 2011. Before Friday's surge, it was down for the year. The Dow has risen for four weeks straight, the first time that has happened since January.

In currencies, the euro rose to $1.3902 from $1.3864 Friday in New York. The dollar rose to 76.21 yen from 76.12 yen.

Benchmark crude for December delivery was up 79 cents at $88.20 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract rose $1.33 to settle at $87.40 in New York on Friday.

Brent crude was up 70 cents at $110.26 a barrel on the ICE Futures Exchange in London.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2011-10-24-World-Markets/id-a3e4c3b93edc4393b6a65f9eaf163c11

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NASA to launch new Earth-observing satellite

LOS ANGELES (AP) ? After a five-year delay, an Earth-observing satellite will be launched to test new technologies aimed at improving weather forecasts and monitoring climate change.

The $1.5 billion NASA mission comes in a year of weather extremes from the Midwest tornado outbreak to the Southwest wildfires to hurricane-caused flooding in New England.

"We've already had 10 separate weather events, each inflicting at least $1 billion in damages," said Louis Uccellini of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The satellite will lift off before dawn Friday from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, aboard a Delta 2 rocket that will boost it into an orbit some 500 miles (800 kilometers) high.

The space agency already has a fleet of satellites circling the Earth, taking measurements of the atmosphere, clouds and oceans. But many are aging and need replacement.

The latest ? about the size of a small school bus ? is more sophisticated. It carries five different types of instruments to collect environmental data, including four that never before have flown into space.

One of the satellite's main jobs is to test key technologies that will be used by next-generation satellites set to launch in a few years.

NOAA meteorologists plan to feed the observations into their weather models to better anticipate and track hurricanes, tornadoes and other extreme weather.

The information will "help us understand what tomorrow will bring," whether it's the next-day forecast or long-term climate change, said Andrew Carson, the mission's program executive at NASA headquarters.

The satellite is part of a bigger program with a troubled history. Originally envisioned as a joint civil-military weather satellite project, ballooning costs and schedule delays caused the White House last year to dissolve the partnership.

Under the restructuring, the Defense Department is building its own military satellites while NASA is developing a new generation of research satellites for NOAA. Friday's launch is considered the first step toward that goal.

The satellite was supposed to fly in 2006, but problems during the development of several instruments forced a delay. NASA invested about $895 million in the mission while NOAA and the Air Force contributed $677 million.

For the launch, NASA invited 20 of its Twitter followers to Vandenberg, where they will receive front-row seats to view the liftoff.

Once in orbit, the satellite, built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. in Boulder, Colorado, will spend the next five years circling the Earth from pole to pole about a dozen times a day. Data will be transmitted to a ground station in Norway and routed to the United States via fiber optic cable. NASA will manage the mission for the first three months before turning it over to NOAA.

___

Online:

Mission details: http://www.nasa.gov/npp

___

Follow Alicia Chang's coverage at http://twitter.com/SciWriAlicia

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/b2f0ca3a594644ee9e50a8ec4ce2d6de/Article_2011-10-24-Earth%20Satellite/id-cea881c97be145a0a8b38e5d63f12749

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Sununu for Romney (Politico)

Former New Hampshire Gov. John H. Sununu is endorsing Mitt Romney tomorrow, in the latest sign of establishment Republicans starting to line up behind the frontrunner.

From the Union Leader:

I'm viewed as a good, solid conservative Republican and I'm supporting a good, solid conservative Republican,? Sununu said in disclosing his long-awaited endorsement.

Continue Reading

In exclusive interview, Sununu said he narrowed his choice to Romney and Texas Gov. Rick Perry, but was won over by what he views as Romney's conservative approach to pressing domestic and national security issues.

He said the final component that persuaded him to back Romney was the former Massachusetts governor's early October foreign policy speech at The Citadel in South Carolina.

?That showed me that he understands that the principal role of the President of the United States is the security of the country and participating in trying to stabilize the world,? Sununu said.

Perry's top strategist, the New Hampshire-based Dave Carney, began his career with Sununu.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/politics/*http%3A//us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/external/politico_rss/rss_politico_mostpop/http___www_politico_com_news_stories1011_66639_html/43360826/SIG=11me0pgar/*http%3A//www.politico.com/news/stories/1011/66639.html

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Hertz fires 26 Muslim drivers in break dispute (AP)

SEATTLE ? More than two dozen Somali Muslim drivers for Hertz at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport are being fired after refusing to clock out for daily breaks during which they normally pray.

The 26 workers drive the company's rental cars to and from the airport for cleaning and refueling. They are among 34 Hertz employees suspended Sept. 30 for failing to clock out before breaks.

Teamsters Local 117, which represents the workers, said Hertz agreed during contract negotiations last year that union members would not need to clock out during prayer breaks. But the company maintains workers were violating a settlement with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission reached two years ago.

"From our perspective, Hertz didn't even follow their own internal policy," union spokesman Paul Zilly said Friday. Hertz didn't provide a verbal or written warning and jumped right to suspension, he said.

"It was a huge disappointment and a tremendous frustration," Zilly said.

Eight of the 34 suspended workers signed the company's new clock-out agreement and have returned to their jobs, company spokesman Rich Broome said in an email. Termination letters have been sent to the rest.

"The failure of many employees to return to work promptly after prayers had created an unmanageable, unfair work environment at the Seattle airport location," Broome wrote. Clocking out ensured that everyone's interests were preserved, he said.

The company gave suspended workers until the end of the day Thursday to sign the clock-out agreement, if they wanted to be reinstated, Broome told The Seattle Times. The firings were first reported by KOMO-TV.

Zilly said Friday that instead of an ultimatum, the company should have sat down with the union to negotiate this change.

"Whenever there's a change in working conditions and you're working under a collective bargaining agreement, they need to notify and bargain with the union over those changes," he said. "That's their legal obligation."

"It's not about prayer, it's not about religion; it's about reasonable requirements," Broome told the AP earlier this month.

Observant Muslims pray several times a day.

If Hertz thought some employees were abusing the break policies, it should have dealt with them individually, Zilly said.

The union has filed an unfair labor practices complaint with the National Labor Relations Board. The union also said it is also in the process of filing religious discrimination charges with the EEOC.

The union represents nearly 80 Hertz drivers who earn between $9.15 and $9.95 an hour. About 70 percent are Muslims.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/religion/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111021/ap_on_re_us/us_muslim_drivers_fired

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Zurana Horton, New York Mom, Shot Dead While Shielding Kids At School

NEW YORK -- Someone with a gun opened fire on a street as students were let out of school Friday afternoon, killing one parent who had tried to shield children from harm and injuring an 11-year-old girl and another parent, police and school officials said.

The shooting happened at about 2:30 p.m., and police were investigating whether the shooter fired from a nearby rooftop where shell casings were discovered.

A 34-year-old woman, Zurana Horton, who had hovered over students to protect them as shots were fired, was struck in the face and chest and was pronounced dead at the scene. A 31-year-old woman was hit in an arm and the chest and was hospitalized.

The 11-year-old girl, a sixth-grader at the Brooklyn school, injured one of her arms and had a graze wound on her cheek. None of the victims was related, police said.

The victims were on a street corner at the back of the elementary school when the gunshots rang out, Department of Education spokeswoman Margie Feinberg said.

It's unclear how many shots were fired. Seven shell casings from a 9mm semi-automatic pistol were found on the nearby rooftop. Five other shell casings were found on the sidewalk in the front of that building, police said.

Three men were seen fleeing the scene, and police were questioning at least one person. The shooter was being sought, and police offered a $12,000 reward for information in the case, New York Police Department spokesman Paul Browne said.

The school's neighborhood, Brownsville, is located in southeastern Brooklyn and is among the most crime-plagued in the city. It's also where tens of thousands of people, mostly black and Hispanic men, are stopped, questioned and frisked annually by police. Critics say the men are being unfairly targeted, and only about 10 percent of stops city-wide result in arrest.

Police say the tactic is a necessary crime-fighting tool that helps get illegal guns off the streets.

"Police conduct stops of individuals evincing suspicious behavior in areas where shootings occur in order to prevent, or at least lower, the frequency of tragedies like the one in Brownsville today," Browne said.

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/21/zurana-horton-new-york-mo_n_1026132.html

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Yellen predicts stronger 2nd-half growth (AP)

WASHINGTON ? The No. 2 official on the Federal Reserve says economic growth will end "noticeably stronger" in the second half of this year, but she says the central bank still needs to keep its policy options open to provide more support to the economy if necessary.

Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Janet Yellen said in a speech in Denver on Friday that oil and other commodity prices are falling and supply disruptions caused by Japan's natural disasters are easing. But she said the economy is still facing numerous problems.

Yellen said the central bank may need to consider more bond purchases to lower interest rates, but she said such an effort should be considered only if the economy required "significantly greater" help than the Fed is now providing.

"It looks likely that economic growth in the second half of this year will be noticeably stronger, and inflation more moderate, than in the first half," Yellen said in remarks to the annual meeting of the Financial Management Association International.

But she said that the Fed would keep under review a range of options that it could employ if needed to support growth, including further bond purchases.

"Securities purchases across a wide spectrum of maturities might become appropriate if evolving economic conditions called for significantly greater monetary accommodation," Yellen said.

Yellen noted that at the Fed's last meeting on Sept. 20-21 the central bank agreed to shift $400 billion of its holdings into more long-term holdings of Treasury securities as a way of lowering long-term interest rates.

Yellen did not provide any specifics about what further types of securities the Fed might consider buying, but she said that expanding the size of the Fed's holdings of long-term Treasury debt by too great an amount could adversely affect how this market operates.

On Thursday, Daniel Tarullo, another Fed board member, called for the central bank to consider buying more mortgage bonds as a way to spur growth by lowering mortgage interest rates and thus giving a boost to the depressed housing industry.

Tarullo and Yellen are among the 10 Fed officials who have a vote on the Federal Open Market Committee, the panel of Fed board members and regional bank presidents who meet eight times a year to set interest-rate policies.

Tarullo's remarks came after Eric Rosengren, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, in an interview this week also endorsed the idea of considering further purchases of mortgage-backed securities.

The next meeting of the FOMC is Nov. 1-2. There has been speculation in financial markets that the Fed might go further in its campaign to jump-start an economy that many have feared is in danger of slipping back into a recession, although such a move would likely meet opposition from Fed officials who believe the central bank has done as much as it can do.

In addition to the September move to rebalance its holdings, the Fed in August expanded its policy guidance to say it was prepared to keep interest rates at record lows until at least mid-2013 as long as inflation remained under control.

Both the August and September Fed actions were approved on 7-3 votes. The three dissenting votes from regional banks presidents represented the largest number in nearly two decades and underscored the deep policy split on the board.

In her comments Friday, Yellen said she felt the central bank should explore providing more guidance for future moves including an idea being pushed by Charles Evans, head of the Chicago Federal Reserve Bank. Evans has suggested that the Fed should consider pledging to keep rates at record lows until unemployment, currently at 9.1 percent, falls below 7.5 percent.

Yellen said such an idea should be explored although she said it had drawbacks in that it could lead to confusion in the minds of the public over the Fed's long-term goals for the economy.

Yellen, who heads a Fed committee that is investigating ways to improve the Fed's communication efforts, said that another area that should be explored is providing more information on the Fed's long-term goals for economic growth, unemployment and inflation.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/economy/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111021/ap_on_bi_ge/us_fed_yellen

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Jobs questioned authority all his life, book says

	Essential News from The Associated Press

? ?Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2011-10-20-Steve%20Jobs-Book/id-51128b45f3d24735b839a949d89fbcf2

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Biocon Q2 net drops as energy costs, wages rise (Reuters)

REUTERS ? Biocon Ltd, India top biotechnology company, reported a 4 percent drop in quarterly profit due to higher energy costs and rise in wages, but said strong demand from branded formulations offered opportunities for growth.

The company, which licenses its insulin products to Pfizer for global sales, said consolidated net profit fell to 857 million rupees ($17.5 million) in the fiscal second quarter ended Sept. 30 from 892.2 million rupees a year ago.

The drop was in line with market expectations after Bangalore-based Biocon had divested in April its German arm Axicorp, which had contributed 73 million rupees to the profit in the same month a year earlier.

"We expected the Axicorp divestment would improve the company's operating margins but higher costs have actually impacted the company's performance," Siddhant Khandekar, analyst at ICICI Direct, said.

Energy costs rose 14 percent to 226.8 million rupees, while expenditure on employees soared 34 percent to 778.3 million rupees, the company said.

Shares in Biocon, which have shed 17.3 percent this year compared with an 11.7 percent fall in the benchmark healthcare index, were subdued in a weak Mumbai market.

Licensing and developing fees worth 365 million rupees helped lift consolidated quarterly sales by 21 percent to 5.08 billion rupees, the company said.

Branded formulations segment jumped 37 percent, while research services business grew 20 percent, it said.

"The global economic outlook is challenging at the moment. Nevertheless, I believe that the Biocon Group will continue to deliver broad-based growth in the second half," Chairman and Managing Director Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw said in a statement.

NEW PRODUCTS TO DRIVE SALE

Biocon's newly launched insulin injection device INSUPen and active pharmaceutical ingredient fidaxomicin are products the company is looking forward to boost sales, the company said.

There has been better-than-expected offtake in fidaxomicin, an anti-bacterial drug, and Biocon is focused on improving operational efficiencies to meet the increased demand, it added.

($1 = 49.1 rupees)

(Reporting by Kaustubh Kulkarni in Mumbai; Editing by Ranjit Gangadharan)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/india/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111020/india_nm/india600074

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PFT: With Best out, Lions should look at Tiki

Getty Images

We?re taking a longer look at each team during their bye week. ?The 4-2 first place Giants are up.

The New Favorites

My preseason pick of the Giants as NFC East champs doesn?t look too crazy now. New York is the slight favorite in a wide open division because 1) They are ahead. 2) They don?t have RexJohn Beckman as their quarterback. 3) They have reason to believe they?ll get better.

The margin for error is slim. They are slight favorites, capable of winning (and losing) to anyone.

Reinforcements coming

The Giants started the season with a brand new offensive line. They?ve played without Pro Bowler guard Chris Snee at times. That group should continue to improve the more it plays together.

On defense, the front seven hasn?t had all its pass rushers together at the same time. Justin Tuck should be back after the bye. Osi Umenyiora has been solid since his return. ?The team also hopes to get first round pick cornerback Prince Amukamara back after the bye. He?ll add depth to a weak spot for New York.

Pass rush potential

I picked the Giants on one theory: They had enough offensive talent and no one could match their quantity of pass rushers. They lead the NFL in sacks. When Tuck is healthy, it will be tough to block him, Osi Umenyiora (5 sacks in three games), Jason Pierre-Paul (7 sacks), Mathias Kiwanuka, and Chris Canty.

Pierre-Paul should make the Pro Bowl this year. The defense hasn?t been great overall, but the pass rush gives this team an edge.

Giants Football means something different

Eli Manning is quietly having a nice season. He?s third in the league in yards-per-attempt. Victor Cruz has ably stepped up as a playmaker. Jake Ballard is doing a solid job at tight end. Throw in Hakeem Nicks and Mario Manningham, and it?s clear this is a passing team.

New York is 31st in yards-per-carry. ?This team is going to win by throwing.

Schedule is brutal

The Giants get the Dolphins coming out of the bye. That should get them to 5-2, but then they face as tough a schedule as any team in the league: @ NE, @ SF, PHI, @NO, GB, @ DAL. ? Yikes. It doesn?t even ease up in the final three much. ?(WAS, @NYJ, DAL).

The second place schedule was a disadvantage this year because they got the Saints and Packers. The rest of the NFC East has a tough schedule too. My guess is only one NFC East team gets in.

Source: http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2011/10/20/maybe-its-tiki-time-in-motown/related/

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Horror Countdown 2011

You've planed your costume, carved some pumpkins, and bought a gallon of apple cider. Now all you need to make All Hallows' Eve complete is a good horror movie. Fear not: It's Rotten Tomatoes Horror Countdown 2011, a compendium of horror shows with enough vampires, zombies, specters, and mad slashers to keep your spine tingling long after your trick-or-treat candy has gone stale.

Before we get started, a word about how we arrived at our final list. We've used a weighted formula that takes into account a movie's Tomatometer, number of reviews, and release date. Also, every movie here needed at least 20 reviews to qualify for inclusion. So get ready to take a walk through our house of horrors -- better known as RT's Horror Countdown 2011!

Begin the countdown!

Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1923785/news/1923785/

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Join the Engadget HD Podcast live on Ustream at 5:30PM

It's Monday, and we're still here to help by letting you peek into the recording booth when the Engadget HD podcast goes to mp3 at 5:30PM. We're back at our regular time, so take a peek at the live stream, chat and list of topics after the break.

Continue reading Join the Engadget HD Podcast live on Ustream at 5:30PM

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