NBR Awards name 'Zero Dark Thirty' best film

NEW YORK (AP) — Kathryn Bigelow's "Zero Dark Thirty" continued to gather awards momentum as the National Board of Review named the Osama bin Laden hunt docudrama the best film of the year.

The board is the second notable group to name "Zero Dark Thirty" best film, following the New York Film Critics Circle. The two early awards suggest the film may be the Academy Awards frontrunner, four years after Bigelow's "The Hurt Locker" triumphed at the Oscars.

The film took three awards Wednesday from the National Board of Review, which also named Bigelow best director and Jessica Chastain, who stars as a CIA agent, best actress.

The group also gave a boost to the "Silver Linings Playbook," David O. Russell's comedic drama about a mentally unstable former teacher (Bradley Cooper) attempting to reorder his life. Cooper was named best actor and Russell was given best adapted screenplay. (Best original screenplay went to Rian Johnson for his script to the thriller "Looper.")

Leonardo DiCaprio won best supporting actor for his performance as a wealthy slave owner in Quentin Tarantino's "Django Unchained." Best supporting actress went to Ann Dowd for her performance as a fast-food manager terrorized by a prank caller in "Compliance."

The board also cited Ben Affleck, director and star of the Iran hostage crisis drama "Argo," for special achievement in filmmaking. Best ensemble went to the cast of Tom Hooper's musical adaptation of "Les Miserables." The group is also highlighting John Goodman with its "spotlight award," noting the actor's work this year in "Argo," ''Flight," ''Paranorman" and "Trouble With the Curve."

The National Board of Review, a group of film academics, students and professionals founded in 1909, is one of the first groups to announce its picks for the year's best movies. The Los Angeles Film Critics announce their choices on Sunday. The Golden Globe nominations come Dec. 13.

The National Board of Review has some pedigree in picking films that have gone on to win best picture at the Oscars, though not in recent years. Last year, it selected "Hugo," while the academy chose "The Artist." In 2010, it selected "The Social Network" while the academy chose "The King's Speech."

In addition to individual awards, the board also lists its top 10 films, in no particular order: "Zero Dark Thirty," ''Argo," ''Lincoln," ''Beasts of the Southern Wild," ''Django Unchained," ''Looper," ''Les Miserables," ''The Perks of Being a Wallflower," ''Silver Linings Playbook" and "Promised Land."

The awards will be handed out at a gala on Jan. 8 in New York at Cipriani's, to be hosted by Meredith Vieira.

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Online:

http://www.nbrmp.org/

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Follow Jake Coyle on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jake_coyle

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Study could spur wider use of prenatal gene tests

A new study sets the stage for wider use of gene testing in early pregnancy. Scanning the genes of a fetus reveals far more about potential health risks than current prenatal testing does, say researchers who compared both methods in thousands of pregnancies nationwide.

A surprisingly high number — 6 percent — of certain fetuses declared normal by conventional testing were found to have genetic abnormalities by gene scans, the study found. The gene flaws can cause anything from minor defects such as a club foot to more serious ones such as mental retardation, heart problems and fatal diseases.

"This isn't done just so people can terminate pregnancies," because many choose to continue them even if a problem is found, said Dr. Ronald Wapner, reproductive genetics chief at Columbia University Medical Center in New York. "We're better able to give lots and lots of women more information about what's causing the problem and what the prognosis is and what special care their child might need."

He led the federally funded study, published in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine.

A second study in the journal found that gene testing could reveal the cause of most stillbirths, many of which remain a mystery now. That gives key information to couples agonizing over whether to try again.

The prenatal study of 4,400 women has long been awaited in the field, and could make gene testing a standard of care in cases where initial screening with an ultrasound exam suggests a structural defect in how the baby is developing, said Dr. Susan Klugman, director of reproductive genetics at New York's Montefiore Medical Center, which enrolled 300 women into the study.

"We can never guarantee the perfect baby but if they want everything done, this is a test that can tell a lot more," she said.

Many pregnant women are offered screening with an ultrasound exam or a blood test that can flag some common abnormalities such as Down syndrome, but these are not conclusive.

The next step is diagnostic testing on cells from the fetus obtained through amniocentesis, which is like a needle biopsy through the belly, or chorionic villus sampling, which snips a bit of the placenta. Doctors look at the sample under a microscope for breaks or extra copies of chromosomes that cause a dozen or so abnormalities.

The new study compared this eyeball method to scanning with gene chips that can spot hundreds of abnormalities and far smaller defects than what can be seen with a microscope. This costs $1,200 to $1,800 versus $600 to $1,000 for the visual exam.

In the study, both methods were used on fetal samples from 4,400 women around the country. Half of the moms were at higher risk because they were over 35. One-fifth had screening tests suggesting Down syndrome. One-fourth had ultrasounds suggesting structural abnormalities. Others sought screening for other reasons.

"Some did it for anxiety — they just wanted more information about their child," Wapner said.

Of women whose ultrasounds showed a possible structural defect but whose fetuses were called normal by the visual chromosome exam, gene testing found problems in 6 percent — one out of 17.

"That's a lot. That's huge," Klugman said.

Gene tests also found abnormalities in nearly 2 percent of cases where the mom was older or ultrasounds suggested a problem other than a structural defect.

Dr. Lorraine Dugoff, a University of Pennsylvania high-risk pregnancy specialist, wrote in an editorial in the journal that gene testing should become the standard of care when a structural problem is suggested by ultrasound. But its value may be incremental in other cases and offset by the 1.5 percent of cases where a gene abnormality of unknown significance is found.

In those cases, "a lot of couples might not be happy that they ordered that test" because it can't give a clear answer, she said.

Ana Zeletz, a former pediatric nurse from Hoboken, N.J., had one of those results during the study. An ultrasound suggested possible Down syndrome; gene testing ruled that out but showed an abnormality that could indicate kidney problems — or nothing.

"They give you this list of all the things that could possibly be wrong," Zeletz said. Her daughter, Jillian, now 2, had some urinary and kidney abnormalities that seem to have resolved, and has low muscle tone that caused her to start walking later than usual.

"I am very glad about it," she said of the testing, because she knows to watch her daughter for possible complications like gout. Without the testing, "we wouldn't know anything, we wouldn't know to watch for things that might come up," she said.

The other study involved 532 stillbirths — deaths of a fetus in the womb before delivery. Gene testing revealed the cause in 87 percent of cases versus 70 percent of cases analyzed by the visual chromosome inspection method. It also gave more information on specific genetic abnormalities that couples could use to estimate the odds that future pregnancies would bring those risks.

The study was led by Dr. Uma Reddy of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

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Online:

Medical journal: http://www.nejm.org

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Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP

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White House preps Plan B if debt talks fail

White House press secretary Jay Carney (Charles Dharapak/AP)President Barack Obama's budget office is preparing for the possibility that "fiscal cliff" talks will fail, triggering painful automatic cuts to domestic and defense programs that he and his Republican foes officially want to avoid. White House press secretary Jay Carney described the planning as an abundance of caution, not pessimism about the seemingly stalled negotiations.

The White House's Office of Management and Budget this week "issued a request to federal agencies" for information needed to finalize calculations on the spending cuts required under what is technically known as "sequestration," Carney told reporters at his daily briefing. OMB is "acting responsibly," he added.

"The administration remains focused on reaching agreement, as we've been discussing, on a balanced deficit-reduction plan that avoids sequestration" he said. "This action should not be read … as a change in the administration's commitment to reach an agreement and avoid sequestration."Leaders of both parties have pledged to work together in the coming weeks, and we are confident, as I just said, that we can reach an agreement. However, with less than one month left before a potential sequestration order would have to be issued, the Office of Management and Budget must take certain steps to ensure the administration is ready to issue such an order should Congress fail to act."

Carney's comments came as talks on the fiscal cliff—a series of tax hikes and government spending cuts that could plunge the economy into a new recession—seemed to be making no headway. Obama and congressional Republicans have each put a proposal on the table but do not appear to be actively involved in negotiating a compromise. The president and Republican House Speaker John Boehner spoke by telephone, a House Republican aide said. They spoke "this afternoon—no other information," the aide said.

"If our offer is not acceptable to the president, then he has an obligation to show leadership by presenting a credible plan of his own that can pass both houses of Congress," Boehner said earlier. He accused Obama of snubbing spending cuts he accepted in the past (notably in failed 2011 negotiations) and failing to lay out "serious spending cuts."

"This is preventing us from reaching an agreement," Boehner continued. "With the American economy on the brink of the fiscal cliff, we don't have time for the president to continue shifting the goal posts. We need to solve this problem."

Obama, meanwhile, flatly dismissed the idea that Republicans might use next year's vote on raising the country's debt limit as leverage in current fiscal cliff negotiations, saying it won't be entertained by the White House.

While talks between Obama and Boehner appeared to be in a deep freeze, the president and congressional leaders met separately with top executives of the Business Roundtable association in Washington. A BRT official said the group met with Republican House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy, then Democratic Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus and Republican Sen. John Thune, who sits on the Finance and Budget committees.

BRT Chairman Jim McNerney, president and CEO of Boeing, described the discussion with Obama as "candid and constructive" and the chat with congressional leaders as "constructive."

He noted that "we encourage both sides to work around the clock, if necessary, to avoid the severe repercussions that inaction would have on U.S. economic growth and job creation."

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Powerful typhoon kills at least 74 in Philippines

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — At least 43 villagers and soldiers drowned in a southern Philippine town Tuesday when torrents of water dumped by a powerful typhoon cascaded down a mountain, engulfing emergency shelters and an army truck, officials said. The deaths raised the toll from one of the strongest storms to hit the country this year to at least 74.

Gov. Arturo Uy said rain from Typhoon Bopha accumulated atop a mountain and then burst down on Andap village in New Bataan town in hard-hit Compostela Valley province. The victims included villagers who had fled from their homes to a school and village hall, which were then swamped by the flash flood. An army truck carrying soldiers and villagers was washed away, according to Uy and army officials.

"They thought that they were already secure in a safe area, but they didn't know the torrents of water would go their way," Uy told DZBB radio.

He said the confirmed death toll in the town was likely to rise because several other bodies could not immediately be retrieved from floodwaters strewn with huge logs and debris.

Bopha slammed into Davao Oriental province region at dawn, its ferocious winds ripping roofs from homes and its 500-kilometer (310-mile) -wide rain band flooding low-lying farmland.

The storm, packing winds of 140 kilometers (87 miles) per hour and gusts of up to 170 kph (106 mph), toppled trees, triggered landslides and sent flash floods surging across the region's mountains and valleys.

Two entire provinces lost power and more than 100 domestic flights were canceled. About 60,000 people fled to emergency shelters.

Twenty-three people drowned or were pinned by fallen trees or collapsed houses in Davao Oriental province's coastal town of Cateel, which had the most deaths after New Bataan, Davao Oriental Gov. Corazon Malanyaon told the ABS-CBN TV network, citing police reports.

Some towns in the province were so battered that no roofs remained on buildings, Malanyaon said.

The other deaths included three children who were buried by a wall of mud and boulders that plunged down a mountain in Marapat village, also in Compostela Valley. Their bodies were wrapped in blankets by their grieving relatives and placed on a stage in a basketball court.

"The only thing we could do was to save ourselves. It was too late for us to rescue them," said Valentin Pabilana, who survived the landslide.

In Davao Oriental, a poor agricultural and gold-mining province about 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) southeast of Manila, an elderly woman was killed when her house was struck by a falling tree, said Benito Ramos, who heads the government's disaster-response agency.

The other victims either drowned or were hit by trees, he said, adding that the death toll was expected to rise.

While some 20 typhoons and storms normally lash the archipelago nation annually, the southern provinces battered by Bopha are unaccustomed to fierce typhoons, which normally hit the northern and central Philippines.

A rare storm last December killed more than 1,200 people and left many more homeless and traumatized, including in Cagayan de Oro city, where church bells pealed relentlessly on Tuesday to warn residents to scramble to safety as a major river started to swell.

Officials were taking no chances this year, and President Benigno Aquino III appealed on national TV on Monday for people in Bopha's path to move to safety and take storm warnings seriously.

In Compostela Valley, authorities halted mining operations and ordered villagers to evacuate to prevent a repeat of deadly losses from landslides and the collapse of mine tunnels in previous storms.

Bopha, a Cambodian word for flower or a girl, is the 16th weather disturbance to hit the Philippines this year. Forecasters say at least one more storm may strike the country before Christmas.

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Associated Press writer Teresa Cerojano contributed to this report.

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Google updates Gmail for iOS to support multiple accounts, deliver autocomplete suggestions

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Huston's "Infrared" wins Bad Sex fiction prize

LONDON (AP) — It's the prize no author wants to win.

Award-winning novelist Nancy Huston won Britain's Bad Sex in Fiction award Tuesday for her novel "Infrared," whose tale of a photographer who takes pictures of her lovers during sex proved too revealing for the judges.

The choice was announced by "Downton Abbey" actress Samantha Bond during a ceremony at the Naval & Military Club in London.

Judges of the tongue-in-cheek prize — which is run by the Literary Review magazine — said they were struck by a description of "flesh, that archaic kingdom that brings forth tears and terrors, nightmares, babies and bedazzlements," and by a long passage that builds to a climax of "undulating space."

Huston, who lives in Paris, was not on hand to collect her prize. In a statement read by her publicist, the 59-year-old author said she hoped her victory would "incite thousands of British women to take close-up photos of their lovers' bodies in all states of array and disarray."

The Canada-born Huston, who writes in both French and English, is the author of more than a dozen novels, including "Plainsong" and "Fault Lines." She has previously won France's Prix Goncourt prize and was a finalist for Britain's Orange Prize for fiction by women.

She is only the third woman to win the annual Bad Sex prize, founded in 1993 to name and shame authors of "crude, tasteless and ... redundant passages of sexual description in contemporary novels."

Some critics, however, have praised the sexual passages in "Infrared." Shirley Whiteside in the Independent on Sunday newspaper said there were "none of the lazy cliches of pornography or the purple prose of modern romantic fiction" — though she conceded the book's sex scenes were "more perfunctory than erotic."

Huston beat finalists including previous winner Tom Wolfe — for his passage in "Back to Blood" describing "his big generative jockey" — and Booker Prize-nominated Nicola Barker, whose novel "The Yips" compares a woman to "a plump Bakewell pudding."

Previous recipients of the dubious honor, usually accepted with good grace, include Sebastian Faulks, the late Norman Mailer and the late John Updike, who was awarded a Bad Sex lifetime achievement award in 2008.

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Online: http://www.literaryreview.co.uk

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Study: Drug coverage to vary under health law

WASHINGTON (AP) — A new study says basic prescription drug coverage could vary dramatically from state to state under President Barack Obama's health care overhaul.

That's because states get to set benefits for private health plans that will be offered starting in 2014 through new insurance exchanges.

The study out Tuesday from the market analysis firm Avalere Health found that some states will require coverage of virtually all FDA-approved drugs, while others will only require coverage of about half of medications.

Consumers will still have access to essential medications, but some may not have as much choice.

Connecticut, Virginia and Arizona will be among the states with the most generous coverage, while California, Minnesota and North Carolina will be among states with the most limited.

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Online:

Avalere Health: http://tinyurl.com/d3b3hfv

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Conservative Republicans booted from House budget panel

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two of the most conservative Republicans in the House of Representatives have been kicked off the House Budget Committee, a rare move that could make it easier for the panel to advance a deal with Democrats to cut fiscal deficits.

Representatives Tim Huelskamp of Kansas and Justin Amash of Michigan - both favorites of the anti-tax Tea Party movement - are among those Republicans voting most often against House Speaker John Boehner.

Huelskamp and Amash, who both will begin second terms in the House next month, voted against last year's deal to raise the federal debt limit and staunchly oppose any tax increases. Boehner has now included new revenue in his latest offer to avert the "fiscal cliff" of year-end tax hikes and automatic spending cuts. Given their voting records, winning support from Huelskamp and Amash for such a compromise seemed an uphill battle.

Huelskamp released a statement saying the Republican leadership "might think they have silenced conservatives but removing me and others from key committees only confirms our conservative convictions.

"This is clearly a vindictive move and a sure sign that the GOP establishment cannot handle disagreement," he said.

Huelskamp and Amash had said that despite sweeping changes to the Medicare and Medicaid healthcare programs, committee chairman Paul Ryan's budget did not make deep enough cuts to entitlement programs and military spending.

Boehner spokesman Michael Steel declined to be specific on the reasons for their ouster by the House Republican Steering Committee, which occurred Monday in a closed-door meeting.

"The Steering Committee makes decisions based on a range of factors," Steel said.

Huelskamp said he was given "limited explanation" for his removal from the Budget Committee, a move he called "vindictive." A spokesman for Amash could not be immediately reached for comment.

Huelskamp and Amash cast the only House Budget Committee votes against Ryan's budget plan earlier this year.

While there is often wrangling over committee chairmanships just before a new Congress takes office, it is rare for rank-and-file committee members to be stripped of their assignments.

The 34-member Republican steering committee is headed by Boehner and includes members of House leadership, committee chairs and other lawmakers representing different regions of the country.

The same group last week recommended that Ryan, the conservative former Republican vice presidential candidate, be renewed as Budget Committee chairman.

(Editing by Bill Trott)

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SKorea to reroute flights on NKorean rocket path

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea said Monday that it plans to reroute passenger flights over the Yellow Sea to avoid possible collisions with debris from a long-range rocket that North Korea plans to launch this month.

The Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs said it made the decision after learning that North Korea had informed China and Singapore of the flight path and other details of the launch.

North Korea told those nations the rocket would be launched in the morning and its debris would fall into the Yellow Sea and in waters east of the Philippines.

The International Maritime Organization said Monday that North Korea had informed it that it planned to launch a satellite between Dec. 10-22 during the hours of 7 a.m and noon. The North provided a list of dangerous coordinates where debris could fall.

South Korean officials said they will reroute six Korean Air flights. They also are considering whether to reroute or change the departure times of several Korean Air and Asiana Airlines flights to Manila.

In a defiant move expected to raise the stakes of a global standoff over its missile and nuclear programs, the North announced Saturday that it would launch a rocket mounted with a polar-orbiting Earth observation satellite this month.

The United States considers North Korea's rocket launches to be veiled covers for tests of technology for long-range missiles designed to strike the United States. Such tests are banned by the U.N. Security Council which has imposed two rounds of sanctions on the North following its nuclear tests.

It would be North Korea's second launch attempt under leader Kim Jong Un, who took power following his father Kim Jong Il's death nearly a year ago. The embarrassing misfire of its last rocket eight months ago earned the country widespread international condemnation.

The Korean Committee for Space Technology said the launch was a request of late leader Kim Jong Il. He died on Dec. 17, 2011, and North Koreans are expected to mark that date this year with some fanfare.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged North Korea "not to take any further provocative actions that will heighten tension in the region" after the failed launch in April, and U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky said Monday "his view has not changed on the matter."

Ban called the failed launch "deplorable" because it defied international opinion, violated a U.N. Security Council ban, "and was a threat to international stability," Nesirky told reporters at U.N. headquarters in New York.

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'Bully,' 'Chasing Ice' are among Oscar contenders

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The anti-bullying film "Bully," the climate-change study "Chasing Ice" and the AIDS chronicle "How to Survive a Plague" are among 15 features on the short list for the Academy Award for best documentary.

Other contenders announced Monday are the Ethel Kennedy documentary "Ethel," the health care exploration "The Waiting Room" and the music portrait "Searching for Sugar Man," tracing the fate of acclaimed but obscure 1970s singer-songwriter Rodriguez.

The other documentaries are "Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry," ''Detropia," ''5 Broken Cameras," ''The Gatekeepers," ''The House I Live In," ''The Imposter," ''The Invisible War," ''Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God" and "This Is Not a Film."

Members of the academy's documentary branch will narrow the list to five nominees. Nominations come out Jan. 10, with the Oscar show following on Feb. 24.

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