LOS ANGELES, Jan 31 (TheWrap.com) ? Adam Sandler is ready to visit "Candy Land" for Sony.
The actor is in final talks with Sony and Hasbro to star in and have his Happy Madison Productions produce a movie based on the board game.
The project had been set up at Universal, with Kevin Lima attached to direct and "Kung Fu Panda" writers Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger to write the script.
Lima remains on the movie, but Sandler and Robert Smigel are in talks to write it.
Universal has been ditching its Hasbro movies lately.
On Monday, Relativity Media said it, rather than Universal, would be making "Stretch Armstrong." And in 2011, Universal paid Hasbro $5 million to get out of its agreement to make "Ouija." In 2010, the studio scrapped plans for a screen remake of the popular board game "Clue."
Universal's "Battleship," starring Liam Neeson and Taylor Kitsch, is scheduled to be released on May 18.
In a statement, Columbia Pictures President Doug Belgrad called "Candy Land" more than just a game -- "it is a brand that children, parents and grandparents know and love." He said that it offers a larger than life part for Sandler.
Candy Land, created in 1949, is a game for young children. In it, players make their way through the Peppermint Forest, the Gum Drop Mountains and the Lollypop Woods. As they do, they encounter Princess Frostine, Lord Licorice, Mr. Mint and King Candy.
Hasbro's president and CEO, Brian Goldner, is producing, along with the company's senior VP and managing director of motion pictures, Bennett Schneir, and Happy Madison Productions.
In this Jan. 30, 2012 photo, a UPS logo is displayed at the UPS store in the Lake Balboa area of Los Angeles. UPS said Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2012, its fourth-quarter net income slid because of an accounting charge, but its adjusted results topped Wall Street's expectations. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)
In this Jan. 30, 2012 photo, a UPS logo is displayed at the UPS store in the Lake Balboa area of Los Angeles. UPS said Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2012, its fourth-quarter net income slid because of an accounting charge, but its adjusted results topped Wall Street's expectations. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)
In this Jan. 30, 2012 photo, UPS store employee, Lin Fordham, measures an antique vitrine cabinet for specialized shipping at The UPS Store in the Lake Balboa area of Los Angeles. UPS said Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2012, its fourth-quarter net income slid because of an accounting charge, but its adjusted results topped Wall Street's expectations. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)
This Jan. 30, 2012, photo, shows shipping labels at a UPS Store in the Lake Balboa area of Los Angeles. UPS said Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2012, its fourth-quarter net income slid because of an accounting charge, but its adjusted results topped Wall Street's expectations. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)
NEW YORK (AP) ? UPS said Tuesday that its fourth-quarter net income slid because of an accounting charge, but its adjusted results topped Wall Street's expectations.
Excluding the charge, profit rose 21 percent. The world's largest package delivery company credited the increase to an improving U.S. package business that's making up for slower sales growth overseas. United Parcel Service Inc. also forecast Tuesday that its full-year results would mostly top analysts' forecasts.
In the fourth quarter, the Atlanta company earned $725 million, or 74 cents per share, compared with $1.3 billion, or $1.02 per share a year earlier. Excluding a charge tied to how UPS accounts for pensions and retirement plans, it earned $1.28 per share in the latest quarter.
Analysts expected an adjusted profit of $1.27 per share.
Revenue rose 6 percent to $14.17 billion. Revenue rose 7 percent in the U.S. ? more than double the rate of its international business. Its smallest unit, supply chain and freight, saw revenue improve by 2 percent.
For the full-year, the company earned $3.8 billion, or $3.84 per share, compared with $3.33 billion, or $3.33 per share, in 2010. The full year 2011 results also include the impact of the accounting change.
Excluding one-time charges, UPS made more money in 2011 than any year since before the recession. Adjusted full-year profit was $4.35 per share. It made $4.17 per share in 2007, excluding one-time items. The recession began in December of that year.
For 2012, the company expects to earn between $4.75 and $5, an increase of 9 to 15 percent over adjusted 2011 results. Analysts currently expect $4.80 per share.
(Reuters) ? Delivery trucks wear out, computers break down, software becomes outdated -- and finally businesses have to start investing in new equipment. Companies that want to remain competitive have to start spending again as an economy slowly recovers.
Four years after the downturn began, the replacement cycle shows signs of kicking into a higher gear in the United States even among small businesses, and it could give an unexpected boost to growth and employment this year.
That assumes no further shocks to the world economy caused by the euro zone debt crisis.
Greece and its bankers have yet to agree on chopping the country's debt load to 120 percent of gross domestic product by 2020, something the International Monetary Fund is demanding in return for the bailout money Greece needs to avoid a default in March.
But capital spending alone is insufficient to drive a U.S. recovery that will be strong enough to quickly lift employment as consumer demand is still limited by heavy debt loads.
In the United States, large corporations have already dug into huge cash piles to upgrade plant and equipment, adding incrementally to an economy that grew by 2.8 percent in the fourth quarter.
Now small businesses, which drive about half of U.S. economic growth and a big chunk of job creation, are increasing their spending on equipment, too, an important precursor to stronger hiring.
But the U.S. jobs report for January, due on Friday, is unlikely to show marked improvement in the labor market after strong gains in December.
Economists surveyed by Reuters forecast 150,000 new jobs in January against 200,000 the prior month. Some investment banks also warn the 8.5 percent unemployment rate could tick up as signs of a gradual firming of the economy encourages more people to return to the labor force.
Ian Shepherdson, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics, said small businesses could start hiring more aggressively as the year progresses.
In the last economic cycle, they contributed about two-thirds of the jobs growth, and when they hang out the "help wanted" signs, they can be a powerful source of employment.
"Dollar for dollar in GDP terms, they generate two jobs for every one generated by a large corporation," Shepherdson said.
For the early signs of this small business revival, Shepherdson points to two factors: access to credit has improved markedly as shown by a surge in banks' commercial and industrial lending, and an index of capital expenditure intentions, as measured by the National Federation of Independent Business, is climbing.
The NFIB in December reported that capital outlays had increased for three straight months, the first solid improvement in three years. Owners planning capital investments in the next three to six months also rose to a 40-month high.
NFIB policy analyst Holly Wade said anecdotally she hears of more businesspeople talking of increasing their budgets.
"They have stretched out their machinery and equipment and would have normally invested in replacement, but they were waiting as long as possible. Now they are starting to see better sales and earnings, and they are more comfortable investing some of those dollars in capex," she said.
"In the next three to six months, it wouldn't be surprising to see the same rate of growth in capital outlays we have seen recently," she said.
A similar pattern is evident in the Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank's Business Outlook Survey. In January the index for capital expenditure plans for the next six months more than doubled to a reading of 22.9 from 10.8. And the U.S. Commerce Department's durable goods report for December showed capital goods orders outside of defense and aircraft rose by 2.9 percent.
Industrial conglomerate Honeywell International IncN> is one of the big companies expanding, although overall corporations give a mixed outlook for their plans.
"We're looking to spend $100 to $150 million more in capital on a year over year basis. Some that is going into facility upgrades, some of that is going into technology centers," Honeywell's chief financial officer, Dave Anderson, said with the release of the company's earnings last week.
"Don't look for it to be a driving force for recovery, but capital spending will continue to be a supportive factor," said Ellen Zentner, economist at Nomura Securities.
U.S. car and truck sales, due on Wednesday, are getting a boost from businesses replacing worn out models. They are seen holding at the 13.5 million annual rate in January.
The Institute of Supply Management, an industry group, will also release its U.S. manufacturing index on Wednesday; it is seen rising to 54.5 in January from 53.9.
(Reporting By Stella Dawson; additional reporting by Nick Zieminski)
LOS ANGELES (AP) ? The "Harry Potter" finale has earned some love from Hollywood's top acting union, winning the Screen Actors Guild Award for best big-screen stunt ensemble Sunday.
The win for "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2" was a final triumph for the fantasy franchise that concluded last summer after a run of eight blockbusters.
Winning the TV stunt ensemble prize was "Game of Thrones." The stunt awards were announced on the arrivals red carpet before the show began.
Among the early arrivals to the cheers of enthusiastic fans on a warm afternoon were Patrick Duffy and Linda Gray of the old "Dallas" TV series, soon to be the new "Dallas" TV series on TNT.
For the main event, Sunday's 18th annual SAG ceremony is heavy on actors playing illustrious real-life figures.
Among them: Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher in "The Iron Lady"; Leonardo DiCaprio as J. Edgar Hoover in "J. Edgar"; and Michelle Williams as Marilyn Monroe and Kenneth Branagh as Laurence Olivier in "My Week With Marilyn."
Streep won a Golden Globe for "The Iron Lady" and is considered a favorite for the SAG prize and for her third win at the Academy Awards, which are set for Feb. 26.
The front-runners for the other SAG awards are actors in fictional roles, though, among them George Clooney as a dad in crisis in "The Descendants" and Jean Dujardin as a silent-film star fallen on hard times in "The Artist." Both are up for best actor, and both won Globes ? Clooney as dramatic actor, Dujardin as musical or comedy actor.
Octavia Spencer as a brassy Mississippi maid in "The Help" and Christopher Plummer as an elderly dad who comes out as gay in "Beginners" won Globes for supporting performances and have strong prospects for the same honors at the SAG Awards.
The winners at the SAG ceremony typically go on to earn Oscars. All four acting recipients at SAG last year later took home Oscars ? Colin Firth for "The King's Speech," Natalie Portman for "Black Swan" and Christian Bale and Melissa Leo for "The Fighter."
The same generally holds true for the weekend's other big Hollywood honors, the Directors Guild of America Awards, where Michel Hazanavicius won the feature-film prize Saturday for "The Artist." The Directors Guild winner has gone on to earn the best-director Oscar 57 times in the 63-year history of the union's awards show.
SAG also presents an award for overall cast performance, a prize that's loosely considered the ceremony's equivalent of a best-picture honor. However, the cast award has a spotty record at predicting what will win best picture at the Oscars.
While "The King's Speech" won both honors a year ago, the SAG cast recipient has gone on to claim the top Oscar only eight times in the 16 years since the guild added the category.
Airing live on TNT and TBS from the Shrine Exhibition Center in downtown Los Angeles, the show features nine television categories, as well.
Receiving the guild's life-achievement award is Mary Tyler Moore. The prize was to be presented by Dick Van Dyke, her co-star on the 1960s sit-com "The Dick Van Dyke Show."
All of new RIM CEO Thorsten Heins' fresh ideas will apparently still be revealed to the company's board in a couple of weeks, but he's already dropped some gems in interviews with the Wall Street Journal and Reuters (update: and Bloomberg). First item on the agenda? Getting current users upgraded to the latest and greatest BlackBerry hardware. Citing internal statistics that indicate 80- to 90- percent of the company's customer base aren't running BlackBerry 7 hardware yet, it will work closely with US carriers to promote upgrades until the new BB10 devices hit later this year. There's no word on what the carrier deals include, but he hinted at device or preloaded app bundles. He also promised an LTE version of the PlayBook would arrive this spring, with LTE connected handsets also planned for the BlackBerry 10 lineup. Is that enough to turn around RIM's fortunes in the US, where he acknowledged the company is "a turnaround candidate"? We'll find out, but as obvious as the need to placate the already BBM-addicted may be, execution of the plan is everything.
The 911 call that was made on Monday night before Demi Moore was rushed to an L.A. hospital was released today, revealing that the 49-year-old had "smoked something." This new information will likely dispel the previous rumor that Moore collapsed after having seizure-like symptoms from inhaling a dangerous amount of nitrous oxide.
LOS ANGELES ? Demi Moore smoked something before she was rushed to the hospital on Monday night and was convulsing and "semi-conscious, barely," according to a caller on a frantic 911 recording released Friday by Los Angeles fire officials.
The woman tells emergency operators that Moore, 49, had been "having issues lately."
"Is she breathing normal?" the operator asks.
"No, not so normal. More kind of shaking, convulsing, burning up," the friend says as she hurries to Moore's side, on the edge of panic.
The recording captures the 10 minutes it took paramedics to arrive as friends gather around the collapsed star and try to comfort her as she trembles and shakes.
Another woman is next to Moore as the dispatcher asks if she's responsive.
"Demi, can you hear me?" she asks. "Yes, she's squeezing hands. ... She can't speak."
When the operator asks what Moore ingested or smoked, the friend replies, but the answer was redacted.
"Some form of ... and then she smoked something. I didn't really see. She's been having some issues lately with some other stuff. So I don't know what she's been taking or not," the friend says.
The city attorney's office advised the fire department to redact details about medical conditions and substances to comply with federal medical privacy rules.
"She smoked something. It's not marijuana. It's similar to incense," the friend says to the 911 operator.
While Moore's friends don't say exactly what she smoked, an increasingly popular drug known as Spice is sometimes labeled as "herbal incense."
Spice is a synthetic cannabis drug and also called K2. It's sold in small packets over the Internet, in smoke shops and at convenience stores. The packaging sometimes reads "not for human consumption" to conceal its purpose.
In 2011, there were twice as many spice-related calls to Poison Control Centers nationwide as in the previous year, according to the National Office of Drug Control Policy.
The adverse health effects associated with synthetic marijuana include anxiety, vomiting, racing heartbeat, seizures, hallucinations, and paranoid behavior.
Asked if Moore took the substance intentionally or not, the woman says Moore ingested it on purpose but the reaction was accidental.
"Whatever she took, make sure you have it out for the paramedics," the operator says.
The operator asks the friend if this has happened before.
"I don't know," she says. "There's been some stuff recently that we're all just finding out."
Moore's publicist, Carrie Gordon, said previously that the actress sought professional help to treat her exhaustion and improve her health. She would not comment further on the emergency call or provide details about the nature or location of Moore's treatment.
The past few months have been rocky for Moore.
She released a statement in November announcing she had decided to end her marriage to fellow actor Ashton Kutcher, 33, following news of alleged infidelity. The two were known to publicly share their affection for one another via Twitter.
Moore still has a Twitter account under the name mrskutcher but has not posted any messages since Jan. 7.
During the call, the woman caller says the group of friends had turned Moore's head to the side and was holding her down. The dispatcher tells her not to hold her down but to wipe her mouth and nose and watch her closely until paramedics arrive.
"Make sure that we keep an airway open," the dispatcher says. "Even if she passes out completely, that's OK. Stay right with her."
The phone is passed around by four people, including a woman who gives directions to the gate and another who recounts details about what Moore smoked or ingested. Finally, the phone is given to a man named James, so one of the women can hold Moore's head.
There was some confusion at the beginning of the call. The emergency response was delayed by nearly two minutes as Los Angeles and Beverly Hills dispatchers sorted out which city had jurisdiction over the street where Moore lives.
As the call is transferred to Beverly Hills, the frantic woman at Moore's house raises her voice and said, "Why is an ambulance not on its way right now?"
"Ma'am, instead of arguing with me why an ambulance is not on the way, can you spell (the street name) for me?" the Beverly Hills dispatcher says.
Although the estate is located in the 90210 ZIP code above Benedict Canyon, the response was eventually handled by the Los Angeles Fire Department.
By the end of the call, Moore has improved.
"She seems to have calmed down now. She's speaking," the male caller told the operator.
Moore and Kutcher were wed in September 2005.
Kutcher became a stepfather to Moore's three daughters ? Rumer, Scout and Tallulah Belle ? from her 13-year marriage to actor Bruce Willis. Moore and Willis divorced in 2000 but remained friendly.
Moore and Kutcher created the DNA Foundation, also known as the Demi and Ashton Foundation, in 2010 to combat the organized sexual exploitation of girls around the globe. They later lent their support to the United Nations' efforts to fight human trafficking, a scourge the international organization estimates affects about 2.5 million people worldwide.
Meanwhile, Millennium Films announced Friday that Sarah Jessica Parker will replace Moore in the role of feminist Gloria Steinem in its production of "Lovelace," a biopic about the late porn star Linda Lovelace. A statement gave no reason for the change. The production, starring Amanda Seyfried, has been shooting in Los Angeles since Dec. 20.
Moore can be seen on screen in the recent films "Margin Call" and "Another Happy Day." Kutcher replaced Charlie Sheen on TV's "Two and a Half Men" and is part of the ensemble film "New Year's Eve."
FILE - In this Sept. 29, 2007 file photo, Co-host Vanna White and host Pat Sajak make an appearance at Radio City Music Hall for a taping of celebrity week on "Wheel of Fortune" in New York. Sajak said in an interview on ESPN2 this week that the long-time game show duo would occasionally walk over to a nearby restaurant for "two or three or six" margaritas during a break in taping early "Wheel of Fortune" shows in California. Sajak has hosted the show since 1981, and White joined him a year later. (AP Photo/Peter Kramer, file)
FILE - In this Sept. 29, 2007 file photo, Co-host Vanna White and host Pat Sajak make an appearance at Radio City Music Hall for a taping of celebrity week on "Wheel of Fortune" in New York. Sajak said in an interview on ESPN2 this week that the long-time game show duo would occasionally walk over to a nearby restaurant for "two or three or six" margaritas during a break in taping early "Wheel of Fortune" shows in California. Sajak has hosted the show since 1981, and White joined him a year later. (AP Photo/Peter Kramer, file)
NEW YORK (AP) ? The "Wheel of Fortune" wasn't the only thing spinning for Pat Sajak and Vanna White back in the day.
Sajak said in an interview on ESPN2 this week that the long-time game show team would occasionally walk over to a restaurant for "two or three or six" margaritas during a break in taping early "Wheel of Fortune" shows in California. Sajak has hosted the show since 1981; White joined him a year later.
Sajak recalled the margarita stops after answering "yes" to a question about whether he had ever hosted the show "a little bit drunk."
Although he joked that he had "trouble recognizing the alphabet" for shows taped after the drinks, no one ever said anything to them.
Now that he's older, Sajak said he couldn't do that anymore.
Drugs and other therapies may soon be able to alter or even delete recollections selectively
By Adam Piore
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January 26, 2012?|
Image: Photoillustration by Aaron Goodman
In Brief
Scientists once believed that long-term memories were immutable. Research now suggests that reminding a person of something makes that recollection temporarily revert to an insecure state, in which it can be modified, even erased.
Deleting, or at least muting, parts of human memory with drugs or targeted therapies might help people recover from trauma or anxiety.
Promising approaches for altering remembrances include a drug used to treat high blood pressure and chemicals that block a newly discovered enzyme that helps recollections persist.
Jo?l Coutu knelt on the cold cement floor of the pet supply store he managed in Montreal, his wrists bound behind him with telephone wire. He could feel the barrel of a pistol pressed against the back of his neck. ?You?re lying!? the gunman screamed. ?And I am going to blow your head off.?
Amy Bednarz, an English as a second language teacher in a Massachusetts elementary school, is confused. She doesn't know exactly what to teach.
For years, she'd been told that the state standardized tests were a make-or-break aspect of her teaching and should drive her instruction. Then came the professional development meetings this summer where she was told to teach the Common Core State Standards, a new set of academic benchmarks now being adopted by the majority of U.S. states. She got a worksheet, a binder and little guidance.
But while exams that test the Common Core are still in development, her kids will be taking the same old state tests. And then there are the emails her principal sends the school every morning: the state tests are 30, 29, now 28 days away.
"It feels like another initiative that's being thrown at us, a latest and greatest tool to solve problems in education," she said of the Common Core.
The piled-on reform she refers to received top billing in Barack Obama's State of the Union address.
"For less than 1 percent of what our nation spends on education each year, we?ve convinced nearly every state in the country to raise their standards for teaching and learning -- the first time that?s happened in a generation," said Obama, referencing the Common Core.
What Obama made sound like a revolution seems more like a slog, such accounts and recent reports indicate. The Common Core State Standards in math and English Language Arts are beginning their slow creep into America's classrooms in 46 states and Washington, D.C., according to a new report released Wednesday by the Center on Education Policy. The standards pepper the conversations of teachers and school administers, shaping instruction -- or not -- in various ways.
The CEP report surveyed 35 CC-adopting states, finding that while the "vast majority" are familiarizing school officials with the new materials, states don't expect to implement the new standards until 2014-15 or later. And while they're staying the course, 21 states cited challenges in gathering the adequate resources to implement the standards, and 20 states indicated that they are concerned about having the right number of computers required to handle the new tests.
The Obama administration incentivized these national standards, which came to fruition through the collaboration of governors, state schools' chiefs and Gates Foundation cash. Substancewise, they focus on teaching fewer things, in greater depth. Their development included the input of teachers, unions, university administrators and the influence of international assessments. The standards themselves came out last year. The assessments that test the standards are still in development: two consortia are working off of $360 million in federal Race to the Top money, having outside companies develop test items. The tests, which will be administered on computers, are currently scheduled to be operational by the 2014-2015 school year.
While the new benchmarks are often described as a method for both ensuring that students are "college-and-career ready" and that school standards are comparable across state borders, there's no way to guarantee to they're being taught.
As it turns out, in this transitional period, teachers like Bednarz are teaching one set of standards while being tested on another.
Jack Jennings, CEP's president, said people shouldn't worry about these differences. "Right now, the Common Core is just being introduced to teachers, in the sense that they're being told what it means and why it's different from what they're doing now," Jennings said.
Other teachers are having an easier time. Darren Burris, who teaches high-school math in Boston Collegiate Charter School, volunteered to coach other teachers on implementation and sees the standards as an "opportunity."
"We have a narrow mission: to prepare each kid for college," he said. "And that's the goal of these standards."
The Common Core's focus on depth over breadth, he said, has allowed him to experiment in the classroom -- and in the hallway. One day's Common Core standard was to "construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others," so he brought that lesson to life by writing out math prompts on big post-its in the corridor. Pairs of students circulated between them, scrawling their answers on the post-its, while commenting on the solutions of their peers.
"Why didn't we do this before?" a student asked.
Yet especially with Republicans taking office in statehouses and governorships since the commitments were made, the standards have been perceived by some as a political liability: a potentially big-government-seeming program that appears to standardize education across the country when state control has long been Conservative currency. For that reason, proponents are careful to couch it in state, not federal, terms.
The CEP study says that at this point, states' concerns are more practical than political. "The thing that I found most arresting was the clarity with which the report puts forward that it's the view that the political risk is secondary to the implementation risk," David Coleman, an author of the literacy standards, told The Huffington Post.
But recent headlines show that may not be the full story. A few months ago, Alabama launched an unsuccessful bid to pull out of the standards. Just Wednesday, Indiana's state senate voted down a measure to leave the new standards behind. But its sponsors -- which count Gov. Mitch Daniels (R) among its ranks -- are vowing to revive the push.
Honor guard, Penn State football running back Michael Zordich pauses at the front of the casket of legendary Penn State football coach Joe Paterno during a public viewing in the Worship room of the Pasquerilla Spiritual Center on the Penn State campus, Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2012 in State College, Pa. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
Honor guard, Penn State football running back Michael Zordich pauses at the front of the casket of legendary Penn State football coach Joe Paterno during a public viewing in the Worship room of the Pasquerilla Spiritual Center on the Penn State campus, Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2012 in State College, Pa. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
Three women walk past a picture of legendary Penn State football coach Joe Paterno to pay their respect in front of his casket during a public viewing in the Worship room of the Pasquerilla Spiritual Center on the Penn State campus, Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2012 in State College, Pa.. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
Mourners line up a block from the Pasquerilla Spiritual Center on the Penn State campus for the viewing for former Penn State coach Joe Paterno Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2012 in State College, Pa. Paterno died Sunday morning. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Mourners line up at the Pasquerilla Spiritual Center on the Penn State campus for the viewing for former Penn State football coach Joe Paterno, Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2012, in State College, Pa. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Former Penn State assistant football coach Mike McQueary departs the Pasquerilla Spiritual Center on the Penn State campus after the viewing for former Penn State coach Joe Paterno, Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2012 in State College, Pa. Paterno died Sunday morning. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP) ? The second day of a three-day period of public mourning for the late Joe Paterno will culminate with the funeral and burial service for the Hall of Fame football coach who became the face of Penn State University.
Hundreds ? if not thousands ? of alumni, residents and students are expected to attend a four-hour visitation Wednesday morning to begin a slate of events that will end with a funeral service in the afternoon that the family has made private.
The 85-year-old Paterno died Sunday of lung cancer. He had been ousted just days before learning of his diagnosis in November, forced out of his job in the wake of child sex-abuse charges against a former assistant.
This week, mourners are focusing on the full body of accomplishments and philanthropy compiled by Paterno over his 46-year tenure as the Nittany Lions' coach.
"His legacy is still going to be filled with the great things that he did. Look at this place," said Tom Sherman, a 1969 graduate from Johnstown, Pa. Before tearing up, Sherman said he attended Paterno's first game as head coach in 1966.
"It's like he's part of your life. I admire that guy so much."
Thousands more waited in line Tuesday on an overcast winter afternoon for the first day of visitation at the Pasquerilla Spiritual Center, where Paterno family members regularly attended services.
Inside the hall, the coach's body lay in a closed, hardwood casket topped by a spray of white roses. About six feet away sat a stylized black-and-white picture of the man who became lovingly known on campus as "JoePa," smiling and peering out through his trademark thick-rimmed glasses.
Paterno's casket had an "honor guard" of two Penn State players ? one past and one present. Some mourners stopped for a moment of reflection, or to genuflect in the interfaith hall.
Others fought back tears and sniffles. The only other sounds were the occasional clicks of news photographers taking pictures.
Paterno won 409 games and two national championships in a career admired by peers as much for its longevity as its success. Paterno also took as much pride in the program's graduation rates, often at or close to the top of the Big Ten.
"The passion, the love that he gave almost gave you a sense that you wanted to give it back to him," Penn State men's basketball coach Patrick Chambers said after escorting his team to the worship hall Tuesday evening. "We're forever indebted to him and we will continue to work as hard as we can."
On Thursday, the school's basketball arena will be the site of a public service called "A Memorial for Joe." Tickets on Tuesday were quickly snapped up for the event, even though there was a two-per-person limit for those ordering.
Contact: Vince Stricherz vinces@uw.edu 206-543-2580 University of Washington
As the reality and the impact of climate warming have become clearer in the last decade, researchers have looked for possible engineering solutions such as removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere or directing the sun's heat away from Earth to help offset rising temperatures.
New University of Washington research demonstrates that one suggested method, injecting sulfate particles into the stratosphere, would likely achieve only part of the desired effect, and could carry serious, if unintended, consequences.
The lower atmosphere already contains tiny sulfate and sea salt particles, called aerosols, that reflect energy from the sun into space. Some have suggested injecting sulfate particles directly into the stratosphere to enhance the effect, and also to reduce the rate of future warming that would result from continued increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide.
But a UW modeling study shows that sulfate particles in the stratosphere will not necessarily offset all the effects of future increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide.
Additionally, there still is likely to be significant warming in regions where climate change impacts originally prompted a desire for geoengineered solutions, said Kelly McCusker, a UW doctoral student in atmospheric sciences.
The modeling study shows that significant changes would still occur because even increased aerosol levels cannot balance changes in atmospheric and oceanic circulation brought on by higher levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide.
"There is no way to keep the climate the way it is now. Later this century, you would not be able to recreate present-day Earth just by adding sulfate aerosols to the atmosphere," McCusker said.
She is lead author of a paper detailing the findings published online in December in the Journal of Climate. Coauthors are UW atmospheric sciences faculty David Battisti and Cecilia Bitz.
Using the National Center for Atmospheric Research's Community Climate System Model version 3 and working at the Texas Advanced Computing Center, the researchers found that there would, in fact, be less overall warming with a combination of increased atmospheric aerosols and increased carbon dioxide than there would be with just increased carbon dioxide.
They also found that injecting sulfate particles into the atmosphere might even suppress temperature increases in the tropics enough to prevent serious food shortages and limit negative impacts on tropical organisms in the coming decades.
But temperature changes in polar regions could still be significant. Increased winter surface temperatures in northern Eurasia could have serious ramifications for Arctic marine mammals not equipped to adapt quickly to climate change. In Antarctic winters, changes in surface winds would also bring changes in ocean circulation with potentially significant consequences for ice sheets in West Antarctica.
Even with geoengineering, there still could be climate emergencies such as melting ice sheets or loss of polar bear habitat in the polar regions, the scientists concluded. They added that the odds of a "climate surprise" would be high because the uncertainties about the effects of geoengineering would be added to existing uncertainties about climate change.
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The research was funded by the Tamaki Foundation and the National Science Foundation.
For more information, contact McCusker at kelly@atmos.washington.edu.
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Contact: Vince Stricherz vinces@uw.edu 206-543-2580 University of Washington
As the reality and the impact of climate warming have become clearer in the last decade, researchers have looked for possible engineering solutions such as removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere or directing the sun's heat away from Earth to help offset rising temperatures.
New University of Washington research demonstrates that one suggested method, injecting sulfate particles into the stratosphere, would likely achieve only part of the desired effect, and could carry serious, if unintended, consequences.
The lower atmosphere already contains tiny sulfate and sea salt particles, called aerosols, that reflect energy from the sun into space. Some have suggested injecting sulfate particles directly into the stratosphere to enhance the effect, and also to reduce the rate of future warming that would result from continued increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide.
But a UW modeling study shows that sulfate particles in the stratosphere will not necessarily offset all the effects of future increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide.
Additionally, there still is likely to be significant warming in regions where climate change impacts originally prompted a desire for geoengineered solutions, said Kelly McCusker, a UW doctoral student in atmospheric sciences.
The modeling study shows that significant changes would still occur because even increased aerosol levels cannot balance changes in atmospheric and oceanic circulation brought on by higher levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide.
"There is no way to keep the climate the way it is now. Later this century, you would not be able to recreate present-day Earth just by adding sulfate aerosols to the atmosphere," McCusker said.
She is lead author of a paper detailing the findings published online in December in the Journal of Climate. Coauthors are UW atmospheric sciences faculty David Battisti and Cecilia Bitz.
Using the National Center for Atmospheric Research's Community Climate System Model version 3 and working at the Texas Advanced Computing Center, the researchers found that there would, in fact, be less overall warming with a combination of increased atmospheric aerosols and increased carbon dioxide than there would be with just increased carbon dioxide.
They also found that injecting sulfate particles into the atmosphere might even suppress temperature increases in the tropics enough to prevent serious food shortages and limit negative impacts on tropical organisms in the coming decades.
But temperature changes in polar regions could still be significant. Increased winter surface temperatures in northern Eurasia could have serious ramifications for Arctic marine mammals not equipped to adapt quickly to climate change. In Antarctic winters, changes in surface winds would also bring changes in ocean circulation with potentially significant consequences for ice sheets in West Antarctica.
Even with geoengineering, there still could be climate emergencies such as melting ice sheets or loss of polar bear habitat in the polar regions, the scientists concluded. They added that the odds of a "climate surprise" would be high because the uncertainties about the effects of geoengineering would be added to existing uncertainties about climate change.
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The research was funded by the Tamaki Foundation and the National Science Foundation.
For more information, contact McCusker at kelly@atmos.washington.edu.
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I'm a city boy, I love everything about a city—the energy, the bars, the buildings, the noise—and would cry suburgatory if you stripped me away from the city life. But after watching this Yosemite timelapse video, I might take a sabbatical into nature myself. It's so gosh darn beautiful. More »
In this Jan. 19, 2012 photo, a Broadway street sign is seen in Times Square in New York. Leaders in entertainment, academics and marketing gathered Monday, Jan. 23, to peer into their crystal balls and try to predict what Broadway will look like in 2032. (AP Photo/Charles Sykes)
In this Jan. 19, 2012 photo, a Broadway street sign is seen in Times Square in New York. Leaders in entertainment, academics and marketing gathered Monday, Jan. 23, to peer into their crystal balls and try to predict what Broadway will look like in 2032. (AP Photo/Charles Sykes)
In this Jan. 19, 2012 photo, billboards advertising Broadway shows are seen in Times Square in New York. Leaders in entertainment, academics and marketing gathered Monday, Jan. 23, to peer into their crystal balls and try to predict what Broadway will look like in 2032. (AP Photo/Charles Sykes)
In this Jan. 19, 2012 photo, a theatergoer buys Broadway tickets at the Times Square TKTS discount ticket booth in New York. Leaders in entertainment, academics and marketing gathered Monday, Jan. 23, to peer into their crystal balls and try to predict what Broadway will look like in 2032. (AP Photo/Charles Sykes)
NEW YORK (AP) ? Leaders in entertainment, academics and marketing have gathered to peer into their crystal balls and try to predict what Broadway will look like in 2032.
Speakers at the one-day inaugural TEDxBroadway on Monday included Jujamcyn Theaters president Jordan Roth, "Sleep No More" producer Randy Weiner, former Lincoln Center Director Gregory Mosher, Citibank's social media strategist Frank Eliason and author Juan Enriquez.
Topics covered everything from Broadway's aging audience, its fragmented ticketing systems, poor experiences in theaters, the power of social networks to harness fans and the need to attract talent.
TEDx events are independently organized but inspired by the nonprofit group TED ? standing for Technology, Entertainment, Design ? that started in 1984 as a conference dedicated to "ideas worth spreading."
Imagine re-arranging the blossoms in Van Gogh's Sunflowers, or really giving Munch's The Scream something to scream about. Visiting art galleries would be far more entertaining, and Scott Garner is clearly trying to make that happen with his Interactive Still Life project. More »
CWRU study finds the love of a dog or cat helps women cope with HIV/AIDSPublic release date: 23-Jan-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Susan Griffith susan.griffith@case.edu 216-368-1004 Case Western Reserve University
A spoonful of medicine goes down a lot easier if there is a dog or cat around. Having pets is helpful for women living with HIV/AIDS and managing their chronic illness, according to a new study from the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing at Case Western Reserve University.
"We think this finding about pets can apply to women managing other chronic illnesses," said Allison R. Webel, instructor of nursing and lead author of the article, "The Relationship Between Social Roles and Self-Management Behavior in Women Living with HIV/AIDS," which appears in the online journal Women's Health Issues.
Webel set out to better understand how women manage their HIV/AIDS and stay on track to take their medications, follow doctors' orders and live healthy lifestyles. She conducted 12 focus groups with 48 women to find out what they did to stay healthy. The women had an average age of 42, about 90 percent had children, and more than half were single.
During the focus groups, six predominant social roles emerged that helped and hindered these women in managing their illness: pet owner, mother/grandmother, faith believer, advocate, stigmatized patient, and employee. All roles had a positive impact except stigmatized patient, which prevented women from revealing their illness and seeking out appropriate supports.
"Much information is available about the impact of work and family roles, but little is known about other social roles that women assume," Webel said.
Being a pet owner was an important surprise, added Webel, who collaborated with co-author Patricia Higgins, a professor of nursing at Case Western Reserve University.
"Petsprimarily dogsgave these women a sense of support and pleasure," Webel said.
When discussing the effect their pets have on their lives, the women weighed in. "She's going to be right there when I'm hurting," a cat owner said. Another said: "Dogs know when you're in a bad moodshe knows that I'm sick, and everywhere I go, she goes. She wants to protect me."
The human and animal bond in healing and therapy is being recognized, Webel said, as more animals are visiting nursing homes to connect to people with dementia or hospitals to visit children with long hospital stays.
Being a pet owner is just one social aspect of these women's lives. "We found the social context in which this self-management happens is important," Webel said.
Another strong role to emerge was advocate. Participants wanted to give back and help stop others from engaging in activities that might make them sick, the researchers report.
While roles as mothers and workers are well documented, "less-defined social roles also have a positive impact on self-management of their chronic illness," Webel said.
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(To see a video, visit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jl6XcIZT2wI.)
For a broadcast-quality version of the video without graphics, contact Mary Gerity at mary.gerity@case.edu. To set up an interview, contact Susan Griffith at susan.griffith@case.edu.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
CWRU study finds the love of a dog or cat helps women cope with HIV/AIDSPublic release date: 23-Jan-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Susan Griffith susan.griffith@case.edu 216-368-1004 Case Western Reserve University
A spoonful of medicine goes down a lot easier if there is a dog or cat around. Having pets is helpful for women living with HIV/AIDS and managing their chronic illness, according to a new study from the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing at Case Western Reserve University.
"We think this finding about pets can apply to women managing other chronic illnesses," said Allison R. Webel, instructor of nursing and lead author of the article, "The Relationship Between Social Roles and Self-Management Behavior in Women Living with HIV/AIDS," which appears in the online journal Women's Health Issues.
Webel set out to better understand how women manage their HIV/AIDS and stay on track to take their medications, follow doctors' orders and live healthy lifestyles. She conducted 12 focus groups with 48 women to find out what they did to stay healthy. The women had an average age of 42, about 90 percent had children, and more than half were single.
During the focus groups, six predominant social roles emerged that helped and hindered these women in managing their illness: pet owner, mother/grandmother, faith believer, advocate, stigmatized patient, and employee. All roles had a positive impact except stigmatized patient, which prevented women from revealing their illness and seeking out appropriate supports.
"Much information is available about the impact of work and family roles, but little is known about other social roles that women assume," Webel said.
Being a pet owner was an important surprise, added Webel, who collaborated with co-author Patricia Higgins, a professor of nursing at Case Western Reserve University.
"Petsprimarily dogsgave these women a sense of support and pleasure," Webel said.
When discussing the effect their pets have on their lives, the women weighed in. "She's going to be right there when I'm hurting," a cat owner said. Another said: "Dogs know when you're in a bad moodshe knows that I'm sick, and everywhere I go, she goes. She wants to protect me."
The human and animal bond in healing and therapy is being recognized, Webel said, as more animals are visiting nursing homes to connect to people with dementia or hospitals to visit children with long hospital stays.
Being a pet owner is just one social aspect of these women's lives. "We found the social context in which this self-management happens is important," Webel said.
Another strong role to emerge was advocate. Participants wanted to give back and help stop others from engaging in activities that might make them sick, the researchers report.
While roles as mothers and workers are well documented, "less-defined social roles also have a positive impact on self-management of their chronic illness," Webel said.
###
(To see a video, visit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jl6XcIZT2wI.)
For a broadcast-quality version of the video without graphics, contact Mary Gerity at mary.gerity@case.edu. To set up an interview, contact Susan Griffith at susan.griffith@case.edu.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Building on their education and training video platform for startups and SMBs, Grovo is today launching an "Expert Series" that aims to "shed light on the evolving world of Web 2.0," in which entrepreneurs, small business owners, celebrities, journalists, and investors will offer insights into successful operation strategies, brand building, differentiation, how to leverage social media, and everything in between. The goal is to not only help others understand how to use popular web services and tools, but why they're important and how they've helped grow their own businesses.
DAKAR, Senegal ? For the third time in the past decade, drought has returned to the arid, western shoulder of Africa, bringing hunger to millions. Aid agencies are warning that if action is not taken now, the region known as the Sahel could slip into crisis.
More than 1 million children in the eight affected countries are expected to face life-threatening malnutrition this year, according to the United Nations Children's Fund. The region has not yet recovered from the last drought two years ago, and many families lost their herds which means that they will not have assets to purchase food.
Aid workers also worry that donors are suffering from "famine fatigue," as the looming West African crisis comes just six months after Somalia's capital was declared a famine zone.
"I think there is a real risk that people may think this is the kind of thing that just happens every few years," Stephen Cockburn, the West Africa regional campaign manager for Oxfam, said of the droughts in the Sahel.
Earlier this week, aid agencies revealed that thousands of people died needlessly in the Horn of Africa because donors waited until people started dying to respond. The warning signs were there as early as August 2010 but aid wasn't ramped up until July 2011.
Signs of the looming famine in the Sahel were first detected late last year, according to the report released Wednesday by Oxfam and Save the Children. The lessons of Somalia and the Horn of Africa, where as many as 100,000 people died, are front and center in how aid agencies are responding to the potential famine in West Africa.
"Everyone recognizes in looking back that there was a delay in responding (in the Horn of Africa). Tens of thousands of people died because of that delay ... We know from this recent and painful experience what the risks are," said Cockburn.
He said that there could be more hope for the Sahel, since the indications of a crisis have been detected early on.
"The alarms (for the Sahel) were already sounding in November and December. Every country in the region, and every president in the region, has recognized this and asked for outside help," he said.
The U.N. children's agency was among the agencies reacting early. The organization issued an appeal in December and began ordering therapeutic foods for infants and toddlers. By then, Niger had already issued its own alert saying that more than half the country's villages were vulnerable to food insecurity.
Droughts in the Sahel ? a region spanning eight countries, including northern Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, northern Nigeria, Cameroon and southern Chad ? have become increasingly frequent with emergencies declared in 2005, 2008 and 2010. The consequences are especially dire for children, said UNICEF spokesman Martin Dawes.
"In this crisis adults will suffer, but children will die. Why? Because nutrition deterioration is a vicious cycle ? in growing, the body requires more to replace and make up what it lacks and when the right kinds of food are not available the situation gets worse," said Dawes. "They go from moderately malnourished to acute, and lifesaving intervention is needed."
As the child gets weaker, he or she becomes more vulnerable to routine problems, like diarrhea. The child is less able to fend off diseases, and the effects are more pronounced, Dawes said.
Even during a non-drought year, as many as 300,000 children die of malnutrition in the Sahel, says Cockburn. It's a region that is perpetually on the edge, and any extra shock sends it over the precipice.
"The increasing frequency of droughts in the Sahel means that communities have had little time to recover from the last food crisis," according to Malek Triki, the Dakar-based spokesman for the U.N. World Food Program. "Their savings are exhausted and livestock herds have not been rebuilt."
The United Nations is already purchasing food and deploying specialized teams to the region. Grain prices across the region are rising and WFP has observed a rush on maize by wholesalers, who are buying up local stocks. Markets are emptying and staples including millet and sorghum are now in short supply.
Traders from the Sahel are traveling increasingly greater distances to buy maize, with some spotted as far as northern Ivory Coast, according to the WFP.
Cockburn said that the hard-learned lessons of Somalia are already bearing fruit. He is cautiously optimistic by the response from the European Union, which announced this week that it is doubling its humanitarian aid for the Sahel.
Kristalina Georgieva, the European commissioner for humanitarian aid visited Niger on Wednesday in order to see the problem up close.
"Within months people will begin to starve unless we act," she said, according to a statement posted on the European Union's website. "The alarm bells are ringing."
WASHINGTON ? Scientists who created easier-to-spread versions of the deadly bird flu said Friday they're temporarily halting more research, as international specialists debate what should happen next.
Researchers from leading flu laboratories around the world signed onto the voluntary moratorium, published Friday in the journals Science and Nature.
What the scientists called a "pause" comes amid fierce controversy over how to handle research that's high-risk but potentially could bring a big payoff. Two labs ? at Erasmus University in the Netherlands and the University of Wisconsin-Madison ? created the new viruses while studying how bird flu might mutate to become a bigger threat to people.
The U.S. government funded the work but last month urged the teams not to publicly reveal the exact formula so that would-be bioterrorists couldn't copy it. Critics also worried a lab accident might allow the strains to escape. The researchers reluctantly agreed not to publish all the details as long as the government set up a system to provide them to legitimate scientists who really need to know. The National Institutes of Health is creating such a system.
"We recognize that we and the rest of the scientific community need to clearly explain the benefits of this important research and the measures taken to minimize its possible risks," lead researchers Ron Fouchier of Erasmus and Yoshihiro Kawaoka of Wisconsin wrote Friday in the letter. They were joined by nearly three dozen other flu researchers.
They called for a public international meeting to debate how to learn from the work, safely. And they agreed to hold off on additional research with the existing lab-bred strains or that leads to any new ones for 60 days.
A U.S. official praised the development.
The moratorium "is a really good idea, because a lot of very important issues are at hand," said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the NIH's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who expects most flu researchers doing such work to sign on. "There aren't a lot of people who are doing that, I can assure you."
The U.S. also wants international input; researchers are talking with the World Health Organization.
Today, the so-called H5N1 bird flu only occasionally infects people, mostly those who have close contact with sick poultry. But when it does, it's highly lethal. The lab-bred H5N1 strains were a surprise because they showed it was easier than previously thought for the virus to mutate in a way that lets it spread easily between at least some mammals ? in this case, ferrets.
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Public release date: 25-Jan-2012
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Building on their education and training video platform for startups and SMBs,