Afghan police: Student killed in university clash

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Sunni and Shiite students clashed at Kabul University on a Shiite holy day Saturday, and Afghan authorities say that one person was killed.

Gen. Mohammad Zahir, director of the criminal investigation division, said police were trying to assess why the fight that broke out in the afternoon, killing one student and wounding six others.

An Associated Press reporter at the scene said Shia and Sunni students started fighting and by evening, several hundred more people joined the melee, fist-fighting and throwing stones at each other. He said eyewitnesses at the scene said the clash was related to Ashoura, the commemoration of the 7th century death of the Prophet Mohammad's grandson.

Afghan leaders went to the site to try to calm the crowd. Abdul Azim Nurbakhsh, a spokesman for the Ministry of Higher Education, said late Saturday that classes at the university had been canceled for the next 10 days. Damage was reported to buildings at the university.

Other gatherings marking Ashoura in the Afghan capital were peaceful, but last year, a suicide bomber on foot struck worshippers at a Shiite shrine in Kabul, killing at least 80 people. Some Sunni extremists consider Shiite ceremonies to be heretical.

Separately, NATO said a service member with the international military coalition was killed Saturday in an insurgent attack in the south.

No other information was disclosed.

So far this year, 379 NATO service members have died in Afghanistan.

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Associated Press Writer Massieh Neshat in Kabul contributed to this report.

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Russia blames technical error for brief YouTube blacklisting

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian officials offered assurances they were not seeking to block access to YouTube on Wednesday, saying a technical error caused the popular video-sharing website to appear briefly on a register of sites containing banned content.

For about an hour, YouTube was listed on the newly-created register, which the government says is needed to fight child pornography but critics of President Vladimir Putin fear may be used to censor the Internet and stifle dissent.

YouTube was subsequently removed from the register, maintained by Russia‘s communications watchdog agency, Roskomnadzor, which said there was no plan to block access to the site.

“An unfortunate technical mistake occurred,” Roskomnadzor spokesman Vladimir Pikov said. “We work closely with them (YouTube). Basically, we see no reason now to apply towards its owners any preventive measures.”

Russia’s consumer protection rights watchdog, Rospotrebnadzor, said YouTube took down several videos earlier this week as requested by officials under the new law tightening Internet controls that took effect on November 1.

The blacklist includes websites containing pornographic images of children, instructions on how to make, use and where to get drugs, as well as others describing suicide methods.

Under the legislation, websites have three days to remove content considered harmful or illegal by Russian authorities before they can be blocked.

YouTube is owned by U.S.-based Google Inc..

A spokeswoman for Google in Russia, Alla Zabrovskaya, said all requests from the authorities are handled by the company’s global headquarters in the United States.

Anti-Putin activists, who have used the Internet to organize demonstrations, say the law is part of a crackdown on dissent orchestrated by the Kremlin since Putin, a former KGB spy, returned to presidency in May.

After a stint as prime minister, Putin was elected to a third presidential term in March after a series of opposition protests that were the biggest of his 13-year rule.

(Additional reporting by Maria Tsvetkova and Anastasia Teterevleva; Editing by Steve Gutterman and Sophie Hares)

Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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'Dallas' star Larry Hagman dies in Texas

J.R. Ewing was a business cheat, faithless husband and bottomless well of corruption. Yet with his sparkling grin, Larry Hagman masterfully created the charmingly loathsome oil baron — and coaxed forth a Texas-size gusher of ratings — on television's long-running and hugely successful nighttime soap, "Dallas."

Although he first gained fame as nice guy Major Tony Nelson on the fluffy 1965-70 NBC comedy "I Dream of Jeannie," Hagman earned his greatest stardom with J.R. The CBS serial drama about the Ewing family and those in their orbit aired from April 1978 to May 1991, and broke viewing records with its "Who shot J.R.?" 1980 cliffhanger that left unclear if Hagman's character was dead.

The actor, who returned as J.R. in a new edition of "Dallas" this year, had a long history of health problems and died Friday due to complications from his battle with cancer, his family said.

"Larry was back in his beloved hometown of Dallas, re-enacting the iconic role he loved the most. Larry's family and closest friends had joined him in Dallas for the Thanksgiving holiday," the family said in a statement that was provided to The Associated Press by Warner Bros., producer of the show.

The 81-year-old actor was surrounded by friends and family before he passed peacefully, "just as he'd wished for," the statement said.

Linda Gray, his on-screen wife and later ex-wife in the original series and the sequel, was among those with Hagman in his final moments in a Dallas hospital, said her publicist, Jeffrey Lane.

"He brought joy to everyone he knew. He was creative, generous, funny, loving and talented, and I will miss him enormously. He was an original and lived life to the fullest," the actress said.

Years before "Dallas," Hagman had gained TV fame on "I Dream of Jeannie," in which he played an astronaut whose life is disrupted when he finds a comely genie, portrayed by Barbara Eden, and takes her home to live with him.

Eden recalled late Friday shooting the series' pilot "in the frigid cold" on a Malibu beach.

"From that day, for five more years, Larry was the center of so many fun, wild and sometimes crazy times. And in retrospect, memorable moments that will remain in my heart forever," Eden said.

Hagman also starred in two short-lived sitcoms, "The Good Life" (NBC, 1971-72) and "Here We Go Again" (ABC, 1973). His film work included well-regarded performances in "The Group," ''Harry and Tonto" and "Primary Colors."

But it was Hagman's masterful portrayal of J.R. that brought him the most fame. And the "Who shot J.R.?" story twist fueled international speculation and millions of dollars in betting-parlor wagers. It also helped give the series a place in ratings history.

When the answer was revealed in a November 1980 episode, an average 41 million U.S. viewers tuned in to make "Dallas" one of the most-watched entertainment shows of all time, trailing only the "MASH" finale in 1983 with 50 million viewers.

It was J.R.'s sister-in-law, Kristin (Mary Crosby) who plugged him — he had made her pregnant, then threatened to frame her as a prostitute unless she left town — but others had equal motivation.

Hagman played Ewing as a bottomless well of corruption with a charming grin: a business cheat and a faithless husband who tried to get his alcoholic wife, Sue Ellen (Gray), institutionalized.

"I know what I want on J.R.'s tombstone," Hagman said in 1988. "It should say: 'Here lies upright citizen J.R. Ewing. This is the only deal he ever lost.'"

On Friday night, Victoria Principal, who co-starred in the original series, recalled Hagman as "bigger than life, on-screen and off. He is unforgettable, and irreplaceable, to millions of fans around the world, and in the hearts of each of us, who was lucky enough to know and love him."

Ten episodes of the new edition of "Dallas" aired this past summer and proved a hit for TNT. Filming was in progress on the sixth episode of season two, which is set to begin airing Jan. 28, the network said.

There was no immediate comment from Warner or TNT on how the series would deal with Hagman's loss.

In 2006, he did a guest shot on FX's drama series "Nip/Tuck," playing a macho business mogul. He also got new exposure in recent years with the DVD releases of "I Dream of Jeannie" and "Dallas."

Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings said Saturday morning in a statement that Hagman's role as J.R. helped the city gain "worldwide recognition."

"Larry is a North Texas jewel that was larger than life and he will be missed by many in Dallas and around the world," Rawlings said.

The Fort Worth, Texas, native was the son of singer-actress Mary Martin, who starred in such classics as "South Pacific" and "Peter Pan." Martin was still in her teens when he was born in 1931 during her marriage to attorney Ben Hagman.

As a youngster, Hagman gained a reputation for mischief-making as he was bumped from one private school to another. He made a stab at New York theater in the early 1950s, then served in the Air Force from 1952-56 in England.

While there, he met and married young Swedish designer Maj Axelsson. The couple had two children, Preston and Heidi, and were longtime residents of the Malibu beach colony that is home to many celebrities.

Hagman returned to acting and found work in the theater and in such TV series as "The U.S. Steel Hour," ''The Defenders" and "Sea Hunt." His first continuing role was as lawyer Ed Gibson on the daytime serial "The Edge of Night" (1961-63).

He called his 2001 memoir "Hello Darlin': Tall (and Absolutely True) Tales about My Life."

"I didn't put anything in that I thought was going to hurt someone or compromise them in any way," he told The Associated Press at the time.

Hagman was diagnosed in 1992 with cirrhosis of the liver and acknowledged that he had drank heavily for years. In 1995, a malignant tumor was discovered on his liver and he underwent a transplant.

After his transplant, he became an advocate for organ donation and volunteered at a hospital to help frightened patients.

"I counsel, encourage, meet them when they come in for their operations, and after," he said in 1996. "I try to offer some solace, like 'Don't be afraid, it will be a little uncomfortable for a brief time, but you'll be OK.' "

He also was an anti-smoking activist who took part in "Great American Smoke-Out" campaigns.

Funeral plans had not been announced as of Saturday morning.

"I can honestly say that we've lost not just a great actor, not just a television icon, but an element of pure Americana," Eden said in her statement Friday night. "Goodbye, Larry. There was no one like you before and there will never be anyone like you again."

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Associated Press writers Erin Gartner in Chicago and Shaya Mohajer in Los Angeles, and AP Television Writer Frazier Moore in New York contributed to this report.

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AP PHOTOS: Simple surgery heals blind Indonesians

PADANG SIDEMPUAN, Indonesia (AP) — They came from the remotest parts of Indonesia, taking crowded overnight ferries and riding for hours in cars or buses — all in the hope that a simple, and free, surgical procedure would restore their eyesight.

Many patients were elderly and needed help to reach two hospitals in Sumatra where mass eye camps were held earlier this month by Nepalese surgeon Dr. Sanduk Ruit. During eight days, more than 1,400 cataracts were removed.

The patients camped out, sleeping side-by-side on military cots, eating donated food while fire trucks supplied water for showers and toilets. Many who had given up hope of seeing again left smiling after their bandages were removed.

"I've been blind for three years, and it's really bad," said Arlita Tobing, 65, whose sight was restored after the surgery. "I worked on someone's farm, but I couldn't work anymore."

Indonesia has one of the highest rates of blindness in the world, making it a target country for Ruit who travels throughout the developing world holding free mass eye camps while training doctors to perform the simple, stitch-free procedure he pioneered. He often visits hard-to-reach remote areas where health care is scarce and patients are poor. He believes that by teaching doctors how to perform his method of cataract removal, the rate of blindness can be reduced worldwide.

Cataracts are the leading cause of blindness globally, affecting about 20 million people who mostly live in poor countries, according to the World Health Organization.

"We get only one life, and that life is very short. I am blessed by God to have this opportunity," said Ruit, who runs the Tilganga Eye Center in Katmandu, Nepal. "The most important of that is training, taking the idea to other people."

During the recent camps, Ruit trained six doctors from Indonesia, Thailand and Singapore.

Here, in images, are scenes from the mobile eye camps:

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Massachusetts natural gas explosion damaged 42 buildings

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (AP) — Preliminary investigations show more than 40 buildings were damaged in a natural gas explosion in Massachusetts that injured 18 people, building inspectors said Saturday.

A strip club was flattened and a day care center was heavily damaged in the massive explosion Friday night in Springfield, one of New England's biggest cities.

No one was killed in the explosion.

Investigators were trying Saturday to figure out what caused the blast that could be heard for miles, left a large hole in the ground where the multistory brick building housing Scores Gentleman's Club once stood and scattered debris over several blocks.

Officials already had evacuated part of the entertainment district after responding to a gas leak and odor reported about an hour before the explosion. Gas workers venting a gas leak got indications that the building was about to explode and they ducked for cover behind a utility truck — along with firefighters and police officers — just before the blast, said Mark McDonald, president of the New England Gas Workers Association.

Most of the injured were in that group, and the truck that saved their lives was essentially demolished, he said.

"It really is a miracle and it's an example of our public safety officials, each and every day, putting themselves in harm's way, taking what could have been considered a very routine call of an odor of gas, but they took the proper precautions," State Fire Marshal Stephen Coan said. "And thanks to God that they did."

Officials also marveled how the 5:30 p.m. blast occurred when a day care center next door was closed. The center's building was heavily damaged.

Lt. Gov. Tim Murray and Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno were attending a tree-lighting ceremony when the explosion occurred. Sarno said some people mistakenly thought the boom was part of the holiday event.

The explosion blew out windows in a three-block radius, leaving at least three buildings irreparably damaged and causing emergency workers to evacuate a six-story apartment building that was buckling, police said. Pieces of broken glass littered streets and sidewalks. It was unclear how many residents had been evacuated. A shelter was set up at a school, but city officials said no one stayed there overnight.

Omar Fermin, manager of the Punta Cana Restaurant two blocks from the explosion site, found the floor-to-ceiling windows blasted out when he came to check on the property Saturday morning.

"It looks like an earthquake hit," said Fermin, a native of the Dominican Republic. "I've never seen anything like it."

He said he was waiting for someone to come and assess the damage. He worried the restaurant would remain closed for weeks while the owner seeks to replace the massive custom-made windows.

Authorities cordoned off the center of the explosion Saturday as building inspectors worked to identify unsafe structures. Anxious residents gathered at the perimeter, waiting for permission to visit their buildings.

Preliminary reports show the blast damaged 42 buildings housing 115 residential units, said Thomas Walsh, spokesman for Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno.

Three buildings were immediately condemned, and 24 others require additional inspections by structural engineers to determine whether they are safe, Walsh said.

Dogs trapped in abandoned buildings barked loudly Saturday as building inspectors fanned out across the area. One inspector said he wished he could get a ladder and permission to retrieve a dog that was barking in the upper floor of one building sealed off from residents.

Authorities are opening an animal shelter for pets affected by the explosion, Walsh said.

Coan, the fire marshal, said his office is investigating the cause of the blast and its possible origin. The state's Department of Public Utilities was also investigating.

Sheila Doiron, a spokeswoman for Columbia Gas of Massachusetts, said the company will continue to monitor for any potential leaks within several blocks of the blast site. So far, she said, the company hadn't yet found any measurable readings.

The utility will keep at least 30 workers at the scene, along with a so-called sniffing car mounted with sophisticated gadgets capable of detecting low levels of gas leaks, Walsh said.

Doiron said the company also didn't find in its records any gas odor calls to the area where the strip club was located.

Authorities also deployed police officers throughout the area to prevent looting, Walsh said.

The victims were taken to two hospitals in the city. Those injured were nine firefighters, two police officers, four Columbia Gas workers, two civilians and another city employee.

Springfield, which is 90 miles west of Boston and has about 150,000 residents, is the largest city in western Massachusetts. It's known as the home of the Basketball Hall of Fame, which is not near the blast site.

The city has been rebuilding from damage caused by a tornado in June 2011.

Wayne Davis, who lives about a block from the destroyed building, said he felt his apartment shake.

"I was laying down in bed, and I started feeling the building shaking and creaking," he said.

The Navy veteran said the boom from the explosion was louder than anything he'd ever heard, including the sound of a jet landing on an aircraft carrier.

The blast was so loud it was heard in several neighboring communities. Video from WWLP-TV showed the moment of the explosion, with smoke billowing into the air above the neighborhood.

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Associated Press writers Rodrique Ngowi, Bridget Murphy and Bob Salsberg in Boston and Jessica Hill in Springfield contributed to this report.

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Beijing's S. China Sea rivals protest passport map

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — China has enraged several neighbors with a few dashes on a map, printed in its newly revised passports that show it staking its claim on the entire South China Sea and even Taiwan.

Inside the passports, an outline of China printed in the upper left corner includes Taiwan and the sea, hemmed in by the dashes. The change highlights China's longstanding claim on the South China Sea in its entirety, though parts of the waters also are claimed by the Philippines, Vietnam, Taiwan, Brunei and Malaysia.

China's official maps have long included Taiwan and the South China Sea as Chinese territory, but the act of including them in its passports could be seen as a provocation since it would require other nations to tacitly endorse those claims by affixing their official seals to the documents.

Ruling party and opposition lawmakers alike condemned the map in Taiwan, a self-governed island that split from China after a civil war in 1949. They said it could harm the warming ties the historic rivals have enjoyed since Ma Ying-jeou became president 4 1/2 years ago.

"This is total ignorance of reality and only provokes disputes," said Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council, the Cabinet-level body responsible for ties with Beijing. The council said the government cannot accept the map.

Philippine Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario told reporters in Manila that he sent a note to the Chinese Embassy that his country "strongly protests" the image. He said China's claims include an area that is "clearly part of the Philippines' territory and maritime domain."

The Vietnamese government said it had also sent a diplomatic note to the Chinese Embassy in Hanoi, demanding that Beijing remove the "erroneous content" printed in the passport.

In Beijing, the Foreign Ministry said the new passport was issued based on international standards. China began issuing new versions of its passports to include electronic chips on May 15, though criticism cropped up only this week.

"The design of this type of passports is not directed against any particular country," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at a daily media briefing Friday. "We hope the relevant countries can calmly treat it with rationality and restraint so that the normal visits by the Chinese and foreigners will not be unnecessarily interfered with."

It's unclear whether China's South China Sea neighbors will respond in any way beyond protesting to Beijing. China, in a territorial dispute with India, once stapled visas into passports to avoid stamping them.

"Vietnam reserves the right to carry out necessary measures suitable to Vietnamese law, international law and practices toward such passports," Vietnamese foreign ministry spokesman Luong Thanh Nghi said.

Taiwan does not recognize China's passports in any case; Chinese visitors to the island have special travel documents.

China maintains it has ancient claims to all of the South China Sea, despite much of it being within the exclusive economic zones of Southeast Asian neighbors. The islands and waters are potentially rich in oil and gas.

There are concerns that the disputes could escalate into violence. China and the Philippines had a tense maritime standoff at a shoal west of the main Philippine island of Luzon early this year.

The United States, which has said it takes no sides in the territorial spats but that it considers ensuring safe maritime traffic in the waters to be in its national interest, has backed a call for a "code of conduct" to prevent clashes in the disputed territories. But it remains unclear if and when China will sit down with rival claimants to draft such a legally binding nonaggression pact.

The Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia and Vietnam are scheduled to meet Dec. 12 to discuss claims in the South China Sea and the role of China.

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Associated Press writers Oliver Teves in Manila, Philippines, Chris Brummitt in Hanoi, Vietnam, and researcher Zhao Liang in Beijing contributed to this report.

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Marc Anthony comes to aid of Dominican orphanage

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic (AP) — Singer Marc Anthony is coming to the aid of an orphanage in the Dominican Republic.

A foundation run by Anthony with music and sports producer Henry Cardenas plans to build a new residence hall, classrooms and a baseball field for the Children of Christ orphanage in the eastern city of La Romana. Anthony attended the groundbreaking ceremony Friday with his model girlfriend Shannon de Lima.

Children of Christ Foundation Director Sonia Hane said Anthony visited the orphanage previously and decided to help. His Maestro Cares Foundation raised $200,000 for the expansion on land donated by a sugar company. The orphanage was founded in 1996 for children who were abused or abandoned or whose parents were unable to care for them.

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AP PHOTOS: Simple surgery heals blind Indonesians

PADANG SIDEMPUAN, Indonesia (AP) — They came from the remotest parts of Indonesia, taking crowded overnight ferries and riding for hours in cars or buses — all in the hope that a simple, and free, surgical procedure would restore their eyesight.

Many patients were elderly and needed help to reach two hospitals in Sumatra where mass eye camps were held earlier this month by Nepalese surgeon Dr. Sanduk Ruit. During eight days, more than 1,400 cataracts were removed.

The patients camped out, sleeping side-by-side on military cots, eating donated food while fire trucks supplied water for showers and toilets. Many who had given up hope of seeing again left smiling after their bandages were removed.

"I've been blind for three years, and it's really bad," said Arlita Tobing, 65, whose sight was restored after the surgery. "I worked on someone's farm, but I couldn't work anymore."

Indonesia has one of the highest rates of blindness in the world, making it a target country for Ruit who travels throughout the developing world holding free mass eye camps while training doctors to perform the simple, stitch-free procedure he pioneered. He often visits hard-to-reach remote areas where health care is scarce and patients are poor. He believes that by teaching doctors how to perform his method of cataract removal, the rate of blindness can be reduced worldwide.

Cataracts are the leading cause of blindness globally, affecting about 20 million people who mostly live in poor countries, according to the World Health Organization.

"We get only one life, and that life is very short. I am blessed by God to have this opportunity," said Ruit, who runs the Tilganga Eye Center in Katmandu, Nepal. "The most important of that is training, taking the idea to other people."

During the recent camps, Ruit trained six doctors from Indonesia, Thailand and Singapore.

Here, in images, are scenes from the mobile eye camps:

Read More..

Egypt president's moves worry Washington

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is concerned about Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi's decision to assume sweeping powers, the U.S. State Department said on Friday.

Mursi on Thursday issued a decree that puts his decisions above legal challenge until a new parliament is elected, causing angry protests by his opponents and violent clashes in central Cairo and other cities on Friday.

Mursi's aides said the decree was intended to speed up a protracted transition that has been hindered by legal obstacles, but rivals condemned Mursi as an autocratic "pharaoh" who wanted to impose his Islamist vision on Egypt.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met Mursi in Cairo on Wednesday and thanked him for his mediation efforts to establish a ceasefire between Israel and the Islamist Hamas movement ruling the Gaza Strip.

"The decisions and declarations announced on November 22 raise concerns for many Egyptians and for the international community," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said in a statement.

"The current constitutional vacuum in Egypt can only be resolved by the adoption of a constitution that includes checks and balances, and respects fundamental freedoms, individual rights, and the rule of law consistent with Egypt's international commitments.

"We call for calm and encourage all parties to work together and call for all Egyptians to resolve their differences over these important issues peacefully and through democratic dialogue."

Egyptian police on Friday fired teargas near Cairo's Tahrir Square, the heart of the 2011 uprising that toppled former President Hosni Mubarak. Thousands demanded Mursi quit and accused him of launching a "coup". There were also violent protests in Alexandria, Port Said and Suez.

Mubarak was an ally of the United States for decades. His downfall has thrown into doubt the United States' long-standing reliance on Egypt, the first Arab state to make peace with Israel, as a strategic partner in the region.

Clinton said on Wednesday: "Egypt's new government is assuming the responsibility and leadership that has long made this country a cornerstone for regional stability and peace."

(Reporting by Arshad Mohammed; Editing by Mohammad Zargham)

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US troops in Afghanistan celebrate Thanksgiving

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — It was Army Sgt. Keith Wells' first Thanksgiving Day away from his family and despite a cornucopia of food provided for the troops, his taste buds were craving his wife's macaroni and cheese back home.

"My wife's a foodie — you know the Food Network, cooking shows. Everything she makes is golden," Wells of Charlotte, N.C., said Thursday at a large international military base in the Afghan capital, Kabul.

The dining hall served up mac-and-cheese along with traditional Thanksgiving Day fixings. Wells was thankful for the good food, but he still missed his wife's home-cooking.

Huge hunks of beef greeted the estimated 2,500 diners as soldiers lined up in the dining hall. Red-white-and-blue decorations filled the room. Brochures titled "Learn about combat stress" served as table centerpieces.

There was roast turkey, sliced turkey, ham and rib-eye steaks. The troops were served steaming side dishes of dressing, corn, collard greens, yams and mashed potatoes and gravy that some lapped up with spoons. For dessert, there was a massive cake with a turkey etched in icing, pumpkin spice cookies and scores of pies.

A short walk from the dining hall, service members were playing a modified version of American football.

Parts of the scene could have come from a snapshot of any U.S. city: American guys in sweats tossing the pigskin, a scoreboard, a coin toss to start the game.

But on this military base, concrete barriers surrounded the field. The referees wore camouflaged shirts and the spectators carried rifles. The artificial turf was frayed and so dusty that when one player spiked the football, a puff of dirt rose from the field.

The players used a regulation football, but the game was a mix of football, soccer and rugby to fit the short field.

Some soldiers commented about the 11-year-old war that has claimed the lives of 2,029 American service members.

Army Chief Warrant Officer 4 Chuck Minton of Monroe, Ga., who has traveled extensively across Afghanistan, was optimistic. "It's been progressing here, getting better. The Afghans have taken over more missions," Minton said.

President Barack Obama pulled 10,000 troops out of Afghanistan in 2011 and 23,000 more this year, leaving about 66,000 American service members still deployed in the country. Nearly all international combat troops are to withdraw by the end of 2014 when Afghan forces will be fully in charge of securing the nation.

Army Maj. Rodney Gehrett of Colorado Springs, Colo., said he was surprised that the war was barely mentioned during the last U.S. presidential election — evidence that some Americans had tuned out the news from the front line a half a world away.

"The war in Afghanistan wasn't even brought up as a topic of conversation" during the election, Gehrett said. "It was a little surprising to me. Hopefully, that will change and people will realize that we still have troops here and they are fighting every day."

Army Sgt. Adam Draughn of Denver, Colo., said some people back home have the impression that the Afghan people don't want American troops in their country.

"Honestly, I think the biggest misconception in my opinion is that, you know, we actually are loved here," Draughn said. "The nationals do care about us. They do want us here to help them. We're not here uninvited."

Most of the holiday chatter, however, was focused on family.

Taking a break from the game, Army Capt. Robert Mikyska of North Aurora, Ill., pulled out a photocopied photo that was taken of he and his wife just before he deployed to Afghanistan nine months ago.

"Hi, honey!" Mikyska said, looking at the picture. "In a couple weeks, I'll be home. I can't wait to be back."

"My family's here," Army Spc. Ricky Clay, also of Monroe, Ga., said as he smiled and embraced his teammates on the sidelines of the football field.

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Lawsuit against Madonna dismissed in Russia

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia (AP) — A Russian court on Thursday dismissed a lawsuit that sought millions of dollars in damages from Madonna for allegedly traumatizing minors by speaking up for gay rights during a concert in St. Petersburg.

The ruling came after a one-day hearing that bordered on the farcical. During it, plaintiffs claimed that Madonna's so-called "propaganda of perversion" would negatively affect Russia's birthrate and erode the nation's defense capability by depriving the country of future soldiers. At one point, the judge threatened to expel journalists from the courtroom if they laughed too much.

In the end, the Moskovsky district court in St. Petersburg threw out the Trade Union of Russian Citizens' lawsuit and the 333 million rubles ($10.7 million) it sought from the singer for allegedly exposing youths to "homosexual propaganda."

Madonna did not attend the trial, and her publicist Liz Rosenberg said Thursday the star wouldn't comment about it.

Anti-gay sentiment is strong in Russia, particularly in St. Petersburg, where local legislators passed a law in February that made it illegal to promote homosexuality to minors. Six months later, Madonna criticized the law on Facebook, then stood up for gay rights during a concert in St. Petersburg that drew fans as young as 12.

"Who will children grow up to be if they hear about the equal rights of the lesbian lobby and manly love with traditional sexual relations?" one of the plaintiffs, Darya Dedova, testified Thursday. "The death rate prevails over the birth rate in the West; young guys are becoming gender neutral."

The plaintiffs submitted evidence about gay culture drawn from Wikipedia pages, claiming that a real encyclopedia could not have articles about homosexuality.

"We aren't against homosexual people, but we are against the propaganda of perversion among minors," Dedova told the court. "We want to defend the values of a traditional family, which are currently in crisis in this country. Madonna violated our laws and she should be punished."

Madonna, who performed in Moscow and St. Petersburg in August as part of her world tour, also angered Russian officials by supporting jailed members of the Russian punk band Pussy Riot. The American said during her Moscow concert that she would "pray for them," then turned around so the audience could see the words "Pussy Riot" written on her back. The singer also donned a ski mask similar to those worn by Pussy Riot.

Despite international outrage, three of that band's members were sentenced to two years in jail on hooliganism charges for performing a "punk prayer" at Moscow's main cathedral, during which they pleaded with the Virgin Mary to deliver Russia from President Vladimir Putin. One of the Pussy Riot members was later released from jail on appeal, but the other two were sent to prison camps to serve their sentences.

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Seddon reported from Moscow.

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Study finds mammograms lead to unneeded treatment

Mammograms have done surprisingly little to catch deadly breast cancers before they spread, a big U.S. study finds. At the same time, more than a million women have been treated for cancers that never would have threatened their lives, researchers estimate.

Up to one-third of breast cancers, or 50,000 to 70,000 cases a year, don't need treatment, the study suggests.

It's the most detailed look yet at overtreatment of breast cancer, and it adds fresh evidence that screening is not as helpful as many women believe. Mammograms are still worthwhile, because they do catch some deadly cancers and save lives, doctors stress. And some of them disagree with conclusions the new study reached.

But it spotlights a reality that is tough for many Americans to accept: Some abnormalities that doctors call "cancer" are not a health threat or truly malignant. There is no good way to tell which ones are, so many women wind up getting treatments like surgery and chemotherapy that they don't really need.

Men have heard a similar message about PSA tests to screen for slow-growing prostate cancer, but it's relatively new to the debate over breast cancer screening.

"We're coming to learn that some cancers — many cancers, depending on the organ — weren't destined to cause death," said Dr. Barnett Kramer, a National Cancer Institute screening expert. However, "once a woman is diagnosed, it's hard to say treatment is not necessary."

He had no role in the study, which was led by Dr. H. Gilbert Welch of Dartmouth Medical School and Dr. Archie Bleyer of St. Charles Health System and Oregon Health & Science University. Results are in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine.

Breast cancer is the leading type of cancer and cause of cancer deaths in women worldwide. Nearly 1.4 million new cases are diagnosed each year. Other countries screen less aggressively than the U.S. does. In Britain, for example, mammograms are usually offered only every three years and a recent review there found similar signs of overtreatment.

The dogma has been that screening finds cancer early, when it's most curable. But screening is only worthwhile if it finds cancers destined to cause death, and if treating them early improves survival versus treating when or if they cause symptoms.

Mammograms also are an imperfect screening tool — they often give false alarms, spurring biopsies and other tests that ultimately show no cancer was present. The new study looks at a different risk: Overdiagnosis, or finding cancer that is present but does not need treatment.

Researchers used federal surveys on mammography and cancer registry statistics from 1976 through 2008 to track how many cancers were found early, while still confined to the breast, versus later, when they had spread to lymph nodes or more widely.

The scientists assumed that the actual amount of disease — how many true cases exist — did not change or grew only a little during those three decades. Yet they found a big difference in the number and stage of cases discovered over time, as mammograms came into wide use.

Mammograms more than doubled the number of early-stage cancers detected — from 112 to 234 cases per 100,000 women. But late-stage cancers dropped just 8 percent, from 102 to 94 cases per 100,000 women.

The imbalance suggests a lot of overdiagnosis from mammograms, which now account for 60 percent of cases that are found, Bleyer said. If screening were working, there should be one less patient diagnosed with late-stage cancer for every additional patient whose cancer was found at an earlier stage, he explained.

"Instead, we're diagnosing a lot of something else — not cancer" in that early stage, Bleyer said. "And the worst cancer is still going on, just like it always was."

Researchers also looked at death rates for breast cancer, which declined 28 percent during that time in women 40 and older — the group targeted for screening. Mortality dropped even more — 41 percent — in women under 40, who presumably were not getting mammograms.

"We are left to conclude, as others have, that the good news in breast cancer — decreasing mortality — must largely be the result of improved treatment, not screening," the authors write.

The study was paid for by the study authors' universities.

"This study is important because what it really highlights is that the biology of the cancer is what we need to understand" in order to know which ones to treat and how, said Dr. Julia A. Smith, director of breast cancer screening at NYU Langone Medical Center in New York. Doctors already are debating whether DCIS, a type of early tumor confined to a milk duct, should even be called cancer, she said.

Another expert, Dr. Linda Vahdat, director of the breast cancer research program at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York, said the study's leaders made many assumptions to reach a conclusion about overdiagnosis that "may or may not be correct."

"I don't think it will change how we view screening mammography," she said.

A government-appointed task force that gives screening advice calls for mammograms every other year starting at age 50 and stopping at 75. The American Cancer Society recommends them every year starting at age 40.

Dr. Len Lichtenfeld, the cancer society's deputy chief medical officer, said the study should not be taken as "a referendum on mammography," and noted that other high-quality studies have affirmed its value. Still, he said overdiagnosis is a problem, and it's not possible to tell an individual woman whether her cancer needs treated.

"Our technology has brought us to the place where we can find a lot of cancer. Our science has to bring us to the point where we can define what treatment people really need," he said.

___

Online:

Study: http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1206809

Screening advice: http://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/uspstf/uspsbrca.htm

___

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

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Black Friday starts on Thursday right after Thanksgiving dinner

Black Friday is the Super Bowl of retail, but some of the nation's largest big-box stores can't wait until the day after Thanksgiving to open their doors to shoppers eager to grab great deals the same day as their turkey dinners.

Traditional Black Friday door-busting deals now start tonight, on what's been dubbed Gray Thursday. Major retail stores such as Kmart, Toys R Us, Walmart and Sears will open their doors beginning at 8 p.m. Target will join the party an hour later.

"It's traditionally been the day after Thanksgiving when the stores go into the black, where they make all their money. But that's not true anymore," retail expert Michelle Madhock said.

With Black Friday sales starting Thursday, that means lines started forming Wednesday, or in some extreme cases a week before as bargain hunters tried to get a turkey leg up on their competition.

READ: The Best Black Friday Freebies 2012

Luciana Pendleton pitched a tent outside a Deptford Township, N.J., Best Buy Monday fully equipped with all she needed to spend the next few days away from home so she could be first in line when the doors open.

"I am just happy I beat my competition. They pulled up here around 3 p.m., and we were already here so I was happy," she said Monday.

READ: How to Beat Black Friday Stress

Last year, some sale seekers became a little too excited and turned holiday shopping into a contact sport. In one ugly incident, a woman was accused of unleashing pepper spray on other shoppers in a dash for electronics at Walmart in Los Angeles.

This year, stores are beefing up security, and Best Buy even participated in training drills to handle the large crowds. More than 147 million people plan to shop this weekend, according to the National Retail Federation.

The hottest deals that are up for grabs this year include a 46-inch Samsung LED flat screen TV at Walmart with $200 off the original price. If that's not good enough, Sears has knocked $500 off the price of a 50-inch Toshiba flat screen. Target is offering the Nook Simple Touch at half price.

Black Friday officially kicks off at midnight for Best Buy, Sports Authority and Macy's.

Also Read

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3 bomb blasts kill 6 in 2 main Pakistani cities

QUETTA, Pakistan (AP) — A bomb blast targeting an army vehicle killed three soldiers and two civilians in the southwestern city of Quetta on Wednesday, police said.

Hours later, two bombs went off minutes apart outside a Shiite mosque in the southern city of Karachi, killing at least one person and wounding several others.

The explosions demonstrated the underlying tensions in Pakistan between insurgents and security forces on the one hand Sunni and Shiite Muslims on the other. The relatively low level of attacks does not appear to be endangering the nation's stability.

In the first attack, an improvised explosive device was used to detonate the bomb by remote control in Quetta, police commissioner Qambar Dashti said. He said eight people were wounded in the attack, some critically.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the bombing.

Quetta is the provincial capital of Baluchistan. The province has long been a scene of low-level insurgency by nationalist groups demanding more of a share in the region's natural resources.

Taliban and the al-Qaida-linked Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi has also been active in Baluchistan, mainly focusing on targeting Shiite Muslims, whom it considers heretics.

Also Wednesday, two bombs exploded outside a Shiite mosque in the southern city of Karachi, killing one person and wounding seven people, senior police official Javed Odho said. He said the first appeared to be a suicide attack.

As the security forces and rescue workers were transporting victims of the first attack in Karachi to hospitals, a second bomb exploded at the same place, wounding several people, including security forces, rescue workers and journalists, senior police officer Omer Khitab said.

The twin bombings came as minority Shiites were celebrating the holy month of Muharram.

Pakistan has a long history of sectarian violence by extremist Sunni and Shiite Muslims in Karachi and other parts of the country.

The Sunni-Shiite schism over the true heir to Islam's Prophet Muhammad dates back to the seventh century.

___

Associated Press Writer Adil Jawad contributed to this report from Karachi.

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PlayStation Mobile Now Lets PS Vita Owners Create Their Own Games

Think you (or someone you know) has what it takes to write games for the PlayStation Vita? Sony just opened up its PlayStation Mobile game store to anyone who wants in. All you need is a half-decent Windows PC and a Vita, and the cash for a $ 99 developer fee — the same yearly price Apple charges.

​How PlayStation Mobile fits in

PlayStation Mobile isn’t the same thing as the PlayStation Store, where you can buy most PlayStation games and downloadable content. It’s more like a separate department that’s only on the PlayStation Vita and on PlayStation Certified Android devices like Sony’s smartphones and tablets.

In a nutshell, it’s Sony’s version of Xbox Live Indie Arcade, except that it’s for portable PlayStation consoles instead of home Xbox ones. It’s where small, indie studios can get their work published and featured, and where PlayStation Vita owners can look for unique, inexpensive game titles.

​How developers can get started

Game developers can start with PlayStation Mobile by registering on its developer site. After that, they download the PlayStation Mobile SDK (software development kit), and get to work on their games. Third-party software like the free Blender 3D modeling program can be used to create in-game art assets, while the SDK itself is powered by the open source Mono version of C#, the same programming language used by Xbox Live Indie Arcade’s XNA toolkit.

​How PlayStation Mobile compares to other game and app markets

For starters, the $ 99 annual fee and the cost of a PlayStation Vita or PlayStation Certified device put it right up there with Apple’s App Store in terms of up-front expense, except that you don’t have to buy a Mac to write things for it. This is a lot more than the $ 25 one-time fee to get in to the Google Play store, which you can use pretty much any computer and Android device to write for. On the other hand, anyone who’s considering writing PlayStation Vita games probably already owns a Vita to begin with.

Developers aren’t allowed to write non-game apps for PlayStation Mobile, unlike with most markets. Pretty much the only apps seen on the Vita so far are official licensed ones like YouTube and Flickr, while PlayStation Certified devices running the Android OS get their apps from the Google Play store anyhow.

Perhaps the strangest restriction? Developers don’t get to set their own games’ price. They instead specify a “wholesale price,” as though they were selling their games to Sony, and it decides how much to sell them for. In essence, the company chooses its own profit margin on a per-game basis, unlike most app markets’ 70/30 split. It also seems to be able to decide when and whether games go on sale.

​Success stories?

Rami Ismail told “The Story of Super Crate Box” on the PlayStation Blog, explaining how he and a fan managed to bring an iOS game that he’d already made to the PlayStation Vita on very short notice. He said the game “feels right at home” on the portable console, while Joystiq’s JC Fletcher calls the Vita port “the definitive version.” As for whether it’s selling well or not, though, we may have to wait to find out.

Jared Spurbeck is an open-source software enthusiast, who uses an Android phone and an Ubuntu laptop PC. He has been writing about technology and electronics since 2008.

Gaming News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Actress Mayim Bialik to divorce husband of 9 years

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Mayim Bialik is splitting from her husband of nine years.

The 36-year-old actress says in a statement posted online Wednesday that she and husband Michael Stone have decided to divorce. The couple has two young sons.

Bialik recently released a book about attachment parenting, but says the philosophy that encourages forming close bonds with near-constant physical contact played no role in the couple's split.

The Emmy-nominated star of CBS' "The Big Bang Theory" says "relationships are complicated no matter what style of parenting you choose."

She says divorce is "terribly sad, painful and incomprehensible" for children and adds that the couple's sons remain their priority.

Bialik first gained fame as the star of the 1990s sitcom "Blossom." She holds a doctoral degree in neuroscience from UCLA, specializing in obsessive-compulsive disorder in adolescents.

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Study finds mammograms lead to unneeded treatment

Mammograms have done surprisingly little to catch deadly breast cancers before they spread, a big U.S. study finds. At the same time, more than a million women have been treated for cancers that never would have threatened their lives, researchers estimate.

Up to one-third of breast cancers, or 50,000 to 70,000 cases a year, don't need treatment, the study suggests.

It's the most detailed look yet at overtreatment of breast cancer, and it adds fresh evidence that screening is not as helpful as many women believe. Mammograms are still worthwhile, because they do catch some deadly cancers and save lives, doctors stress. And some of them disagree with conclusions the new study reached.

But it spotlights a reality that is tough for many Americans to accept: Some abnormalities that doctors call "cancer" are not a health threat or truly malignant. There is no good way to tell which ones are, so many women wind up getting treatments like surgery and chemotherapy that they don't really need.

Men have heard a similar message about PSA tests to screen for slow-growing prostate cancer, but it's relatively new to the debate over breast cancer screening.

"We're coming to learn that some cancers — many cancers, depending on the organ — weren't destined to cause death," said Dr. Barnett Kramer, a National Cancer Institute screening expert. However, "once a woman is diagnosed, it's hard to say treatment is not necessary."

He had no role in the study, which was led by Dr. H. Gilbert Welch of Dartmouth Medical School and Dr. Archie Bleyer of St. Charles Health System and Oregon Health & Science University. Results are in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine.

Breast cancer is the leading type of cancer and cause of cancer deaths in women worldwide. Nearly 1.4 million new cases are diagnosed each year. Other countries screen less aggressively than the U.S. does. In Britain, for example, mammograms are usually offered only every three years and a recent review there found similar signs of overtreatment.

The dogma has been that screening finds cancer early, when it's most curable. But screening is only worthwhile if it finds cancers destined to cause death, and if treating them early improves survival versus treating when or if they cause symptoms.

Mammograms also are an imperfect screening tool — they often give false alarms, spurring biopsies and other tests that ultimately show no cancer was present. The new study looks at a different risk: Overdiagnosis, or finding cancer that is present but does not need treatment.

Researchers used federal surveys on mammography and cancer registry statistics from 1976 through 2008 to track how many cancers were found early, while still confined to the breast, versus later, when they had spread to lymph nodes or more widely.

The scientists assumed that the actual amount of disease — how many true cases exist — did not change or grew only a little during those three decades. Yet they found a big difference in the number and stage of cases discovered over time, as mammograms came into wide use.

Mammograms more than doubled the number of early-stage cancers detected — from 112 to 234 cases per 100,000 women. But late-stage cancers dropped just 8 percent, from 102 to 94 cases per 100,000 women.

The imbalance suggests a lot of overdiagnosis from mammograms, which now account for 60 percent of cases that are found, Bleyer said. If screening were working, there should be one less patient diagnosed with late-stage cancer for every additional patient whose cancer was found at an earlier stage, he explained.

"Instead, we're diagnosing a lot of something else — not cancer" in that early stage, Bleyer said. "And the worst cancer is still going on, just like it always was."

Researchers also looked at death rates for breast cancer, which declined 28 percent during that time in women 40 and older — the group targeted for screening. Mortality dropped even more — 41 percent — in women under 40, who presumably were not getting mammograms.

"We are left to conclude, as others have, that the good news in breast cancer — decreasing mortality — must largely be the result of improved treatment, not screening," the authors write.

The study was paid for by the study authors' universities.

"This study is important because what it really highlights is that the biology of the cancer is what we need to understand" in order to know which ones to treat and how, said Dr. Julia A. Smith, director of breast cancer screening at NYU Langone Medical Center in New York. Doctors already are debating whether DCIS, a type of early tumor confined to a milk duct, should even be called cancer, she said.

Another expert, Dr. Linda Vahdat, director of the breast cancer research program at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York, said the study's leaders made many assumptions to reach a conclusion about overdiagnosis that "may or may not be correct."

"I don't think it will change how we view screening mammography," she said.

A government-appointed task force that gives screening advice calls for mammograms every other year starting at age 50 and stopping at 75. The American Cancer Society recommends them every year starting at age 40.

Dr. Len Lichtenfeld, the cancer society's deputy chief medical officer, said the study should not be taken as "a referendum on mammography," and noted that other high-quality studies have affirmed its value. Still, he said overdiagnosis is a problem, and it's not possible to tell an individual woman whether her cancer needs treated.

"Our technology has brought us to the place where we can find a lot of cancer. Our science has to bring us to the point where we can define what treatment people really need," he said.

___

Online:

Study: http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1206809

Screening advice: http://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/uspstf/uspsbrca.htm

___

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

Read More..

Silent skies over Gaza after cease-fire

The rockets and missiles fell silent over Gaza for the first time in eight days today, but gunfire erupted in the crowded streets of the Palestinian enclave to celebrate the announcement of a ceasefire in the bloody conflict between Israel and Hamas.

The two sides fired final salvos at one another up until the final moments before the 2 p.m. ET cease-fire deadline. At least one Israeli missile landed at 1:57 p.m. ET in Gaza, and four rockets were launched toward the Israeli province of Beer Sheva at 1:59 p.m. ET.

After 2 p.m. ET, however, the sky was finally empty of munitions.

The eight days of fighting left 130 Palestinans and five Israelis dead, and badly damaged many of Gaza's buildings. A bomb that exploded on a bus in Tel Aviv earlier today left an additional 10 Israelis wounded.

The fighting came to an end after a meeting between Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

"This is a critical moment for the region," Clinton said after the meeting, standing next to Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohamed Kamel Amr to announce the deal.

"The people of this region deserve a chance to live free of fear and violence and today's agreement is a step" in that direction, Clinton said. "Now we have to focus on reaching a durable outcome."

Clinton said that Egypt and the U.S. would help support the peace process going forward.

"Ultimately every step must move us toward a comprehensive peace for people of the region," she said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed the cease-fire from Tel Aviv after Clinton's announcement.

"I agree that that it was a good idea to give an opportunity to the cease-fire... in order to enable Israeli citizens to return to their day to day lives," Netanyahu said.

He reiterated that it was vital to Israel's security to "prevent smuggling of arms to terrorist organizations" in the future.

An Israeli official told ABC News that the ceasefire would mean a "quiet for quiet" deal, in which both sides stop shooting and "wait and see what happens."

"Who knows if the ceasefire will even last two minutes," the official said. The official said that any possible agreement on borders and blockades on the Gaza/Israel border would come only after a period of quiet.

Clinton and Morsi met for three hours in Cairo today to discuss an end to the violence. The secretary of state met with Netanyahu Tuesday night for more than two hours, saying she sought to "de-escalate the situation in Gaza."

The fighting dragged on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning despite Hamas officials declaring publicly Tuesday afternoon that they expected a cease-fire would be announced Tuesday night, after Clinton and Netanyahu's talks.

The airstrikes by the Israeli Defense Forces overnight hit government ministries, underground tunnels, a banker's empty villa and a Hamas-linked media office. At least four strikes within seconds of each other pulverized a complex of government ministries the size of a city block, rattling nearby buildings and shattering windows.

Hours later, clouds of acrid dust still hung over the area and smoke still rose from the rubble. Gaza health officials said there were no deaths or injuries.

On Wednesday morning, the IDF said they had destroyed 50 underground rocket launching sites in Gaza. They also said that Israel's "Iron Dome" missile shield intercepted two rockets from Gaza into Israel overnight as well.

Around 12 p.m. in Israel, however, a bomb exploded on a public bus near the nation's military headquarters in Tel Aviv, in one of the city's busiest areas. Israel police said the explosion was a terrorist attack, the first in Israel since 2006.

Upon landing in Cairo to meet with Morsi, Clinton released a statement condemning the attack.

"The United States strongly condemns this terrorist attack and our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and the people of Israel. As I arrive in Cairo, I am closely monitoring reports from Tel Aviv, and we will stay in close contact with Prime Minister Netanyahu's team. The United States stands ready to provide any assistance that Israel requires," she said.

Also Read

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Commanders of NATO-led force in Afghanistan

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A look at commanders of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force since invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001.

Lt. Gen. John McColl, Britain, January 2002 to June 2002

Lt. Gen. Hilmi Akin Zorlu, Turkey, June 2002 to February 2003

Lt. Gen. Norbert van Heyst, Germany, February 2003 to August 2003

Lt. Gen. Goetz Gliemeroth, Germany, August 2003 to February 2004

Lt. Gen. Rick J. Hillier, Canada, Feb. 2004 to August 2004

Lt. Gen. Jean-Louis Py, France, August 2004 to February 2005

Lt. Gen. Ethem Erdagi, Turkey, February 2005 to August 2005

Gen. Mauro del Vecchio, Italy, August 2005 to May 2006

Gen. David Richards, Britain, May 2006 to February, 2007

Gen. Dan McNeill, United States, February 2007 to June 2008

Gen. David McKiernan, United States, June 2008 to June 2009

Gen. Stanley McChrystal, United States, 15 June 2009 to June 2010

Gen. David Petraeus, United States, July 2010 to July 2011

Gen. John Allen, United States, July 2011 -

The United States also had generals who commanded U.S. and some coalition forces independently of ISAF until 2007. They were:

Gen. Tommy Franks

Lt. Gen. Paul Mikolashek

Lt. Gen. Dan McNeill

Lt. Gen. John Vines

Lt. Gen. David Barno

Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry

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Elmo actor Kevin Clash resigns amid sex allegation

NEW YORK (AP) — Elmo puppeteer Kevin Clash resigned from "Sesame Street" on Tuesday amid allegations he sexually abused underage boys, bringing an end to a 28-year career in which he turned the furry red monster into one of the most beloved — and lucrative — characters on TV and in toy stores.

"Personal matters have diverted attention away from the important work 'Sesame Street' is doing and I cannot allow it to go on any longer," the 52-year-old performer said in a statement. "I am deeply sorry to be leaving and am looking forward to resolving these personal matters privately."

His departure came as a 24-year-old college student, Cecil Singleton, sued Clash for more than $5 million Tuesday, accusing the actor of engaging in sexual behavior with him when he was 15. Singleton charged that Clash made a habit of trolling gay chat lines for underage boys and meeting them for sex.

It was the second such allegation in just over a week. On Nov. 12, a man in his 20s said he had sex with Clash at age 16. A day later, though, the young man recanted, saying their relationship was adult and consensual.

Clash was a young puppeteer at "Sesame Street" in the mid-1980s when he was assigned a little-used puppet now known as Elmo and turned him into a star, creating his high-pitched voice and child-like personality. Clash also served as the show's senior Muppet coordinator and Muppet captain, winning 23 daytime Emmy awards and one prime-time Emmy.

In a statement, Sesame Workshop said that "the controversy surrounding Kevin's personal life has become a distraction that none of us want," and that Clash had concluded "he can no longer be effective in his job."

"This is a sad day for Sesame Street," the company said.

Clash did not address the new allegations. He said previously that he had an adult and consensual relationship with the first accuser. The divorced father of a grown daughter, he acknowledged that he is gay.

At a news conference Tuesday, Singleton said he and Clash met on a gay chat line when he was 15, and for a two-week period, they had sexual contact but not intercourse. He said he didn't know what Clash did for a living until he was 19 and Googled the man's name.

"I was shocked when I found out what he did for a living," said Singleton, a student in criminal psychology who lives in New York but would not say where he goes to school.

He said he didn't consider speaking up until he heard about last week's accusation.

"I thought I was a unique circumstance," Singleton said. "I did not know that it was something he had done habitually."

Singleton's lawyer, Jeff Herman, said he had been contacted by two other potential victims and expects additional legal action. Sex with a person under 17 is a felony in New York if the perpetrator is 21 or older.

Elmo has been a major moneymaker for Sesame Workshop. By one estimate, Elmo toys account for one-half to two-thirds of the $75 million in annual sales the Sesame Street toy line generates for Hasbro.

Clash became something of a star himself. In 2006, he published an autobiography, "My Life as a Furry Red Monster," and he was the subject of the 2011 documentary "Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey."

Episodes with Clash performing as Elmo will presumably continue well into 2014. Taping of season No. 44 will wrap by mid-December and will begin airing next September, according to someone close to the show who spoke on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to publicly discuss details of its production.

As for who might take over as Elmo, other "Sesame Street" puppeteers have been trained to serve as Clash's stand-in, Sesame Workshop said. "Elmo is bigger than any one person," the company said last week.

On Tuesday, Hasbro echoed that sentiment with its own statement: "We are confident that Elmo will remain an integral part of Sesame Street and that Sesame Street toys will continue to delight children for years to come."

___

AP Television Writer David Bauder and AP Retail Writer Mae Anderson contributed to this report.

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OB/GYNs back over-the-counter birth control pills

WASHINGTON (AP) — No prescription or doctor's exam needed: The nation's largest group of obstetricians and gynecologists says birth control pills should be sold over the counter, like condoms.

Tuesday's surprise opinion from these gatekeepers of contraception could boost longtime efforts by women's advocates to make the pill more accessible.

But no one expects the pill to be sold without a prescription any time soon: A company would have to seek government permission first, and it's not clear if any are considering it. Plus there are big questions about what such a move would mean for many women's wallets if it were no longer covered by insurance.

Still, momentum may be building.

Already, anyone 17 or older doesn't need to see a doctor before buying the morning-after pill — a higher-dose version of regular birth control that can prevent pregnancy if taken shortly after unprotected sex. Earlier this year, the Food and Drug Administration held a meeting to gather ideas about how to sell regular oral contraceptives without a prescription, too.

Now the influential American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists is declaring it's safe to sell the pill that way.

Wait, why would doctors who make money from women's yearly visits for a birth-control prescription advocate giving that up?

Half of the nation's pregnancies every year are unintended, a rate that hasn't changed in 20 years — and easier access to birth control pills could help, said Dr. Kavita Nanda, an OB/GYN who co-authored the opinion for the doctors group.

"It's unfortunate that in this country where we have all these contraceptive methods available, unintended pregnancy is still a major public health problem," said Nanda, a scientist with the North Carolina nonprofit FHI 360, formerly known as Family Health International.

Many women have trouble affording a doctor's visit, or getting an appointment in time when their pills are running low — which can lead to skipped doses, Nanda added.

If the pill didn't require a prescription, women could "pick it up in the middle of the night if they run out," she said. "It removes those types of barriers."

Tuesday, the FDA said it was willing to meet with any company interested in making the pill nonprescription, to discuss what if any studies would be needed.

Then there's the price question. The Obama administration's new health care law requires FDA-approved contraceptives to be available without copays for women enrolled in most workplace health plans.

If the pill were sold without a prescription, it wouldn't be covered under that provision, just as condoms aren't, said Health and Human Services spokesman Tait Sye.

ACOG's opinion, published in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology, says any move toward making the pill nonprescription should address that cost issue. Not all women are eligible for the free birth control provision, it noted, citing a recent survey that found young women and the uninsured pay an average of $16 per month's supply.

The doctors group made clear that:

—Birth control pills are very safe. Blood clots, the main serious side effect, happen very rarely, and are a bigger threat during pregnancy and right after giving birth.

—Women can easily tell if they have risk factors, such as smoking or having a previous clot, and should avoid the pill.

—Other over-the-counter drugs are sold despite rare but serious side effects, such as stomach bleeding from aspirin and liver damage from acetaminophen.

—And there's no need for a Pap smear or pelvic exam before using birth control pills. But women should be told to continue getting check-ups as needed, or if they'd like to discuss other forms of birth control such as implantable contraceptives that do require a physician's involvement.

The group didn't address teen use of contraception. Despite protests from reproductive health specialists, current U.S. policy requires girls younger than 17 to produce a prescription for the morning-after pill, meaning pharmacists must check customers' ages. Presumably regular birth control pills would be treated the same way.

Prescription-only oral contraceptives have long been the rule in the U.S., Canada, Western Europe, Australia and a few other places, but many countries don't require a prescription.

Switching isn't a new idea. In Washington state a few years ago, a pilot project concluded that pharmacists successfully supplied women with a variety of hormonal contraceptives, including birth control pills, without a doctor's involvement. The question was how to pay for it.

Some pharmacies in parts of London have a similar project under way, and a recent report from that country's health officials concluded the program is working well enough that it should be expanded.

And in El Paso, Texas, researchers studied 500 women who regularly crossed the border into Mexico to buy birth control pills, where some U.S. brands sell over the counter for a few dollars a pack. Over nine months, the women who bought in Mexico stuck with their contraception better than another 500 women who received the pill from public clinics in El Paso, possibly because the clinic users had to wait for appointments, said Dr. Dan Grossman of the University of California, San Francisco, and the nonprofit research group Ibis Reproductive Health.

"Being able to easily get the pill when you need it makes a difference," he said.

___

Online:

OB/GYN group: http://www.acog.org

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Clinton’s high-profile swan song

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton at a meeting with President Barack Obama, second from left, and Japan's …Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was supposed to be heading for the exit, even as the fight over who should succeed her escalated. Instead, America's top diplomat sped Tuesday to the Middle East on an urgent mission to douse flaring violence between Israel and Hamas, the Islamist Palestinian group that controls Gaza.

Amid early, disputed reports of a possible truce, Clinton had several major goals: Ease the violence, bolster Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi, and avoid an appearance of giving Hamas any sort of legitimacy on the world stage. The U.S. regards Hamas as a terrorist group and deals only with the Palestinian Authority of President Mahmoud Abbas, which controls the West Bank but has been relegated to the sidelines of the latest deadly clashes.

As Clinton winged her way to the troubled region, President Barack Obama—en route to Washington from a trip to Asia—spoke by telephone to Morsi from Air Force One, their third such conversation in 24 hours.

Obama "commended President Morsi's efforts to pursue a de-escalation," Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes told reporters aboard the presidential plane. "And he also underscored that President Morsi's efforts reinforce the important role that President Morsi and Egypt play on behalf of regional security and the pursuit of broader peace between the Palestinians and Israelis."

Morsi, whose country shares a peace accord with Israel and a border with Gaza, is thought to have sway with Hamas.

Clinton was to stop in Jerusalem for talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in Ramallah to meet with Abbas and in Cairo for discussions with Morsi. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Clinton aimed for a "de-escalation of violence and a durable outcome that ends the rocket attacks on Israeli cities and towns and restores a broader calm."

American officials have been leery of using the term "cease-fire," preferring variations on "de-escalation" of the conflict.

Clinton's visit came as the political battle over the Sept. 11 terrorist attack on the American compound in Benghazi, Libya, clouded the debate over who will succeed her.

Republicans have accused the Obama administration of covering up the role of suspected extremists in the assault, and questioned whether Clinton's State Department correctly handled requests for more security at the site. The president's foes have targeted Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, who at the request of the White House in several television interviews incorrectly tied the attack to protests sparked by an Internet video that ridiculed Islam.

The Benghazi strike claimed the lives of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans. It has also highlighted the uncertain fate of so-called Arab spring countries—like Egypt—where popular movements swept aside decades-old authoritarian regimes.

Ahead of Clinton's visit, the White House renewed its support for Israel's military operations but hinted at disapproval of a possible ground offensive. Netanyahu's government has called up thousands of troops in what could be preparations for such an onslaught.

Rhodes told reporters the U.S. would prefer to see the Israelis work "diplomatically and peacefully" to resolve the crisis, noting both Palestinian and Israeli civilians would be at risk in the event of a ground assault.

Clinton's stop in Ramallah underscored a diplomatic peculiarity of her trip: Top U.S. officials regard the Palestinian Authority as such minor players in the current crisis, neither Obama nor Clinton have spoken to Abbas since the violence escalated nearly a week ago.

While Clinton by Monday had reached out to leaders—including Jordan's King Abdullah; the foreign ministers of Israel, Egypt, France and Turkey; Egypt's prime minister; and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon—she had not spoken to Abbas.

By refusing to deal directly with Hamas and reaching out to the Palestinian Authority instead, Clinton appeared to be trying to resolve the conflict without involving one of the key participants.

Rhodes on Tuesday reiterated U.S. conditions for dealing directly with Hamas: The group must renounce terrorism and recognize Israel's right to exist.

He also defended Clinton's trip to Ramallah, calling it a worthwhile investment "both as it relates to what's happening in Gaza and our efforts going forward to improve the situation in Gaza, but also in terms of our broader efforts to pursue peace between the Israelis and Palestinians."

Rhodes's message was implicit but unmistakable:  If the Palestinians want a lasting peace deal, they should align with the Palestinian Authority and not with Hamas or other extremist groups.

The U.S. has for years been steadfast in its posture toward Hamas. Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, a top contender for Clinton's job, did not talk to Hamas when he made a surprise visit to Gaza in January 2009.

Clinton headed to the Middle East after traveling to Asia with Obama on what aides to both expected would be their final joint trip overseas, including a history-making stop in Myanmar.

Aboard Air Force One on a flight between Rangoon and Cambodia, the one-time political rivals sat in Obama's private office sharing memories of their work together.

"As the president said, it wasn't just the last four years; they have been through a lot together over the last five or six years," Rhodes said. "But right now there is urgent business to be done."

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Obama makes history with Myanmar, Cambodia visits

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — On a history-making trip, President Barack Obama on Monday paid the first visit by an American leader to Myanmar and Cambodia, two Asian countries with troubled histories, one on the mend and the other still a cause of concern.

Obama's fast-paced, pre-Thanksgiving trip vividly illustrated the different paths the regional neighbors are taking to overcome legacies of violence, poverty and repression.

Cheered by massive flag-waving crowds, Obama offered long-isolated Myanmar a "hand of friendship" as it rapidly embraces democratic reforms. Hours later, he arrived in Cambodia to little fanfare, then pointedly criticized the country's strongman leader on the issue of human rights during a tense meeting.

Obama was an early champion of Myanmar's sudden transformation to civilian rule following a half-century of military dictatorship. He's rewarded the country, also known as Burma, with eased economic penalties, increased U.S. investment and now a presidential visit, in part to show other nations the benefits of pursuing similar reforms.

"You're taking a journey that has the potential to inspire so many people," Obama said during a speech at Myanmar's University of Yangon.

The Cambodians are among those Obama is hoping will be motivated. White House officials said he held up Myanmar, a once-pariah state, as a benchmark during his private meeting Monday evening with Prime Minister Hun Sen, the autocratic Cambodian leader who has held power for nearly 30 years. Hun Sen's rivals have sometimes ended up in jail or in exile.

Unlike the arrangement after Obama's meetings with Myanmar's President Thein Sein and democracy leader Aung Sun Suu Kyi, the U.S. and Cambodian leaders did not speak to the press following their one-on-one talks. They did step before cameras briefly before their meeting to greet each other with a brisk handshake and little warmth.

In private, U.S. officials said, Obama pressed Hun Sen to release political prisoners, stop land seizures and hold free and fair elections. Aides acknowledged the meeting was tense, with the Cambodian leader defending his practices, even as he professed to seek a deeper relationship with the U.S.

Ben Rhodes, Obama's deputy national security adviser, said the president told Hun Sen that without reforms, Cambodia's human rights woes would continue to be "an impediment" to that effort.

White House officials emphasized that Obama would not have visited Cambodia had it not been hosting two regional summit meetings the U.S. attends, a rare admonishment of a country on its own soil.

The Cambodian people appeared to answer Obama's cold shoulder in kind. Just a few small clusters of curious Cambodians gathered on the streets to watch his motorcade speed though the streets of Phnom Penh.

A welcome sign did greet Obama upon his arrival — but it heralded Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, not the American president.

Human rights groups fear that because Obama delivered his condemnation of Hun Sen in private, government censors will keep his words from reaching the Cambodian people. And they worry the prime minister will then use Obama's visit to justify his grip on power and weaken the will of opposition groups.

"If Hun Sen's narrative about this visit is allowed to gel, it will create a perception that the United States and other international actors stand with Hun Sen, and not with the Cambodian people," said John Sifton, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "It will be a tremendous blow to Cambodians who challenge his rule."

Obama's visit to Myanmar was also viewed critically by some international organizations, which saw the trip as a premature reward for a country that still holds political prisoners and has been unable to contain ethic violence.

Aware of that criticism, Obama tempered some of his praise for Myanmar during his six-hour visit. He underscored that the reforms that have taken hold over the past year are "just the first steps on what will be a long journey."

Perhaps the sharpest calls for caution came from Suu Kyi, Myanmar's longtime democracy champion. After meeting with Obama at the home where she spent years under house arrest, she warned that the most difficult part of the transition will be "when we think that success is in sight."

"Then we have to be very careful that we're not lured by the mirage of success," Suu Kyi said, speaking with Obama by her side.

The president, winding down his first foreign trip after winning re-election, had meetings scheduled in Cambodia Tuesday with his counterparts in the East Asia Summit. Obama has added the summit to his annual list of high-priority international meetings as he seeks to expand U.S. influence in the region.

Obama will also meet separately on the sidelines of the summit with Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda and with Wen, the Chinese premier. It's likely to be Obama's last bilateral meetings with both men.

Noda dissolved his country's parliament last week, setting the stage for new elections his party is unlikely to win. And China is undergoing its first leadership transition in a decade, with Wen and President Hu Jintao stepping down to clear the way for new leaders in the country's Communist Party.

Obama will return to Washington before dawn Wednesday, in time for the ceremonial pardoning of the Thanksgiving turkey.

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Associated Press writers Jim Kuhnhenn and Grant Peck contributed to this report.

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Follow Julie Pace at http://twitter.com/jpaceDC

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Hollywood Reporter addresses role in Blacklist era

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The son of The Hollywood Reporter founder Billy Wilkerson is apologizing for his father's and the trade paper's role in the 1947 Hollywood Blacklist that destroyed the careers of writers, actors and directors accused of having communist ties.

In an article published Monday by The Hollywood Reporter, Willie Wilkerson, 61, calls the Blacklist era "Hollywood's Holocaust" and says, "On the eve of this dark 65th anniversary, I feel an apology is necessary."

He says his father supported the Blacklist to exact revenge against the Hollywood titans he felt denied him entry to their club when he wanted to establish a movie studio in the late 1920s. Billy Wilkerson founded The Hollywood Reporter in 1930, and after World War II, used the paper as a vehicle for a series of editorials attacking communist sympathizers and their influence in Hollywood.

"In his maniacal quest to annihilate the studio owners, he realized that the most effective retaliation was to destroy their talent," Willie Wilkerson writes. "In the wake of this emerging hysteria surrounding communism, the easiest way to crush the studio owners was to simply call their actors, writers and directors communists. Unfortunately, they would become the collateral damage of history. Apart from being charged with contempt, for refusing to name names, none of these individuals committed any crimes."

Studios dominated the industry and denied work to those named on the Blacklist. Some writers worked under pseudonyms. Many actors and their families moved overseas to look for work. The Hollywood Reporter named names and ceaselessly covered the issue. The publication also details its role in the Blacklist era for the first time in a lengthy article published Monday.

"Any man or woman who, under the guise of freedom of speech, or the cloak of the Bill of Rights, or under the pseudo protection of being a liberal, says things, causes things to be said, or who actually is involved with many of the conspiracies that have now infested this great land of ours, has no place among us, be he commie or what," Billy Wilkerson wrote on Nov. 5, 1947. "He or she should be rushed out of our business."

The first Hollywood Blacklist was published Nov. 25, 1947.

Willie Wilkerson says it's possible that his father would have apologized for "creating something that devastated so many careers" had he lived long enough. He died in 1962, two years after the Blacklist was broken.

His son writes: "On behalf of my family, and particularly my late father, I wish to convey my sincerest apologies and deepest regrets to those who were victimized by this unfortunate incident."

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AP Entertainment Writer Sandy Cohen is on Twitter: www.twitter.com/APSandy .

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Online:

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com

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New push for most in US to get at least 1 HIV test

WASHINGTON (AP) — There's a new push to make testing for the AIDS virus as common as cholesterol checks.

Americans ages 15 to 64 should get an HIV test at least once — not just people considered at high risk for the virus, an independent panel that sets screening guidelines proposed Monday.

The draft guidelines from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force are the latest recommendations that aim to make HIV screening simply a routine part of a check-up, something a doctor can order with as little fuss as a cholesterol test or a mammogram. Since 2006, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also has pushed for widespread, routine HIV screening.

Yet not nearly enough people have heeded that call: Of the more than 1.1 million Americans living with HIV, nearly 1 in 5 — almost 240,000 people — don't know it. Not only is their own health at risk without treatment, they could unwittingly be spreading the virus to others.

The updated guidelines will bring this long-simmering issue before doctors and their patients again — emphasizing that public health experts agree on how important it is to test even people who don't think they're at risk, because they could be.

"It allows you to say, 'This is a recommended test that we believe everybody should have. We're not singling you out in any way,'" said task force member Dr. Douglas Owens, of Stanford University and the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System.

And if finalized, the task force guidelines could extend the number of people eligible for an HIV screening without a copay in their doctor's office, as part of free preventive care under the Obama administration's health care law. Under the task force's previous guidelines, only people at increased risk for HIV — which includes gay and bisexual men and injecting drug users — were eligible for that no-copay screening.

There are a number of ways to get tested. If you're having blood drawn for other exams, the doctor can merely add HIV to the list, no extra pokes or swabs needed. Today's rapid tests can cost less than $20 and require just rubbing a swab over the gums, with results ready in as little as 20 minutes. Last summer, the government approved a do-it-yourself at-home version that's selling for about $40.

Free testing is available through various community programs around the country, including a CDC pilot program in drugstores in 24 cities and rural sites.

Monday's proposal also recommends:

—Testing people older and younger than 15-64 if they are at increased risk of HIV infection,

—People at very high risk for HIV infection should be tested at least annually.

—It's not clear how often to retest people at somewhat increased risk, but perhaps every three to five years.

—Women should be tested during each pregnancy, something the task force has long recommended.

The draft guidelines are open for public comment through Dec. 17.

Most of the 50,000 new HIV infections in the U.S. every year are among gay and bisexual men, followed by heterosexual black women.

"We are not doing as well in America with HIV testing as we would like," Dr. Jonathan Mermin, CDC's HIV prevention chief, said Monday.

The CDC recommends at least one routine test for everyone ages 13 to 64, starting two years younger than the task force recommended. That small difference aside, CDC data suggests fewer than half of adults under 65 have been tested.

"It can sometimes be awkward to ask your doctor for an HIV test," Mermin said — the reason making it routine during any health care encounter could help.

But even though nearly three-fourths of gay and bisexual men with undiagnosed HIV had visited some sort of health provider in the previous year, 48 percent weren't tested for HIV, a recent CDC survey found. Emergency rooms are considered a good spot to catch the undiagnosed, after their illnesses and injuries have been treated, but Mermin said only about 2 percent of ER patients known to be at increased risk were tested while there.

Mermin calls that "a tragedy. It's a missed opportunity."

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Online:

Task force recommendation: http://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org

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