Pole gets 30 years for killing 6 on Channel Island

LONDON (AP) — A Polish builder who killed six people, including his wife and children, on the British Channel Island of Jersey has been sentenced to 30 years in prison.

Damian Rzeszowski, 31, carried out the knife attack in August 2011 at his home. He was said to have become depressed after his wife admitted to an affair.

Rzeszowski was convicted of six counts of manslaughter but cleared of murder. On Monday, Judge Michael Birt sentenced him to 30 years in jail for each victim, but the sentences are to run concurrently.

Rzeszowski’s victims were his wife Izabela Rzeszowska, 30; 5-year-old daughter, Kinga; 2-year-old son, Kacper; father-in-law, Marek Gartska, 56; his wife’s friend Marta De La Haye, 34; and her 5-year-old daughter, Julia.

Europe News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Apple software, retail chiefs out in sweeping overhaul

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Apple Inc Chief Executive Tim Cook on Monday replaced the heads of its software and retail units in the company's most sweeping executive shake-up in a decade following embarrassing problems with its new mapping program and unpopular store-related decisions.

Software chief Scott Forstall, who oversaw the launch of the flawed mapping software and much criticized Siri voice-enabled assistant, will leave Apple next year and serve as an advisor to Cook in the meantime.

Forstall, seen as a polarizing figure inside Apple, had been billed as one of the future candidates to take the top job at Apple. He was the executive behind the panned Apple Maps app that the company announced with much fanfare in summer.

The moves, which come a little more than a year into Cook's tenure as CEO, were described by Apple as a way to increase "collaboration" across its hardware, software and services business.

"These changes show that Tim Cook is stamping his authority on the business," Ben Wood, analyst with CCS Insight, said. "Perhaps disappointed with the Maps issues, Forstall became the scapegoat."

Critics of the maps debacle, which led Cook to apologize to customers, had been calling for Forstall's head. "Does Apple have a Scott Forstall problem?" Fortune editor Philip Elmer Dewitt wrote on Sept 29.

The moves hand over substantially more responsibility to Cue, the head of Internet Software and Services who helped create the iTunes music store and App Store. The 23-year Apple veteran already is in charge of Cloud services and will take on Apple Maps and Siri.

Apple said a search is underway for a new retail chief to replace John Browett and that the retail team would report directly to Cook. Browett had riled up the retail store staff when he decided to reduce the number of retail employees.

Browett took over as head of Apple's retail stores earlier this year, replacing Ron Johnson, who went on to become the CEO of JC Penney.

Last week Apple delivered a second straight quarter of disappointing financial results, and iPad sales fell short of Wall Street's targets, marring its record of consistently blowing past investors' expectations.

(Reporting by Alexei Oreskovic; Editing by Richard Chang)

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Anderson Cooper’s daytime show to end after two seasons

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Anderson Cooper‘s venture into daytime is coming to an end after just two seasons after failing to find an audience in the crowded daytime talk show market.

Warner Bros Television, which syndicates “Anderson”, said on Monday the show will not be renewed after the current season ends in the summer of 2013.

“The series will not be coming back for a third season in a marketplace that has become difficult to break through,” Warner Bros said in a statement.

The CNN anchor launched “Anderson,” subsequently retitled “Anderson Live,” in September 2011. But the show has struggled in the ratings despite retooling in the face of competition from veteran daytime hosts such as Ellen DeGeneres, and newcomers such as Katie Couric and “Survivor” host Jeff Probst.

“Anderson Live,” is attracting an average audience of about 1.4 million viewers, compared with around 4 million for “Dr. Phil” and about 2.3 million for “Katie,” according to TV ratings data.

Cooper issued a statement on Monday saying, “I am very proud of the work that our terrific staff has put into launching and sustaining our show for two seasons,” and added that he looked forward “to doing more great shows this season … I’m sorry that we won’t be continuing.”

TV stations carrying the show were first informed on Friday that the producers were not seeking renewal for another season.

Cooper, 45, and the winner of multiple Emmy award and a Peabody Award, continues as host of the CNN news program “Anderson Cooper 360” and has hosted the network’s New Year’s Eve special from Times Square for several years running.

Warner Bros is owned by Time Warner Inc.

(Reporting by Chris Michaud, editing by Jill Serjeant and Marguerita Choy)

TV News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Slimmer future for heavy kids who get help early

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Weight-loss programs can help even very young children slim down, and it appears that acting early may improve the odds of success, according to a pair of new studies.

“What they are showing is a pretty consistent trend that if we were to intervene early, we could really have an effect on changing the trajectory of weight gain in children,” said Dr. Elsie Taveras, a pediatrician at Harvard Medical School and Boston Children’s Hospital, who co-wrote an editorial on the findings.

In one study, Dutch scientists found that heavy three- to five-year-olds saw continued benefits from a weight-loss intervention at least several months after it ended.

And a report from Sweden shows overweight and obese children under 10 were much more likely to slow their weight gain than were adolescents getting similar behavioral treatments.

The two studies were released Monday in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.

Excessive pounds in childhood often stay on into adulthood, where they have been linked to heart disease, diabetes and other health problems.

Taveras said there is mounting evidence that paying attention to young kids may be a promising way to stem the global obesity epidemic. In 2008, more than a third of U.S. youths were either overweight or obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The numbers have also been on the rise in Europe, although they are still lower than in the U.S.

The Dutch researchers, led by Dr. Gianni Bocca of Beatrix Children’s Hospital in Groningen, studied 75 heavy children who had been randomly assigned to get either usual care or an intensive weight-loss program. The program lasted four months and involved 25 sessions with dietary advice, exercise and, for the parents only, behavioral counseling.

A year after the study began, kids in the intervention group had gained 4.2 pounds on average, and those who got usual care had added another 6.8 pounds.

While that difference could have been due to chance, there was a statistically reliable difference in body mass index, or BMI, a measure of height in relation to weight.

Children in the intervention group went one unit down in BMI, while the others saw no change. In adults, a healthy BMI is between 18.5 and 25.

“The magnitude of the effect, especially initially after the intervention, wasn’t very large, but what needs to be taken into account was that these children were growing,” Taveras told Reuters Health.

“What these interventions are showing is that you can have an effect, and hopefully these interventions are changing the trajectory the children were headed towards.”

PARTICULARLY TOUGH CASES?

She also cautioned that the Swedish findings, led by Pernilla Danielsson of Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, were based on observations instead of an experiment.

That means it’s possible that the youngsters between 14 and 16, who saw no or little effect of the behavioral treatment, could have been particularly tough cases.

Still, Taveras said, there is good evidence that heavy kids who start weight-loss programs early have an easier time slimming down.

Weight-loss programs for kids are available from healthcare providers across the country and are often covered by insurance, she said, adding that interested families could ask their pediatrician or check with local public health departments.

The government is also funding research that takes a more comprehensive approach to keeping children’s weight healthy. The Childhood Obesity Research Demonstration, for example, includes sites in three states and attacks the problem at various levels. At the Massachusetts site, Taveras said primary care doctors, child care centers and schools are all involved in the efforts.

“I hope that in a few years there will be more examples of programs that aren’t just clinical that we can send families to,” she said.

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/PogxGc Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, online October 29, 2012.

Parenting/Kids News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Hurricane Sandy begins battering the East Coast

NEW YORK/REHOBOTH BEACH, Delaware (Reuters) - Hurricane Sandy, one of the biggest storms ever to hit the United States, lashed the densely populated East Coast on Monday, shutting down transportation, forcing evacuations in flood-prone areas and interrupting the presidential campaign.

Fierce winds and flooding racked hundreds of miles of Atlantic coastline and heavy snows were forecast farther inland at higher elevations as the center of the storm moves ashore along the coast of southern New Jersey or Delaware on Monday evening.

U.S. stock markets were closed for the first time since the attacks of September 11, 2001, and will remain shut on Tuesday. The federal government in Washington was closed and schools were shut up and down the East Coast.

The storm's target area included big population centers such as New York City, Washington, Baltimore and Philadelphia.

More than a million customers already were without power by early evening and millions more could lose electricity. One disaster forecasting company predicted economic losses could ultimately reach $20 billion, only half of it insured.

In Washington, President Barack Obama appealed to the tens of millions of people in the hurricane's path to follow directions given to them by authorities.

"If the public's not following instructions, that makes it more dangerous for people, and it means that we could have fatalities that could have been avoided," Obama said at the White House, adding that people should expect long power outages and idled transportation systems.

New York City evacuated neighbors of a 90-story super luxury apartment building under construction after its crane partially collapsed in high winds, prompting fears the entire rig could crash to the ground.

PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN INTERRUPTED

The storm interrupted the U.S. presidential campaign with eight days to go before the election, as President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney canceled events. Both men acted cautiously to avoid coming across as overtly political while millions of people are imperiled by the storm ahead of the November 6 election.

New York and other cities closed their transit systems and schools, ordering mass evacuations from low-lying areas ahead of a storm surge that could reach as high as 11 feet.

Sandy was moving quickly toward New Jersey and Delaware. At 5 p.m. (2100 GMT), the hurricane was 30 miles east-southeast of Cape May, New Jersey, and about 40 miles south of Atlantic City, New Jersey, the National Hurricane Center said.

Sandy picked up speed as it raced northwest toward the U.S. coast at 28 miles per hour (45 km per hour), with top sustained winds at 90 mph, it said. Forecasters said Sandy was a rare, hybrid "super storm" created by an Arctic jet stream wrapping itself around a tropical storm.

The combination of those two storms would have been bad enough, but meteorologists said there was a third storm at play - a system coming down from Canada that would effectively trap the hurricane-nor'easter combo and hold it in place.

Moreover, the storm was coming ashore at high tide, which was pulled even higher by a full moon.

While Sandy does not have the intensity of Hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans in 2005, it has been gathering strength. It killed 66 people in the Caribbean last week before pounding U.S. coastal areas as it moved north.

An AccuWeather meteorologist said Sandy "is unfolding as the Northeast's Katrina."

Forecasters said Sandy could be the largest storm to hit the mainland in U.S. history.

Off North Carolina, the U.S. Coast Guard rescued 14 of the 16 crew members who abandoned the replica tall ship HMS Bounty, using helicopters to lift them from life rafts. The Coast Guard continued to search for two missing crew members, including the captain.

Joe Connelly, 52, a trucker from the Bronx, was leaving the City Island Marina after checking on his two motor boats. He said he watched the water from the first storm-driven high tide swamp a nearby dock.

"We were concerned that the whole dock was going to float away and out to sea," he said. "It had about four feet to go before that happened."

All U.S. stock markets were closed on Monday and will remain shut on Tuesday, with a plan to re-open on Wednesday that depends on conditions after the storm passes.

(Additional reporting by Greg Roumeliotis, Edith Honan, Janet McGurty, Scott DiSavino and Martinne Geller in New York, Barbara Goldberg in New Jersey, Mary Ellen Clark and Lynnley Browning in Connecticut, Daniel Lovering in Boston, Ian Simpson in West Virginia, Susan Heavey in Washington, Jane Sutton in Miami; Writing by Paul Thomasch and Ben Berkowitz; Editing by Will Dunham)

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Ukraine’s opposition doing well in election

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) —

Ukraine’s opposition parties performed strongly in Sunday’s parliamentary vote, according to an exit poll, but President Viktor Yanukovych‘s party could still retain control of the legislature as its members are likely to sweep individual races across the country.

The West is paying close attention to the conduct of the vote in the strategic ex-Soviet state, which lies between Russia and the European Union, and serves as a key conduit for transit of Russian energy supplies to many EU countries. An election deemed unfair would likely turn Ukraine further away from the West and toward Moscow.

Opposition parties alleged widespread violations on election day, such as vote-buying and a suspiciously high amount of home voting, but a local election monitor said those violations were isolated. Authorities insisted the election was honest and democratic.

The Fatherland party, led by the jailed charismatic former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, the Udar (Punch) of world boxing champion Vitali Klitschko and a nationalist party together received more than 50 percent of the vote on party lists, outnumbering Yanukovych’s Party of Regions and its traditional ally, the Communist Party.

Both Yanukovych’s and Tymoshenko’s parties claimed victory, saying the election showed the voters trust them to lead the country.

However, only half of the parliament’s 450 seats are split proportionately between the winning parties. The other half is filled by the winners of single-mandate races, where Yanukovych loyalists are expected to make a strong showing. In the election, each voter had two ballots, one with party names and one with the name of candidates in specific constituencies. No exit poll numbers were available for the individual races.

With Yanukovych under fire over the jailing of his top rival, Tymoshenko; rampant corruption and slow reforms, the opposition made a strong showing.

Tymoshenko’s Fatherland party is poised to get about 25 percent of the proportional vote, the Udar (Punch) led by world boxing champion Vitali Klitschko is set to get around 15 percent and the nationalist Svoboda (Freedom) party receives some 12 percent. The Party of Regions polled 28 percent and the Communists nearly 12 percent.

If the three opposition groups unite, they could get 127 parliament seats versus 98 seats gained by the Regions and Communists. The distribution of the remaining 225 seats is expected to be clear Monday.

Opposition forces hope to garner enough parliament seats to weaken Yanukovych’s power and undo the damage they say he has done: the jailing of Tymoshenko and her top allies, the concentration of power in the hands of the president, the snubbing of the Ukrainian language in favor of Russian, waning media freedoms, a deteriorating business climate and growing corruption.

The strong showing by the far-right Svoboda (Freedom) party which campaigns for the defense of the Ukrainian language and culture but is also infamous for xenophobic and anti-Semitic rhetoric emerged as a surprise and showed the widespread disappointment and anger with the ruling party.

It remains to be seen whether Tymoshenko’s group, Klitschko’s party and Svoboda can forge a strong alliance and challenge Yanukovych.

The election tainted by Tymoshenko’s jailing on charges of abuse of office has also been compromised by the creation of fake opposition parties, campaigns by politically unskilled celebrities, and the use of state resources and greater access to television by Yanukovych’s party.

___

Yuras Karmanau in Kiev contributed to this report.

Europe News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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SAP eyes "long" period of high sales growth: report

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Broadway takes few chances with superstorm coming

NEW YORK (AP) — Broadway took the threat of the mammoth storm seriously, with theater owners canceling all Sunday evening and Monday performances of shows like “The Book of Mormon” ”Once” and “Mama Mia!” long before a drop of rain fell in Times Square.

“The safety and security of theatregoers and employees is everyone’s primary concern,” said Charlotte St. Martin, executive director of The Broadway League, which represents producers.

Forecasts called for rain late Sunday or early Monday, and subway and public transportation service is to be halted Sunday evening, potentially stranding theatergoers. Refunds will be made available from the point of purchase.

Off-Broadway shows including “Stomp,” ”Bad Jews” and “Golden Child” were also canceled Sunday night. Most matinees on and off Broadway stayed open. Mondays are usually very light on Broadway, with most shows having that as their day off.

Some Broadway shows had no evening shows scheduled Sunday, including “Cyrano de Bergerac,” ”Annie,” ”Chaplin,” ”Enemy of the People,” ”Once,” ”Jersey Boys” and “Nice Work If You Can Get It.”

It was the most disruptive storm for the theater community since the threat of Hurricane Irene in late August 2011 prompted producers to cancel matinee and evening performances on Saturday and Sunday. While that hurricane mostly fizzled over New York, every show lost money because they were mostly limited to five or six performances that week.

Entertainment News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Meningitis Outbreak: Pharmacy Staffers May Have Known Dangers Beforehand

Earlier this month, TakePart reported on a lethal meningitis outbreak stemming from pain medication mixed at one pharmacy in New England. With the death toll increasing and the rate of ill patients rapidly rising, this fungal meningitis resurgence has become one of the country’s worst drug-related health crises in recent years. Worse still, are new reports that staffers at the pharmacy knew of the impending danger and did nothing to stop it.

So far, 338 people have been fallen ill from fungal meningitis, while 25 more have died from it, the Associated Press reports. In all cases, patients received an injection of tainted pain medication made in the New England Compounding Center (NECC) in Framingham, Mass.

Earlier this month, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) confirmed that a mysterious black fungus found in the vials of the tainted medication was the same fungus responsible for the outbreak.

This week, the FDA released a preliminary report stating that the pharmacy itself appears contaminated with mold and fungus, which could have played a role in corrupting the medicine.

Among the health and safety violations, the agency found contaminants in and around what should have been sterile rooms.

The report noted abnormalities like “green and yellow discolorations,” standing water from a leaky boiler, and visible dust filtering through the air conditioning system courtesy of a nearby recycling plant.

Machinery used to sterilize vials was also found to contain a mysterious residue, and against guidelines, staffers would routinely turn off the air conditioning at night, rendering the drugs less stable.

The FDA emphasized that the report is based on “initial observations” and that the agency’s investigation is ongoing.

Nonetheless, the NECC also made major documented missteps at the distribution and testing levels of its medication. The AP reports that vials of the pain medicine were shipped out two weeks before the pharmacy had even received its standard confirmation that those vials passed inspection.

And according to The New York Times, the one lot tested by the lab came back normal, but when 50 lots were recently tested by the FDA, all came back as contaminated.

Sarah Sellers, a former FDA officer who left amid frustrations the agency wasn’t doing more to increase regulations of pharmacies like NECC, says she’s not surprised by the outbreak at this particular company. She told the AP, “The entire pharmacy was an incubator of bacteria and fungus. The pharmacy knew this through monitoring results, and chose to do nothing.”

If that’s true, it’s startling to imagine what must have been an institutionalized kind of apathy. An entire group of people working in tandem to deliver drugs to the masses― drugs that are injected into people’s bloodstreams― every day chose to walk past discolored walls, residue-tainted machinery, moldy patches, and did nothing.

Now about 14,000 more people who were exposed to meningitis through the NECC’s apathy are waiting to see if they develop the disease as well. This may just be one horrific living example of what happens “when good men do nothing.”

If you’re concerned that you or someone you know came in contact with any injectable medication made by NECC, visit the FDA’s fungal meningitis page to view its lists of patient names and read the agency’s latest updates. Symtpoms of the disease include fever, headache, stiff neck, nausea and vomiting, photophobia (sensitivity to light) and altered mental status. 

What do you think caused staffers at NECC to so blatantly disregard health and safety rules? Let us know in the Comments.

Related Stories on TakePart:

• Americans Struggling to Pay for Prescription Drugs

• Clip of the Day: How Do Painkillers Work Their Magic? (VIDEO)

• Fewer Young Adults are Abusing Prescription Drugs

---

A Bay Area native, Andri Antoniades previously worked as a fashion industry journalist and medical writer.  In addition to reporting the weekend news on TakePart, she volunteers as a web editor for locally-based nonprofits and works as a freelance feature writer for TimeOutLA.com. Email Andri | @andritweets | TakePart.com

Health News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Sandy: East Coast braces for epic hurricane, ‘life-threatening’ storm surge

Waves crash into a pier in Nags Head, N.C., Oct. 27, 2012. (Gerry Broome/AP)

[UPDATED: 6:00 p.m. ET]

"Superstorm." "The Perfect Storm." "Frankenstorm."

Whatever you want to call it, the East Coast is bracing for Hurricane Sandy, a "rare hybrid storm" that is expected to bring a life-threatening storm surge to the mid-Atlantic coast, Long Island Sound and New York harbor, forecasters say, with winds expected to be at or near hurricane force when it makes landfall sometime on Monday.

According to the National Hurricane Center, the Category 1 hurricane was centered about 270 miles southeast of Cape Hatteras, N.C., and 530 miles south of New York City early Sunday, carrying maximum sustained winds of 75 mph and moving northeast at 15 mph.

[Slideshow: Latest photos from Hurricane Sandy]

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg ordered the immediate, mandatory evacuation for low-lying coastal areas, including Coney Island, the Rockaways, Brighton Beach, Red Hook and some parts of lower Manhattan along the East River.

"If you don't evacuate, you're not just putting your own life at risk," Mayor Bloomberg said at a news conference Sunday. "You're endangering first responders who may have to rescue you."

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie's message for residents was a bit more blunt. "Don't be stupid," Christie said Sunday afternoon, announcing the suspension of the state's transit system beginning at 12:01 a.m. Monday.

Earlier, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced the suspension of all MTA service--including subways, buses, Long Island Railroad and Metro North--beginning at 7 p.m. Sunday. New York City Public Schools will be closed on Monday, the mayor said. The New York Stock Exchange said its trading floor will be closed on Monday, too--the first such shutdown in 27 years, according to the Wall Street Journal.

[Related: Superstorm could impact 60 million]

Sandy is expected to continue on a parallel path along the mid-Atlantic coast later Sunday before making a sharp turn toward the northwest and southern New Jersey coastline on Monday--with the Jersey Shore and New York City in its projected path.

But the path is not necessarily the problem.

"Don't get fixated on a particular track," the Associated Press said. "Wherever it hits, the rare behemoth storm inexorably gathering in the eastern U.S. will afflict a third of the country with sheets of rain, high winds and heavy snow."

(FEMA)

A tropical storm warning has been issued between Cape Fear to Duck, N.C., while hurricane watches and high-wind warnings are in effect from the Carolinas to New England. The hurricane-force winds extend 175 miles from the epicenter of the storm, while tropical storm-force winds extend 500 miles--or roughly 1,000 miles end to end, making Sandy one of the biggest storms to ever hit the East Coast.

"We're looking at impact of greater than 50 to 60 million people," Louis Uccellini, head of environmental prediction for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, told the Associated Press.

"The size of this alone, affecting a heavily populated area, is going to be history making," Jeff Masters wrote on the Weather Underground blog.

President Barack Obama received a briefing on the storm at Federal Emergency Management Agency headquarters in Washington on Sunday. "My main message to everybody involved is that we have to take this seriously," President Obama said. "[We will] respond big and respond fast."

[Also read: Big storm scrambles presidential race schedules]

"I can be as cynical as anyone," Christie said on Saturday, announcing a state of emergency. "But when the storm comes, if it's as bad as they're predicting, you're going to wish you weren't as cynical as you otherwise might have been."

Meanwhile, emergency evacuations were being mulled by state officials in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire and even Maine.

In Virginia, Governor Bob McDonnell said 20,000 homes there had already reported power outages.

(Weather.com)

"This is not a coastal threat alone," said FEMA director Craig Fugate said during a media briefing early Sunday. "This is a very large area."

Forecasters also fear the combination of storm surge, high tide and heavy rain--between 3 and 12 inches in some areas--could be life-threatening for coastal residents.

According to the National Hurricane Center summary, coastal water levels could rise anywhere between 1 and 12 feet from North Carolina to Cape Cod, depending on the timing of the "peak surge." A surge of 6 to 11 feet is forecast for Long Island Sound and Raritan Bay, including New York Harbor.

The storm surge in New York Harbor during Hurricane Irene in September 2011, forecasters noted, was four feet.

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