More Egypt protests called after Morsi concession

CAIRO (AP) — Egypt's liberal opposition called for more protests Sunday, seeking to keep up the momentum of its street campaign after the president made a partial concession overnight but refused its main demand he rescind a draft constitution going to a referendum on Dec. 15.

President Mohammed Morsi met one of the opposition's demands, annulling his Nov. 22 decrees that gave him near unrestricted powers. But he insisted on going ahead with the referendum on a constitution hurriedly adopted by his Islamist allies during an all-night session late last month.

The opposition National Salvation Front called on supporters to rally against the referendum. The size of Sunday's turnout, especially at Cairo's central Tahrir square and outside the presidential palace in the capital's Heliopolis district, will determine whether Morsi's concession chipped away some of the popular support for the opposition's cause.

The opposition said Morsi's rescinding of his decrees was an empty gesture since the decrees had already achieved their main aim of ensuring the adoption of the draft constitution. The edicts had barred the courts from dissolving the Constituent Assembly that passed the charter and further neutered the judiciary by making Morsi immune from its oversight.

Still, the lifting of the decrees could persuade many judges to drop their two-week strike to protest what their leaders called Morsi's assault on the judiciary. An end to their strike means they would oversee the Dec. 15 vote as is customary in Egypt.

If the referendum goes ahead, the opposition faces a new challenge — either to campaign for a "no" vote or to boycott the process altogether. A low turnout or the charter passing by a small margin of victory would cast doubts on the constitution's legitimacy.

It was the decrees that initially sparked the wave of protests against Morsi that has brought tens of thousands into the streets in past weeks. But the rushed passage of the constitution further inflamed those who feel Morsi and his Islamist allies, including the Muslim Brotherhood, are monopolizing power in Egypt and trying to force their agenda.

The draft charter was adopted amid a boycott by liberal and Christian members of the Constituent Assembly. The document would open the door to Egypt's most extensive implementation of Islamic law, enshrining a say for Muslim clerics in legislation, making civil rights subordinate to Shariah and broadly allowing the state to protect "ethics and morals." It fails to outlaw gender discrimination and mainly refers to women in relation to home and family.

Sunday's rallies would be the latest of a series by opponents and supporters of Morsi, who hails from the Muslim Brotherhood.

Both sides have drawn tens of thousands of people into the streets, sparking bouts of street battles that have left at least six people dead and hundreds wounded. Several offices of the Muslim Brotherhood also have been ransacked or torched in the unrest.

Morsi, who took office in June as Egypt's first freely elected president, rescinded the Nov. 22 decrees at the recommendation Saturday of a panel of 54 politicians and clerics who took part in a "national dialogue" the president called for to resolve the crisis. Most of the 54 were Islamists who support the president, since the opposition boycotted the dialogue.

In his overnight announcement, Morsi also declared that if the draft constitution is rejected by voters in the referendum, a nationwide election would be held to select the next Constituent Assembly.

The assembly that adopted the draft was created by parliament, which was dominated by the Brotherhood and other Islamists, and had an Islamist majority from the start. The lawmaking lower house of parliament was later disbanded by court order before Morsi's inauguration.

If the draft is approved in the referendum, elections would be held for a new lower house of parliament would be held within two months, Morsi decided.

The president has maintained all along that his Nov. 22 decrees were motivated by his desire to protect the country's state institutions and transition to democratic rule against a "conspiracy" hatched by figures of the ousted regime of Hosni Mubarak.

Morsi, whose claims have been repeated by leaders of his Brotherhood, has yet to divulge details of the alleged conspiracy.

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Ariad drug proves effective in curbing chronic leukemia in study

(Reuters) – An experimental leukemia drug from Ariad Pharmaceuticals Inc eliminated the cancer from the bone marrow of nearly half of patients with a chronic form of the disease who had stopped responding to other drugs, according to a 12-month follow-up of a pivotal drug trial.

The trial of the drug, ponatinib, which involved 444 patients, including 267 with chronic myeloid leukemia who had previously been treated with older drugs, also showed that 56 percent of chronic patients achieved the study’s goal of a “major response,” meaning the disease had nearly disappeared from the bone marrow.

Ariad earlier this year presented interim results from the trial, and U.S. Food and Drug Administration agreed in October to an expedited review. The agency is slated to decide by March 27 whether to approve ponatinib.

“We expect FDA approval sometime in the first quarter,” said Tim Clackson, Ariad’s chief scientific officer. He said the company is prepared to immediately launch sales of the drug. “We believe the overall trial data suggests activity in all forms of resistant disease.”

Ponatinib is designed to target an abnormal tyrosine kinase that is closely associated with chronic myeloid leukemia and Philadelphia chromosome positive acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

Ariad is also testing the drug in newly diagnosed CML patients. Final results from that trial are expected at the end of 2014, but an interim analysis will occur after half of the trial patients are enrolled, Clackson said.

Around 5,000 U.S. patients are diagnosed with CML each year, and about 2,500 patients will become resistant to their treatment, according to Ariad.

(Reporting By Deena Beasley; Editing by Leslie Adler)

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Barnes and Noble Nook HD+ is a Big Screen, Good Value Tablet

Barnes and Noble Nook-HD+

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[More from Mashable: 7 Stylish iPad Cases With Notepads]

The other night I handed the new Barnes and Noble HD+ to my son to see his reaction to one of the latest 9-inch tablets. He held it, played with the screen and said, “Which one is this?” I told him and he answered, “I can’t tell the difference anymore.” It’s true, with the sudden explosion of 7-, near-8-, 9- and 10-inch-plus tablets, it’s getting a little hard to tell which one is which — especially when many larger tablets look like their tinier siblings.

Barnes and Noble’s large-format (9-inch) HD-screen entry, the HD+, is a quite similar to the 7-inch Nook HD. However, with its somewhat sharper corners and far-reduced black-screen border, it’s also more similar in appearance to larger tablets such as the Amazon Kindle Fire HD 8.9. What sets the Nook apart visually is the trademark nook hole in the lower left-hand corner. It appears to serve no visible purpose, though you could hold the roughly 18-ounce tablet by that corner without too much stress on your hand. It is one of the lightest tablets on the market, although it’s thicker than the Google Nexus 10, Kindle Fire 8.9 and fourth-generation Apple iPad.

[More from Mashable: The 7 Best Tablets for Kids]

Nook HD+’s other distinctive feature is the physical “N” home button on the face of the device. It’s an attribute the Nook HD+ (and 7-inch Nook HD) share with the iPad. As I’ve said before, having that obvious “take me home” button on the front of the device is something I wish every tablet manufacturer would replicate.

Interface

Speaking of replicate, much of what is important and what you need to know about Barnes and Noble’s biggest tablet can be found in my review of the 7-inch Nook HD. The interfaces are exactly the same, so I won’t waste too much space recounting every bit of the Nook HD+ interface, which obscures any trace of Android 4.0, and is exquisitely usable.

The biggest difference between the Nook HD and the HD+ is screen resolution. The HD gets you 1440×900 pixels, while the HD+ offers 1920×1280, which is slightly more than the Kindle Fire HD 8.9’s 1920×1200. The latter two devices are almost the exact same size. By contrast, the competitors’ 7-inch devices are quite different because Amazon includes a front-facing camera, while Barnes and Noble does not include cameras on any of its tablets (if you plan on taking photos or video with your tablet, you can stop reading now). In the case of the Nook HD+, Barnes and Noble uses the space it saves on a camera for, it appears, 80 extra pixels of space. For the record, neither device beats the iPad’s 2048×1536 resolution.

Connectvity

Barnes and Noble also chose to leave out a cellular option from all of its tablets. Amazon, on the other hand, adds it in for the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 LTE. This is not as big of a deal as it seems since the world is filled with high-speed Wi-Fi. Still, if you plan to surf the web on your tablet while sitting on a train without another device to which to tether your HD+, look for products with the mobile broadband option, instead.

When it comes to connectivity, Amazon adds dual-band Wi-Fi to its HD Kindle Fires, while Barnes and Noble’s tablet remains single band. I’ve tested both devices in the most stressful situation -– streaming HD video -– and the difference is negligible.

Using It

Barnes and Noble Nook HD+’s profile-centric interface remains one of the best on the market. There is no learning curve; you simply drag your profile image to the unlock icon, and you have access to the large and uncluttered interface that features a carousel (which like the Kindle is a hodge-podge of disparate icons), your library and some recently used apps. Persistent menu items include the Library, Apps, Web, email and Shop. The screen also includes “your Nook Today,” which, along with the weather, is a place for Barnes and Noble to push shopping options based on your interests.

As you would expect, reading books and magazines is a pleasurable experience, especially on this larger screen. Magazines such as Esquire look great and, yes, Barnes and Noble still employs the animated page turn (though I don’t know for how much longer). Email and Web browsing are solid, and I prefer Barnes and Noble’s web solution to Amazon’s home-grown Silk browser, which crashed too often for my taste.

Social integration is fairly good on the Nook HD+. When I installed the Twitter client, it became one of my options for social sharing. That said, the app looks like it would be more at home on a small-screen smartphone than on the HD+’s 9-inch display. For Facebook, I opted for the web interface, which looks too tiny in portrait mode, but just right in landscape.

Movies and Music

I had no trouble buying, renting and streaming HD-quality movies such Arthur Christmas, and Netflix worked smoothly. Barnes and Noble, however, lacks its own streaming option. If you pay $ 75 a year for Amazon Prime, you get access to a vast library of streaming content. Both devices will let you play HD content on your big-screen TV, though they do it in slightly different ways.

Amazon’s Kindle Fire HD 8.9 comes complete with a mini-HDI-out port, and can accommodate a mini-to-standard HDMI cable (not included), so I could watch the HD content on my big-screen TV. The Nook HD+ lacks an HDMI port, but you can buy a $ 39 adapter (with an HDMI cable), which plugs into the tablet’s 30-pin port, to do the same thing.

I still prefer the Kindle HD platform for music since Amazon’s music services are more deeply integrated into the device and its cloud-based storage offering. On the Nook HD+ you have to start by finding the music service under Apps. If Barnes and Noble is serious about music, it should be on the main menu. Worse yet, if you open the Music app, it offers no instruction on how to fill your music library. You have to add tunes via your computer, by connecting to your PC with the proprietary cable or through the Micro SD slot where you can add more storage or place, say, an entire library of songs.

If you have a Rhapsody Account, you can use it to manage your music needs on the Nook HD+.

I almost never use my large tablet for music (that’s a job for my iPhone or iPod), so I don’t miss the rich music capabilities as much as some others likely would.

Apps and Performance

Like Amazon, Barnes and Noble curates its app library, which generally makes it safe and usable. The key apps, such as Netflix, Twitter, Dropbox, MobiSystems’ OfficeSuite, FlipBoard and Evernote, are all there.

I found some games on there, too, such as the Angry Birds Series and Cut the Rope. On the other hand, Barnes and Noble has very few action games. This may be because, while it’s running the same Texas Instruments Dual core 4470 CPU as the Kindle Fire HD 8.9, it doesn’t offer the same quadcore graphics processing power as Apple’s fourth-generation iPad.

Amazon actually includes the GPU-hungry Asphalt 7 in its app library, but the game does not look particularly good on the Kindle Fire HD 8.9. Obviously, Barnes and Noble chose not to take that risk.

Price

At $ 269 for the 16 GB model (I tested the $ 299 32 GB option), Barnes and Noble’s Nook HD+ is one of the most affordable large-screen tablets on the market — that price even includes the AC adapter. Amazon’s Kindle Fire HD 8.9 costs $ 299, but does not include the charger, and adds subsidizing sleep-screen ads. A 16 GB Wi-Fi-only fourth-generation iPad starts at $ 499.

Obviously, the iPad is more powerful, has a higher resolution and two cameras, while the Kindle, which also includes a camera, offers powerful Dolby stereo speakers (Nook HD+ has ones with decent volume) and unlimited cloud-based storage for your Amazon content. But if those features don’t matter to you, and you’re looking for an attractive, large-screen, light-weight, fun, effective and very affordable tablet from a company that knows a thing or two about good content, you can’t do better than the Nook HD+.

This story originally published on Mashable here.

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Peru’s capital highly vulnerable to major quake

LIMA, Peru (AP) — The earthquake all but flattened colonial Lima, the shaking so violent that people tossed to the ground couldn’t get back up. Minutes later, a 50-foot (15-meter) wall of Pacific Ocean crashed into the adjacent port of Callao, killing all but 200 of its 5,000 inhabitants. Bodies washed ashore for weeks.

Plenty of earthquakes have shaken Peru‘s capital in the 266 years since that fateful night of Oct. 28, 1746, though none with anything near the violence.

The relatively long “seismic silence” means that Lima, set astride one of the most volatile ruptures in the Earth’s crust, is increasingly at risk of being hammered by a one-two, quake-tsunami punch as calamitous as what devastated Japan last year and traumatized Santiago, Chile, and its nearby coast a year earlier, seismologists say.

Yet this city of 9 million people is sorely unprepared. Its acute vulnerability, from densely clustered, unstable housing to a dearth of first-responders, is unmatched regionally. Peru’s National Civil Defense Institute forecasts up to 50,000 dead, 686,000 injured and 200,000 homes destroyed if Lima is hit by a magnitude-8.0 quake.

“In South America, it is the most at risk,” said architect Jose Sato, director of the Center for Disaster Study and Prevention, or PREDES, a non-governmental group financed by the charity Oxfam that is working on reducing Lima’s quake vulnerability.

Lima is home to a third of Peru’s population, 70 percent of its industry, 85 percent of its financial sector, its entire central government and the bulk of international commerce.

“A quake similar to what happened in Santiago would break the country economically,” said Gabriel Prado, Lima’s top official for quake preparedness. That quake had a magnitude of 8.8.

Quakes are frequent in Peru, with about 170 felt by people annually, said Hernando Tavera, director of seismology at the country’s Geophysical Institute. A big one is due, and the chances of it striking increase daily, he said. The same collision of tectonic plates responsible for the most powerful quake ever recorded, a magnitude-9.5 quake that hit Chile in 1960, occurs just off Lima’s coast, where about 3 inches of oceanic crust slides annually beneath the continent.

A 7.5-magnitude quake in 1974 a day’s drive from Lima in the Cordillera Blanca range killed about 70,000 people as landslides buried villages. Seventy-eight people died in the capital. In 2007, a 7.9-magnitude quake struck even closer, killing 596 people in the south-central coastal city of Pisco.

A shallow, direct hit is the big danger.

More than two in five Lima residents live either in rickety structures on unstable, sandy soil and wetlands that amplify a quake’s destructive power or in hillside settlements that sprang up over a generation as people fled conflict and poverty in Peru’s interior. Thousands are built of colonial-era adobe.

Most quake-prone countries have rigorous building codes to resist seismic events. In Chile, if engineers and builders don’t adhere to them they can face prison. Not so in Peru.

“People are building with adobe just as they did in the 17th century,” said Carlos Zavala, director of Lima’s Japanese-Peruvian Center for Seismic Investigation and Disaster Mitigation.

Environmental and human-made perils compound the danger.

Situated in a coastal desert, Lima gets its water from a single river, the Rimac, which a landslide could easily block. That risk is compounded by a containment pond full of toxic heavy metals from an old mine that could rupture and contaminate the Rimac, said Agustin Gonzalez, a PREDES official advising Lima’s government.

Most of Lima’s food supply arrives via a two-lane highway that parallels the river, another potential chokepoint.

Lima’s airport and seaport, the key entry points for international aid, are also vulnerable. Both are in Callao, which seismologists expect to be scoured by a 20-foot (6-meter) tsunami if a big quake is centered offshore, the most likely scenario.

Mayor Susana Villaran’s administration is Lima’s first to organize a quake-response and disaster mitigation plan. A February 2011 law obliged Peru’s municipalities to do so. Yet Lima’s remains incipient.

“How are the injured going to be attended to? What is the ability of hospitals to respond? Of basic services? Water, energy, food reserves? I don’t think this is being addressed with enough responsibility,” said Tavera of the Geophysical Institute.

By necessity, most injured will be treated where they fall, but Peru’s police have no comprehensive first-aid training. Only Lima’s 4,000 firefighters, all volunteers, have such training, as does a 1,000-officer police emergency squadron.

But because the firefighters are volunteers, a quake’s timing could influence rescue efforts.

“If you go to a fire station at 10 in the morning there’s hardly anyone there,” said Gonzalez, who advocates a full-time professional force.

In the next two months, Lima will spend nearly $ 2 million on the three fire companies that cover downtown Lima, its first direct investment in firefighters in 25 years, Prado said. The national government is spending $ 18 million citywide for 50 new fire trucks and ambulances.

But where would the ambulances go?

A 1997 study by the Pan American Health Organization found that three of Lima’s principal public hospitals would likely collapse in a major quake, but nothing has been done to reinforce them.

And there are no free beds. One public hospital, Maria Auxiliadora, serves more than 1.2 million people in Lima’s south but has just 400 beds, and they are always full.

Contingency plans call for setting up mobile hospitals in tents in city parks. But Gonzalez said only about 10,000 injured could be treated.

Water is also a worry. The fire threat to Lima is severe — from refineries to densely-backed neighborhoods honeycombed with colonial-era wood and adobe. Lima’s firefighters often can’t get enough water pressure to douse a blaze.

“We should have places where we can store water not just to put out fires but also to distribute water to the population,” said Sato, former head of the disaster mitigation department at Peru’s National Engineering University.

The city’s lone water-and-sewer utility can barely provide water to one-tenth of Lima in the best of times.

Another big concern: Lima has no emergency operations center and the radio networks of the police, firefighters and the Health Ministry, which runs city hospitals, use different frequencies, hindering effective communication.

Nearly half of the city’s schools require a detailed evaluation to determine how to reinforce them against collapse, Sato said.

A recent media blitz, along with three nationwide quake-tsunami drills this year, helped raise consciousness. The city has spent more than $ 77 million for retention walls and concrete stairs to aid evacuation in hillside neighborhoods, Prado said, but much more is needed.

At the biggest risk, apart from tsunami-vulnerable Callao, are places like Nueva Rinconada.

A treeless moonscape in the southern hills, it is a haven for economic refugees who arrive daily from Peru’s countryside and cobble together precarious homes on lots they scored into steep hillsides with pickaxes.

Engineers who have surveyed Nueva Rinconada call its upper reaches a death trap. Most residents understand this but say they have nowhere else to go.

Water arrives in tanker trucks at $ 1 per 200 liters (52 gallons) but is unsafe to drink unless boiled. There is no sanitation; people dig their own latrines. There are no streetlamps, and visibility is erased at night as Lima’s bone-chilling fog settles into the hills.

Homes of wood, adobe and straw matting rest on piled-rock foundations that engineers say will crumble and rain down on people below in a major quake.

A recently built concrete retaining wall at the valley’s head lies a block beneath the thin-walled wood home of Hilarion Lopez, a 55-year-old janitor and community leader. It might keep his house from sliding downhill, but boulders resting on uphill slopes could shake loose and crush him and his neighbors.

“We’ve made holes and poured concrete around some of the more unstable boulders,” he says, squinting uphill in a strong late morning sun.

He’s not so worried if a quake strikes during daylight.

“But if I get caught at night? How do I see a rock?”

___

Associated Press writer Franklin Briceno contributed to this report.

___

Frank Bajak on Twitter: http://twitter.com/fbajak

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Egyptian opposition to shun Mursi’s national dialogue

CAIRO (Reuters) – President Mohamed Mursi was expected to press ahead on Saturday with talks on ways to end Egypt‘s worst crisis since he took office even though the country’s main opposition leaders have vowed to stay away.

Cairo and other cities have been rocked by violent protests since November 22, when Mursi promulgated a decree awarding himself sweeping powers that put him above the law.

The upheaval in the most populous Arab nation, following the fall of Hosni Mubarak last year, worries the West, in particular the United States, which has given it billions of dollars in military and other aid since Egypt made peace with Israel in 1979.

Mursi’s deputy raised the possibility that a referendum set for December 15 on a new constitution opposed by liberals might be delayed. But the concession only goes part-way towards meeting the demands of the opposition, who also want Mursi to scrap the decree awarding himself wide powers.

On Friday, large crowds of protesters surged around the presidential palace, breaking through barbed wire barricades and climbing on tanks guarding the seat of Egypt’s first freely elected president, who took office in June.

As the night wore on, tens of thousands of opposition supporters were still at the palace, waving flags and urging Mursi to “Leave, leave”.

“AS LONG AS IT TAKES”

“We will stay here for as long as it takes and will continue to organize protests elsewhere until President Mursi cancels his constitutional decree and postpones the referendum,” said Ahmed Essam, 28, a computer engineer and a member of the liberal Dostour party.

Vice President Mahmoud Mekky issued a statement saying the president was prepared to postpone the referendum if that could be done without legal challenge.

Mursi’s planned dialogue meeting was expected to go ahead on Saturday in the absence of most opposition factions. “Everything will be on the table,” a presidential source said.

Mursi could be joined by some senior judiciary figures and politicians such as Ayman Nour, one of the candidates in Mubarak’s only multi-candidate presidential race, in 2005, in which he was unsurprisingly trounced.

The opposition has demanded that Mursi rescind the decree giving himself wide powers and delay the vote set for December 15 on a constitution drafted by an Islamist-led assembly which they say fails to meet the aspirations of all Egyptians.

EXPAT VOTE DELAYED

The state news agency reported that the election committee had postponed the start of voting for Egyptians abroad until Wednesday, instead of Saturday as planned. It did not say whether this would affect the timing of voting within Egypt.

Ahmed Said, leader of the liberal Free Egyptians Party, told Reuters that delaying expatriate voting was intended to seem like a concession but would not change the opposition’s stance.

The opposition organized marches converging on the palace which Republican Guard units had ringed with tanks and barbed wire on Thursday after violence between supporters and opponents of Mursi killed seven people and wounded 350.

Islamists, who had obeyed a military order for demonstrators to leave the palace environs, held funerals on Friday at Cairo’s al-Azhar mosque for six Mursi partisans who were among the dead.

“With our blood and souls, we sacrifice to Islam,” they chanted.

A group led by leftist opposition leader Hamdeen Sabahy has called for an open-ended protest at the palace.

Some pro-Mursi demonstrators gathered in a mosque not far from the palace, but said they would not march towards the palace to avoid a repeat of the violence that took place on Wednesday night.

In a speech late on Thursday, Mursi had refused to retract his decree or cancel the referendum on the constitution, but offered talks on the way forward after the referendum.

The National Salvation Front, the main opposition coalition, said it would not join the dialogue. The Front’s coordinator, Mohamed ElBaradei, a Nobel peace laureate, dismissed the offer as “arm-twisting and imposition of a fait accompli”.

ElBaradei said that if Mursi were to scrap the decree with which he awarded himself extra powers and postpone the referendum “he will unite the national forces”.

Murad Ali, spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party, said opposition reactions were sad: “What exit to this crisis do they have other than dialogue?” he asked.

(This story corrects Mursi’s title to president in paragraph 1)

(Additional reporting by Omar Fahmy; Writing by Giles Elgood; Editing by Michael Roddy and Paul Tait)

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FCC chairman urges FAA to revise in-flight iPad rules

No, it doesn’t make any sense that you have to turn off your iPad or Kindle during airplane landings, and now the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission wants to see that change. In a letter to the Federal Aviation Administration, FCC chairman Julius Genachowski urged the agency to “enable greater use of tablets, e-readers, and other portable devices” on flights, The Hill reports. Genachowski went on to say that letting passengers use their devices more during flights is important because “mobile devices are increasingly interwoven in our daily lives” and that they “enable both large and small businesses to be more productive and efficient, helping drive economic growth and boost U.S. competitiveness.”

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Springsteen, Alabama Shakes top Rolling Stone’s 2012 best music

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Veteran rocker Bruce Springsteen and newcomer blues-rock band Alabama Shakes landed the top awards in Rolling Stone magazine‘s annual list of the year’s best music on Friday, which featured many of next year’s leading Grammy nominees.

Springsteen‘s 17th studio album “Wrecking Ball” topped the magazine’s list of best albums, with the magazine calling it “rock’s most pointed response to the Great Recession.”

Springsteen, 63, came in ahead of hip hop artist Frank Ocean‘s debut “Channel Orange” at No. 2 and former White Stripes front man Jack White‘s debut solo effort, “Blunderbuss” at No. 3, in the annual list selected and compiled by Rolling Stone editors.

Springsteen, Ocean and White all landed Grammy nods, which were announced earlier this week.

The rest of the top ten albums included Bob Dylan’s “Tempest,” Green Day’s “¡Uno!,” Neil Young and Crazy Horse’s “Psychedelic Pill,” Kendrick Lamar’s “good kid, m.A.A.d city” and Fiona Apple‘s “The Idler Wheel is Wiser…”

“Hold On” by newcomer blues-rockers Alabama Shakes was named the top song of the year, beating off popular tracks by Ocean, White, Springsteen, Dylan and Kanye West in the top 10.

While both the albums and songs lists were dominated by rock and rap artists both old and new, country-pop star Taylor Swift was a surprising entry at No. 2 on the best songs list with her infectious chart-topping hit song “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together.”

Rolling Stone described the song, which landed a Grammy nod for record of the year, “a perfect three-minute teen tantrum about country girls getting mad at high-strung indie boys.”

Pop-rockers Passion Pit’s “Take a Walk,” Ocean’s “Thinkin Bout You” and Young and Crazy Horse’s “Ramada Inn” rounded out the top five songs.

Rolling Stone‘s full list of 2012′s 50 best albums can be viewed at http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/50-best-albums-of-2012-20121205 and the 50 best songs at http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/50-best-songs-of-2012-20121205

(Reporting by Eric Kelsey, Editing by Piya Sinha-Roy and Andrew Hay)

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Cold Remedy Cocktails: Do They Work?

Dec 8, 2012 8:00am

Credit: Getty Images

When it comes to adding a shot of alcohol to your cold or flu remedy, it’s hard not to wish those boozy concoctions are doing some good for your health.  As it turns out, they are.

Well, kinda.

Drinks like hot toddies, which traditionally contain whiskey, lemon and honey, can actually give cold and flu patients relief from their symptoms, said Dr. William Schaffner, chair of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn.

It just can’t prevent or cure a cold or flu virus.

“It would not have an effect on the virus itself, but its effect on the body can possibly give you some modest symptom relief,” Schaffner said. “The alcohol dilates blood vessels a little bit, and that makes it easier for your mucus membranes to deal with the infection.”

Since Sept. 30, more than 5,100 influenza cases have been reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, including 40 cases of H1N1.

Click here to read about how flu has little to do with cold weather.

Schaffner said warm moisture from a steaming mug of any beverage can offer symptom relief.

“That’s part of why chicken soup is thought to work,” he said.

Any liquid is good, but people drinking spiked remedies need to be sure they’re also keeping up their nonalcoholic fluids, Schaffner said. Alcohol, coffee and tea are diuretics, meaning they cause kidneys to get rid of fluid faster than they usually do.  Schaffner recommends supplementing that flu cocktail with water and fruit juice (as long as it’s not too sugary).

A Japanese study this week found that an ingredient in beer can curb the respiratory syncytial virus, which causes cold- and flu-like symptoms, according to The Associated Press. The study, funded by Sapporo Breweries, found that humulone, a chemical in hops,  can fight viruses. However, someone would have to drink 30 12-ounce cans of beer for it to work.

“We would not recommend going out and drinking 30 bottles of beer every day to ward off the flu,” Schaffner said. “Better to get vaccinated.”

Click here to read about five more flu-fighters.

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Supreme Court: Both sides in gay marriage debate voice optimism

Both sides of the contentious debate over same-sex marriage in America are expressing optimism over the news Friday that the US Supreme Court has agreed to take up two potential landmark gay rights cases.

The high court announced it would hear arguments in a case testing the constitutionality of California’s Prop. 8 ban on same-sex marriage.

It also said it would hear the case of an elderly New York City woman who claims the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) violates her right to have her same-sex marriage recognized and respected by the federal government on the same terms as marriages of opposite-sex couples.

Gay marriage laws around the globe

DOMA restricts receipt of federal spousal benefits to marriages comprised of one man and one woman. Same-sex spouses who are legally married in their home states are nonetheless barred from receiving federal benefits under the 1996 law.

The high court action comes a month after voters in three states – Maryland, Washington, and Maine – agreed to join six other states and the District of Columbia in embracing same-sex marriages.

“With our wins at the ballot box last month and the fight for marriage equality reaching our nation’s highest court, we have reached a turning point in this noble struggle,” said Chad Griffin, president of the gay rights group, Human Rights Campaign.

“Today’s announcement gives hope that we will see a landmark Supreme Court ruling for marriage this term,” he said in a statement.

Kate Kendell, of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, sounded similarly optimistic.

“We are confident the Supreme Court will strike down DOMA once and for all next year, and, after four long years, will finally erase the stain of Proposition 8 and restore marriage equality to California couples,” she said.

“The day is now clearly in sight when the federal government, the state of California, and every state will recognize that same-sex couples and their children are entitled to the same respect and recognition as every other family,” Ms. Kendell said.

At the same time, those defending the traditional definition of marriage – as the union of one man and one woman – also viewed the court’s action as a step forward toward legal vindication of their position.

John Eastman, chairman of the National Organization for Marriage, said the court’s decision to take up the Prop. 8 case suggests an intent by the justices to reinstate California’s ban on same-sex marriage.

“We believe it is a strong signal that the court will reverse the lower courts and uphold Proposition 8,” Mr. Eastman said.

“Had the Supreme Court agreed with the lower courts’ decisions invalidating Proposition 8, it could simply have declined to grant … the case,” Eastman said. “It’s a strong signal that the justices are concerned with the rogue rulings that have come out of San Francisco.”

Eastman added that the Prop. 8 appeals court decision was written by Judge Stephen Reinhart. “It’s worth noting that Judge Reinhart is the most overruled judge in America. I think this case will add to his record.”

Others disagreed.

Evan Wolfson, founder and president of Freedom to Marry, said the high court action opens the way for a civil rights breakthrough for same-sex spouses.

“Gay and lesbian couples in California – and indeed all over this country – now look to the Supreme Court to affirm that the Constitution does not permit states to strip something as important as the freedom to marry away from one group of Americans,” he said.

Mr. Wolfson urged the justices to move quickly to affirm the 10 federal court judges who have ruled in recent years that DOMA is unconstitutional.

“When it comes to the whole federal safety net that accompanies marriage – access to Social Security survivorship, health coverage, family leave, fair tax treatment, family immigration, and over 1,000 other protections and responsibilities – couples who are legally married in the states should be treated by the federal government as what they are: married,” Wolfson said.

Others viewed the high court’s task in broader terms.

“Today, the Supreme Court has put itself on the path of deciding the most contentious civil rights issue of our day,” said David Cohen, a law professor at Drexel University in Philadelphia.

“By taking both cases, the court is boldly asserting its role in same-sex marriage,” he said.

Professor Cohen said the justices have a choice to either follow the example of prior courts that have ruled to expand civil rights or those that ruled in ways that contracted civil rights. Given shifting public opinion in support of gay rights and same-sex marriage, the professor says it is unlikely that the court will rule against a broader conception of marriage.

Jim Campbell, a lawyer with the conservative group, Alliance Defending Freedom, stressed that Americans have a right to preserve the traditional definition of marriage. He said the institution forms a “fundamental building block of civilization.”

“Marriage between a man and a woman is a universal good that diverse cultures and faiths have honored throughout the history of Western civilization,” he said. “Marriage expresses the truth that men and women bring distinct, irreplaceable gifts to family life.”

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Singer James Taylor suggested for lead role in “Lincoln”

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Singer-songwriter James Taylor says he doesn’t see the resemblance, but he was pitched – without success – to play the role of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln in the new film.

Taylor told a packed audience at the National Press Club on Friday that Oscar-winning musician John Williams – who composed the soundtrack for “Lincoln” – had pushed for Taylor to play the lead role in Steven Spielberg‘s new film.

The role of Lincoln in the historical drama ultimately went to Oscar winner Daniel Day-Lewis.

“John wanted me to play that part. He actually stood up for me there and suggested me at one point,” said Taylor, 64, adding, “It was never going to happen.”

The “Fire and Rain” singer, who has no professional acting experience, said he was flattered that some people thought Day-Lewis’ portrayal of Lincoln reminded them of him. But he did not see much resemblance aside from the fact that they were “tall and somewhat skinny.”

“He doesn’t look like me to me, but I live in here, so I’m apt to notice the difference,” Taylor said.

British-born actor Day-Lewis, who already has two Oscars, is seen as a front runner to take home another golden statuette at the Academy Awards in February.

Taylor said he had no ambitions to go into acting after what he called “an interesting ride” of a performance career in which he essentially played himself.

“This is fine. I’ve spent my life being myself for a living,” said Taylor, a five-time Grammy Award winner.

“There are performers who develop and assume a character that they then play for the public. But I don’t know anyone who is as much themselves publicly for a living as I am,” he said.

Taylor and his third wife, Kim Taylor, campaigned actively for then-candidate Barack Obama in 2008 and again in 2012. The singer performed in Washington on Thursday evening at the 90th annual lighting of the National Christmas Tree, presided over this year by President Obama and his family.

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal-Esa; Editing by Jill Serjeant and Lisa Shumaker)

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