Maggie Simpson's The Longest Daycare Is Nominated for an Oscar









02/19/2013 at 02:30 PM EST



Maggie Simpson may not be much of a talker on her FOX cartoon, but this year she plans on making a statement on the red carpet.

The youngest member of The Simpsons clan stars in the Oscar-nominated animated short film The Longest Daycare and the eternal infant is looking for fans to help choose her dress for her big night out Sunday. Scroll through all of her proposed looks in our carousel of images above.

PEOPLE has a sneak peek at Simpson's three potential red carpet looks: a sparkly, red, backless stunner; a purple, tiered, strapless gown; and a leg-barring black number reminiscent of Angelina Jolie's 2012 Oscars dress. All can be paired with complementary pacifiers, of course.

Fans will be able to vote starting Tuesday for their favorite look. The short can be viewed below:

The 85th annual Academy Awards will air live on Sunday, Feb. 24, on ABC from the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood.

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Study: Better TV might improve kids' behavior


SEATTLE (AP) — Teaching parents to switch channels from violent shows to educational TV can improve preschoolers' behavior, even without getting them to watch less, a study found.


The results were modest and faded over time, but may hold promise for finding ways to help young children avoid aggressive, violent behavior, the study authors and other doctors said.


"It's not just about turning off the television. It's about changing the channel. What children watch is as important as how much they watch," said lead author Dr. Dimitri Christakis, a pediatrician and researcher at Seattle Children's Research Institute.


The research was to be published online Monday by the journal Pediatrics.


The study involved 565 Seattle parents, who periodically filled out TV-watching diaries and questionnaires measuring their child's behavior.


Half were coached for six months on getting their 3-to-5-year-old kids to watch shows like "Sesame Street" and "Dora the Explorer" rather than more violent programs like "Power Rangers." The results were compared with kids whose parents who got advice on healthy eating instead.


At six months, children in both groups showed improved behavior, but there was a little bit more improvement in the group that was coached on their TV watching.


By one year, there was no meaningful difference between the two groups overall. Low-income boys appeared to get the most short-term benefit.


"That's important because they are at the greatest risk, both for being perpetrators of aggression in real life, but also being victims of aggression," Christakis said.


The study has some flaws. The parents weren't told the purpose of the study, but the authors concede they probably figured it out and that might have affected the results.


Before the study, the children averaged about 1½ hours of TV, video and computer game watching a day, with violent content making up about a quarter of that time. By the end of the study, that increased by up to 10 minutes. Those in the TV coaching group increased their time with positive shows; the healthy eating group watched more violent TV.


Nancy Jensen, who took part with her now 6-year-old daughter, said the study was a wake-up call.


"I didn't realize how much Elizabeth was watching and how much she was watching on her own," she said.


Jensen said her daughter's behavior improved after making changes, and she continues to control what Elizabeth and her 2-year-old brother, Joe, watch. She also decided to replace most of Elizabeth's TV time with games, art and outdoor fun.


During a recent visit to their Seattle home, the children seemed more interested in playing with blocks and running around outside than watching TV.


Another researcher who was not involved in this study but also focuses his work on kids and television commended Christakis for taking a look at the influence of positive TV programs, instead of focusing on the impact of violent TV.


"I think it's fabulous that people are looking on the positive side. Because no one's going to stop watching TV, we have to have viable alternatives for kids," said Dr. Michael Rich, director of the Center on Media and Child Health at Children's Hospital Boston.


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Online:


Pediatrics: http://www.pediatrics.org


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Contact AP Writer Donna Blankinship through Twitter (at)dgblankinship


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Yen resumes fall after G20, U.S. holiday thins trade

LONDON (Reuters) - The yen resumed falling on Monday after Japan signaled it would push ahead with expansionist monetary policies having escaped criticism from the world's 20 biggest economies at the weekend.


Industrial metals also dipped and European shares were soft on lingering worries about the economic outlook, especially for the euro zone. While the risk of an inconclusive outcome in Italy's forthcoming election added to investor concerns.


However, activity was curtailed by the closure of markets in the United States for the Presidents' Day holiday.


The yen, which has dropped 20 percent against the dollar since mid-November, fell further after financial leaders from the G20 promised not to devalue their currencies to boost exports and avoided singling out Japan for any direct criticism.


The dollar rose 0.5 percent to 93.95 yen, near a 33-month peak of 94.47 yen set a week ago. The euro added 0.3 percent to 125.40 yen, to be midway between Friday's two-week low of 122.90 and a 34-month high of 127.71 yen hit earlier this month.


Strategists said the yen was likely to stay weak, though its decline could lose momentum until it becomes clear who will be taking the helm at the Bank of Japan when the current governor steps down on March 19.


"The yen probably will weaken a little further in anticipation of more aggressive easing under a new leadership team at the Bank of Japan," said Julian Jessop, chief global economist at Capital Economics.


Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is poised to nominate the new governor in the next few days. Sources have told Reuters that former financial bureaucrat Toshiro Muto, considered likely to be less radical than other candidates, was leading the field.


Meanwhile the euro dipped slightly against the dollar when European Central Bank president Mario Draghi said the currency's recent gains made any rise in inflation less likely and added that he had yet to see any improvement in the euro zone economy.


Speaking before the European Parliament, Draghi said the euro's exchange rate was not a policy target but was important for growth and stability, adding that appreciation of the euro "is a risk".


The comments left the euro down 0.2 percent at $1.3334.


Elsewhere in the currency market, sterling hit a seven-month low against the dollar, after a key policymaker made comments about the need for further weakness and recent poor data which has kept alive worries of another British recession.


Sterling fell 0.25 percent to $1.5476 having earlier touched $1.5438, its lowest since July 13.


DATA LOOMS


A big week for data on the outlook for the world's economy weighed on other riskier asset markets following the recent dire fourth-quarter growth numbers for the euro zone and Japan, along with Friday's soft U.S. manufacturing figures.


In European markets, attention is focused on the euro area Purchasing Managers' Indexes for February and German sentiment indices due later in the week which could affect hopes for a recovery this year.


Analysts expect Thursday's euro area flash PMI indices, which offer pointers to economic activity around six months out, to show growth stabilizing across the recession-hit region, leaving intact hopes for a recovery in the second half of 2013.


Concerns over an inconclusive outcome in the Italian election on Sunday and Monday have added to the weaker sentiment as a fragmented parliament could hamper a future government's efforts to reform the struggling economy.


The worries about the outlook for Italy were encouraging investors back into safe-haven German government bonds on Monday, with 10-year Bund yields easing 3.5 basis points to be around 1.63 percent.


"Political uncertainty will keep Bunds well bid this week," ING rate strategist Alessandro Giansanti said, adding that only better than expected economic data could create selling pressure on German debt in the near term.


Italian 10-year yields were 4 basis points higher on the day at 4.41 percent.


EARNINGS HIT


European equity markets were taking their lead from corporate earnings reports which have been reflecting the sluggish economic conditions across the region.


Danish brewer Carlsberg , which generates just over 60 percent of its sales in western Europe, became the latest to report a weaker-than-expected quarterly profit, sending its shares to their lowest level in almost a month.


The 5.8-percent drop for shares in the world's fourth biggest brewery helped send the FTSEurofirst 300 index <.fteu3> of top European shares down 0.2 percent. Germany's DAX <.gdaxi>, France's CAC-40 <.fchi> and Britain's FTSE-100 <.ftse> ranged between 0.4 percent up and 0.15 percent lower.


Earlier, the G20 statement and subsequent comment from Prime Minster Abe indicating a renewed drive to stimulate the Japanese economy lifted the Nikkei stock index <.n225> by 2.1 percent, near to its highest level since September 2008.


MSCI's world equity index <.miwd00000pus> was flat as markets extended a two-week period of consolidation that has followed the big run-up in January, when demand was buoyed by the efforts of central banks to stimulate the world economy.


Data from EPFR Global, a U.S.-based firm that tracks the flows and allocations of funds globally, shows investors pulled $3.62 billion from U.S. stock funds in the latest week, the most in 10 weeks after taking a neutral stance the prior week.


But demand for emerging market equities remained strong, with investors putting $1.81 billion in new cash into stock funds, the fund-tracking firm said.


CHINA RETURN


In the commodity markets, traders played catch-up after a week-long holiday last week in China, the world's second biggest consumer of many raw materials, which had kept activity subdued, with worries about the economic outlook weighing on sentiment.


Copper, for which China is the world's largest consumer, dipped to a near three-week low at $8,125.25 a metric ton (1.1023 tons) on the London futures market. Benchmark tin and nickel also touched three-week lows.


Gold managed to edge away from six-month lows as jewelers in China returned to the physical market after the Lunar New Year holiday but a lack of demand from U.S. markets saw the precious metal slip back to be down 0.1 percent to $1,607.06 an ounce.


Crude oil markets were mostly steady after the weak U.S. industrial production data on Friday [ID:nL1N0BF44A] was seen dampening demand, while tensions in the Middle East lent some support.


"We continue to see a mixed picture out of the United States. Industry output was lower than expected but that shouldn't affect the general upward direction," Olivier Jakob, analyst at Geneva-based Petromatrix, said.


Brent crude was down 20 cents at $117.46 a barrel after posting its first weekly loss since the first half of January. U.S. crude slipped 24 cents to $95.62.


(Additional reporting by Marius Zaharia and Ron Bousso; Editing by Philippa Fletcher and Alastair Macdonald)



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India Ink: Image of the Day: Feb. 18

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Google executive promises ‘insanely great cameras’ on next-gen Nexus phones






The cameras on Google’s (GOOG) line of Nexus smartphones have consistently performed worse than the competition. Some have said the default Android image processing software is at fault, while others have suggested low-end sensors are to blame. Google’s smartphones, nevertheless, cannot compete with Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone, HTC’s (2498) DROID DNA or Samsung’s (005930) Galaxy S III when it comes to photo quality. Things may be about to change, however.


[More from BGR: Broadband ISPs put to the test: Real data speeds vs. advertised speeds charted by FCC]






Vic Gundotra, Google’s senior vice president of engineering, revealed that the company is “committed to making Nexus phones [with] insanely great cameras,” adding “just you wait and see.”


[More from BGR: Best Buy makes online price-matching policy permanent]


It is thought that the executive’s comments were related to Google’s upcoming flagship smartphone. The company is rumored to be working on a device with Motorola, codenamed X Phone, that is said to include revolutionary new features. The handset is expected to debut in May at the company’s annual I/O Developer Conference and will reportedly be equipped with a high-end rear camera, long battery life and a flexible display.


This article was originally published on BGR.com


Wireless News Headlines – Yahoo! News




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Jerry Buss, Lakers Owner, Dies at 80















02/18/2013 at 02:10 PM EST



Jerry Buss, the owner of the Los Angeles Lakers, has died, the Associated Press reports. He was 80.

Buss had been hospitalized for cancer, but died of kidney failure at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles on Monday, said his assistant, Bob Steiner.

Paying $67.5 million when he first bought the the Lakers from Jack Kent Cooke (in a deal that also included the N.H.L.'s L.A. Kings, the L.A. Forum sports arena and Cooke’s California ranch), Buss saw their value increase to $1 billion, according to a Forbes ranking in January, reports The New York Times. That made the team second in the N.B.A. to the New York Knicks’ $1.1 billion valuation.

During his 32 years with the Lakers, Buss's team made the N.B.A finals 16 times (through 2011), winning 10 titles between 1980 and 2010.

At just 24, Buss earned a Ph.D. in chemistry and later had careers in aerospace and real estate development.

Buss is survived by his six children.

As news of his death traveled, athletes and celebrities took to Twitter to share their condolences.






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UN warns risk of hepatitis E in S. Sudan grows


GENEVA (AP) — The United Nations says an outbreak of hepatitis E has killed 111 refugees in camps in South Sudan since July, and has become endemic in the region.


U.N. refugee agency spokesman Adrian Edwards says the influx of people to the camps from neighboring Sudan is believed to be one of the factors in the rapid spread of the contagious, life-threatening inflammatory viral disease of the liver.


Edwards said Friday that the camps have been hit by 6,017 cases of hepatitis E, which is spread through contaminated food and water.


He says the largest number of cases and suspected cases is in the Yusuf Batil camp in Upper Nile state, which houses 37,229 refugees fleeing fighting between rebels and the Sudanese government.


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G20 steps back from currency brink, heat off Japan


MOSCOW (Reuters) - The Group of 20 nations declared on Saturday there would be no currency war and deferred plans to set new debt-cutting targets, underlining broad concern about the fragile state of the world economy.


Japan's expansive policies, which have driven down the yen, escaped direct criticism in a statement thrashed out in Moscow by policymakers from the G20, which spans developed and emerging markets and accounts for 90 percent of the world economy.


Analysts said the yen, which has dropped 20 percent as a result of aggressive monetary and fiscal policies to reflate the Japanese economy, may now continue to fall.


"The market will take the G20 statement as an approval for what it has been doing -- selling of the yen," said Neil Mellor, currency strategist at Bank of New York Mellon in London. "No censure of Japan means they will be off to the money printing presses."


After late-night talks, finance ministers and central bankers agreed on wording closer than expected to a joint statement issued last Tuesday by the Group of Seven rich nations backing market-determined exchange rates.


A draft communiqué on Friday had steered clear of the G7's call for economic policy not to be targeted at exchange rates. But the final version included a G20 commitment to refrain from competitive devaluations and stated monetary policy would be directed only at price stability and growth.


"The mood quite clearly early on was that we needed desperately to avoid protectionist measures ... that mood permeated quite quickly," Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty told reporters, adding that the wording of the G20 statement had been hardened up by the ministers.


As a result, it reflected a substantial, but not complete, endorsement of Tuesday's proclamation by the G7 nations - the United States, Japan, Britain, Canada, France, Germany and Italy.


As with the G7 intervention, Tokyo said it gave it a green light to pursue its policies unchecked.


"I have explained that (Prime Minister Shinzo) Abe's administration is doing its utmost to escape from deflation and we have gained a certain understanding," Finance Minister Taro Aso told reporters.


"We're confident that if Japan revives its own economy that would certainly affect the world economy as well. We gained understanding on this point."


Flaherty admitted it would be difficult to gauge if domestic policies were aimed at weakening currencies or not.


NO FISCAL TARGETS


The G20 also made a commitment to a credible medium-term fiscal strategy, but stopped short of setting specific goals as most delegations felt any economic recovery was too fragile.


The communiqué said risks to the world economy had receded but growth remained too weak and unemployment too high.


"A sustained effort is required to continue building a stronger economic and monetary union in the euro area and to resolve uncertainties related to the fiscal situation in the United States and Japan, as well as to boost domestic sources of growth in surplus economies," it said.


A debt-cutting pact struck in Toronto in 2010 will expire this year if leaders fail to agree to extend it at a G20 summit of leaders in St Petersburg in September.


The United States says it is on track to meet its Toronto pledge but argues that the pace of future fiscal consolidation must not snuff out demand. Germany and others are pressing for another round of binding debt targets.


"We had a broad consensus in the G20 that we will stick to the commitment to fulfill the Toronto goals," German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said. "We do not have any interest in U.S.-bashing ... In St. Petersburg follow-up-goals will be decided."


The G20 put together a huge financial backstop to halt a market meltdown in 2009 but has failed to reach those heights since. At successive meetings, Germany has pressed the United States and others to do more to tackle their debts. Washington in turn has urged Berlin to do more to increase demand.


Backing in the communiqué for the use of domestic monetary policy to support economic recovery reflected the U.S. Federal Reserve's commitment to monetary stimulus through quantitative easing, or QE, to promote recovery and jobs.


QE entails large-scale bond buying -- $85 billion a month in the Fed's case -- that helps economic growth but has also unleashed destabilising capital flows into emerging markets.


A commitment to minimize such "negative spillovers" was an offsetting point in the text that China, fearful of asset bubbles and lost export competitiveness, highlighted.


"Major developed nations (should) pay attention to their monetary policy spillover," Vice Finance Minister Zhu Guangyao was quoted by state news agency Xinhua as saying in Moscow.


Russia, this year's chair of the G20, admitted the group had failed to reach agreement on medium-term budget deficit levels and expressed concern about ultra-loose policies that it and other emerging economies say could store up trouble for later.


On currencies, the G20 text reiterated its commitment last November, "to move more rapidly toward mores market-determined exchange rate systems and exchange rate flexibility to reflect underlying fundamentals, and avoid persistent exchange rate misalignments".


It said disorderly exchange rate movements and excess volatility in financial flows could harm economic and financial stability.


(Additional reporting by Gernot Heller, Lesley Wroughton, Maya Dyakina, Tetsushi Kajimoto, Jan Strupczewski, Lidia Kelly, Katya Golubkova, Jason Bush, Anirban Nag and Michael Martina. Writing by Douglas Busvine. Editing by Timothy Heritage/Mike Peacock)



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Blasts Across Baghdad Kill at Least 21 People





BAGHDAD — A wave of attacks in Shiite neighborhoods in Baghdad killed at least 21 people and wounded 125 on Sunday, a security official said.




Four car bombs exploded in a market, a bus station and on a major road in the Sadr City district, killing seven people and wounding more than 30 others, officials said.


More people were killed and dozens were wounded when car bombs were set off in a market in Husseiniya, northeast of Baghdad; in the southeastern Baghdad neighborhood of Al Ameen; and in the Kamaliya area in Baghdad’s eastern suburbs.


In the central Baghdad neighborhood of Karrada, near the Babil Hotel, a roadside bomb killed one person and wounded five others.


No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attacks, but Sunni extremists have stepped up their efforts to undermine the Shiite-led government and stoke sectarian divisions since the beginning of the year. More than 200 people have been killed in attacks across Iraq since January.


Sunnis, who are a minority in Iraq, complain of discrimination by officials and accuse Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki and his political allies of seeking to monopolize power before the provincial elections this spring.


The government’s arrests of a Sunni politician’s bodyguards in December set off weekly protests in several Iraqi cities. But the protesters have rejected calls for violence and have distanced themselves from extremist groups.


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Leading Cuban dissident departs for world tour






HAVANA (Reuters) – Cuba‘s best-known dissident, blogger Yoani Sanchez, checked in without incident at Havana’s international airport on Sunday on her way to Brazil, the first stop on an 80-day-tour of a dozen countries.


She was sent off with hugs by a small group of family members and friends.






Sanchez was granted a passport two weeks ago under Cuba’s sweeping immigration reform that went into effect this year, after being denied permission to travel more than 20 times over the past five years.


“I made it through immigration, now I only need to board the plane and take off,” said Sanchez, who has promised to tweet throughout her saga.


In another tweet to her followers as she waited to board her plane, she added: “To tell the truth, my knees haven’t stopped trembling.”


Sanchez is one of a number of high profile government opponents who have received a passport under the new regulations, but the first to actually take advantage of the measure.


A few lesser-known dissidents have been denied passports.


Sanchez criticized the new law for not simply granting all Cubans the right to travel, but told Reuters at the airport, “I plan to take full advantage of it and push it to the limit.”


The old travel law was put in place in 1961 to slow the flight of Cubans after the island’s 1959 revolution.


The new law scrapped the much-hated requirement of having to obtain an exit visa and loosened other restrictions that had discouraged Cubans from leaving and traveling.


It was one of the wide-ranging reforms President Raul Castro has enacted since he succeeded his older brother, Fidel Castro, in 2008.


There are still travel restrictions, mainly for national security reasons and for those with pending legal cases.


PRIZE MONEY FOR A FREE PRESS


Sanchez, who has won a number of international prizes for her blog but has been denied permission to travel to collect them, said she would now do so and planned to use part of the prize money to “found a free press in Cuba.”


“I plan to visit various media and make contact to learn how a modern press runs,” she said.


Sanchez, a 37-year-old Havana resident, has incurred the wrath of Cuba’s government for constantly criticizing its communist system in her “Generation Y” blog, and using Twitter to denounce repression.


She is one of the world’s best-known bloggers and has tens of thousands of followers abroad, but few in Cuba where the government severely restricts the Internet.


Her blog is named after the penchant of Cuban parents during the Cold War era of Soviet backing for the island of choosing names for their children starting with “Y” because of the many popular Russian names starting with that letter.


Sanchez, considered Cuba’s pioneer in social networking, told Reuters earlier this week that she would visit the headquarters of Google, Twitter and Facebook, and travel to Brazil, Argentina, Peru, Mexico, the United States, Spain, Italy, Poland, the Czech Republic and other countries.


Cuba’s leaders consider dissidents traitorous mercenaries in the employ of the United States and other enemies. Official bloggers regularly charge that Sanchez’s international renown has been stage-managed by Western intelligence services.


But Sanchez is also a critic of U.S. policy toward her homeland. In a recent blog, she said the decades-old trade embargo had failed to stifle the Cuban government and was exploited by Havana as “a big bad wolf to blame for everything.”


“The big news is not now, but in 80 days when she will return,” Bert Hoffmann, a Cuba expert at the German Institute of Global and Area Studies in Hamburg, said.


“Many regime opponents have left Cuba for exile, but this is the first time a prominent dissident sets out on a high-profile world tour to then come back to the island.”


Sanchez’s travels and eventual return to Cuba are being carefully monitored by governments and human rights advocates as a test of Cuban authorities’ commitment to free travel.


“She is gone, now let’s see if the government lets her back in or forces her into exile,” a European diplomat said.


(Reporting By Marc Frank; Editing by Sandra Maler)


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