Video game shares down in wake of shooting

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Shares of video game makers and sellers fell Thursday in the aftermath of a mass shooting at a Connecticut elementary school, which has renewed debate about violent games and their potential influence on crime.

Shares of GameStop Corp., whose stores sell video games as well as systems like the Xbox and Wii, fell 5 percent in afternoon trading.

Investors are seen as being increasingly concerned that the government may impose tougher rules on the sales of games rated for “mature” and older audiences.

Investors may be worried that parents will also avoid buying first-person shooter games like “Call of Duty: Black Ops 2″ after the tragedy Friday morning at Sandy Hook Elementary, in which 20 children and six adults were shot and killed by 20-year-old Adam Lanza.

“Maybe there will be more stringent efforts to make sure youth are not playing games that they’re not old enough to play,” said Mike Hickey, an analyst with National Alliance Securities. “Maybe there will be a greater effort by parents in managing the content their kids are playing.”

Shares of companies involved in the video game industry, many of which had been dropping since the shooting, declined further Thursday.

— GameStop stock lost $ 1.37, or 5 percent, to $ 26.18. Shares have barely changed since last Thursday’s close, the day before the shooting, to Wednesday’s close.

— Shares of Activision Blizzard Inc., the publisher of “Call of Duty: Black Ops 2,” fell 9 cents to $ 10.70. The stock had already dropped 5.6 percent.

— Electronic Arts Inc. shares fell 41 cents, or 2.9 percent, to $ 13.99. Shares had dropped 5.6 percent.

— Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. shares slipped 29 cents, or 2.5 percent, to $ 11.69. The stock had dropped 8 percent.

The declines came as broader markets rose. The Dow Jones industrial average was up 0.3 percent at 13,295.

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World Music Awards postponed due to visa issues, Newtown tragedy

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The World Music Awards was postponed on Thursday due to “logistical and multiple visa issue,” organizers said, two days before the event was scheduled to be held in Miami.

Event producers John Martinotti and Marcol International said in a statement that the December 22 awards ceremony also was being delayed in the wake of the elementary school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, last week.

“We are sorry for any inconvenience but this decision had to be made due to logistical and multiple visa issues and in view of this week’s national mourning. Fans have been a great support to the artists and have voted online in huge numbers,” the producers said in a statement.

The winners in categories ranging from world’s best song, world’s best artists and entertainer of the year, are picked by fans who vote online. The statement said that votes will continue to be collected until a new date is set for the show.

This year’s nominees include Usher, Justin Bieber, Nicki Minaj, Rihanna and Chris Brown. Past winners include Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey and Michael Jackson.

The awards ceremony, founded in 1989 and hosted by Monaco’s Prince Albert II, has primarily taken place in Monte Carlo and proceeds from the show go to charity. This year, show producers decided to move it to Marlins Park Stadium in Miami.

(Reporting By Piya Sinha-Roy, editing by Eric Kelsey)

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German Health Care Attracts Foreign Patients

BERLIN — When Jalal Talabani, the president of Iraq, needed advanced medical care for a stroke suffered this week, he flew not to the United States or Britain but to Germany, for treatment here in the capital.

For many Americans, Germany is known as a way station where soldiers wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan received immediate medical care on United States military bases. But it is also a popular destination for wealthy and prominent patients from the Middle East, Russia and beyond, experts say.

Before the Arab Spring uprisings, the Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak traveled to Munich in 2004 for back treatment and to Heidelberg in 2010 to have his gallbladder removed. Last year, President Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan reportedly had a surgical procedure on his prostate at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf.

According to German government statistics, the number of hospital patients from the United Arab Emirates rose to 1,754 from 339 between 2000 and 2010, the most recent year available. From Saudi Arabia, the figure climbed to 712 from 143. The numbers from Iraq were smaller but still rose to 176 from 95. Over the same period, the number of Russians jumped to 4,873 from 842.

“We have one of the worldwide best health care systems and people from abroad know that,” said Isabella Beyer, research associate in medical tourism at the Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences. Mr. Talabani, 79, is among them; he was treated in Germany before for back trouble.

Mr. Talabani is now being cared for at Berlin’s Charité hospital, which is more than 300 years old and is one of Europe’s largest university hospitals. The storied institution was home to several Nobel Prize winners, including Robert Koch and Paul Ehrlich. A spokeswoman for Charité, Manuela Zingl, confirmed that Mr. Talabani was being treated there but said that she could not disclose any information on his condition because of rules on medical privacy.

Mr. Talabani was said to be in “stable” condition after suffering a stroke this week, though there were unconfirmed reports that he was in a coma. He was rushed to the Baghdad Medical City on Monday.

He was treated there by medical experts from Iran, Germany and Britain, according to Iraqi staff members. Barazan Sheik Othman, the head of the presidential media office, said in a telephone interview that Mr. Talabani left for Germany accompanied by doctors after they established that he was well enough to be transferred.

Hospitals and clinics here have increasingly sought to market themselves as a destination for international patients. Ms. Beyer said that Germany benefited from a combination of lower prices than the United States but still provided high-quality care. Shorter waiting times and the proximity to the Middle East also helped.

“Before, a lot flew to Geneva,” said Salah Atamna, 44, whose business, Europe Health, seeks to link up patients from abroad with German hospitals and clinics.

Many wealthy Arabs would fly to Germany in the summer to escape the blistering heat at home, Mr. Atamna said, scheduling their vacation to coincide with an operation or other treatment. They often traveled with family members and large entourages. After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, it became harder to acquire visas to the United States, and medical travelers began searching for alternatives.

Duraid Adnan contributed reporting from Baghdad, and Victor Homola from Berlin.

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Illinois jobless rate falls to 8.7%

Illinois' unemployment rate dipped to 8.7 percent in November. (Bloomberg file photo / December 20, 2012)

Associated Press

12:30 p.m. CST, December 20, 2012

Illinois' unemployment rate dipped to 8.7 percent in November as the economy added 16,400 jobs.

Preliminary data released Thursday by the Illinois Department of Employment Security indicate the largest monthly job gain of the year. There still are 574,600 Illinoisans out of work. The rate does not reflect unemployed people who've quit looking for work.

IDES Director Jay Rowell says November's job growth is encouraging and "reinforces the trend of positive economic momentum."

But he says progress will slow if Congress and the president fail to come to a resolution on the so-called fiscal cliff.

November's seasonally adjusted rate is one-tenth of a percentage point lower than in October and 1.1 percentage points lower than November 2011.

Most job gains last month were in professional and business services and manufacturing.

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Obama wants gun policy recommendations in a month

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama directed a Cabinet group on Wednesday to give him recommendations by next month on ways to tighten the regulation of guns in the wake of the Connecticut massacre of schoolchildren.

Responding to national outrage over Friday's killing of 20 children, aged 6 and 7, Obama held a White House news conference to announce that Vice President Joe Biden will lead an effort to craft policies to crack down on gun violence.

Obama said he believed Americans would support the reinstatement of a ban on the sale of military-style assault weapons, a ban on the sale of high-capacity ammunition clips, and a law requiring background checks on buyers before all gun purchases, which would close a loophole that allows sales at open-air gun shows without such background checks.

Saying gun control cannot be the only solution to the problem, Obama expressed support for making it easier for Americans to get access to mental health care - "at least as easy as access to a gun."

Under pressure from fellow Democrats to act, Obama insisted the guns issue would not be ignored this time. Previous appeals for more gun regulation have died even as mass shootings have continued.

With Biden at his side, Obama said the group would give him proposals that he could outline in his State of the Union speech in late January. Cabinet members involved include Attorney General Eric Holder, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Education Secretary Arne Duncan.

"This is not some Washington commission. This is not something where folks are going to be studying the issue for six months and publishing a report that gets read and then pushed aside. This is a team that has a very specific task to pull together real reforms right now," Obama said.

The Newtown, Connecticut, shootings of so many schoolchildren by a 20-year-old man have shocked Americans in ways that previous mass shootings have not. The gunman's mother and six adults at the school were also killed before the gunman shot himself.

Some previously adamant opponents of increased gun control have expressed a willingness to consider more regulation. Even the powerful National Rifle Association, the lobby group that has sought time and again to stymie gun legislation, said this week that it would be prepared to offer meaningful contributions to ensure there is no repeat of Newtown.

WAKE-UP CALL

Obama himself has done little to rein in America's gun culture in his four years in office. His administration has to a certain extent expanded gun rights by permitting the carrying of firearms in national parks.

Asked why he has been a no-show on the subject until now, Obama defended himself, saying he has been dealing with the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"I don't think I've been on vacation," he said. The Newtown massacre, he said, "should be a wake-up call for all of us."

Whatever steps Obama's task force comes up with are likely to face some criticism because many Republicans see the U.S. Constitution's Second Amendment right to bear arms as sacrosanct.

"What we're looking for here is a thoughtful approach that says we can preserve our Second Amendment, we can make sure that responsible gun owners are able to carry out their activities, but that we're gonna actually be serious about the safety side of this," Obama said.

Obama has tapped Biden to lead other high-profile initiatives, including efforts on a deficit-reduction compromise with congressional Republicans in 2011.

U.S. Representative Ron Barber, who was wounded in a 2011 Arizona shooting that targeted his predecessor, Gabrielle Giffords, welcomed the effort and echoed other Democratic lawmakers' calls to ban military-grade guns.

"We cannot go on blithely believing that we can solve this problem in other ways. We have to look at the weaponry used and we have to look at the people who use it and we have to do something about both," Barber said at a news conference earlier at the Capitol.

Friday's massacre was the fourth shooting rampage to claim multiple lives in the United States this year.

(Additional reporting by Roberta Rampton and Patricia Zengerle; Writing by Steve Holland; editing by Doina Chiacu)

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Music, roses at singer Jenni Rivera’s memorial

UNIVERSAL CITY, Calif. (AP) — Jenni Rivera‘s “celestial graduation” was marked by festive music, heartfelt speeches in Spanish and English and passionate chants of “Jen-ni! Jen-ni!”

Rivera’s children and famed singers Olga Tanon and Joan Sebastian performed during the nearly 2 ½-hour memorial service Wednesday at the Gibson Amphitheatre, where thousands of fans gathered to salute the “Diva de la Banda” who died in a plane crash Dec. 9.

One fan, Veronika Flores, drove nearly eight hours from her home in Woodland, Calif., near Sacramento, to be united with other fans at the service.

“I just came to say goodbye to a Latina woman, La Gran Senora,” she said, invoking the name of one of Rivera’s most beloved songs.

Famed Mexican singers Marco Antonio Solis and Ana Gabriel and actors Lou Diamond Phillips and Kate del Castillo were also among the guests at Wednesday’s service.

A red casket sat onstage amid a sea of white roses as images of Rivera played on three big screens. Family members embraced and kissed the casket at the conclusion of the service, laying more white roses atop it.

While most of the speeches and songs were delivered in Spanish, Rivera’s children spoke in English, often directly to their late mother.

“We’re not here to mourn the death,” said son Michael, 21. “We’re here to celebrate the life and graduation of a singer, an entertainer, a diva, a fighter, an entrepreneur, a philanthropist, and more than anything, a mother — the best mother.”

He then called for 27 seconds of silence for the victims of the massacre in Newtown, Conn.

Rivera’s youngest child, 11-year-old Johnny, was heartbreakingly poised as he said, “The person that everyone’s talking about is my mom.”

“Mama, I’ve been crying so much these last few days. I miss you so much,” said the little boy, wearing a red bow tie like many of his family members. “I hope you’re taking care of my dad and I hope he’s taking care of you, too.”

Rivera’s second husband, Juan Lopez, died in 2009. The couple divorced in 2003.

Rivera’s brothers and sisters spoke lovingly of the singer, calling her “the queen of queens,” ”perfectly imperfect” and an “eternal diva.” Her father said Rivera’s “happiness, smile and care for the public will never be forgotten.” He then performed a song he wrote about his daughter, a woman who rose from humble roots to become “la Diva de la Banda.”

One of Rivera’s brothers said his sister “made it OK for women to be who they are. Jenni also made it OK to be from nothing with the hopes of being something.”

The family asked that Latin radio stations play Rivera’s song “La Gran Senora” at noon Thursday in her honor.

The service was closed to most media, although a broadcast of the proceedings was made available.

The burial will be private.

Rivera’s last album before her death, “La Misma Gran Senora,” topped the Latin albums chart this week, selling 27,000 copies — the best sales week for any Latin album this year. Rivera also holds three spots on the Billboard 200 albums chart.

Rivera and six other people died Dec. 9 in a northern Mexico plane crash that remains under investigation. Rivera, a mother of five children and grandmother of two, was 43.

Rivera sold more than 15 million copies of her 12 major-label albums. Her soulful singing style and honesty about her tumultuous personal life won her fans on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. She was also an actress and reality TV star.

Born in Los Angeles, Rivera launched her career by selling cassette tapes at flea markets. By the end of the 90s, she won a major-label contract and built a loyal following.

Many of her songs deal with themes of dignity in the face of heartbreak, which Rivera spoke of openly with her fans.

She had recently filed for divorce from her third husband, was once detained at a Mexico City airport with tens of thousands of dollars in cash, and publicly apologized after her brother assaulted a drunken fan who verbally attacked her in 2011.

“She was a fighter, a woman who can push boundaries,” said Flores. “That’s why I liked her, because I’m just like her.”

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F.D.A. and States Meet About Regulation of Drug Compounders

Mary Calvert/Reuters

Margaret Hamburg, the F.D.A. commissioner, testified on the meningitis outbreak before Congress in November. She addressed the need for greater federal oversight of large compounding pharmacies, which mix batches of drugs on their own, often for much lower prices than major manufacturers charge.

SILVER SPRING, Md. – The Food and Drug Administration conferred with public health officials from 50 states on Wednesday about how best to strengthen rules governing compounding pharmacies in the wake of a national meningitis outbreak caused by a tainted pain medication produced by a Massachusetts pharmacy.

It was the first public discussion of what should be done about the practice of compounding, or tailor-making medicine for individual patients, since the F.D.A. commissioner, Dr. Margaret Hamburg, testified in Congress last month about the need for greater federal oversight of large compounding pharmacies. So far, 620 people in 19 states have been sickened in the outbreak, and 39 of them have died.

Pharmacies fall primarily under state law, and the F.D.A. convened the meeting to get specifics from states on gaps in the regulatory net and how the states see the federal role. Some states said they would prefer to see the F.D.A. handle large-scale compounders like the New England Compounding Center, or N.E.C.C., the Massachusetts pharmacy that was the source of the outbreak.

“The consensus in our group was that there is a role for the F.D.A. to be involved in facilities like N.E.C.C.,” said Cody Wiberg, the executive director of the Minnesota Board of Pharmacy. “If you’re talking about compounding, most states have the authority and resources to handle that. If you’re talking about nontraditional compounding,” he said, referring to large-scale enterprises like N.E.C.C., “fewer states may have the resources to do that.”

Large-scale compounding has expanded drastically since the early 1990s, driven by changes in the health care system, including the rise of hospital outsourcing.

“It is very clear that the health care system has evolved and the role of the compounding pharmacies has really shifted,” Dr. Hamburg said in a telephone interview on Tuesday. She said the laws had not kept pace.

“We need legislation that reflects the current environment and the known gaps in our state and federal oversight systems,” Dr. Hamburg said.

Under current law, compounders are not required to give the F.D.A. access to their books, and about half of all the court orders the agency obtained over the past decade were for pharmacy compounders, although compounders are only a small part of the agency’s regulatory responsibilities.

The F.D.A.'s critics argue that the agency already has all the legal authority it needs to police compounders. They say that many compounders have been operating as major manufacturers, shipping to states across the country, and that the F.D.A. should be using its jurisdiction over manufacturers to regulate those companies’ activities.

“There should be one uniform federal standard that is enforced by one agency – the F.D.A.,” said Michael Carome, deputy director of Public Citizen’s Health Research Group, a nonprofit consumer organization, who has been a critic of the agency’s approach. “They have been lax in enforcing that standard.”

But Dr. Hamburg contends that the distinction is not so simple. Lumping large compounders in with manufacturers would mean they would have to file new drug applications for every product they make, a costly and time-consuming process that is not always necessary for the products they make, like IV feeding tube bags, for example. Dr. Hamburg has proposed creating a new federal oversight category for large-scale compounders, separate from manufacturers.

“What concerns me is the idea that we could assert full authority over some of these facilities as though they were manufacturers, as though there were an on-off, black-white option,” Dr. Hamburg said. “That is a heavy-handed way to regulate a set of activities that can make a huge positive difference in providing necessary health care to people.”

The central problem, state representatives said, is how to define large-scale compounding. Should companies be measured by how much they produce, whether they ship across state lines, the types of products they produce, or some combination of those factors?

“It’s easy to stand at a distance and ask why can’t there be a bright line?” said Jay Campbell, executive director of the North Carolina Board of Pharmacy. “Let’s not let the perfect get in the way of the good. We won’t be able to make a distinction that is razor sharp.”

Large-scale compounders play an important role in the health care supply chain when they produce high-quality products, F.D.A. officials say. They fill gaps during shortages and supply hospitals with products that can be made more safely and cost-effectively in bulk than in individual hospitals.

Officials said they wanted to make sure the products made by such suppliers were safe, but were also concerned about disrupting that supply.

Carmen Catizone, head of the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy, said that states were not equipped to regulate the large-scale compounders and that the F.D.A. needed to find a middle path for regulating them.

“Either hospitals are not going to like the solution, or the manufacturers aren’t going to like the fact that these guys get a shorter path,” he said. “But something’s got to give.”

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Boehner: Blame tax hikes on Obama

US Speaker of the House John Boehner speaks on the "fiscal cliff" during press conference Wednesday. (Reuters / December 19, 2012)

Reuters

1:37 p.m. CST, December 19, 2012

President Barack Obama will be responsible for taxes rising on Americans if he does not "get serious" about a balanced deficit reduction plan or demand Senate passage of a Republican bill to prevent tax increases on all income below $1 million, House Speaker John Boehner charged on Wednesday.

"Tomorrow the House will pass legislation to make permanent tax relief for nearly every American," Boehner said in a short on-camera statement.

"Then the president will have a decision to make. He can call on the Senate Democrats to pass that bill, or he can be responsible for the largest tax increase in American history."

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Field Museum to cut staff, may reduce hours of operation

Battered by the recession and a high debt load, the Field Museum today announced plans to cut staff, overhaul its operations and limit the scope of its research.

A comprehensive plan being drawn up by museum officials could include things like reducing its hours of operation, increasing the admission price for special exhibits and trimming the ranks of curators and scientists, according to museum officials.

“This may turn out to involve shrinking certain areas of inquiry,” said John Rowe, chairman of the museum’s board of trustees.

The Field Museum is both an international research institution and a vital cultural attraction for residents and tourists, drawing about 1.3 million visitors in 2011.

The natural history museum is home to Sue, the best preserved Tyrannosaurus Rex in the world and a Chicago icon. But in the bowels of the museum and all around the world Field scientists are also discovering new plants and animals – more than 200 last year alone.

That complex, dual mission comes at a price, however--one that has grown increasing difficult to cover amid the recent economic downturn.

The cost-cutting plan announced Tuesday comes on the heels of a previous effort that included reducing its operating costs by $5 million, mostly through staff cuts. Those measures were not enough to shore up an institution that in the past decade has doubled its bond debt and run multiple operating deficits amid flat revenues and shrinking government subsidies.

In April, the museum tapped former University of Oregon President Richard Lariviere to become President and CEO. Lariviere, who started in October, said he wants to use the cost cutting measures as an opportunity to refocus the museum’s mission.

“If we wrestle these issues to the ground successfully, our future is rosy,” he said during a meeting with the Tribune’s editorial board.

The latest planning effort will take place between now and July 1, with input from the museum’s staff and board members, who signed off on the approach Monday. Lariviere said that the average patron should feel little or no change to the experience in the short term.

Over the long run, he said that the museum will rely more on its own collection, use technology to enhance its interaction with visitors and be more selective in choosing special exhibits it brings in from the outside.

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Google Music adds free iTunes-like song-matching feature

Title Post: Google Music adds free iTunes-like song-matching feature
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