Vin Diesel Covers Rihanna's 'Stay' - and Wins the Internet for the Day

By Cara Lynn Shultz

02/15/2013 at 02:30 PM EST

This video could break the Internet, and there aren't even any cats in it.

On Feb. 14, Vin Diesel posted a video of his heartfelt cover of Rihanna's song "Stay" to his Facebook page – and in a matter of hours, the video was shared more than 26,000 times, because who doesn't want to watch the musclebound Fast & Furious star sing?

In the clip, a shadowed Diesel says, "Happy V day amore," before launching into a karaoke-style rendition of the ballad as the video (where a nude Rihanna sings in the bathtub) is projected on the wall next to him.

The actor, clad in jeans and a jacket, shows off his vocal range, switching from a deep bass to a falsetto.

Diesel, who was named the Sexiest Man Alive on Facebook in 2010 ends the clip by repeating "Happy V day amore" three times and blowing a kiss, presumably to his 39 million Facebook fans.

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Study: Fish in drug-tainted water suffer reaction

BOSTON (AP) — What happens to fish that swim in waters tainted by traces of drugs that people take? When it's an anti-anxiety drug, they become hyper, anti-social and aggressive, a study found. They even get the munchies.

It may sound funny, but it could threaten the fish population and upset the delicate dynamics of the marine environment, scientists say.

The findings, published online Thursday in the journal Science, add to the mounting evidence that minuscule amounts of medicines in rivers and streams can alter the biology and behavior of fish and other marine animals.

"I think people are starting to understand that pharmaceuticals are environmental contaminants," said Dana Kolpin, a researcher for the U.S. Geological Survey who is familiar with the study.

Calling their results alarming, the Swedish researchers who did the study suspect the little drugged fish could become easier targets for bigger fish because they are more likely to venture alone into unfamiliar places.

"We know that in a predator-prey relation, increased boldness and activity combined with decreased sociality ... means you're going to be somebody's lunch quite soon," said Gregory Moller, a toxicologist at the University of Idaho and Washington State University. "It removes the natural balance."

Researchers around the world have been taking a close look at the effects of pharmaceuticals in extremely low concentrations, measured in parts per billion. Such drugs have turned up in waterways in Europe, the U.S. and elsewhere over the past decade.

They come mostly from humans and farm animals; the drugs pass through their bodies in unmetabolized form. These drug traces are then piped to water treatment plants, which are not designed to remove them from the cleaned water that flows back into streams and rivers.

The Associated Press first reported in 2008 that the drinking water of at least 51 million Americans carries low concentrations of many common drugs. The findings were based on questionnaires sent to water utilities, which reported the presence of antibiotics, sedatives, sex hormones and other drugs.

The news reports led to congressional hearings and legislation, more water testing and more public disclosure. To this day, though, there are no mandatory U.S. limits on pharmaceuticals in waterways.

The research team at Sweden's Umea University used minute concentrations of 2 parts per billion of the anti-anxiety drug oxazepam, similar to concentrations found in real waters. The drug belongs to a widely used class of medicines known as benzodiazepines that includes Valium and Librium.

The team put young wild European perch into an aquarium, exposed them to these highly diluted drugs and then carefully measured feeding, schooling, movement and hiding behavior. They found that drug-exposed fish moved more, fed more aggressively, hid less and tended to school less than unexposed fish. On average, the drugged fish were more than twice as active as the others, researcher Micael Jonsson said. The effects were more pronounced at higher drug concentrations.

"Our first thought is, this is like a person diagnosed with ADHD," said Jonsson, referring to attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder. "They become asocial and more active than they should be."

Tomas Brodin, another member of the research team, called the drug's environmental impact a global problem. "We find these concentrations or close to them all over the world, and it's quite possible or even probable that these behavioral effects are taking place as we speak," he said Thursday in Boston at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Most previous research on trace drugs and marine life has focused on biological changes, such as male fish that take on female characteristics. However, a 2009 study found that tiny concentrations of antidepressants made fathead minnows more vulnerable to predators.

It is not clear exactly how long-term drug exposure, beyond the seven days in this study, would affect real fish in real rivers and streams. The Swedish researchers argue that the drug-induced changes could jeopardize populations of this sport and commercial fish, which lives in both fresh and brackish water.

Water toxins specialist Anne McElroy of Stony Brook University in New York agreed: "These lower chronic exposures that may alter things like animals' mating behavior or its ability to catch food or its ability to avoid being eaten — over time, that could really affect a population."

Another possibility, the researchers said, is that more aggressive feeding by the perch on zooplankton could reduce the numbers of these tiny creatures. Since zooplankton feed on algae, a drop in their numbers could allow algae to grow unchecked. That, in turn, could choke other marine life.

The Swedish team said it is highly unlikely people would be harmed by eating such drug-exposed fish. Jonsson said a person would have to eat 4 tons of perch to consume the equivalent of a single pill.

Researchers said more work is needed to develop better ways of removing drugs from water at treatment plants. They also said unused drugs should be brought to take-back programs where they exist, instead of being flushed down the toilet. And they called on pharmaceutical companies to work on "greener" drugs that degrade more easily.

Sandoz, one of three companies approved to sell oxazepam in the U.S., "shares society's desire to protect the environment and takes steps to minimize the environmental impact of its products over their life cycle," spokeswoman Julie Masow said in an emailed statement. She provided no details.

___

Online:

Overview of the drug: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/druginfo/meds/a682050.html

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Wall Street flat near multi-year highs, M&A helps

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks were little changed on Thursday as investors found few reasons to keep pushing prices higher with major averages near multi-year highs, though a flurry of merger deals kept indexes steady.

Wall Street has rallied lately, with the S&P 500 briefly hitting its highest intraday level since November 2007 in Wednesday's session. Still, there are few obvious catalysts to continue the rally, and while the S&P is on track for its third straight day of gains, none of those daily gains was more than 0.2 percent.

Shares of H.J. Heinz Co jumped 20 percent to $72.40 after it said Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway and 3G Capital will buy the food company for $72.50 a share, or $28 billion including debt. Berkshire's class B shares rose 1.3 percent to $99.22.

Also supporting the market was data showing the number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell more than expected in the latest week. The CBOE Volatility index <.vix> fell 1.4 percent, dropping to 12.8.

"While I'm not bearish, I don't see many upside motivations at these levels," said Donald Selkin, chief market strategist at National Securities in New York, who cited the low level of the VIX as a sign the market was overbought.

"We need to digest some of our gains to go higher, but people are so eager to buy on the dips that we're not even seeing dips anymore. People are just chasing the market higher."

Equities have struggled to break above their current levels, where they have been hovering for almost two weeks. The S&P 500 is up more than 6 percent so far this year.

Stocks fell earlier after a report the euro zone's gross domestic product contracted by the steepest amount since the first quarter of 2009. In addition, Japan's GDP shrank 0.1 percent in the fourth quarter, crushing expectations of a modest return to growth.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was down 10.21 points, or 0.07 percent, at 13,972.70. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was up 1.21 points, or 0.08 percent, at 1,521.54. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was up 1.12 points, or 0.03 percent, at 3,197.99.

Constellation Brands soared more than 38 percent to $43.93 after AB InBev's deal to take over Mexican brewer Grupo Modelo was revised to grant Constellation perpetual rights to distribute Corona and other Modelo brands in the United States. U.S. shares of AB InBev gained 5.1 percent to $92.72.

American Airlines and US Airways Group said they plan to merge in a deal that will form the world's biggest air carrier, with an equity valuation of about $11 billion. US Airways shares fell 9.1 percent to $13.32.

Weakness in Europe contributed to a 5 percent drop in revenue from the region for Cisco Systems , which nonetheless beat estimates as it reported its results late Wednesday. The company's shares slid 1.3 percent to $20.87.

General Motors Co reported a weaker-than-expected fourth-quarter profit, also citing bigger losses in Europe alongside lower prices in its core North American market. The stock was off 2.8 percent at $27.88.

(Editing by Nick Zieminski)

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Traces of Anxiety Drug May Affect Fish Behavior, Study Shows

Traces of a common psychiatric medication that winds up in rivers and streams may affect fish behavior and feeding patterns, according to a new study in the journal Science.

Researchers in Sweden exposed wild European perch to water with different concentrations of Oxazepam, a generic anti-anxiety medication that can show up in waterways after being flushed, excreted or discarded.

Researchers reported that fish exposed to Oxazepam became less social, more active and ate faster, behaviors they said could have long-term consequences for aquatic ecosystems.

Scientists who study pharmaceuticals in waterways said the research was intriguing because it examined the potential effect on animals of a specific medication designed to affect human behavior.

“It seems to be a solid study with an environmentally relevant species,” said Donald Tillitt, an environmental toxicologist with the United States Geological Survey who was not involved in the study. He said it made sense that a medication that binds with a certain brain receptor in people could act similarly in fish, and the measures of behavior — activity, sociability, boldness and feeding rate — “are all important ones that we like to look at when we’re trying to see the environmental effects of pharmaceuticals.”

Still, because even the lowest concentration of Oxazepam in the study was higher than that found in the Swedish waterway researchers tested, “the relevance of their study to the real world is unclear,” the Environmental Protection Agency said in written answers to questions.

The agency said that while “most pharmaceuticals do not seem to pose known risks to humans, animals or the rest of the ecosystem” at the levels they occur in the environment, there are some medications “for which some researchers have noted physiological effects in fish exposed to levels close to those occasionally reached in the environment. These include some ingredients used for contraception, hypertension and mood disorders.”

The agency said how often this occurs and the possible environmental repercussions are unknown.

The study joins a small but growing body of research exploring the possible environmental impact of chemicals in pharmaceuticals, cosmetics and other products. Many of these chemicals are not removed by wastewater treatment plants, which were designed to remove bacteria and nutrients, experts said.

The topic is difficult to study partly because concentrations of chemicals in waterways can vary with season, hour and distance from treatment plants, and other medications in water may influence a chemical’s effects.

The United States Geological Survey has found “intersex fish,” or male fish that develop female sexual characteristics, in the Potomac River and its tributaries, raising questions about whether hormone residues might be responsible. A study in the journal Environmental Science and Technology found antidepressants like Prozac and Zoloft in the brains of fish collected downstream from wastewater discharge in Colorado and Iowa. But some antidepressants that were more common in those waterways, including Zyban and Citalopram, were not found as frequently in the fish.

In the Swedish study, researchers first tested perch in the wastewater-treated Fyris River, near the city of Uppsala, and found their muscle tissue contained six times the river’s concentration of Oxazepam, said Tomas Brodin, the lead author and an assistant professor of ecology at Umea University.

Researchers then took baby fish hatched from the roe of wild perch in what they considered a drug-free waterway, and divided them into three groups of 25. One group had no exposure to Oxazepam; the other two were placed in water with what researchers called a low concentration, at three times higher than the River Fyris, or an extremely high concentration, at 1,500 times higher.

The more Oxazepam they ingested the more active the fish were, measured by the number of swimming motions in a 10-minute period. They were also less social, spending less time near a section of the tank with other fish and more time near an empty compartment. And they were quicker to grab and eat zooplankton. At the highest Oxazepam concentration, fish were also bolder, measured by how long it took them to leave a box in the tank and explore new territory.

“Basically, no one left the box before they were subjected to the drug,” said Dr. Brodin, who said he saw the difference when he entered the room each day. The non-exposed fish “were hiding basically,” while the others “were out there, greeting me. They were totally different fish.”

In a statement, Matthew Bennett, senior vice president of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, said the study yielded “somewhat expected results” because of its higher-than-natural concentrations. He said the behavioral changes were small, and the study methods contradicted “widely accepted protocols that determine how the low levels of Oxazepam found in the environment accumulate in fish. The environmental relevance and potential for long-term impact from this drug, which has been in use for decades are therefore debatable.”

Joel A. Tickner, an environmental scientist at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell, who was not involved in the research, said he considered the study significant. “These effects may be very subtle,” he said, but “what they’re finding is it’s biologically relevant.”

Dr. Brodin, the lead author of the study, said the implications were unclear for perch, which might benefit from Oxazepam exposure by becoming more efficient eaters or be disadvantaged because enhanced risk-taking behavior might increase their vulnerability to predators. Zooplankton, algae and other organisms could also be affected by changes in fish behavior, he said.

Dr. Tillett, the toxicologist with the Geological Survey, said, “We’re smart enough and we should be able to design chemicals that fulfill these same sorts of functions but with less stress on the environment.”

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Broadcasters blame zombie hack on easy passwords

(Reuters) – Poor password security paved the way for hackers to broadcast a bogus warning on television networks, saying that the United States was under attack by zombies, broadcasters said.

Cyber security experts said the equipment the hackers broke into remained vulnerable to further breaches, and that hackers could potentially take control of the equipment to prevent the government from sending out public warnings during an emergency.

Following the attacks Monday on a handful of TV stations, the government ordered broadcasters to change the passwords for the equipment that authorities use to instantly transmit emergency broadcasts through what is known as the Emergency Alert System, or EAS.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) would not comment on the attacks, but in an urgent advisory sent to TV stations on Tuesday, the agency said: “All EAS participants are required to take immediate action.”

It instructed them to change passwords on equipment from all manufacturers used to deliver emergency broadcasts to TV networks, interrupting regular programming. The FCC instructed them to ensure that gear was properly secured behind firewalls and to inspect their systems to ensure that hackers had not queued “unauthorized alerts” for future transmission.

VULNERABLE

The attacks come in the wake of warnings by officials and outside security experts that the United States is at risk of a cyber attack that could cause major physical damage or even cost lives. President Barack Obama has told Congress that some hackers were looking for ways to attack the U.S. power grid, banks and air traffic control systems.

While the zombie hoax appeared to be somewhat innocuous, the relatively easy incursion showed that hackers might be able to wreak havoc with more alarming communications.

“It isn’t what they said. It is the fact that they got into the system. They could have caused some real damage,” said Karole White, president of the Michigan Association of Broadcasters.

White and her counterpart in Montana, Greg MacDonald, said they believed the hackers were able to get in because TV stations had not changed the default passwords they used when the equipment was first shipped from the manufacturer.

But Mike Davis, a hardware security expert with a firm known as IOActive Labs, said hackers could still get past new passwords to remotely access the systems.

Davis said he had submitted a report to the Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team, or US-CERT, about a month ago that detailed the security flaws.

“Changing passwords is insufficient to prevent unauthorized remote login. There are still multiple undisclosed authentication bypasses,” he told Reuters via email. “I would recommend disconnecting them from the network until a fix is available.”

Davis said he was able to use Google Inc’s search engine to identify some 30 systems that he believed were vulnerable to attack as of Wednesday morning.

A spokesman for US-CERT said he could not immediately comment on the matter.

MANY WAYS IN

Stuart McClure, chief executive of cyber security firm Cylance Inc., said he had investigated cases in which hackers accessed EAS systems via a different method: breaking into hidden accounts built into the systems by manufacturers so that service technicians can easily access them for repairs.

“You cannot give a separate pass code to everybody. Nobody is going to remember it. You have to share the secret,” said McClure, who previously ran a unit at Intel Corp’s McAfee security division that investigated cyber attacks.

He declined to discuss the cases he had worked on, saying that would violate client confidentiality.

Broadcasters and security experts warned that attacks on the Emergency Alert System could undermine the government’s ability to communicate with the public in times of crisis.

“While EAS may not control nuclear power or hydroelectric dams or air traffic control, it can be used to cause widespread panic,” McClure said.

Indeed, far worse than broadcasting zombie jokes, hackers who are able to gain control of the equipment could prevent authorities from warning the public about actual emergencies, McClure added.

Federal Emergency Management Agency spokesman Dan Watson said that the “zombie” breach did not have any impact on the government’s ability to activate the Emergency Alert System.

‘BODIES ARE RISING’

The “zombie” hackers targeted two stations in Michigan, and several in California, Montana and New Mexico, White said.

A male voice addressed viewers in a video posted on the Internet of the bogus warning broadcast from KRTV, a CBS affiliate based in Great Falls, Montana: “Civil authorities in your area have reported that the bodies of the dead are rising from the grave and attacking the living.”

The voice warned not “to approach or apprehend these bodies as they are extremely dangerous.”

Bill Robertson, vice president of privately held electronics manufacturer Monroe Electronics of Lyndonville, New York, told Reuters that equipment from his company had been compromised in at least some of the attacks after hackers gained access to default passwords.

Monroe publishes the default passwords for its equipment in user manuals that can be accessed on its public website.

Robertson said that he believed attackers had been able to access the devices over the Internet because television stations had not properly secured the equipment behind fire walls, which is what Monroe recommends.

“The devices were not really locked down right. They were exposed,” he said.

He said that the company was working to beef up security on the equipment and might update its software to compel customers to change default passwords.

(Editing by Lisa Shumaker, Patrick Graham and Bernadette Baum)

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This Ring Rocks: See Engagement Bling Cobra Starship's Gabe Saporta Gave Erin Fetherston

Stylewatch
Style News Now

02/14/2013 at 01:52 PM ET

WireImage; Inset: Courtesy Erin Fetherston and Gabe Saporta

It’s official: Cobra Starship rocker Gabe Saporta and fashion designer Erin Fetherston are engaged!

Saporta popped the question to his bride-to-be on New Year’s Eve while on vacation in Barbados. “I woke up at dawn to go collect coral and flowers from the beach next to our cottage,” Saporta tells PEOPLE. “I used them to write out my proposal on our patio and then I woke Erin up in a frenzy to come see a ‘monkey’ that had appeared in our backyard. My sleepy-eyed bride quickly realized the only monkey that morning was me … and of course, she said,’Yes!’”

Saporta and Fetherson, who began dating in 2010, say they started seriously discussing marriage this past fall — and she was even involved in designing her ring. But Saporta couldn’t resist pulling a few fake-outs when it came to finally popping the question.

“Since she knew about the ring, surprising her with a proposal was going to prove a challenge,” he says. “My first step was to psych her out. On Christmas Eve, I gave her a nicely wrapped ring-box that did non contain her engagement ring. It contained a sick amethyst cocktail ring instead.”

Fetherston’s actual engagement ring, however, is no joke. Designed by Lorraine Schwartz, it’s an emerald-cut stone set in a pavé basket on a pavé band. “The platinum was oxidized to give the ring a vintage feeling,” says Fetherson. “I love it because it’s luminous and romantic, with the right amount of edge.”

While the couple are still in the planning stages for their big day, Fetherston already has ideas for her dress and ceremony. “I will definitely design my own dress,” she says, “and my fairytale aesthetic will undoubtedly influence the look and feel of the wedding.”

As for Saporta, who is recording a new album with his band, he says, “It’s gonna be a classy shindig.”

–Kevin O’Donnell

PHOTOS: SEE MORE GORGEOUS STAR ENGAGEMENT RINGS HERE!

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Report: Tracking system needed to fight fake drugs

WASHINGTON (AP) — Fighting the problem of fake drugs will require putting medications through a chain of custody like U.S. courts require for evidence in a trial, the Institute of Medicine reported Wednesday.

The call for a national drug tracking system comes a week after the Food and Drug Administration warned doctors, for the third time in about a year, that it discovered a counterfeit batch of the cancer drug Avastin that lacked the real tumor-killing ingredient.

Fake and substandard drugs have become an increasing concern as U.S. pharmaceutical companies move more of their manufacturing overseas. The risk made headlines in 2008 when U.S. patients died from a contaminated blood thinner imported from China.

The Institute of Medicine report made clear that this is a global problem that requires an international response, with developing countries especially at risk from phony medications. Drug-resistant tuberculosis, for example, is fueled in part by watered-down medications sold in many poor countries.

"There can be nothing worse than for a patient to take a medication that either doesn't work or poisons the patient," said Lawrence O. Gostin, a professor of health law at Georgetown University who led the IOM committee that studied how to combat the growing problem.

A mandatory drug-tracking system could use some form of barcodes or electronic tags to verify that a medication and the ingredients used to make it are authentic at every step, from the manufacturing of the active ingredient all the way to the pharmacy, he said. His committee examined fakes so sophisticated that health experts couldn't tell the difference between the packaging of the FDA-approved product and the look-alike.

"It's unreliable unless you know where it's been and can secure each point in the supply chain," Gostin said.

Patient safety advocates have pushed for that kind of tracking system for years, but attempts to include it in FDA drug-safety legislation last summer failed.

The report also concluded that:

—The World Health Organization should develop an international code of practice that sets guidelines for monitoring, regulation and law enforcement to crack down on fake drugs.

—States should beef up licensing requirements for the wholesalers and distributors who get a drug from its manufacturer to the pharmacy, hospital or doctor's office.

__Internet pharmacies are a particularly weak link, because fraudulent sites can mimic legitimate ones. The report urged wider promotion of the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy's online accreditation program as a tool to help consumers spot trustworthy sites.

The Institute of Medicine is an independent organization that advises the government on health matters.

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Wall Street rally stalls, S&P 500 skims November 2007 high

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks were little changed on Wednesday amid investor caution after the S&P 500 index briefly hit its highest intraday level since November 2007.

The benchmark index got a boost from Comcast Corp , which said it will buy the rest of NBC Universal for $16.7 billion from General Electric Co .

Equities have been strong performers until recently, buoyed largely by healthy growth in corporate earnings, which helped the S&P 500 to rise 6.5 percent so far this year. The Dow industrials are about 1 percent away from an all-time intraday high, reached in October 2007.

Those gains have left the market vulnerable to a pullback as investors are likely to take profit amid a dearth of new catalysts. While analysts see an upward bias in stocks, recent daily moves have been small and trading volumes light with indexes at multi-year highs.

"I was expecting a 12-15 percent return on the S&P for the whole year of 2013, and we have done about half of that in just 5-6 weeks," said Jack De Gan, principal at Harbor Advisory in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

"We will hit resistance, but the fundamentals and (microeconomic) picture are looking good, so if there is a correction, it's going to be a brief one."

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was down 39.17 points, or 0.28 percent, at 13,979.53. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was up 0.80 points, or 0.05 percent, at 1,520.23. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was up 7.01 points, or 0.22 percent, at 3,193.50.

Investors shrugged off the latest economic data, which showed that retail sales rose just 0.1 percent, as expected, in January as tax increases and higher gasoline prices restrained spending.

The S&P 500 was well above its 50-day moving average of 1,460.92, a sign the market could be overbought.

Comcast agreed late Tuesday to buy General Electric Co's remaining 49 percent stake in NBC Universal for $16.7 billion. Comcast jumped 4.4 percent to $40.70 as the S&P's top percentage gainer while Dow component GE was up 3.3 percent to $23.33.

Deere & Co reported earnings that beat expectations and raised its full-year profit outlook. After initially rallying in premarket trading, the stock fell 3 percent to $91.13.

According to the latest Thomson Reuters data, of the 353 companies in the S&P 500 that have reported results, 70.3 percent have exceeded analysts' expectations, above a 62 percent average since 1994 and 65 percent over the past four quarters.

Fourth-quarter earnings for S&P 500 companies are estimated to have risen 5.3 percent, according to the data, above a 1.9 percent forecast at the start of the earnings season.

Industrial and construction shares fell, though President Barack Obama, in his State of the Union address late Tuesday, called for $50 billion in spending to create jobs by rebuilding degraded roads and bridges.

The Dow Jones Home Construction index <.djushb> was off 0.5 percent.

(Editing by Kenneth Barry and Bernadette Baum)

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International Military Officials Investigate Afghan Deaths

KABUL, Afghanistan — International military officials are investigating two episodes in which as many as 11 Afghan civilians may have been killed in what appeared to be American-led military actions.

In the more lethal episode, Afghan officials said 10 civilians were killed overnight in Kunar Province in eastern Afghanistan in a village where two known Taliban commanders were visiting family members.

“Ten civilians were killed last night in a joint Afghan and American operation that took place in Chogam Valley in Shigal District,” said Fazullah Wahidi, the provincial governor. He said four women, one man and five children between the ages of 8 and 13 were killed; four teenagers were wounded, three of whom were girls.

Increasingly over the last two years, foreign insurgents, sometimes with links to Al Qaeda and other non-Afghan groups, have taken refuge in Kunar and neighboring Nuristan Province. Both provinces have a long border with Pakistan, and insurgents can hide easily in the rugged and forested mountain terrain Mr. Wahidi said the target of Kunar operation was a Taliban leader named Shahpour, “a known and really dangerous Afghan Taliban commander with links to Al Qaeda operatives in Kunar” and another Taliban commander, known as “Rocketi,” a Pakistani citizen from the Northwest Frontier Province. Both men were killed in the attack.

Mr. Wahidi said that the operation was not coordinated with Afghan security forces, but that locally hired Afghan paramilitaries were involved in the raid, which included an airstrike and a ground operation. Sometimes other United States government agencies rather than the military use special commandos.

Maj. Adam Wojack, a spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force, said they had no information on the operation but “were aware of the reports” of civilian deaths and were looking into it.

Local officials in Kunar said that Shahpour was believed to have links to Al Qaeda and narrowly escaped being killed last year when the Americans attacked another Al Qaeda-linked Taliban commander known as Abu Hafez Al-Najde, who also went by the name Commander Ghani. Shahpour was the Taliban leader in charge of nearby Dangam district but was visiting relatives at the time of the raid.

People from Chogam, who brought injured from the remote village where the attack took place to the main hospital in the provincial capital of Asadabad, described a precise but damaging hit on two adjacent houses.

“Two homes were totally destroyed; air power was used during the operation,” said a man who brought a boy with cuts to the hospital for treatment, but refused to give his name. “There are still dead bodies under the rubble and human flesh scattered in the area.”

The other episode in which an Afghan civilian was killed by foreign troops occurred on Tuesday during daylight hours.

It took place as NATO-led forces were checking a stretch of heavily traveled highway between Kandahar and Spin Boldak for explosives during a road clearance mission and shot at an oncoming car that did not stop when signaled to do so, Major Wojack said.

An Afghan policeman, Taj Mohammed, the local Border Police commander, corroborated much of the ISAF account, but did not see the shooting himself. He said the car was carrying people from a wedding party.

Major Wojack said that the forces had followed standard procedure of signaling to the car to stop. After the driver stopped, he then started to accelerate toward the convoy, at which point the soldier ISAF shot at the car, Mr. Wojack said.

Reporting was contributed by Taimoor Shah in Kandahar and by an employee of The New York Times in Kunar Province.

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Employee Facebook privacy bill advances in Colo.

DENVER (AP) — Facebook profiles and other social-media accounts could be off-limits to employers under a bill approved unanimously in a Colorado House committee Tuesday.

The measure, approved 11-0, would bar most employers from requiring access to their workers’ personal accounts. Several states already have such protections, and dozens more are considering them.

The bill would not prohibit companies from looking at Facebook pages or punishing employees for what they post on their personal sites. But it would ban them from requiring current or potential employees to provide passwords for personal accounts.

The measure’s sponsor said private social media accounts should be considered like physical photographs.

“It’s never been acceptable for en employer to ask to see an employee’s personal photos,” said Rep. Angela Williams, D-Denver.

The bill was amended to exempt law enforcement agencies and corrections workers, since those workers’ personal opinions or off-duty actions can affect their use as witnesses in criminal matters.

“They need to know that the people they have working for them are above reproach and have a higher standard,” said Ann Marie Jensen of the Colorado Association of Chiefs of Police.

Lawmakers rejected a proposal to give all businesses permission to require personal social media access for “legitimate business interests.”

Kim Smiley of the Colorado Defense Lawyers Association suggested businesses should be allowed to require access in some cases. She used examples of an employee threatening violence or bragging about drinking alcohol on the clock.

Lawmakers responded that employers dealt with those problems long before social media networking. Rep. Libby Szabo, R-Arvada, pointed out that employers once used their noses to suss out an employee who drank too much at lunch.

“There was life before Facebook,” Szabo said.

The measure awaits one more committee vote before it’s considered by the full House.

___

House Bill 1046: http://bit.ly/UOffsH

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