Alex Wong/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- President Obama is making a targeted effort to court the votes of military veterans and their families, believing the constituency is in play for November and could make a difference in key battleground states.
The Obama campaign Thursday kicked off a grassroots organizing effort -- dubbed “Veterans and Military Families for Obama” -- led by retired Naval officer and Iraq war veteran Rob Diamond.
“It’s no secret to anyone where our military bases are in this country and where our veterans and military communities are located,” Diamond said of the strategy on a conference call with reporters. “And the goal of our program is to mobilize and energize and activate those folks where they live."
“Obviously, a state like Virginia is a critically important state with a large military presence, and that’s where our veterans and military families live, states like North Carolina and a state like Florida,” he said.
Obama lost the veterans’ vote in 2008 to John McCain (himself a veteran), 55 to 45 percent. But campaign officials now believe that changing demographics in the country and the military, coupled with Obama’s record on veterans issues, could give him an edge.
“We’re going to break down that mythology about the military voting history and veteran voting history,” Diamond said.
The campaign is highlighting Obama’s support for the post-9/11 GI Bill, tax credits for businesses that hire veterans, public-private partnerships to boost veteran employment, and increased funding for the Department of Veterans Affairs, as well as foreign policy achievements like ending the war in Iraq and killing Osama bin Laden.
Central to the pitch to veteran voters is first lady Michelle Obama, who appears with the president in a web video announcing the political outreach effort. She has spent the past few months traveling the country to mark the one-year anniversary of her Joining Forces initiative, which promotes support for veterans and their families.
The White House and Obama campaign have insisted her efforts have had no ties to politics. “Obviously the first lady’s Joining Forces effort is part of her initiatives at the White House and not linked to the campaign,” campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt said Thursday.
But the president himself suggested that his wife’s advocacy is a part of his pitch for a second term.
“There’s nothing I take more seriously than my responsibility to those who sacrifice their own safety to defend ours,” Obama says in the video. “That’s why Michelle and I have made supporting veterans and military families a top priority from the start.”
The president’s backers say “tens of thousands” of veterans have already enlisted with the Obama campaign group.
“They’re stepping up because they know voters will face a clear choice in November,” said Delaware Attorney General, Army veteran and son of the vice president, Beau Biden. “Veterans know the vision and leadership we need in a commander-in-chief and they know the stakes and the consequences of sitting on the sidelines and would wake up on the morning after election day would be too late.”
The campaign has been sharply critical of Romney on veterans issues, claiming that his support of the House Republican budget would mean veterans programs would be cut by $11 billion a year. They also say he would reduce veterans health care benefits by privatizing the system, pointing to the governor’s November 2011 suggestion that benefits could be delivered as vouchers.
Romney allies have pointed to his record as governor of Massachusetts as evidence that he would be a staunch advocate for veterans and their families. They also say his economic policies would do more to boost economic status of veterans overall.
Veterans “are not being well served today because of some of the policies in place under the Obama administration,” said former Secretary of Veterans Affairs Anthony Principi, who served in the Bush administration and is a Romney supporter.
“Today, we see a significantly higher unemployment rate amongst those young men and women who are coming home and can’t find meaningful jobs. And it impacts their well being; it impacts their mental health which is another area that they are not being well served,” he said.
The unemployment rate for veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan was 9.2 percent in April, according to the Labor Department. Among all veterans, the jobless rate was 7.1 percent.
The national unemployment rate was 8.1 percent during the same period, the government reported.
Joe Raedle/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- Reports of a plan to air attack ads against President Obama by rehashing ties to his former pastor, the controversial Rev. Jeremiah Wright, quickly drew the condemnation Thursday of presumed GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney and Joe Ricketts, the money man reported to be considering the plan.
Romney on Thursday disavowed the conservative group that The New York Times said had planned to possibly bankroll the ads.
“I repudiate the effort by that PAC to promote an ad strategy of the nature they’ve described,” Romney told the conservative website Townhall.com. “I would like to see this campaign focus on the economy, on getting people back to work, on seeing rising incomes and growing prosperity, particularly for those in the middle class of America.”
The Times reported Thursday that a $10 million plan developed by “a group of high-profile Republican strategists” and Joe Ricketts, the founder of TD Ameritrade, will seek to link “Mr. Obama to incendiary comments by his former spiritual adviser, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., whose race-related sermons made him a highly charged figure in the 2008 campaign.”
“The group suggested hiring as a spokesman an ‘extremely literate conservative African-American’ who can argue that Mr. Obama misled the nation by presenting himself as what the proposal calls a ‘metrosexual, black Abe Lincoln,’” the Times reported.
But a statement released on behalf of Ricketts argued that the Wright plan was only one being considered by the PAC. Brian Baker, president of the Ending Spending Action Fund, said Ricketts is an independent who is focused on fiscal policy to help defeat President Obama.
“Not only was this plan merely a proposal – one of several submitted to the Ending Spending Action Fund by third-party vendors – but it reflects an approach to politics that Mr. Ricketts rejects and it was never a plan to be accepted but only a suggestion for a direction to take,” according to the statement released by Baker.
“Mr. Ricketts intends to work hard to help elect a president this fall who shares his commitment to economic responsibility, but his efforts are and will continue to be focused entirely on questions of fiscal policy, not attacks that seek to divide us socially or culturally.”
Romney said if anyone is guilty of launching personal attacks, it is the Obama campaign, which he accused of “character assassination” against him.
“I think what we’ve seen so far from the Obama campaign is a campaign of character assassination,” he added. “I hope that isn’t the course of this campaign. So in regards to that PAC, I repudiate what they’re thinking about....It’s interesting that we’re talking about some Republican PAC that wants to go after the president [on Wright]; I hope people also are looking at what he’s doing, and saying, ‘Why is he running an attack campaign? Why isn’t he talking about his record?’”
Prior to the candidate’s own remarks about the report, first reported by The New York Times, Romney had told the media aboard a charter flight that he had yet to read the papers and couldn’t comment.
Romney’s campaign manager, Matt Rhoades, also issued a statement distancing the campaign from the unaffiliated GOP group and arguing that Romney would run his campaign based on issues, unlike, according to Rhoades, the Obama campaign.
“Gov. Romney is running a campaign based on jobs and the economy, and we encourage everyone else to do the same,” Rhoades said in an email statement. “President Obama’s team said they would ‘kill Romney” and, just last week, David Axelrod referred to individuals opposing the president as ‘contract killers.’ It’s clear President Obama’s team is running a campaign of character assassination. We repudiate any efforts on our side to do so.”
Prior to Romney’s interview with Townhall, the Obama for America campaign accused Romney of “falling short” in his campaign’s response.
“This morning’s story revealed the appalling lengths to which Republican operatives and SuperPacs apparently are willing to go to tear down the President and elect Mitt Romney,” it said in a statement Thursday. “The blueprint for a hate-filled, divisive campaign of character assassination speaks for itself. It also reflects how far the party has drifted in four short years since John McCain rejected these very tactics. Once again, Governor Romney has fallen short of the standard that John McCain set, reacting tepidly in a moment that required moral leadership in standing up to the very extreme wing of his own party.”
Ethan Miller/Getty Images(JACKSONVILLE, Fla.) -- Mitt Romney said Thursday that he is “disappointed” in President Obama’s campaign for being “focused on character assassination,” specifying that he considers the president’s attacks on his career at Bain to be an attempt to make him appear to be “not a good person or not a good guy.”
“I have been disappointed with the president's campaign to date, which is focused on character assassination,” said Romney. “I just think that we're wiser to talk about the issues of the day, what we do to get America working again, talk about our respective records.”
When asked to specify what he considers to be a character assassination, Romney pointed to the recent advertisement released by the Obama reelection campaign that pegged him as a “job destroyer” for his time at Bain Capital.
“Obviously his efforts to look at my work at Bain is to try to characterize me in a way that isn't accurate,” said Romney. “My effort at Bain Capital, as you know, was in effort case designed to make the enterprises we invested in more successful, to grow them.”
“There's this fiction that some have that somehow you can be highly successful by stripping assets from enterprise and walking away with lots of money and killing the enterprise. There may be some people who know how to do that. I sure don't,” said Romney. “And the purpose of the president's ads are not to describe success and failure but to somehow suggest that I'm not a good person or not a good guy and I think the American people will know better than that if they don't already."
Romney, referring to a New York Times report Thursday morning that detailed the plans of a conservative group to develop an ad that would link Obama to the controversial pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., said that he saw glimpses of character assassination in that ad, too.
“Having a campaign focused on character assassination is one of the things I find offensive among many others in the PAC description that came in the New York Times,” said Romney.
“If that's accurate, why, that's something I repudiate,” said Romney.
Romney also revealed that his own campaign plans to release a television ad in the next few days that will be positive.
“I certainly hope that you get a chance to see our first ad, that'll come up in I think a couple of days, it will be a positive ad on what I would do if I were president,” Romney said. “It'll be contrasting with the president's ad, which again is a character assassination ad."
Soe Than WIN/AFP/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- Declaring a “new chapter in the relationship between the United States and Burma,” President Obama announced Thursday he is rewarding democratic progress by nominating the first U.S. ambassador to Burma in 22 years.
The U.S. will also ease its ban on new investment in Burma, Obama announced.
After her meeting with the foreign minister of Burma, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told reporters that while the U.S. is suspending sanctions, it is not lifting them altogether. “We will be keeping relevant laws on the books as an insurance policy, but our goal and our commitment is to move as rapidly as we can to expand business and investment opportunities.”
Clinton stressed that the emphasis will be in responsible investment, and that U.S. companies will be held to “best practice” standards implementing transparency and worker’s rights. However, in a follow-up conference call senior administration officials admitted that the standards are still being hashed out and they will not be legally enforceable by U.S. law.
Human rights groups have complained that it’s still too early to ease sanctions on Burma, and that the U.S. should have worked out standards of conduct before opening up Burma for American business. Here is the president's full statement:
Today marks the beginning of a new chapter in the relationship between the United States and Burma. Since I announced a new U.S. opening to Burma in November, President Thein Sein, Aung San Suu Kyi and the people of Burma have made significant progress along the path to democracy. The United States has pledged to respond to positive developments in Burma and to clearly demonstrate America's commitment to the future of an extraordinary country, a courageous people, and universal values. That is what we are doing.
Today, I am nominating our first U.S. Ambassador to Burma in 22 years, Derek Mitchell, whose work has been instrumental in bringing about this new phase in our bilateral relationship. We also are announcing that the United States will ease its bans on the exportation of financial services and new investment in Burma. Opening up greater economic engagement between our two countries is critical to supporting reformers in government and civil society, facilitating broad-based economic development, and bringing Burma out of isolation and into the international community.
Of course, there is far more to be done. The United States remains concerned about Burma’s closed political system, its treatment of minorities and detention of political prisoners, and its relationship with North Korea. We will work to establish a framework for responsible investment from the United States that encourages transparency and oversight, and helps ensure that those who abuse human rights, engage in corruption, interfere with the peace process, or obstruct the reform process do not benefit from increased engagement with the United States. We will also continue to press for those who commit serious violations of human rights to be held accountable. We are also maintaining our current authorities to help ensure further reform and to retain the ability to reinstate selected sanctions if there is backsliding.
Americans for decades have stood with the Burmese people in their struggle to realize the full promise of their extraordinary country. In recent months, we have been inspired by the economic and political reforms that have taken place, Secretary Clinton’s historic trip to Naypyidaw and Rangoon, the parliamentary elections, and the sight of Aung San Suu Kyi being sworn into office after years of struggle. As an iron fist has unclenched in Burma, we have extended our hand, and are entering a new phase in our engagement on behalf of a more democratic and prosperous future for the Burmese people.
Sasha Mordovets/Getty Images(MOSCOW) -- An independent Russian polling group says President Vladimir Putin's decreasing popularity may be irreversible.
Putin remains Russia's most popular politician, but the independent Levada Center released a report on Thursday that found his ratings in key categories like professionalism have continued to drop.
That center is not alone in predicting that Russia's season of political unrest will continue as Putin's aura of invincibility fades. Citibank's chief economist in Russia recently predicted that the Kremlin will be constrained due to declining oil revenues and a persistent protest movement.
Tens of thousands of people marched against Putin on the eve of his inauguration earlier this month, and a smaller group has attempted to occupy a central Moscow square. At any given time between a few dozen to a few thousand people have camped out in silent protest. They've played a cat and mouse game with riot police who chase them from one location to another. Dozens have been arrested.
Putin's spokesman has dismissed the occupy campers, but the heavy-handed crackdown on opposition figures, many of whom were detained on inauguration day simply for wearing the opposition's iconic white ribbons, shows that Putin isn't taking any chances.
Opposition leaders have announced plans for a march in St. Petersburg, and another big rally in Moscow is scheduled for June.
iStockPhoto/Thinkstock(JERUSALEM) -- The United States is militarily ready to carry out a strike on Iran to stop it from obtaining a nuclear weapon if international pressure fails, American ambassador to Israel Daniel Shapiro said to an Israeli audience this week. The Obama administration has repeatedly insisted that "all options are on the table" to deal with an Iranian nuclear threat, but Shapiro's comments went a step further in discussing the military's preparations for the possibility.
"It would be preferable to solve this diplomatically and through the use of pressure, than to use military force," Shapiro told representatives of Israel's Bar Association on Tuesday.
"But that doesn't mean that option isn't fully available. Not just available, it's ready. The necessary planning has been done to ensure that it's ready," he said.
The comments come just days before nuclear talks are due to take place in Baghdad between Iran and the so-called P 5+1 countries: the U.S., United Kingdom, France, Russia, China and Germany.
An embassy spokesman in Tel Aviv declined to elaborate on the comments, which aired on Israeli radio and television.
"We believe that there is some time, not an unlimited amount of time -- in practice, this is a brief window in which we can still use diplomacy to achieve our goals," Shapiro also said, according to Makor Rishon newspaper, which published some of Shapiro's remarks.
"At a certain stage we are going to have to decide whether diplomacy isn't going to work," he added. "We want to give it every chance of succeeding."
Shapiro pointed to President Barack Obama's increase of troop levels in Afghanistan and his order to kill Osama bin Laden in Pakistan last year as examples of Obama's readiness to use force.
Israel and the United States agree that Iran is working towards a nuclear bomb, but hasn't yet entered the "breakout" phase of development. Israel's Defense Minister Ehud Barak often warns of a "zone of immunity" he believes is rapidly approaching, after which Iran could not be prevented from developing a nuclear weapon.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said last month that Iran is "feverishly working to develop atomic weapons to achieve" the destruction of Israel. He and others in the country's civilian and military leadership have long warned that Israel would resort to a military strike against Iran if it becomes clear diplomatic pressure and sanctions aren't working. The result has been harsh international sanctions against Iran's financial and oil industries that are having a devastating impact on Iran's economy.
But despite some indications that Iran could make concessions in next week's talks, there is no evidence that the pressure has had an effect on its nuclear program. Israel says the international talks are evidence of Iran's stalling tactics and says that unless Iran stops enriching altogether, ships in enriched uranium out of the country and shuts down its underground enrichment facility near the city of Qom, the diplomatic measures and sanctions have failed.
Iran has long insisted its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes -- that it enriches to 3.5 percent for power and to 20 percent for medical isotopes at the Tehran Research Reactor. But analysts say going from 20 percent to weapons-grade 90 percent enrichment is a relatively simple process.
Israel's leadership calls Iran an existential threat, but a large majority of Israelis are against a strike if it's carried out by Israel alone. Most analysts agree that an Israeli strike could not end Iran's nuclear program, only set it back. And some argue an attack would cement Iran's determination to develop a nuclear weapon, which could start an arms race in the region.
The biggest critic of Israel's threats of a strike has been Meir Dagan, the former head of Israel's foreign security service, Mossad. He has argued that Iran is not an existential threat and that its leadership is rational. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed on Thursday, he and other former international intelligence and military officials argued that more comprehensive "total sanctions" can get Iran to change course.
"It's common sense that before undertaking military action against a country, we should first try to dissuade it from its current course by applying decisive economic pressure," they write. "Doing so will show the regime that the world is serious and committed, willing to do whatever it takes to stop Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons."
Hemera Technologies/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) -- Worry over the shaky situation in Europe forced the markets down again Thursday.
The Dow had its 11th loss in 12 days, closing down 156 points at 12,442. The Nasdaq gave up 60 to close at 2,813, and the S&P fell 20 points Thursday, closing at 1,308.
A temporary Greek cabinet, to be in power until at least next month's election, has been sworn in. Spain, meanwhile, was forced to pay sharply higher interest rates to raise more than $3 billion at a debt auction.
There's no change in the number of people seeking unemployment benefits last week. The four-week average, a less volatile measure, fell from roughly 380,000 to 375,000.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images(NEW YORK) -- Facebook announced Thursday that its initial public offering of common stock will be priced at $38 a share, valuing the company at $104 billion, the largest for a U.S. tech company.
As media and investor interest in Facebook’s IPO has grown over the past weeks, the company priced its IPO at the highest end of its earlier estimates. On Tuesday, Facebook raised its IPO price range to $34 to $38 a share, from $28 to $35.
To satiate the growing investor appetite for shares of the social media company, on Wednesday Facebook increased the number of shares to be sold at the market debut by 25 percent.
The company is offering 421.2 million shares of common A stock, which includes 180 million new shares that will be sold by the company and 241.2 million shares sold by existing shareholders such as early investors and Facebook’s founders.
Facebook’s investment bank underwriter, Morgan Stanley, ultimately determines who gets shares of the company before shares are sold to the larger public on Friday, said Jim Krapfel, IPO analyst with investment firm Morningstar. All of the 421 million shares will be sold Thursday night at the offering price to those investors who met the minimum buy-in requirements, which was millions of dollars for institutional investors.
“The higher your account size and the more business you do with the company, or if your track record indicates you purchased technology IPOs in the past, you’re more likely to receive shares and are likely to get a higher allocation, but there’s no guarantee,” Krapfel said.
Investor consensus predicts the stock will trade higher Friday and close up, but to what extent is unknown, said Krapfel. Morningstar has valued the company at $32 a share.
“It wouldn’t be surprising to see the stock trade up into the 50s intraday and into the close,” he said.
Jim Spellman/WireImage(WASHINGTON) -- Sens. Chuck Schumer and Bob Casey on Thursday delivered a scathing status update for “eye-spitting” Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin: Stop attempting to dodge your taxes by renouncing your U.S. citizenship or never step foot in the U.S. again.
“This guy just thinks he can rip us off by engaging in this scheme,” Casey, D-Pa., said at a Capitol Hill news conference. “We’ve got troops overseas that are sacrificing on our behalf every day, all the values that we hold dear. And Mr. Saverin spits in their eye, he spits in the eye of the American people. It’s an insult. He should be held accountable.”
Saverin, 30, relinquished his U.S. citizenship in September 2011 before the company announced its planned initial public offering of stock, which will debut this week. The move was likely a financial one because he owns an estimated 4 percent of Facebook and stands to make $4 billion when the company goes public.
“Saverin has turned his back on the country that welcomed him and kept him safe, educated him and helped him become a billionaire,” Schumer, D-N.Y., said. “This is a great American success story gone horribly wrong.”
Saverin, who was born in Brazil, raised in Miami and educated at Harvard, would reap the benefit of tax savings by becoming a permanent resident of Singapore, which levies no capital gains taxes. He has lived there for several years.
“This tax-avoidance scheme is outrageous,” Schumer added. “Eduardo Saverin wants to ‘defriend’ the United States of America just to avoid taxes we aren’t going to let him get away with it.”
So to stop Saverin, and others who have relinquished their citizenship for tax avoidance, Sens. Schumer and Bob Casey, D-Pa., unveiled the “Ex-PATRIOT” – “Expatriation Prevention by Abolishing Tax-Related Incentives for Offshore Tenancy” – Act. The act is intended to respond directly to Saverin’s move, which they call a “scheme” that would “help him duck up to $67 million in taxes.”
The plan would re-impose taxes on expatriates like Saverin even after they flee the United States and take up residence in a foreign country. If the Internal Revenue Service determines that people renounce their citizenship to avoid taxes, according to the proposal, they would then be subject to a 30 percent capital gains tax on future investment gains in the United States, regardless of where they live. But most notably, the plan would bar individuals like Saverin from ever re-entering the United States again.
The proposal would affect any American who has $2 million in net worth or an average income tax liability of at least $148,000 for the previous five years and then seeks to renounce his or her citizenship. The person will be presumed to have renounced his or her citizenship for tax avoidance purposes unless the individual can demonstrate otherwise to the IRS.
The burden of proof would be on people to show that they didn’t relocate for tax purposes. There would be no penalty if it turned out that they renounced their citizenship for legitimate reasons.
The law now is already supposed to bar re-entry for individuals like Saverin, but there have been problems enforcing it, the senators say, pointing to the 1,700 people last year who gave up their U.S. passports, up from 235 in 2008. The law, passed in 1996, contains no enforcement provisions. No individual has ever been barred from returning to the United States for tax avoidance, so the proposal would add an enforcement component.
“Pay your taxes in full or don’t ever try to visit the U.S. again,” Schumer said.
Saverin has defended his move to Singapore in a statement to ABCNews.com.
“My decision to expatriate was based solely on my interest in working and living in Singapore, where I have been since 2009," he wrote. "I am obligated to and will pay hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes to the United States government. I have paid and will continue to pay any taxes due on everything I earned while a U.S. citizen."
"It is unfortunate that my personal choice has led to a public debate, based not on the facts, but entirely on speculation and misinformation," he continued.
But some, like Schumer, don’t buy this argument.
“Anyone who believes Mr. Saverin didn’t do this at least in good part for tax purposes is quite gullible,” he said today.
If Saverin, or anyone else, changes his mind, he could pay his back taxes and return to the United States.
The Senators plan to move on this bill “as soon as possible” in the Senate.
Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images(NEW YORK) -- Disco and pop music icon Donna Summer has died, ABC News has confirmed. The singer passed away after a battle with cancer and died in Florida. She was 63 years old.
A statement from the family of Summer's husband, Bruce Sudano, reads: "Early this morning, surrounded by family, we lost Donna Summer Sudano, a woman of many gifts, the greatest being her faith. While we grieve her passing, we are at peace celebrating her extraordinary life and her continued legacy. Words truly can't express how much we appreciate your prayers and love for our family at this sensitive time."
The statement ends with a request to make a donation in Summer's name to the Salvation Army, in lieu of flowers.
Born LaDonna Adrian Gaines, Summer -- a five-time Grammy Award winner known as the Queen of Disco -- revolutionized dance music with her seminal hits "Love to Love You Baby" and "I Feel Love." Those tracks established her career and were followed by a string of hits, including "Last Dance," "Hot Stuff," "MacArthur Park," "Bad Girls" and "Dim All the Lights."
Summer continued her career into the '80s with hits like "She Works Hard for the Money" and "This Time I Know It's for Real." The first woman and the first African-American Artist ever to win a Grammy for Best Rock Vocal Performance, for "Hot Stuff," Summer was shortlisted for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame but to date has never been inducted.
Summer's chart achievements and awards were numerous. She was the first artist ever to score three consecutive number-one double albums. She scored at least one Top 40 hit in every year from 1976 to 1984. Her presence on Billboard's Disco/Club Play chart spanned from 1975, with "Love to Love You Baby," through 2010, with "To Paris with Love."
In addition to her five Grammy Awards, Summer won six American Music Awards and was the first African-American woman to be nominated for an MTV Video Music Award, for "She Works Hard for the Money." She was honored twice by the Dance Music Hall of Fame; she herself was inducted as a recording artist, and her song "I Feel Love" was also inducted.
According to Billboard, Summer is survived by her husband, three daughters, and four grandchildren.
Nile Rodgers, founder of Chic and one of dance music's architects, tweeted, "For the last half hour or so I've been lying in my bed crying and stunned. Donna Summer RIP."
Summer was most recently seen performing with Seal in David Foster's 2010 PBS special Foster & Friends and on America's Got Talent, performing with former contestant Prince Poppycock.
AFP/Getty Images(CANNES, France) -- The battle for bin Laden is on — that is, the battle to bring the killing of the Al-Qaeda leader to the big screen is on.
At the just-opened Cannes Film Festival, The Weinstein Company is close to buying Code Name Geronimo, a movie about the manhunt for Osama bin Laden. And, according to the Los Angeles Times, company chairman Harvey Weinstein has pretty much decided to release it in the fall — ahead of the presidential elections and the release of another bin-Laden-assassination film, Oscar winner Kathryn Bigelow‘s Zero Dark Thirty.
Sony Pictures had decided not to release Zero Dark Thirty, which features Joel Edgerton and Jessica Chastain, until December 19, presumably to avoid politicizing the film. The movie was already the subject of Congressional scrutiny over whether the administration had leaked classified information to the filmmakers.
Weinstein, who rolled out Michael Moore’s Farenheit 9/11 the summer before the Bush-Kerry contest in 2004, apparently has no such qualms.
Code Name Geronimo is directed by John Stockwell, the actor-turned-director behind such films as Dark Tide and Blue Crush. According to industry gossip website Deadline Hollywood, the deal for the film, which is still in post-production, is being negotiated in the $2 million range on the basis of a trailer and additional footage.
The Los Angeles Times reported that the film centers on the CIA, U.S. military brass and the Navy Seals who took the risky mission. The film is reportedly more modest in budget and scope that Zero Dark Thirty. Though Geronimo may have first-to-screen advantage, Zero Dark Thirty comes with a more impressive pedigree. It’s by the same team behind the Oscar-winning The Hurt Locker — Bigelow and fellow Oscar-winner, screenwriter Mark Boal.
By the way, The Hurt Locker producer who shared in the Best Picture Award, Voltage Pictures’ Nicolas Chartier, has switched sides in this battle. He’s the producer behind Geronimo.
Kevin Winter/Getty Images(NEW YORK) -- Forbes magazine has released its annual list of The World's Most Powerful Celebrities, and American Idol's Jennifer Lopez tops the list for the first time ever.
According to Forbes, once Lopez landed the American Idol judging job, it revived her career and gave her a platform to build her empire. She now has big endorsement deals with L'Oreal and Gillette, a clothing line at Kohl's, a fragrance line, and another show, Q'Viva!, with her ex-husband Marc Anthony.
She has a strong social media presence, with 12 million Facebook fans and 6.6 million Twitter followers, and she's reportedly earning $20 million for her second season on Idol.
Oprah Winfrey is in the number two slot, with pop sensation Justin Bieber rounding out the top three.
The rankings were determined by money earned and fame.
Forbes defines fame as "media visibility in print, television, radio and online, plus social media power," which the magazine measures by looking at a celebrity’s presence on Facebook and Twitter. Money earned was determined only by dollars earned between May 1, 2011 and May 1, 2012.
Other celebrities who made the Forbes list:
#7 -- Kim Kardashian #9 -- Tom Cruise #10-- Steven Spielberg #12 -- Tiger Woods #13 -- Angelina Jolie #20 -- Tyler Perry #22 -- Jennifer Aniston #28 -- Brad Pitt #29 -- Ryan Seacrest #34 -- Ellen DeGeneres?
iStockphoto/Thinkstock(LONDON) -- Four rounds of in-vitro fertilization couldn’t help Sara Conyers conceive, according to the U.K.’s Daily Mail.
But the fifth time was the charm for Conyers, 33, who now has twins. Conyers says the only way she could get pregnant was with the help of an experimental fertility method called intralipid infusion, Conyers, who lives in the U.K., told the Daily Mail.
The procedure, more commonly used in the U.K. than in the U.S., is used to supplement another fertility treatment, such as in-vitro fertilization. The woman is intravenously given a fat solution consisting partly of soybean oil and egg yolk.
Some experts who tout its success say it can prevent miscarriage by limiting activity of overactive so-called natural killer immune cells found in the body that would otherwise destroy the embryo.
But many fertility experts in the U.S. are not so sure about its effectiveness, since there are no definitive studies to suggest that the method works or is even safe.
“Before I can endorse this theoretical therapy for my patients, I need at least some evidence,” said Dr. Michael Murray, director of reproductive endocrinology and infertility at Northern California Fertility Medical Center.
This procedure is one of many that some of Murray’s patients ask him about, who are “grasping at straws for a solution to their recurrent miscarriages,” he says.
And some experts agreed, comparing the fertility-boosting procedure to others that are seemingly inexpensive with unknown risks for side effects, such as herbal supplements.
Previous studies done on animals or in lab dishes have found conflicting results about whether intralipid infusion works. Studies are also conflicted about the role that natural killer cells play in fertility.
“Most of the time when IVF fails, it is due to the quality of the embryos that were transferred and not the immune environment in the uterus,” said Dr. Tamer Yalcinkaya, section head of reproductive endocrinology and infertility at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center.
If the scientific evidence supported the claims, intralipid infusion may benefit women with good quality embryos who have undergone previous IVF cycles but haven’t yet been able to conceive, said Yalcinkaya.
As for Conyers’ multiple unsuccessful IVF tries followed by one supplemented by intralipid infusion that worked, some experts say it’s hard to tell what part of that equation turned out to be the tipping point for Conyers.
“Success of a repeat IVF cycle may be a chance event and does not necessarily indicate that the need of an intervention was the cause of that improvement,” said Yalcinkaya.
iStockphoto/Thinkstock(LA JOLLA, Calif.) -- “Cut back on calories” seems to be the dietary mantra when it comes to reducing weight.
However, a study on mice published Thursday in the Journal of Cell Metabolism suggests that losing weight may have less to do with watching calories — and more to do with watching the clock.
“For millions of years, we humans spent our lives as diurnal species — eating most of our calories only in the daytime and fasting overnight,” said Satchin Panda, associate professor at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, Calif., and lead author on the study. “In the last one hundred years or so, we have started to stay up at night and consume calories at night too. During this time, we have also observed an increase in the cases of diabetes and obesity.”
This study found that mice that consumed as many calories as they wanted for eight hours and fasted for the remaining 16 hours were essentially the same as mice that ate a healthy diet when it came to gaining weight, diabetes risk and high cholesterol.
“The gist of this study is that the timing and the number of hours you fast impact your weight gain,” Panda said. “Watch the times of day you eat as opposed to what exactly you eat. You don’t have to be as strict in counting calories.”
So what does this mean for humans wanting to lose weight and reduce their risk for diabetes and high cholesterol? Dr. Darwin Deen, professor at City College of New York, said he is cautious of these findings as well as translating a study on mice to humans.
“In all of human history, there are more calories now to get fat with,” he said. “Now, when we wake up in the morning, the question isn’t, ‘Is there food to eat?’ but ‘What would you like to have for breakfast?’
“Perhaps the best conclusion from this study is eating at night is not the best idea and having a more regulated diet is something we need to aim for.”
Keith Ayoob, associate professor in the department of pediatrics at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, has similar thoughts. “Mice are mice. Humans work differently,” said Ayoob. “A high-calorie diet in eight hours can be a slippery slope; almost like a loaded gun.” His advice?
Ayoob suggested eating a balanced diet — three meals a day with a snack. Breakfast eaters control their weight better than those who go for longer periods without eating and in turn, gain more weight. Additionally, he said, long-term weight management needs an activity component.
“Move! We focus a lot on food and diet, but activity is deal breaker.”
Dr. George Blackburn, associate director of the division of nutrition at Harvard Medical School, advises that developing a routine with a structured eating pattern is key. For example, it is important to eat breakfast because people are most active between breakfast and dinner, so calories are easily burned. The last meal should be eight to 10 hours after breakfast.
“This is a report that gives us one piece of knowledge that is valuable to us — have a time- restricted eating pattern that begins with breakfast,” Blackburn said.
Ultimately, Panda feels that this study shows that reducing the number of hours in which we eat and increasing the number of hours we fast can have significant effects on weight and risk for diabetes and high cholesterol.
“Over the last 50 years, we have come up with two lifestyle interventions for diabetes prevention — reduce caloric intake and increase exercise,” he said. “What we find today is that the calories in breakfast are different than the calories consumed in a midnight snack. Not all calories are created equal.”
Siri Stafford/Photodisc/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) -- Whenever the doctor says “you’ll only feel a pinch” when giving an injection, it may feel more like a punch. Now, you can do yourself a big favor, according to one German researcher, by not watching the needle -- because it tends to hurt less that way.
“Throughout our lives, we repeatedly experience that needles cause pain when pricking our skin, but situational expectations, like information given by the clinician prior to an injection, may also influence how viewing needle pricks affects pain," Marion Höfle explains.
Höfle’s team studied participants watching video clips of hands being pricked by a needle or just hands alone as the participants also received painful or non-painful electrical stimuli applied to their own hands.
The bottom line was they complained of more pain from the electrical stimuli when watching videos of the needle pricks than just seeing clips of hands. So they recommend looking away the next time you go in for a shot.
