Though Robert Pattinson stuck by her, Ben Affleck has left Kristen Stewart in the dust. Citing a schedule crunch, the actor has backed out of Focus, a con-artist movie set to costar Stewart and begin filming this spring. Stewart had just said in a recent interview that she was excited to start shooting, but now who knows what will happen. "Hi Kristen. We know that you were excited about working with Ben, but he dropped out, so we got you a replacement," a producer says to her the day she arrives on set. ...
Read More..
State Department security chief leaves post over Benghazi
Label: WorldWASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. State Department said on Wednesday its security chief had resigned from his post and three other officials had been relieved of their duties following a scathing official inquiry into the September 11 attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi.
Eric Boswell has resigned effective immediately as assistant secretary of state for diplomatic security, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said in a terse statement. A second official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Boswell had not left the department entirely and remained a career official.
Nuland said that Boswell, and the three other officials, had all been put on administrative leave "pending further action."
An official panel that investigated the incident concluded that the Benghazi mission was completely unprepared to deal with the attack, which killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.
The unclassified version of the report, which was released on Tuesday, cited "leadership and management" deficiencies, poor coordination among officials and "real confusion" in Washington and in the field over who had the authority to make decisions on policy and security concerns.
"The ARB identified the performance of four officials, three in the Bureau of the Diplomatic Security and one in the Bureau of (Near Eastern) Affairs," Nuland said in her statement, referring to the panel known as an Accountability Review Board.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton accepted Boswell's decision to resign effective immediately, the spokeswoman said.
Earlier, a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity said Boswell, one of his deputies, Charlene Lamb, and a third unnamed official has been asked to resign. The Associated Press first reported that three officials had resigned.
PANEL STOPS SHORT OF BLAMING CLINTON
The Benghazi incident appeared likely to tarnish Clinton's four-year tenure as secretary of state but the report did not fault her specifically and the officials who led the review stopped short of blaming her.
"We did conclude that certain State Department bureau-level senior officials in critical positions of authority and responsibility in Washington demonstrated a lack of leadership and management ability appropriate for senior ranks," retired Admiral Michael Mullen, one of the leaders of the inquiry, told reporters on Wednesday.
The panel's chair, retired Ambassador Thomas Pickering, said it had determined that responsibility for security shortcomings in Benghazi belonged at levels lower than Clinton's office.
"We fixed (responsibility) at the assistant secretary level, which is, in our view, the appropriate place to look for where the decision-making in fact takes place, where - if you like - the rubber hits the road," Pickering said after closed-door meetings with congressional committees.
The panel's report and the comments by its two lead authors suggested that Clinton, who accepted responsibility for the incident in a television interview about a month after the Benghazi attack, would not be held personally culpable.
Pickering and Mullen spoke to the media after briefing members of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee and Senate Foreign Relations Committee behind closed doors on classified elements of their report.
Clinton had been expected to appear at an open hearing on Benghazi on Thursday, but is recuperating after suffering a concussion, dehydration and a stomach bug last week. She will instead be represented by her two top deputies.
Clinton, who intends to step down in January, said in a letter accompanying the review that she would adopt all of its recommendations, which include stepping up security staffing and requesting more money to fortify U.S. facilities.
The National Defense Authorization Act for 2013, which is expected to go to Congress for final approval this week, includes a measure directing the Pentagon to increase the Marine Corps presence at diplomatic facilities by up to 1,000 Marines.
Some Capitol Hill Republicans who had criticized the Obama administration's handling of the Benghazi attacks said they were impressed by the report.
"It was very thorough," said Senator Johnny Isakson. Senator John Barrasso said: "It was very, very critical of major failures at the State Department at very high levels." Both spoke after the closed-door briefing.
Others, however, took a harsher line and called for Clinton to testify as soon as she is able.
"The report makes clear the massive failure of the State Department at all levels, including senior leadership, to take action to protect our government employees abroad," Representative Mike Rogers, the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said in a statement.
Senator Bob Corker, who will be the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee when the new Congress is seated early next year, said Clinton should testify about Benghazi before her replacement is confirmed by the Senate.
Republicans have focused much of their firepower on U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice, who appeared on TV talk shows after the attack and suggested it was the result of a spontaneous protest rather than a premeditated attack.
The report concluded that there was no such protest.
Rice, widely seen as President Barack Obama's top pick to succeed Clinton, withdrew her name from consideration last week.
(Additional reporting by Tabassum Zakaria and Susan Cornwell; Editing by Christopher Wilson)
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Blake Shelton Says The Voice Winner Cassadee Pope Can Do Anything
Label: Lifestyle
TV Watch
The Voice
By Andrea Billups and Jessica Herndon
12/19/2012 at 07:00 PM EST
Cassadee Pope and Blake Shelton
Trae Patton/NBC
Cassadee Pope won Tuesday night's The Voice competition, and already her team leader and star mentor Blake Shelton says she has the right frame of mind for success.
Even as last week, when her rendition of "Stupid Boy" went No. 1 on iTunes, she was nervously telling Shelton her time on the show was over – much to his chagrin.
"That's what makes an artist," Shelton praised her after the results were announced Tuesday night. "We are never satisfied. But I hope she's really happy that she won."
Pope, 23, who beat out finalists Terry McDermott, who came in second, and Nicholas Davis, who was third, said after her victory that she's eyeing a crossover record as her first professional effort.
"I would love to do the pop/rock thing, but I know that I gained some amazing country fans and I know how hard it is to get into that world," the Florida native said. "I'd love to add a country music element to it a bit. I used to cover country music when I was a kid and it's stylistically part of my voice somehow."
Shelton said the versatile Pope can take many directions for her future success in music.
"She's got a lot of options," he said. "She's adored by rock fans, pop fans, country fans. She connects with a lyric the way few people can. The door is wide open."
Season 4 of The Voice premieres March 25, 2013, with Usher and Shakira joining Shelton and Adam Levine as team leaders.
Experts: Kids are resilient in coping with trauma
Label: HealthWASHINGTON (AP) — They might not want to talk about the gunshots or the screams. But their toys might start getting into imaginary shootouts.
Last week's school shooting in Connecticut raises the question: What will be the psychological fallout for the children who survived?
For people of any age, regaining a sense of security after surviving violence can take a long time. They're at risk for lingering anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder.
But after the grief and fear fades, psychiatrists say most of Newtown's young survivors probably will cope without long-term emotional problems.
"Kids do tend to be highly resilient," said Dr. Matthew Biel, chief of child and adolescent psychiatry at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital.
And one way that younger children try to make sense of trauma is through play. Youngsters may pull out action figures or stuffed animals and re-enact what they witnessed, perhaps multiple times.
"That's the way they gain mastery over a situation that's overwhelming," Biel explained, saying it becomes a concern only if the child is clearly distressed while playing.
Nor is it unusual for children to chase each other playing cops-and-robbers, but now parents might see some also pretending they're dead, added Dr. Melissa Brymer of the UCLA-Duke National Center for Child Traumatic Stress.
Among the challenges will be spotting which children are struggling enough that they may need professional help.
Newtown's tragedy is particularly heart-wrenching because of what such young children grappled with — like the six first-graders who apparently had to run past their teacher's body to escape to safety.
There's little scientific research specifically on PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder, in children exposed to a burst of violence, and even less to tell if a younger child will have a harder time healing than an older one.
Overall, scientists say studies of natural disasters and wars suggest most children eventually recover from traumatic experiences while a smaller proportion develop long-term disorders such as PTSD. Brymer says in her studies of school shootings, that fraction can range from 10 percent to a quarter of survivors, depending on what they actually experienced. A broader 2007 study found 13 percent of U.S. children exposed to different types of trauma reported some symptoms of PTSD, although less than 1 percent had enough for an official diagnosis.
Violence isn't all that rare in childhood. In many parts of the world — and in inner-city neighborhoods in the U.S., too — children witness it repeatedly. They don't become inured to it, Biel said, and more exposure means a greater chance of lasting psychological harm.
In Newtown, most at risk for longer-term problems are those who saw someone killed, said Dr. Carol North of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, who has researched survivors of mass shootings.
Friday's shootings were mostly in two classrooms of Sandy Hook Elementary School, which has about 450 students through fourth-grade.
But those who weren't as close to the danger may be at extra risk, too, if this wasn't their first trauma or they already had problems such as anxiety disorders that increase their vulnerability, she said.
Right after a traumatic event, it's normal to have nightmares or trouble sleeping, to stick close to loved ones, and to be nervous or moody, Biel said.
To help, parents will have to follow their child's lead. Grilling a child about a traumatic experience isn't good, he stressed. Some children will ask a lot of questions, seeking reassurance, he said. Others will be quiet, thinking about the experience and maybe drawing or writing about it, or acting it out at playtime. Younger children may regress, becoming clingy or having tantrums.
Before second grade, their brains also are at a developmental stage some refer to as magical thinking, when it's difficult to distinguish reality and fantasy. Parents may have to help them understand that a friend who died isn't in pain or lonely but also isn't coming back, Brymer said.
When problem behaviors or signs of distress continue for several weeks, Brymer says it's time for an evaluation by a counselor or pediatrician.
Besides a supportive family, what helps? North advises getting children back into routines, together with their friends, and easing them back into a school setting. Studies of survivors of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks found "the power of the support of the people who went through it with you is huge," she said.
Children as young as first-graders can benefit from cognitive-behavioral therapy, Georgetown's Biel said. They can calm themselves with breathing techniques. They also can learn to identify and label their feelings — anger, frustration, worry — and how to balance, say, a worried thought with a brave one.
Finally, avoid watching TV coverage of the shooting, as children may think it's happening all over again, Biel added. He found that children who watched the 9/11 clips of planes hitting the World Trade Center thought they were seeing dozens of separate attacks.
___
EDITOR'S NOTE — Lauran Neergaard covers health and medical issues for The Associated Press in Washington.
Wall Street falls as "cliff" talks sour, but hopes remain
Label: BusinessNEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks sold off late in the day to close at session lows on Wednesday as talks to avert a year-end fiscal crisis turned sour, even as investors still expect a deal.
The S&P 500 slipped after a two-day rally that took the benchmark index to its highest close in two months. Defensive-oriented shares led the decliners, including health care and consumer staples.
General Motors
President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans are struggling to come up with a deal to avoid early 2013 tax hikes and spending cuts that many economists say could send the U.S. economy into recession.
House Speaker John Boehner, the top Republican in Congress, said in a one-minute press conference that his chamber will pass a proposal that Obama had already threatened to veto as it spares many wealthy Americans from tax hikes needed to balance the budget. Obama has already agreed to reductions in benefits for senior citizens.
"My guess is they're close to a deal, and right before, it looks like the deal is about to blow up either on manufactured or legitimate reasons," said Uri Landesman, president of hedge fund Platinum Partners in New York.
He said if the market thought a deal was in real danger, the S&P 500 would slide below 1,400. It stands now near 1,435, not far from a two-month high.
The CBOE Volatility Index <.vix> surged 11.5 percent to 17.36, but has remained relatively stable. Its 14- 50- and 200-day averages are all within 1.1 points.
Landesman said the VIX's stability indicates "the bulls have control of this market still."
Banks and energy shares - groups that outperform during periods of economic expansion - have led recent gains, indicating a shift to focusing on a growing economy as Wall Street looks past the budget talks.
Defensive sectors led Wednesday's downturn, with the S&P health care sector index <.gspa> down 1.1 percent.
The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> dropped 98.99 points, or 0.74 percent, to 13,251.97. The S&P 500 <.spx> lost 10.98 points, or 0.76 percent, to 1,435.81. The Nasdaq Composite <.ixic> fell 10.17 points, or 0.33 percent, to 3,044.36.
Herbalife Ltd
Oracle
Knight Capital Group Inc
Shares of Chinese display advertising provider Focus Media Holding Ltd
Data showed homebuilding permits touched their highest level in nearly 4-1/2 years in November. The PHLX housing index <.hgx> fell 0.8 percent, but has gained 66.4 percent this year as the housing market has turned the corner.
About 6.9 billion shares changed hands on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and NYSE MKT, slightly above the daily average so far this year of about 6.45 billion shares.
Advancing and declining issues were almost even on both the NYSE and the Nasdaq.
(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos; Editing by Jan Paschal)
Independent inquiry faults State Department in Benghazi attack
Label: WorldIn the aftermath of Friday's Newtown school shooting, we've heard tales mostly horrifying and occasionally heroic, from surviving witnesses and mourning citizens alike, but this one lies somewhere in between, all the more unshakeable. One six-year-old Sandy Hook student played dead in her first-grade classroom, her family pastor said late Sunday, with the kind of quick thinking that ended up saving her life but now leaves her with the unshakeable memories of watching all her classmates being shot and killed. ...
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Kristen Stewart Apologizes for Making Everyone 'So Angry'
Label: Lifestyle
12/18/2012 at 06:30 PM EST
Kristen Stewart
Lorenzo Bevilaqua/Disney/Getty
Kristen Stewart is once again saying she's sorry.
A few months after publicly expressing regret over cheating on boyfriend Robert Pattinson with her Snow White and the Huntsman director Rupert Sanders, the actress has some words for everybody else.
"I apologize to everyone for making them so angry," the typically press-shy On the Road star, 22, tells Newsweek. "It was not my intention."
Stewart, who has been the subject of both vitriolic criticism and tremendous support from fans, adds, "It's not a terrible thing if you're either loved or hated."
But at the end of the day, the former Twilight star is primarily focused on her craft.
"I don't care [about people's opinions]," she explains. "It doesn't keep me from doing my s–––."
Addressing her most famous role, that of Bella Swan in the Twilight franchise, she says, "The only relief when it comes to Twilight is that the story is done ... I start every project to finish the mother––, and to extend that [mentality] over a five-year period adapting all of these treasured moments over four books, it was constantly worrying."
As for always being know to a generation of moviegoers as Bella, she says, "As long as people's perspective of me doesn't keep me from doing what I want to do, it doesn’t matter.”
Experts: Kids are resilient in coping with trauma
Label: HealthWASHINGTON (AP) — They might not want to talk about the gunshots or the screams. But their toys might start getting into imaginary shootouts.
Last week's school shooting in Connecticut raises the question: What will be the psychological fallout for the children who survived?
For people of any age, regaining a sense of security after surviving violence can take a long time. They're at risk for lingering anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder.
But after the grief and fear fades, psychiatrists say most of Newtown's young survivors probably will cope without long-term emotional problems.
"Kids do tend to be highly resilient," said Dr. Matthew Biel, chief of child and adolescent psychiatry at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital.
And one way that younger children try to make sense of trauma is through play. Youngsters may pull out action figures or stuffed animals and re-enact what they witnessed, perhaps multiple times.
"That's the way they gain mastery over a situation that's overwhelming," Biel explained, saying it becomes a concern only if the child is clearly distressed while playing.
Nor is it unusual for children to chase each other playing cops-and-robbers, but now parents might see some also pretending they're dead, added Dr. Melissa Brymer of the UCLA-Duke National Center for Child Traumatic Stress.
Among the challenges will be spotting which children are struggling enough that they may need professional help.
Newtown's tragedy is particularly heart-wrenching because of what such young children grappled with — like the six first-graders who apparently had to run past their teacher's body to escape to safety.
There's little scientific research specifically on PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder, in children exposed to a burst of violence, and even less to tell if a younger child will have a harder time healing than an older one.
Overall, scientists say studies of natural disasters and wars suggest most children eventually recover from traumatic experiences while a smaller proportion develop long-term disorders such as PTSD. Brymer says in her studies of school shootings, that fraction can range from 10 percent to a quarter of survivors, depending on what they actually experienced. A broader 2007 study found 13 percent of U.S. children exposed to different types of trauma reported some symptoms of PTSD, although less than 1 percent had enough for an official diagnosis.
Violence isn't all that rare in childhood. In many parts of the world — and in inner-city neighborhoods in the U.S., too — children witness it repeatedly. They don't become inured to it, Biel said, and more exposure means a greater chance of lasting psychological harm.
In Newtown, most at risk for longer-term problems are those who saw someone killed, said Dr. Carol North of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, who has researched survivors of mass shootings.
Friday's shootings were mostly in two classrooms of Sandy Hook Elementary School, which has about 450 students through fourth-grade.
But those who weren't as close to the danger may be at extra risk, too, if this wasn't their first trauma or they already had problems such as anxiety disorders that increase their vulnerability, she said.
Right after a traumatic event, it's normal to have nightmares or trouble sleeping, to stick close to loved ones, and to be nervous or moody, Biel said.
To help, parents will have to follow their child's lead. Grilling a child about a traumatic experience isn't good, he stressed. Some children will ask a lot of questions, seeking reassurance, he said. Others will be quiet, thinking about the experience and maybe drawing or writing about it, or acting it out at playtime. Younger children may regress, becoming clingy or having tantrums.
Before second grade, their brains also are at a developmental stage some refer to as magical thinking, when it's difficult to distinguish reality and fantasy. Parents may have to help them understand that a friend who died isn't in pain or lonely but also isn't coming back, Brymer said.
When problem behaviors or signs of distress continue for several weeks, Brymer says it's time for an evaluation by a counselor or pediatrician.
Besides a supportive family, what helps? North advises getting children back into routines, together with their friends, and easing them back into a school setting. Studies of survivors of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks found "the power of the support of the people who went through it with you is huge," she said.
Children as young as first-graders can benefit from cognitive-behavioral therapy, Georgetown's Biel said. They can calm themselves with breathing techniques. They also can learn to identify and label their feelings — anger, frustration, worry — and how to balance, say, a worried thought with a brave one.
Finally, avoid watching TV coverage of the shooting, as children may think it's happening all over again, Biel added. He found that children who watched the 9/11 clips of planes hitting the World Trade Center thought they were seeing dozens of separate attacks.
___
EDITOR'S NOTE — Lauran Neergaard covers health and medical issues for The Associated Press in Washington.
Shares, euro up on hopes of U.S. "cliff" deal, BOJ easing
Label: BusinessSINGAPORE (Reuters) - Asian shares rose and the euro hovered around multi-month highs on Wednesday as signs of progress in resolving the U.S. "fiscal cliff" budget crisis boosted demand for riskier assets.
Expectations of more aggressive monetary easing under Japan's new government also drove stocks higher, with the Bank of Japan (BOJ) starting a two day meeting on Wednesday.
The BOJ will ease monetary policy this week and consider adopting a 2 percent inflation target in January, double its current price goal, sources say, after pressure from next Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for stronger efforts to beat deflation.
Tokyo's Nikkei share average <.n225> opened up more than 1 percent, topping 10,000 points for the first time since April.
"The market is already in overbought territory, but investors are increasingly being alarmed that there is a risk of not having Japanese stocks in their portfolios," said Hiroichi Nishi, general manager at SMBC Nikko Securities.
Australian shares <.axjo> rose 0.6 percent to a new 17-month high, lead by miners and banks. MSCI's broadest index of Asia Pacific shares outside Japan <.miapj0000pus> edged up 0.1 percent. <.t/>
On Wall Street the S&P 500 <.spx> rose more than 1 percent on Tuesday to notch up the index's best two-day run in a month, on growing confidence a deal can be reached to avoid a U.S. fiscal cliff of spending cuts and tax rises in January. <.n/>
The euro was steady around $1.3226, just shy of its highest since May, and against the yen it fetched 111.53, having risen as far as 111.60, its highest since late August 2011.
"Unless U.S. fiscal cliff talks take an unexpected turn for the worse, we believe that EUR/USD will meet our 1.3300 year-end target," analysts at BNP Paribas wrote in a note.
The greater appetite for riskier assets also supported oil, with U.S. benchmark crude edging up to $88 a barrel.
(Additional reporting by Ayai Tomisawa in Tokyo and Ian Chua in Sydney: Editing by Michael Perry)
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