Apple sells three million iPads over first weekend

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Scenes from Election Day: America votes

People line up early to vote at Washington Mill Elementary School in Alexandria, Va. (Patrick Smith/Getty Imag …


The most expensive presidential race in American history—some $2.6 billion was spent—is finally coming to an end. The barrage of political ads is quieting, and voters now have the chance to speak.


Polls close in Virginia, Indiana, Georgia, Kentucky, South Carolina and Vermont at 7 PM ET, with other states following close behind. Alaska's polling stations, the last to close, finally shutter at 1 AM Wednesday. In the meantime, we'll be gathering all the latest news about the candidates, polling stations and swing states here.


12 PM: Republican National Committee official Tim Miller is complaining on Twitter that a Philadelphia polling place has put up voting booths right next to a mural of Obama. The location of the polling site is 35th ward-D18 Franklin School, according to the Weekly Standard. Miller wrote that the Pennsylvania GOP has filed a complaint. Electioneering, including posting campaign signs, is not allowed within 100 feet of a polling place.


Obama mural in Philadelphia. (Tim Miller)


11:40 AM: Elections officials in Pinellas county in Florida mistakenly sent hundreds of robocalls telling voters they had until 7:00 PM Wednesday to vote, the Tampa Bay Times reports. (The last polls close at 8 PM Tuesday in the state.) Elections officials sent a second message to alert voters who received the calls of the mistake. A majority of the county voted Democratic in 2008.


11 AM: A Chrysler official wrote on Twitter that the car company has given its entire workforce the day off to vote. Late last month the company had strongly denied the accuracy of an ad from Mitt Romney's campaign stating that the automaker was moving its Jeep production to China. The company, in fact, said it recently added 1,100 jobs in the swing state of Ohio, where one in eight jobs is connected to the auto industry.



10 AM: All four major candidates have cast their ballots. President Barack Obama voted weeks ago in Chicago as part of his campaign's push to get their supporters to vote early in states that allow it. Voting on Tuesday: Vice President Joe Biden, at a Wilmington, Del., high school; Gov. Mitt Romney and his wife, Ann, near their Belmont, Mass., home; and Paul Ryan cast his ballot in his hometown of Janesville, Wis.


9:40 AM: The first election results are in—and it's a tie. In New Hampshire, Dixville Notch's 10 registered votes split evenly 5-5 between Romney and Obama. The small village has cast its ballots at midnight since 1960, giving political junkies an early look at how candidates are faring in the Granite State. President Obama carried the small village in 2008, but Dixville Notch went to George W. Bush in both 2000 and 2004.


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Springsteen, Jay-Z put the pop in Obama rally
















COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Someone has to introduce the president.


On Monday, the final day of the presidential campaign, President Barack Obama, however, didn’t bring along an opening act. He brought along two main acts.













Bruce Springsteen. Jay-Z. Theirs wasn’t an introduction, it was pop culture moment.


The Boss was spending the entire day with Obama, traveling on Air Force One from Madison, Wis., to Columbus, Ohio, and then to Des Moines, Iowa, where Obama planned a coda for his campaign, a finale where his run for the presidency began five years ago.


Jay-Z boomed his way into Columbus‘s Nationwide Arena, performing a rendition of his hit “99 Problems” with a political twist for a crowd estimated by fire officials at more than 15,000 people. He changed a key R-rated word to make his own political endorsement. “I got 99 problems but Mitt ain’t one,” he sang.


“They tell the story of what our country is,” Obama said of the two performers, “but also of what it should be and what it can be.”


Springsteen added a whole new sense of vigor, even giddiness, to the Obama entourage, with many of the president’s aides and advisers clearly star-struck by the rocker’s presence.


Springsteen, in jeans, black boots, a work shirt, vest and leather jacket, was not wearing the typical Air Force One attire. But the Obama camp has left formality aside; many aides are growing beards through Election Day and ties have been left behind in favor of sweaters for the chilly outdoor events during the last hours of the campaign.


Asked if there was any downside to using celebrity glitz instead of substance to drive voters to the polls in the final days, Obama spokeswoman Jen Psaki laughed. “I think Bruce Springsteen might be offended by you calling him glitzy,” she said.


“Bruce Springsteen, and some other celebrities who have been helping us, reach a broad audience that sometimes tune out what’s being said by politicians,” she said.


As Psaki spoke to reporters at the back of the plane, Obama was up front and on the phone with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie discussing the recovery from Superstorm Sandy. Christie, who says he has attended more than 100 Springsteen concerts, said Obama then handed the phone to Springsteen, a New Jersey native whose songs often have been tributes to his youth in the state.


Upon landing in Columbus, Springsteen told a reporter that it was his first trip on Air Force One. Grinning, he said, “It was pretty cool.” As for New Jersey, he said, “I’m feeling pretty hopeful” that the state’s hard-hit shore will recover.


In Madison and Columbus, Springsteen serenaded audiences with renditions of top anthems “No Surrender,” ”Promised Land” and “Land of Hope and Dreams.” But he also has a custom-made campaign song named after the Obama motto “Forward” — which he acknowledged was “not the best I’ve ever written.”


“How many things rhyme with Obama?” he asked.


Obama, no doubt, didn’t mind.


“I’m going to be fine with Bruce Springsteen on the last day that I’ll ever campaign,” he said above the din of the crowd.


“That’s not a bad way to bring it home. With The Boss. With The Boss.”


Entertainment News Headlines – Yahoo! News



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Even fit baby boomers won’t escape heart problems
















CHICAGO (AP) — Here’s a reality check for health-conscious baby boomers: Even among those in good shape, at least 1 in 3 will eventually develop heart problems or have a stroke.


The upside is that that will happen about seven years later than for their less healthy peers.













The findings come in an analysis of five major studies involving nearly 50,000 adults aged 45 and older who were followed for up to 50 years.


The best odds are in the healthiest adults — those who don’t smoke, have diabetes, high blood pressure or high cholesterol. Still, among 55-year-olds in that category, about a third can expect to develop heart or other cardiovascular problems as they age.


Dr. Vincent Bufalino, a Chicago area cardiologist and spokesman for the American Heart Association, said the study is “a wake-up call that this disease is very prevalent in the United States and even if you’re doing a good job, you’re not immune.”


The researchers estimated risks older people face for developing these ailments in their lifetime, or by their 80s or 90s. They also estimated how many years they’ll live free of heart disease and related problems, depending on the most common risk factors.


Pooling follow-up data from the five analyzed studies, the researchers found that the healthiest 45-year-olds lived up to 14 years longer free of heart ailments than those with at least two risk factors. The healthiest 55-year-olds lived up to about seven years longer than their less healthy peers.


The study was published online Monday in the Journal of the American Medical Association and released in connection with the American Heart Association conference meeting in Los Angeles. The National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute paid for the research.


The authors estimated higher lifetime risks than previous studies, but their analysis involved a broader range of ailments, including heart failure and strokes.


While prevalence of heart disease and related deaths have declined nationwide in recent years, more than 82 million Americans — roughly one-third — have some form of cardiovascular disease, according to the American Heart Association.


Most people in the analysis had high blood pressure or at least one of the other risk factors.


The results shouldn’t be discouraging, said lead author Dr. John Wilkins, an assistant professor of preventive medicine and cardiology at Northwestern University’s medical school in Chicago. Maintaining an optimal lifestyle, by eating sensibly and staying active, is still the best way to live a long, healthy life, he said.


Heart disease remains the nation’s leading cause of death, and the study reinforces the idea that “cardiovascular disease is part of the aging process,” said Cleveland Clinic heart specialist Dr. David Frid, who was not involved in the research. Bodies wear out, “and ultimately, just exposure to living is going to cause people to develop some of these underlying problems,” Frid said.


___


Online:


JAMA: http://jama.ama-assn.org


American Heart Association: http://www.heart.org


___


AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner


Health News Headlines – Yahoo! News



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Bomb shakes Damascus, opposition holds unity talks
















AMMAN (Reuters) – A bomb exploded near army and security compounds in Damascus, Syrian television reported, and fractured opposition groups seeking to topple President Bashar al-Assad began unity talks abroad to win international respect and arms supplies.


The 50-kilogram (110-pound) bomb, near a large hotel in a heavily guarded district, was described by state media as an attack by “terrorists” – the government’s term for insurgents in the 19-month-old uprising against Assad.













Opposition activists said Sunday’s blast appeared to be the work of the Ahfad al-Rasoul (Grandsons of the Prophet) Brigade, an Islamist militant unit that attacked military and intelligence targets several times in the last two months.


The mainly Sunni rebels have carried out a series of bombings targeting government and military buildings in Damascus this year, extending the war into the seat of Assad’s power.


The Syrian conflict has aggravated divisions in the Islamic world, with Shi’ite Iran supporting Assad — whose Alawite faith derives from Shi’ite Islam — and U.S.-allied Sunni nations such as Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar backing his foes.


The Syrian Network for Human Rights, an activist monitoring group, said government forces had killed 179 people on Sunday. It said most of the dead were civilians killed in shelling of Damascus suburbs and included 14 women and 20 children. The rest were rebels killed in battles in the capital and the northern provinces of Idlib and Aleppo.


Opposition campaigners said the Syrian army shelled rebel positions inside a Palestinian refugee camp on the edge of Damascus on Sunday, killing at least 20 people. They said the Yarmouk camp had become the latest battleground in the war.


In northern Idlib, opposition sources said rebels were forced to halt an offensive to take a big air base because of a shortage of ammunition, a problem that has dogged their campaign to cement a hold on the north by eliminating Assad’s devastating edge in firepower.


Islamist insurgents had launched the attack on the Taftanaz military airport at dawn on Saturday, using rocket launchers and at least three tanks captured from the military.


The Syrian government restricts journalists’ access in Syria, making it difficult to verify reports from the ground.


The Jaafar bin Tayyar Division, a rebel unit in Deir al-Zor, said its fighters had taken control of the al-Ward oilfield near the Iraqi border on Sunday, after overrunning a loyalist outpost that had 40 militiamen defending it.


Rebel commanders, former Syrian officials and the Syrian head of an oil services company familiar with oil production in the area said the fields, mostly not operational, had been under de facto rebel control for months.


FEARS OF WIDER CONFLAGRATION


The conflict began with peaceful protest rallies that morphed into armed revolt when Assad, whose family has ruled Syria since 1971, tried to stamp them out with military might. About 32,000 people have been killed, wide swathes of the major Arab state have been wrecked and the civil war threatens to widen into a regional sectarian conflagration.


The opposition talks that began in Qatar marked the first concerted attempt to meld feuding, disparate groups based abroad and coordinate strategy with rebels fighting in Syria.


Divisions between Islamists and secularists as well as between those inside Syria and opposition figures based abroad have foiled prior attempts to forge a united opposition and deterred Western powers from intervening militarily.


Analysts were skeptical the planned four days of opposition talks in the Qatari capital Doha would bring immediate results.


They aim to broaden the Syrian National Council (SNC), the largest of the overseas-based opposition groups, from some 300 members to 400, to pave the way for talks in Doha on Thursday including other anti-Assad factions to crystallise a coalition.


“The main aim is to expand the council to include more of the social and political components. There will be new forces in the SNC,” Abdulbaset Sieda, current leader of the Syrian National Council, told reporters in Doha ahead of the meeting.


The meetings would also elect a new executive committee and leader for the SNC, he said.


A Qatar-based security analyst, who asked not to be named, said the meetings would bring a small step forward, at most. “The Syrian National Council is just too divided,” he said.


In Cairo, the international mediator on Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, called on Sunday for world powers to issue a U.N. Security Council resolution based on a deal they reached in June to set up a transitional Syrian government.


But Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, speaking at the same news conference, dismissed the need for a resolution and said others were stoking violence by backing rebels. His comments highlighted the impasse over Syria’s civil war.


Russia and China, both permanent council members, have vetoed three Western-backed U.N. draft resolutions condemning Assad’s government for the violence. The other three permanent members are the United States, Britain and France.


(Additional reporting by Rania el Gamal and Regan Doherty in Qatar, Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman; Editing by Philippa Fletcher and Stephen Powell)


World News Headlines – Yahoo! News



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Apple sells 3 million iPads over first weekend

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Sandy could cast doubt on election results

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The devastating storm that slammed into the U.S. East Coast last week could send winds of uncertainty through Tuesday's presidential election, narrowing an already close contest and casting doubt on the legitimacy of the outcome.


Though superstorm Sandy is unlikely to determine whether President Barack Obama or Republican Mitt Romney wins the White House, experts said it could expose flaws in how the United States conducts elections, leading to protracted legal wrangling and lingering bitterness in a country already fractured along partisan lines.


In a worst-case scenario, the storm disruption could cause Obama to lose the popular vote and still win re-election, stirring up vitriolic memories of the contested 2000 battle that allowed Republican George W. Bush to triumph over Democrat Al Gore.


Last-minute changes imposed by election officials also could


further arm campaign lawyers looking to challenge the result.


At minimum, low turnout would add another wild card to an election projected to be among the closest in U.S. history. Voting could be an afterthought for hundreds of thousands of people still struggling with power outages, fuel shortages and plummeting temperatures.


"It's a possibility that we'll see significant drops in turnout in some of these densely populated areas," said George Mason University professor Michael MacDonald, a voter turnout expert.


"The effects could be quite dramatic in terms of the popular vote," he said.


ONE MORE HEADACHE


Tuesday's election presents yet another headache for local officials in New York and New Jersey, which were hardest hit by the storm. Rescue workers are still recovering bodies, 1.9 million homes and businesses have no power, and tens of thousands of people are without heat as temperatures dip near freezing.


Sandy, one of the most damaging storms to hit the United States, hammered the region with 80-mile-per-hour (129-kph) winds, while walls of water overran seaside communities. At least 113 people in the United States and Canada died.


Election authorities now face unprecedented challenges. In New York City, 143,000 voters have been assigned new polling stations. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Sunday called the city's elections board "dysfunctional" and warned that it needs to clearly communicate changes to poll workers.


In New Jersey, where 25 percent of homes and businesses have no power, officials are allowing displaced voters to cast their ballots by email. In battered Monmouth County, officials are spreading the word about new polling locations in at least 29 towns and setting aside paper ballots to use if electronic voting machines fail.


"Whatever it takes, Asbury Park is voting," City Manager Terence Reidy said.


Legal experts said the late changes, however well-intentioned, may give the losing candidate a basis to challenge results.


"The devil is in the details and no doubt these new rules will be fertile ground for those who choose to challenge the results in the election." said Angelo Genova, a New Jersey election law expert who represents Democratic candidates in this election.


The post-Sandy chaos also could expose flaws in the arcane electoral college system the United States uses to elect presidents.


Candidates are not required to win the popular vote nationwide, but they must amass a majority of the 538 "electoral votes" that are awarded to each state based on population. The system was set up when the United States was founded, as a compromise between slave states and free states.


Usually the electoral college winner also wins the popular vote. But in two elections - 1876 and 2000 - the results diverged, creating historic controversies.


This year, Obama is expected to handily win New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, the states most impacted by the storm. But his popular vote total could fall by hundreds of thousands if large numbers of storm-hit voters in Democratic areas are unable to participate. Conceivably, Obama could win the White House while losing the popular vote.


Several experts said they consider that outcome unlikely.


"You'll see lower turnout, yes, but it's not going to change the outcome of the election," said Hunter College political-science professor Jamie Chandler, who predicts Obama will win by at least 1 million votes.


If Obama carries the popular vote by a narrow margin, it could have implications on his ability to govern effectively, according to Ruy Teixeira, a senior fellow at the liberal Center for American Progress.


"The more Obama has a solid popular margin the better his victory," he said.


On Sunday, several Republicans said the storm gave Obama an advantage in the campaign's final week by shifting public attention away from the sluggish economy and other topics they hoped to emphasize.


"The hurricane is what broke Romney's momentum," former Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour said on CNN.


Obama campaign officials said that they are confident the storm will not interfere with the voting process. But they intend to have legal experts on standby just in case.


"We're going to have lawyers who are ready to make sure people can exercise their right to vote. We're going to protect that as fiercely as we can," Obama senior adviser David Plouffe said on Friday.


(Fixes typo in quote in 14th paragraph) (Additional reporting by Jeff Mason, Erin Smith, Jonathan Spicer, Philip Barbara and Andrew Longstreth; Editing by Marilyn W. Thompson and Paul Simao)


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MTV to air fundraiser for devastated Jersey shore
















NEW YORK (AP) — MTV, home of the “Jersey Shore” reality show, plans to air a fundraising special to help rebuild New Jersey’s devastated shoreline.


The one-hour program will air Nov. 15 from MTV’s Times Square studio in New York City. It will feature the cast of “Jersey Shore” along with other guests.













The network said Monday the program will solicit contributions for the rebuilding of Seaside Heights, the heart of the Jersey shore and the principal setting for the “Jersey Shore” series.


For this effort, MTV will be partnering with Architecture for Humanity, a non-profit organization that provides design and construction services to communities in need.


Seaside Heights was among numerous coastal areas devastated by Sandy last week.


Entertainment News Headlines – Yahoo! News



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Saudi confirms third case of newly discovered SARS-like virus

























ABU DHABI (Reuters) – A Saudi citizen in the capital Riyadh is the world’s third confirmed case of a newly discovered SARS-related virus but he has now recovered from his illness, the official Saudi Press Agency reported on Sunday.


The potentially deadly novel coronavirus is from the same family as SARS but had only been confirmed in two previous cases: a 60-year-old Saudi man who died earlier this year, and a man from Qatar who was treated in a London hospital.





















Saudi authorities conducted tests on the new case in the Health Ministry and then sent abroad a sample which tested positive, the agency said, citing a statement from the ministry.


“The patient received the appropriate treatment and has recovered,” the agency quoted the ministry as stating, adding that the man had not left Riyadh.


The World Health Organisation put out a global alert in September on the virus, but later added that it did not appear to spread easily from person to person.


Coronaviruses also include strains that cause the common cold as well as SARS, or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, which emerged in China in 2002 and killed around a tenth of the 8,000 people it infected worldwide.


Saudi Arabia had taken precautions to prevent the disease spreading among Muslim pilgrims during the annual Haj pilgrimage which took place at the end of October.


Millions of Muslims from 160 countries flock to Mecca and Medina during the Haj season to perform the annual religious ritual and Saudi Arabia had said at the time it was taking preventative measures to stop the virus from spreading.


(Reporting By Maha El Dahan; Editing by Angus McDowall in Riyadh; Editing by Stephen Powell)


Health News Headlines – Yahoo! News



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Brazil’s ‘pop-star priest’ gets mammoth new stage

























SAO PAULO (AP) — Brazil‘s “pop-star priest” is already packing in the crowds at the newly opened mammoth sanctuary that he built for his campaign to stem the exodus of faithful from the Roman Catholic Church in Latin America’s biggest nation.


Brazil still has more Catholics than any other country in the world, with about 65 percent of its 192 million people identifying themselves that way in the 2010 census. But that is down from 74 percent in 2000 and is the lowest since records began tracking religion 140 years ago.





















That’s where Father Marcelo Rossi‘s Mother of God sanctuary comes in. The not-yet-finished structure will seat 6,000 people and have standing room for 14,000 more, church leaders say. In addition, the grounds outside can hold 80,000 people who could watch Mass on outdoor video screens.


After the inaugural Mass on Friday attracted upward of 50,000 people, a beaming Rossi told reporters: “They couldn’t all fit in. There was a crowd that had to stand outside! That’s a sign we’re on the right path, and it’s this sanctuary.”


Similar numbers jammed into the huge church Saturday.


It’s a fitting stage for Rossi, a Latin Grammy-nominated singer who is known for tossing buckets of holy water on worshippers and performing rollicking Christian songs backed by a blasting live band during Mass.


The church sits on 323,000 square feet (30,000 square meters) of land. Church officials declined to confirm how big the actual building is, though local reports put it at 91,500 square feet (8,500 square meters). That would make it one of the world’s 10 biggest churches. A cross soaring 138 feet (42 meters) into the air is the focal point.


The Mother of God sanctuary is anything but traditional. Designed by noted Brazilian architect Ruy Ohtake, it has a wide-open layout giving it the feel of a warehouse. Concrete walls hold up a sloping blue roof that from the outside looks more like a basketball arena than a house of worship. With the church several years away from completion, white plastic chairs were in the place of pews for a lucky few thousand to grab a seat. The rest had to stand.


Rossi dismisses the idea his huge church is a response to the explosion of the evangelical Christian faith in Brazil. Rather, the priest seems to be battling what recent studies indicate is Catholicism’s biggest enemy: indifference.


While millions of Brazilian Catholics joined Pentecostal congregations in the 1990s, a study conducted last year by Brazil’s Getulio Vargas Foundation based on census data found that the Catholics leaving the church these days are mostly becoming nonreligious. Experts have said the trend of Brazilians deciding organized religion isn’t for them poses a more potent threat to Catholic leaders than losses to the Pentecostals.


Rossi chose to open his new church on the Brazilian holiday of Finados, the nation’s version of the Day of the Dead. “A day, a day that was dead, was transformed!” the priest told worshippers during the service, using his gold-plated microphone.


The “pop-star priest” is seen by Brazilian Catholicism as its biggest weapon against the lack of interest, and his new sanctuary adds to his tools of best-selling books and music recordings to keep worshippers interested in what many complain has become a staid institution.


There was nothing stale about his Mass on Friday.


Singing as loud as they could, waving white hankies and swaying with a rocking band, the 20,000 people who jammed into the Mother of God sanctuary hammed it up for TV cameras and shed tears down their cheeks as their superstar priest waved to them from the pulpit. An estimated 30,000 other people had gathered outside, where young boys climbed up into nearby trees trying to get a glimpse of the church grounds as they squinted over a sea of heads streaming out of the sanctuary.


“We have problems, everyone has problems,” worshipper Zuleima de Oliveira Sales said as she stood in the tightly packed sea of people under the soaring blue roof of the structure, her voice choking. “They don’t come to an end, but I have faith, I have faith in Our Lady.”


That’s the sort of belief the Catholic Church is counting on in Brazil and other developing nations. Leaders from the Vatican on down are looking to them as bulwarks against losses in Europe and the U.S., where sex abuse scandals have inspired many people to leave the church. About half of the world’s Catholics live in Latin America.


Pentecostalism was once seen as a major threat to Brazil’s Catholic Church. Pentecostal churches, many of them founded by U.S. evangelicals, saw their membership double to more than 12 percent of the country’s population over the 1990s, with about half of the congregants estimated to be former Catholics.


During the 1990s, Brazil’s economy suffered from hyperinflation and other woes, and Pentecostal churches aggressively recruited in the slums and poor outskirts of Brazil’s cities by offering nuts-and-bolts self-improvement advice as well as Christian ministry.


Since 2003, however, Pentecostal churches have seen growth slow. The percentage of Brazilians calling themselves Pentecostals edged up from 12.5 percent of the population to 13.3 percent.


Yet the Catholic Church has continued to lose parishioners, and church leaders have had little success so far in halting that trend.


Brazil was the first nation outside Europe that Pope Benedict XVI visited, during a five-day tour in 2007 largely aimed at stopping losses in Latin America. During the trip, the pope canonized Brazil’s first native-born saint.


Then Benedict announced last August during the church’s World Youth Day, which drew 1.5 million people to Spain, that the next version of the gathering would be held in Rio de Janeiro in 2013. The pope is expected to attend.


For now, Rossi hopes his big church will bring together tens of thousands of faithful for every Mass, giving new energy to the Catholic faith.


“People want big spaces. They want grand places for prayer,” he told the Globo TV network. “One candle illuminates, 10 candles illuminate — and 100,000 candles light up so much more.”


Latin America News Headlines – Yahoo! News



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