DEAR ABBY: My daughters are attractive young women, both doing well in their professional careers. "Melanie," who is 27, is married to "Sam," an extremely attractive and successful man.My 30-year-old daughter, "Alicia," has been divorced for a year. Her marriage failed two years ago because she and her husband had an appetite for sex outside their marriage. While I was disturbed about that, I was horrified to learn that Melanie allows her sister to occasionally have sex with Sam.Melanie's argument is that Sam is less likely to cheat given this situation. ...
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Insight: Divided Damascus confronted by all-out war
Label: WorldDAMASCUS (Reuters) - MiG warplanes roar low overhead to strike rebels fighting to oust President Bashar al-Assad on the fringes of Damascus, while artillery batteries pound the insurgents from hills overlooking a city divided between all-out war and a deceptive calm.
Whole families can be obliterated by air raids that miss their targets. Wealthy Syrians or their children are kidnapped. Some are returned but people tell grim tales of how others are tortured and dumped even when the ransom is paid.
People also tell of prisoners dying under torture or from infected wounds; of looting by the government's feared shabbiha militias or by rebels fighting to throw out the Assad family.
That is one Damascus. In the other, comprising the central districts of a capital said to be the oldest continually inhabited city in the world, the restaurant menus are full, the wine is cheap and the souks are packed with shoppers.
Employees report for work, children go to school and shops are open, seemingly undeterred by the din and thud of war.
The two cities exist a few miles apart - for now.
For Damascus and its outskirts are rapidly descending into civil war and everything that comes with it - lawlessness, looting, kidnapping and revenge killings. Like the rest of the country, the capital and its suburbs are crawling with armed gangs.
"Anybody can come to you pretending he is security and grab you in broad daylight, put you in a car and speed off and nobody dares interfere or rescue you," says Lama Zayyat, 42. "A girl in the 7th grade was kidnapped and her father was asked to pay a big ransom. The same happened to other children," she said.
Nobody really knows who is behind the kidnappings. In one gang, one brother is in charge of abductions while another brother negotiates with the victims. The fear is palpable.
NO SECT HAS BEEN SPARED
The war has not yet reached the heart of the capital, but it is shredding the suburbs. In the past week, government troops backed by air power unleashed fierce barrages on the east of the city in an attempt to flush out rebel groups.
Most of central Damascus is controlled by Assad's forces, who have erected checkpoints to stop bomb attacks. The insurgents have so far failed to take territory in the center.
Just as loyalist forces seem unable to regain control of the country, there looks to be little chance the rebels can storm the center of Damascus and attack the seat of Assad's power.
For most of last week the army rained shells on the eastern and southern neighborhoods of Douma, Jobar, Zamalka and Hajar al-Aswad, using units of the elite Republican Guard based on the imposing Qasioun mountain that looms over the city.
The rebels, trying to break through the government's defense perimeter, were periodically able to overrun roadblocks and some army positions, but at heavy cost.
Jobar and Zamalka are situated near military compounds housing Assad's forces, while Hajar al-Aswad in the south is one of the gateways into the city, close to Assad's home and the headquarters of his republican guard and army.
Since the uprising began two years ago, 70,000 people have been killed, 700,000 have been driven from Syria and millions more are displaced, homeless and hungry. No section of society has been spared, whether Christians, Alawites or Sunnis, but in every community it is the poor who are suffering most.
Electricity is sporadic. Hospitals are understaffed as so many doctors - often targeted on suspicion of treating rebel wounded - have fled. Hotels and businesses barely function.
Outside petrol stations and bakeries, queues are long and supplies often run out, meaning people have to come back the next day. Those who can afford it pay double on a thriving black market.
The scale of the suffering can be seen in the ubiquitous obituary notices on the walls of Damascus streets - some announcing the deaths of whole families killed by shelling.
As if oblivious of these private daily tragedies, the government insists the situation is under control, while the rebels say the Assads' days are numbered.
NOWHERE NEAR OVER
Ordinary Syrians are convinced their ordeal is nowhere near over. While they believe Assad will not be able to reverse the gains of the rebels, they cannot see his enemies prevailing over his superior firepower, and Russian and Iranian support.
"The regime won't be able to crush the revolution and the rebels won't be able to bring down the regime," said leading opposition figure Hassan Abdel-Azim. "The continuation of violence won't lead to the downfall of the regime, it will lead to the seizure of the country by armed gangs, which will pose a grave danger not only to Syria but to our neighbors".
"Right now no one is capable of winning," said a Damascus-based senior Arab envoy. "The crisis will continue if there is no political process. It is deadlock."
Other diplomats in Damascus say the United States and its allies are getting cold feet about arming the rebels, fearing the growing influence of Islamist radicals such the al-Nusra Front linked to al-Qaeda, banned last year by Washington.
Some remarks recur again and again in Damascus conversations: "Maybe he will stay in power, after all", and, above all, "Who is the alternative to Assad?"
"At first I thought it was a matter of months. That's why I came here and stayed to bear witness to the final moments," said Rana Mardam Beik, a Syrian-American writer. "But it looks like it will be a while so I am thinking of going back to the U.S."
Loyalty to Assad is partly fed by fear of the alternative. Facing a Sunni-dominated revolt, Syria's minorities, including Christians and Assad's own Alawites - an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam - fear they will slaughtered or sidelined if the revolution succeeds and Sunni fundamentalists come to power.
MINORITIES' FEAR
Many Christians are already trying to emigrate to countries such as Sweden, diplomats say.
"The minorities have every right to be frightened because no one knows what is the alternative. Is it a liberal, civic, pluralistic and democratic state, or is the alternative an Islamist extremist rule that considers the minorities infidels and heretics?" said Abdel Azim.
The government tells the minorities the only alternative to Assad is Islamism. Loyalist brutality against the Sunni majority is in danger of making this a self-fulfilling prophecy, by sucking in jihadi extremists from Libya to Saudi Arabia.
"I am not with the regime but we are sure that if Bashar goes the first people they will come for are the Alawites, then the Shi'ites and then us Christians. They are fanatics," said George Husheir, 50, an IT engineer.
At the Saint Joseph Church in Bab Touma, the old Christian quarter of Damascus, Christians in their dozens, mostly middle-aged and older couples, gathered for mass on a Friday morning.
"We don't know what the future holds for us and for this country," said the priest in his sermon. "The Christians of Syria need to pray more."
Nabiha, a dentist in her 40s, said: "Bashar is a Muslim president but he is not a fanatic. He gave us everything. Why shouldn't we love him. Look at us here in our church, we pray, we mark our religious rituals freely, we do what we like and nobody interferes with us."
The fear of the Christians extends to the Alawite and minority Shi'ites. "If Bashar goes we definitely have to leave too because the Sufianis (Sunni Salafis) are coming and they are filled with a sectarian revenge against us," said one wealthy middle class Shi'ite.
COSTLY WAR
Alongside sectarian hatreds, class and tribal acrimony is also surfacing. Wealthy Sunnis in the capital are already in a panic about poor Sunni Islamists from rural areas descending on their neighborhoods.
"When they come they will eat us alive", one rich Sunni resident of Damascus said, repeating what a cab driver dropping him in the posh Abou Roummaneh district told him: "Looting these houses will be allowed."
Yet many activists feel protective of the revolution, despite the brutal behavior of some Islamist rebels.
"People talk about chaos and anarchy after Assad, but so what if we have two years of a messy transition? That is better than to endure another 30 years of this rule," said Rana Darwaza, 40, a Sunni academic in Damascus.
Prominent human rights lawyer Anwar al-Bunni said the suffering is a price that had to be paid. "Those on the ground will continue to fight even with their bare hands", he said.
He said there are thousands of prisoners in horrific conditions in Assad's jails. Some suffocate in overcrowded cells while others die under torture or from untreated wounds. "They don't give them medical treatment or pain killers or antibiotics. They leave them to die," he said.
Close watchers of Syria predict that if there is no settlement in a few months the conflict could go on for years. Yet the economy is collapsing, leaving the government to rely on dwindling foreign reserves, private assets and Iranian funds.
There is no tourism, no oil revenue, and 70 percent of businesses have left Syria, said analyst Nabil Samman. "We are heading for destruction, the future is dark", he added.
Added to the religious animosity between the Sunni majority and the Alawite minority who took control when Hafez al-Assad seized power in 1970 are social and economic grievances fuelled by the predatory practices of the elite.
This resentment extends to young middle class Syrians who feel they have lost a way of life and that their country is being used by regional powers for proxy war.
"All the regional point-scoring is taking place in Syria. We have Libyan fighters and Saudis fighting for freedom in Syria, why are they here? Let them go and demand freedom in their own countries?," said banker Hani Hamaui, 29.
Two years into the uprising, Assad is hanging on. Some will always back him and others want him dead. But many just want an end to the fighting. They may have to wait for some time.
Signs daubed on the gates to the city by Assad's troops are a reminder that the battle for Damascus will be costly. "Either Assad, or we will set the country ablaze", they say.
(Editing by Giles Elgood)
Intel’s Streaming TV Box Will Bundle Cable Channels to Cut Your Cable Bill
Label: TechnologyIntel has finally confirmed its much rumored revolutionary TV gadget and, as expected, it will not offer à la carte cable channels. But after a CES letdown the chip-maker has said its Silicon Valley star-studded Intel Media group will build a potentially game-changing set-top box — one that might just end up slashing your cable bill. At an AllThingsD conference this afternoon, Intel VP Erik Huggers not only detailed that this as yet unnamed magic box will combine DVR, live TV, and apps, but also explained how it will provide a cable alternative. Instead of requiring a subscription from a standard pay-TV provider, Intel will offer its own different bundles. So, for example, someone who wants the ESPN/Disney package might get all the ESPN channels they love, plus ABC Family, the Disney Channel, A&E, the History Channel, and other stuff owned by Disney, suggests Business Insider’s Steve Kovach.
RELATED: Google Fiber TV Just Jumped into the Cable TV Business
Intel has not confirmed how its bundles will look, or the pricing options therein. But if Intel offers non-Disney/ESPN packages, those should theoretically cost a lot less — the rates of ESPN and other sports-bound networks push up the price of basic cable. And for all those people out there who don’t at all care about sports, it might be nice to stop subsidizing it for everybody else. Again, Intel’s Huggers didn’t specify whether the company’s new device, set to debut sometime this year, would break that contractual dilemma that gouges TV package prices. But he did mention a more “flexible environment,’ which sounds promising:
I agree that consumers want choice and convenience, but I think there is value in bundles. If bundles are bundled right, I think there’s real value in that, and opportunities to create a more flexible environment where end-users have more choice than they do today. I don’t believe the industry is ready for true à la carte.
Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News
Westminster's Most Paw-some Moments - So Far!
Label: Lifestyle
People Pets
You snooze, you lose? Not when you're as adorable as this Bichon Frise
Frank Franklin II/AP
It may be Fat Tuesday, but as any dog lover knows, the real action is at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show.
Check back tonight to see who takes home top prize!
Dogs of every shape, size and color – including two new breeds who were admitted into competition this year – have taken over several New York City locations, including Madison Square Garden, and the contest is starting to get fur-rocious.
We know you'd rather be at home watching these pooches strut their stuff, but since you're probably otherwise occupied, here's a taste of all the canine pageantry taking place:
This Afghan Hound is 'hair' to stay
Monika Graff / Landov
Don't they know I need my beauty sleep? This Dogue de Bordeux, named Azlo, is ready to retire to his room at the Hotel Pennsylvania
Carlo Allegri / Landov
A kiss for good luck! There's no ill will between Boston terriers Gaga (left) and Spitzer
Keith Bedford / Landov
Last year's winner, Malachy, returns to the limelight to turn the Empire State Building purple and gold (with a little help from a furry friend) in honor of Westminster's kickoff
Bryan Smith / ZUMA
Check back tonight to see who takes home top prize!
Pope shows lifetime jobs aren't always for life
Label: HealthThe world seems surprised that an 85-year-old globe-trotting pope who just started tweeting wants to resign, but should it be? Maybe what should be surprising is that more leaders his age do not, considering the toll aging takes on bodies and minds amid a culture of constant communication and change.
There may be more behind the story of why Pope Benedict XVI decided to leave a job normally held for life. But the pontiff made it about age. He said the job called for "both strength of mind and body" and said his was deteriorating. He spoke of "today's world, subject to so many rapid changes," implying a difficulty keeping up despite his recent debut on Twitter.
"This seemed to me a very brave, courageous decision," especially because older people often don't recognize their own decline, said Dr. Seth Landefeld, an expert on aging and chairman of medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
Age has driven many leaders from jobs that used to be for life — Supreme Court justices, monarchs and other heads of state. As lifetimes expand, the woes of old age are catching up with more in seats of power. Some are choosing to step down rather than suffer long declines and disabilities as the pope's last predecessor did.
Since 1955, only one U.S. Supreme Court justice — Chief Justice William Rehnquist — has died in office. Twenty-one others chose to retire, the most recent being John Paul Stevens, who stepped down in 2010 at age 90.
When Thurgood Marshall stepped down in 1991 at the age of 82, citing health reasons, the Supreme Court justice's answer was blunt: "What's wrong with me? I'm old. I'm getting old and falling apart."
One in 5 U.S. senators is 70 or older, and some have retired rather than seek new terms, such as Hawaii's Daniel Akaka, who left office in January at age 88.
The Netherlands' Queen Beatrix, who just turned 75, recently said she will pass the crown to a son and put the country "in the hands of a new generation."
In Germany, where the pope was born, Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is 58, said the pope's decision that he was no longer fit for the job "earns my very highest respect."
"In our time of ever-lengthening life, many people will be able to understand how the pope as well has to deal with the burdens of aging," she told reporters in Berlin.
Experts on aging agreed.
"People's mental capacities in their 80s and 90s aren't what they were in their 40s and 50s. Their short-term memory is often not as good, their ability to think quickly on their feet, to execute decisions is often not as good," Landefeld said. Change is tougher to handle with age, and leaders like popes and presidents face "extraordinary demands that would tax anybody's physical and mental stamina."
Dr. Barbara Messinger-Rapport, geriatrics chief at the Cleveland Clinic, noted that half of people 85 and older in developed countries have some dementia, usually Alzheimer's. Even without such a disease, "it takes longer to make decisions, it takes longer to learn new things," she said.
But that's far from universal, said Dr. Thomas Perls, an expert on aging at Boston University and director of the New England Centenarians Study.
"Usually a man who is entirely healthy in his early 80s has demonstrated his survival prowess" and can live much longer, he said. People of privilege have better odds because they have access to good food and health care, and tend to lead clean lives.
"Even in the 1500s and 1600s there were popes in their 80s. It's remarkable. That would be today's centenarians," Perls said.
Arizona Sen. John McCain turned 71 while running for president in 2007. Had he won, he would have been the oldest person elected to a first term as president. Ronald Reagan was days away from turning 70 when he started his first term as president in 1981; he won re-election in 1984. Vice President Joe Biden just turned 70.
In the U.S. Senate, where seniority is rewarded and revered, South Carolina's Strom Thurmond didn't retire until age 100 in 2002. Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia was the longest-serving senator when he died in office at 92 in 2010.
Now the oldest U.S. senator is 89-year-old Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey. The oldest congressman is Ralph Hall of Texas who turns 90 in May.
The legendary Alan Greenspan was about to turn 80 when he retired as chairman of the Federal Reserve in 2006; he still works as a consultant.
Elsewhere around the world, Cuba's Fidel Castro — one of the world's longest serving heads of state — stepped down in 2006 at age 79 due to an intestinal illness that nearly killed him, handing power to his younger brother Raul. But the island is an example of aged leaders pushing on well into their dotage. Raul Castro now is 81 and his two top lieutenants are also octogenarians. Later this month, he is expected to be named to a new, five-year term as president.
Other leaders who are still working:
—England's Queen Elizabeth, 86.
—Abdullah bin Abd al-Aziz al-Saud, king of Saudi Arabia, 88.
—Sabah al-Ahmad al-Jaber al-Sabah, emir of Kuwait, 83.
—Ruth Bader Ginsburg, U.S. Supreme Court associate justice, 79.
__
Associated Press writers Paul Haven in Havana, Cuba; David Rising in Berlin; Seth Borenstein, Mark Sherman and Matt Yancey in Washington, and researcher Judy Ausuebel in New York contributed to this report.
___
Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP
Wall Street flat ahead of Obama speech
Label: BusinessNEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks were little changed on Tuesday, hovering near multi-year highs as traders awaited President Barack Obama's State of the Union address.
The economy will be one of the main topics of Obama's speech at 9 p.m. (0200 GMT Wednesday). Investors will listen for any clues on a deal with Republicans in Congress to avert automatic spending cuts due to take effect March 1.
The S&P 500 has risen in the past six weeks and is up more than 6 percent so far this year. Despite a dip in volume Monday and the sideways move this week the market is showing technical strength as it digests the recent gains.
"It's positive we haven't seen an urge to take profits after the run-up we had recently," said Peter Jankovskis, co-chief investment officer at OakBrook Investments in Lisle, Illinois.
He said it was natural for the market to be pausing amid a lack of major economic data points and with earnings season winding down, and markets will be attentively watching Obama's speech in Washington.
The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> rose 7.6 points or 0.05 percent, to 13,978.84, the S&P 500 <.spx> lost 0.27 points or 0.02 percent, to 1,516.74 and the Nasdaq Composite <.ixic> dropped 1.41 points or 0.04 percent, to 3,190.59.
Coca-Cola Co
Avon Products shares jumped 13.4 percent to $19.59 after the beauty products company reported a better-than-expected quarterly profit.
Goodyear Tire & Rubber
Michael Kors Holdings
(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Kenneth Barry and Nick Zieminski)
China joins U.S., Japan in condemning North Korea nuclear test
Label: WorldSEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea conducted its third nuclear test on Tuesday in defiance of existing U.N. resolutions, drawing condemnation from around the world, including from its only major ally, China, which summoned the North Korean ambassador to protest.
The reclusive North said the test was an act of self-defense against "U.S. hostility" and threatened further, stronger steps if necessary.
It said the test had "greater explosive force" than the 2006 and 2009 tests. Its KCNA news agency said it had used a "miniaturized" and lighter nuclear device, indicating that it had again used plutonium which is more suitable for use as a missile warhead.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, the third of his line to rule the country, has presided over two long-range rocket launches and a nuclear test during his first year in power, pursuing policies that have propelled his impoverished and malnourished country closer to becoming a nuclear weapons power.
China, which has shown signs of increasing exasperation with the recent bellicose tone of its neighbor, summoned the North Korean ambassador in Beijing and protested sternly, the Foreign Ministry said.
Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said China was "strongly dissatisfied and resolutely opposed" to the test and urged North Korea to "stop any rhetoric or acts that could worsen situations and return to the right course of dialogue and consultation as soon as possible".
China is a permanent member of the Security Council.
U.S. President Barack Obama labeled the test a "highly provocative act" that hurt regional stability and pressed for new sanctions.
"The danger posed by North Korea's threatening activities warrants further swift and credible action by the international community. The United States will also continue to take steps necessary to defend ourselves and our allies," Obama said in a statement.
The Security Council will meet on Tuesday to discuss its reaction to the test, although North Korea is already one of the most heavily sanctioned states in the world and has few external economic links that can be targeted.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said the test was a "grave threat" that could not be tolerated. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the test was a "clear and grave violation" of U.N. Security Council resolutions.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov urged North Korea to abandon its nuclear arms program and return to talks. NATO condemned the test as an "irresponsible act" that posed a grave threat to world peace.
The test "was only the first response we took with maximum restraint", an unnamed spokesman for the North Korean Foreign Ministry, which acts as Pyongyang's official voice to the outside world, said in a statement carried by the official KCNA news agency.
"If the United States continues to come out with hostility and complicates the situation, we will be forced to take stronger, second and third responses in consecutive steps."
North Korea often threatens the United States and its "puppet", South Korea, with destruction in colorful terms.
North Korea told the U.N. disarmament forum in Geneva that it would never bow to resolutions on its nuclear program and that prospects were "gloomy" for the denuclearization of the divided Korean peninsula because of a "hostile" U.S. policy.
South Korea, still technically at war with the North after the 1950-53 civil war ended in a mere truce, also denounced the test.
The magnitude was roughly twice as large as that of 2009, Lassina Zerbo, director of the international data centre division of the Vienna-based Comprehensive Nuclear-Test Ban Treaty Organization, said. The U.S. Geological Survey said that a seismic event measuring 5.1 magnitude had occurred.
"It was confirmed that the nuclear test that was carried out at a high level in a safe and perfect manner using a miniaturized and lighter nuclear device with greater explosive force than previously did not pose any negative impact on the surrounding ecological environment," KCNA said.
Despite China's strong response, the test is likely to be a major embarrassment for Beijing, the North's sole major economic and diplomatic ally.
"The test is hugely insulting to China, which now can be expected to follow through with threats to impose sanctions," said Mark Fitzpatrick of the International Institute for Strategic Studies think tank.
North Korea trumpeted the announcement on its state television channel to patriotic music against the backdrop of an image of its national flag.
It linked the test to its technical prowess in launching a long-range rocket in December, a move that triggered the U.N. sanctions, backed by China, that Pyongyang said prompted it to take Tuesday's action.
The North's ultimate aim, Washington believes, is to design an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead that could hit the United States. North Korea says the program is aimed merely at putting satellites in space.
North Korea used plutonium in previous nuclear tests and prior to Tuesday there had been speculation it would use highly enriched uranium so as to conserve its plutonium stocks as testing eats into its limited supply of the material that could be used to construct a nuclear bomb.
"VICIOUS CYCLE"
Despite its three nuclear tests and long-range rocket tests, North Korea is not believed to be close to manufacturing a nuclear missile capable of hitting the United States.
South Korea's Yonhap news agency said Pyongyang had informed China and the United States of its plans to test on Monday, although this could not be confirmed.
When North Korean leader Kim, 30, took power after his father's death in December 2011, there were hopes the he would bring reforms and end Kim Jong-il's "military first" policies.
Instead, the North, whose economy is smaller than it was 20 years ago and where a third of children are believed to be malnourished, appears to be trapped in a cycle of sanctions followed by further provocations.
"The more North Korea shoots missiles, launches satellites or conducts nuclear tests, the more the U.N. Security Council will impose new and more severe sanctions," said Shen Dingli, a professor at Shanghai's Fudan University. "It is an endless, vicious cycle."
But options for the international community appear to be in short supply.
Tuesday's action appeared to have been timed for the run-up to February 16 anniversary celebrations of Kim Jong-il's birthday, as well as to achieved maximum international attention.
Significantly, the test comes at a time of political transition in China, Japan and South Korea, and as Obama begins his second term. He will likely have to tweak his State of the Union address due to be given on Tuesday.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is bedding down a new government and South Korea's new president, Park Geun-hye, prepares to take office on February 25.
China too is in the midst of a once-in-a-decade leadership transition to Xi Jinping, who takes office in March. Both Abe and Xi are staunch nationalists.
The longer-term game plan from Pyongyang may be to restart talks aimed at winning food and financial aid. China urged it to return to the stalled "six-party" talks on its nuclear program, hosted by China and including the two Koreas, the United States, Japan and Russia.
Its puny economy and small diplomatic reach mean the North struggles to win attention on the global stage - other than through nuclear tests and attacks on South Korea, last made in 2010.
"Now the next step for North Korea will be to offer talks... - any form to start up discussion again to bring things to their advantage," said Jeung Young-tae, senior research fellow at the Korea Institute for National Unification in Seoul.
The European Union's foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, urged North Korea to refrain from further provocation.
EU member Denmark called on China to step up to the plate and use its influence to rein in its ally.
"This deserves only one thing and that is a one-sided condemnation," said Foreign Minister Villy Sovndal. "North Korea is likely the most horrible country on this planet."
(Additional reporting by Jack Kim, Christine Kim and Jumin Park in SEOUL; Linda Sieg in TOKYO; Louis Charbonneau at the UNITED NATIONS; Fredrik Dahl in VIENNA; Michael Martina and Chen Aizhu in BEIJING; Mette Fraende in COPENHAGEN; Adrian Croft, Charlie Dunmore and Justyna Pawlak in BRUSSELS; Editing by Nick Macfie)
Android 4.2.2 update reportedly rolling out to Nexus devices
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Taylor Swift, Justin Timberlake & More Grammy Performances Inspire Grammy Buzz
Label: LifestyleThe Grammys are called music's biggest night for a reason.
With performances from Justin Timberlake, Carrie Underwood, Kelly Clarkson, Jack White, Frank Ocean, Miranda Lambert and more, the audience rocked their way through the 3.5 hour broadcast.
But no one was having more fun than Swift, 23, who was seen singing along and dancing to almost every song played throughout the night. But the singer-songwriter had plenty of reason to celebrate – earlier that day, she learned she won a Grammy for her song with The Civil Wars, "Safe & Sound," which appeared on The Hunger Games soundtrack.
What heals traumatized kids? Answers are lacking
Label: HealthCHICAGO (AP) — Shootings and other traumatic events involving children are not rare events, but there's a startling lack of scientific evidence on the best ways to help young survivors and witnesses heal, a government-funded analysis found.
School-based counseling treatments showed the most promise, but there's no hard proof that anxiety drugs or other medication work and far more research is needed to provide solid answers, say the authors who reviewed 25 studies. Their report was sponsored by the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.
According to research cited in the report, about two-thirds of U.S. children and teens younger than 18 will experience at least one traumatic event, including shootings and other violence, car crashes and weather disasters. That includes survivors and witnesses of trauma. Most will not suffer any long-term psychological problems, but about 13 percent will develop symptoms of post-traumatic stress, including anxiety, behavior difficulties and other problems related to the event.
The report's conclusions don't mean that no treatment works. It's just that no one knows which treatments are best, or if certain ones work better for some children but not others.
"Our findings serve as a call to action," the researchers wrote in their analysis, published online Monday by the journal Pediatrics.
"This is a very important topic, just in light of recent events," said lead author Valerie Forman-Hoffman, a researcher at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.
She has two young children and said the results suggest that it's likely one of them will experience some kind of trauma before reaching adulthood. "As a parent I want to know what works best," the researcher said.
Besides the December massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, other recent tragedies involving young survivors or witnesses include the fatal shooting last month of a 15-year-old Chicago girl gunned down in front of a group of friends; Superstorm Sandy in October; and the 2011 Joplin, Mo., tornado, whose survivors include students whose high school was destroyed.
Some may do fine with no treatment; others will need some sort of counseling to help them cope.
Studying which treatments are most effective is difficult because so many things affect how a child or teen will fare emotionally after a traumatic event, said Dr. Denise Dowd, an emergency physician and research director at Children's Mercy Hospitals and Clinics in Kansas City, Mo., who wrote a Pediatrics editorial.
One of the most important factors is how the child's parents handle the aftermath, Dowd said.
"If the parent is freaking out" and has difficulty controlling emotions, kids will have a tougher time dealing with trauma. Traumatized kids need to feel like they're in a safe and stable environment, and if their parents have trouble coping, "it's going to be very difficult for the kid," she said.
The researchers analyzed 25 studies of treatments that included anti-anxiety and depression drugs, school-based counseling, and various types of psychotherapy. The strongest evidence favored school-based treatments involving cognitive behavior therapy, which helps patients find ways to cope with disturbing thoughts and emotions, sometimes including talking repeatedly about their trauma.
This treatment worked better than nothing, but more research is needed comparing it with alternatives, the report says.
"We really don't have a gold standard treatment right now," said William Copeland, a psychologist and researcher at Duke University Medical Center who was not involved in the report. A lot of doctors and therapists may be "patching together a little bit of this and a little bit of that, and that might not add up to the most effective treatment for any given child," he said.
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