U.S. teen smoking declines to record low in 2012: study

(Reuters) – Cigarette smoking among American teenagers dropped to a record low in 2012, a decline that may have been partly driven by a sharp hike in the federal tobacco tax, researchers said on Wednesday.

An annual survey of about 45,000 students in the eighth, 10th and 12th grades found that the overall proportion of those saying they had smoked in the prior 30 days fell by just over a percentage point to 10.6 percent.

“A one percentage point decline may not sound like a lot, but it represents about a 9 percent reduction in a single year in the number of teens currently smoking,” Lloyd Johnston, the principal investigator in the study, said in a statement.

He said reductions on that scale can translate into the prevention of thousands of premature deaths and tens of thousands of cases of cancer and other serious disease.

More than 400,000 Americans are estimated to die prematurely each year as a result of cigarette smoking – the No. 1 cause of preventable U.S. deaths – and most smokers begin their habit as adolescents, experts say.

Healthcare advocates hailed Wednesday’s findings as evidence that higher cigarette taxes were paying off, combined with federal curbs on youth-oriented tobacco marketing and sales and a sweeping anti-smoking media campaign.

The researchers also cited the increase in federal cigarette taxes, raised by 62 cents a pack in 2009, as a likely contributing factor. The findings were part of an annual survey by University of Michigan researchers released by the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Smoking rates fell for each of the individual age groups surveyed, most notably among eighth graders – from 6.1 percent in 2011 to 4.9 percent in 2012, the survey found.

Longer-term trends showed teen smoking rates dropping by about three-fourths among eighth graders, two-thirds among 10th graders and by half among 12th graders since a peak in the mid-1990s, researchers said.

One reason cited by experts is that the proportion of students who have ever tried smoking has declined sharply. Whereas nearly half of all eighth graders had tried cigarettes in 1996, just 16 percent had done so this year.

Teen attitudes toward smoking also continued to become more negative. For example, 80 percent of teens said they preferred to date nonsmokers in 2012.

But anti-tobacco advocates said their battle to stamp out teen smoking was far from over, noting that 17 percent of high school seniors still graduate as smokers.

Researchers singled out concerns over new forms of smokeless tobacco, including dissolvable products like Camel-branded “Orbs” and “Strips,” and a fine, moist form of snuff called snus (rhymes with “loose”), which users place under their upper lip.

They said a significant portion of older teens have experimented with small cigars and water pipes called hookahs, which are becoming popular among young adults.

“We cannot let our guard down when the tobacco industry still spends $ 8.5 billion a year – nearly $ 1 million ever hour – to market its deadly and addictive products and is pushing new products … that entice youth,” said Susan Liss, executive director for the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.

(Writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Stacey Joyce)

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Final day of funerals for Newtown shooting victims

The final three victims of the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School will be laid to rest today, ending a somber week of funerals.

A mass will take place today at St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church for Josephine Gay, who had celebrated her 7th birthday on Dec. 11.

Friends and family have been asked to wear Josephine's favorite color, purple, in her honor.

PHOTOS: Victims of Sandy Hook Massacre

A homegoing celebration will take place at The First Cathedral in Bloomfield, Conn., for Ana Marquez-Greene. The 6-year-old with a beaming voice sang in a home video with her brother, who was also at Sandy Hook Elementary School during the massacre, and seemed destined to take after her father, a jazz musician.

Emilie Parker, the budding artist who carried her markers and pencils everywhere, will be laid to rest in Ogden, Utah today.

The 6-year-old would have been would one of the first to comfort her classmates at Sandy Hook Elementary School, had a gunman's bullets not claimed her life, her father said.

"My daughter Emilie would be one of the first ones to be standing and giving support to all the victims because that's the kind of kid she is," her father, Robbie Parker, said last Saturday.

"She always had something kind to say about anybody," Parker said. "We find comfort reflecting on the incredible person Emilie was and how many lives she was able to touch."

WATCH: Emilie's father speaks about his daughter

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Italy PM Monti resigns, elections likely in February

ROME (Reuters) – Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti tendered his resignation to the president on Friday after 13 months in office, opening the way to a highly uncertain national election in February.

The former European commissioner, appointed to lead an unelected government to save Italy from financial crisis a year ago, has kept his own political plans a closely guarded secret but he has faced growing pressure to seek a second term.

President Giorgio Napolitano is expected to dissolve parliament in the next few days and has already indicated that the most likely date for the election is February 24.

In an unexpected move, Napolitano said he would hold consultations with political leaders from all the main parties on Saturday to discuss the next steps. In the meantime Monti will continue in a caretaker capacity.

European leaders including German Chancellor Angela Merkel and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso have called for Monti’s economic reform agenda to continue but Italy’s two main parties have said he should stay out of the race.

Monti, who handed in his resignation during a brief meeting at the presidential palace shortly after parliament approved his government’s 2013 budget, will hold a news conference on Sunday at which he is expected clarify his intentions.

Ordinary Italians are weary of repeated tax hikes and spending cuts and opinion polls offer little evidence that they are ready to give Monti a second term. A survey this week showed 61 percent saying he should not stand.

Whether he runs or not, his legacy will loom over an election which will be fought out over the painful measures he has introduced to try to rein in Italy’s huge public debt and revive its stagnant economy.

His resignation came a couple of months before the end of his term, after his technocrat government lost the support of Silvio Berlusconi‘s centre-right People of Freedom (PDL) party in parliament earlier this month.

Speculation is swirling over Monti’s next moves. These could include outlining policy recommendations, endorsing a centrist alliance committed to his reform agenda or even standing as a candidate in the election himself.

The centre-left Democratic Party (PD) has held a strong lead in the polls for months but a centrist alliance led by Monti could gain enough support in the Senate to force the PD to seek a coalition deal which could help shape the economic agenda.

BERLUSCONI IN WINGS

Senior figures from the alliance, including both the UDC party, which is close to the Roman Catholic Church, and a new group founded by Ferrari sports car chairman Luca di Montezemolo, have been hoping to gain Monti’s backing.

He has not said clearly whether he intends to run, but he has dropped heavy hints he will continue to push a reform agenda that has the backing of both Italy’s business community and its European partners.

The PD has promised to stick to the deficit reduction targets Monti has agreed with the European Union and says it will maintain the broad course he has set while putting more emphasis on reviving growth.

Berlusconi’s return to the political arena has added to the already considerable uncertainty about the centre-right’s intentions and increased the likelihood of a messy and potentially bitter election campaign.

The billionaire media tycoon has fluctuated between attacking the government’s “Germano-centric” austerity policies and promising to stand aside if Monti agrees to lead the centre right, but now appears to have settled on an anti-Monti line.

He has pledged to cut taxes and scrap a hated housing tax which Monti imposed. He has also sounded a stridently anti-German line which has at times echoed the tone of the populist 5-Star Movement headed by maverick comic Beppe Grillo.

The PD and the PDL, both of which supported Monti’s technocrat government in parliament, have made it clear they would not be happy if he ran against them and there have been foretastes of the kind of attacks he can expect.

Former centre-left prime minister Massimo D’Alema said in an interview last week that it would be “morally questionable” for Monti to run against the PD, which backed all of his reforms and which has pledged to maintain his pledges to European partners.

Berlusconi who has mounted an intensive media campaign in the past few days, echoed that criticism this week, saying Monti risked losing the credibility he has won over the past year and becoming a “little political figure”.

(Additional reporting by Gavin Jones, Massimiliano Di Giorgio and Paolo Biondi; Writing by Gavin Jones and James Mackenzie; Editing by Michael Roddy)

World News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Singer Odell first male to win Brit newcomer award

LONDON (Reuters) – Singer-songwriter Tom Odell was named the Brit Awards’ tip for the top in 2013, the first male artist to receive the honor previously won by chart queens including Adele and Jessie J.

The 22-year-old, whose musical style and voice has drawn comparisons to Coldplay lead singer Chris Martin, beat London electronic duo AlunaGeorge and classically trained soul singer Laura Mvula to the Critics’ Choice Award.

Selected by a panel of music industry experts, the annual prize goes to a British artist tipped for mainstream success, and previous winners have gone on to top charts in Britain and beyond.

“Looking at the list of amazing female artists who have won the Award already, I just hope I don’t let the boys down!” Odell said in a statement.

He released his debut E.P. “Songs From Another Love” in late 2012 and followed up with a performance on the popular live music show “Later…with Jools Holland“.

Odell also appears on the BBC’s Sound of 2013 longlist and MTV’s Brand New For 2013 selection of 10 up-and-coming artists, as the music business seeks to identify the chart-toppers of tomorrow.

Many acts, including Odell, already have record deals with major labels.

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato)

Music News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Halozyme inks drug development deal with Pfizer

SAN DIEGO (AP) — Halozyme Therapeutics Inc. said Friday it has reached an agreement with Pfizer to develop injectable versions of the drugmaker’s biotech drugs.

Halozyme specializes in a recombinant hyaluronidase enzyme technology, which is designed to temporarily break down a substance in the body that forms a barrier between cells so drugs can be absorbed faster. That would allow some drugs to be delivered by an injection instead of an IV drip.

Under the terms of the agreement, Halozyme of San Diego has granted to Pfizer, based in New York, a license to develop and release up to six products using its enzyme technology. Halozyme will receive an initial payment of $ 8 million, which includes the upfront fee for exclusive licenses to two specified drugs in primary care and specialty care, and the right for Pfizer to choose up to four additional targets after additional payments.

Halozyme is entitled to additional payments of up to $ 507 million if Pfizer’s products reach certain regulatory and sales milestones. The company is also entitled to additional royalty payments on sales of the drugs.

Shares of Halozyme surged 26 percent, or $ 1.45, to $ 6.97 in midday trading Friday. Pfizer shares slipped 32 cents to $ 25.11 as the broader markets declined.

Medications/Drugs News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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NRA calls for armed personnel in schools

The NRA's Wayne LaPierre speaks at Friday's press conference (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

The National Rifle Association on Friday, a full week after the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, gave its first response to the massacre that killed 20 schoolchildren in Newtown, Conn. Wayne LaPierre, the NRA's executive vice president, argued at a press conference in Washington, D.C., that gun control legislation would not prevent similar shootings and offered the organization's own proposal: a nationwide program that would place armed security in every school desiring protection.

"I call on Congress today to appropriate whatever is necessary to put armed police officers in every single school in this nation," LaPierre said. The proposed program, called the National School Shield, would help train and install security at schools nationwide under the leadership of former Arkansas Republican Rep. Asa Hutchinson.

"Innocent lives might have been spared," LaPierre said, if armed security was present at Sandy Hook. "The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun."

LaPierre, Hutchinson and David Keene, president of the NRA, all declined to take questions from the press and said NRA press officers won't be responding to the media until Monday.

LaPierre in part blamed mass shootings on "vicious, violent video games" such as "Bulletstorm," "Grand Theft Auto," Mortal Kombat" and  "Splatterhouse." He also reached back in time to place blame on movies like "American Psycho" and "Natural Born Killers" for portraying "life as a joke and murder as a way of life."

He added, "In a race to the bottom, media conglomerates compete with one another to shock, violate and offend every standard of civilized society by bringing an ever-more-toxic mix of reckless behavior and criminal cruelty into our homes—every minute of every day of every month of every year.”

He also criticized the media for vilifying guns and gun owners, and for publicizing inaccuracies about guns.

"Why is the idea of a gun good when it’s used to protect the president of our country or our police, but bad when it’s used to protect children in our schools?" he asked.

"It’s our duty to protect them," LaPierre said of the nation's schoolchildren. "It’s our right to protect them."

Part of the problem in protecting schools, he also said, is the designation of gun-free school zones. The zones "tell every insane killer in America that schools are the safest place to inflict maximum mayhem with minimum risk," he said.

Gun control advocates immediately decried the NRA's views as extreme and dangerous.

"Their press conference was a shameful evasion of the crisis facing our country," New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, an independent, said in a statement. "Instead of offering solutions to a problem they have helped create, they offered a paranoid, dystopian vision of a more dangerous and violent America where everyone is armed and no place is safe."

Bloomberg said NRA members support background checks for gun ownership because of gun violence. "As a country, we must rise above special interest politics," he added.

On Capitol Hill, Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, who conceded that armed security could be "helpful in some instances, noted in a statement that "the NRA’s statement is sadly and shamefully inadequate—calling for more guns and rejecting real action against gun violence. At a defining, historic moment demanding courageous leadership, the NRA has declined to step forward as a credible and constructive partner."

The press conference, despite the tight security at the Willard InterContinental Hotel where it was held, was interrupted twice by gun control protesters later identified as members of anti-war group Code Pink. A man rose from the press area in front of LaPierre during his speech and held up a pink cloth displaying the words "NRA Killing Our Kids." Later, a woman identified as Code Pink founder Medea Benjamin, unfurled a sign reading "NRA blood on your hands,” and shouted, "Reckless behavior coming from the NRA" and other comments as she was dragged out of the room.

A large security staff dressed in suits and wearing earpieces lined the perimeter of the makeshift stage as well as the room. Security staffers moved to sit directly in front and behind of LaPierre following the Code Pink protests as other security members stepped forward into the seating area.

Prior to the conference, gun control protesters as well as PETA protesters and others lined the street in front of the hotel entrance waving signs and shouting.

Pressure on lawmakers from gun-control advocates has increased in the wake of the shooting. President Barack Obama on Friday released a web video in response to an outpouring of White House petitions calling on the president to respond to gun violence.

“We hear you," Obama said in the video. "I will do everything in my power as president to advance these efforts, because if there’s even one thing we can do as a country to protect our children, we have a responsibility to try. But as I said earlier this week, I can’t do it alone. I need your help.”

Obama tasked Vice President Joe Biden to review potential gun legislation and other measures on which to act next session. Biden spoke Thursday to law enforcement leaders about banning assault weapons, though no further details were released on the private discussion.

California Sen. Dianne Feinstein has pledged to introduce a new federal assault weapons ban in January and has received support from several gun-rights advocates and from the White House.

Olivier Knox contributed to this report.

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Wounded presage health crisis for postwar Syria

ATMEH, Syria (AP) — A baby boy joined the ranks of Syria’s tens of thousands of war wounded when a missile fired by Bashar Assad‘s air force slammed into his family home and shrapnel pierced his skull.

Four-month-old Fahed Darwish suffered brain damage and, like thousands of others seriously hurt in the civil war, he will likely need care well after the fighting is over. That’s something doctors say a post-conflict Syria won’t be able to provide.

Making things worse, there has been a sharp spike in serious injuries since the summer, when the regime began bombing rebel-held areas from the air, and doctors say a majority of the wounded they now treat are civilians.

This week, Fahed was recovering from brain surgery in an intensive care unit, his head bandaged and his body under a heavy blanket, watched over by Mariam, his distraught 22-year-old mother.

She said that after her first-born is discharged from the hospital in Atmeh, a village in an area of relative safety near the Turkish border, they will have to return to their village in a war zone in central Syria.

“We have nowhere else to go,” she said.

Even for those who have escaped direct injury, the civil war is posing a mounting health threat. Half the country’s 88 public hospitals and nearly 200 clinics have been damaged or destroyed, the World Health Organization says, leaving many without access to health care. Diabetics can’t find insulin, kidney patients can’t reach dialysis centers. Towns are running out of water-purifying materials. Many of the hundreds of thousands displaced by the fighting are exposed to the cold in tents or unheated public buildings.

“You are talking about a public health crisis on a grand scale,” said Dr. Abdalmajid Katranji, a hand and wrist surgeon from Lansing, Michigan, who regularly volunteers in Syria.

No one knows just how many people have been injured since the uprising against Assad erupted in March 2011, starting out with peaceful protests that turned into an armed insurgency in response to a violent government crackdown.

More than 43,000 have been killed in the past 21 months, said Rami Abdul-Rahman, head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, basing his count on names and details provided by activists in Syria. He said the number of wounded is so large he can only give a rough estimate, of more than 150,000.

Casualties began to rise dramatically at the start of the summer. At the time, the regime, its ground troops stretched thin, began bombing from the air to prevent opposition fighters from gaining more territory.

Seemingly random bombings have razed entire villages and neighborhoods, driving terrified civilians from their homes, with an estimated 3 million Syrians out of the country’s population of 23 million now displaced.

About 10 percent of the wounded suffer serious injuries and many of those will need long-term care and rehabilitation, said Dr. Omar Aswad of the Union of Syrian Medical Relief Organizations, an umbrella for 14 aid groups.

This includes artificial limbs and follow-up surgery. “This is of course not available and will be one of the major (health) problems in the months right after the war,” said Mago Tarzian, emergency director for the Paris-based Doctors Without Borders.

For now, aid groups are struggling to provide even emergency treatment in under-equipped clinics.

The two dozen small hospitals and field clinics in rebel-run areas of Idlib province in the north only have a few Intensive Care Unit beds between them, said Aswad. None has a CT scanner, an important diagnostic tool.

“We need generators, we need medical supplies and the most pressing is medicine,” he said.

The challenge has been compounded by new types of injuries.

The regime has begun dropping incendiary bombs that can cause severe burns, according to the New York-based Human Rights Watch, citing amateur video and witness accounts.

Ole Solvang, a researcher for the group, said he saw remnants of such a bomb on a recent Syria trip. Aswad said doctors in Idlib and nearby Aleppo province reported seeing patients with burns from such weapons.

Doctors and hospitals have also been targeted. Aswad, who fled the city of Idlib in March after regime forces entered it, said five friends in a secret association of anti-regime physicians have been arrested. Hospitals, ambulances and doctors have been attacked, Solvang said, calling it “a worrying trend that makes the medical situation even worse.”

One of the bright spots is a 50-bed emergency care clinic set up six weeks ago in a former elementary school in Atmeh.

Largely funded by a wealthy Syrian expatriate, the Orient clinic, with five ICU beds, handles some of the most serious cases in a radius of some 150 kilometers (90 miles), said its director, orthopedic surgeon Abdel Hamid Dabbak.

In the past, seriously wounded patients had to go to Turkey, risking dangerous delays at the border, he said. Now, once patients are stabilized in Atmeh, they are sent to a sister clinic across the border for follow-up care.

In Orient’s ICU, a 24-year-old rebel fighter was breathing oxygen through a mask. He had been brought in a day earlier, bleeding heavily from stomach wounds and close to death, said Dr. Maen Martini, a volunteer physician from Joliet, Illinois. After surgery, he stabilized and was taken off a respirator. A delayed crossing into Turkey would have killed him, Martini said.

The fighter’s neighbor was little Fahed, whose house had been struck by a missile on Saturday in the village of Kafr Zeita in Hama province. “The roof collapsed on us,” his mother said of the attack. “We ran out … I saw him bleeding from his head, but it was just a small cut.”

The local clinic said the injury was more serious than it seemed and the family rushed to Atmeh, more than 100 kilometers (60 miles) to the north.

Since surgery, Fahed has been nursing and has moved his arms and legs, and the doctor is hoping for a near-complete recovery.

“Clinically, he has improved dramatically,” he said.

Middle East News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Acer will beat Google to market with its own $99 tablet

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Taylor Swift keeps Bruno Mars out of Billboard 200 top spot

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Country pop star Taylor Swift held her reign at the top of the Billboard 200 album chart on Wednesday, keeping retro-inspired R&B singer Bruno Mars‘ new album at bay.

Swift’s latest album, “Red,” released in October, held the No. 1 slot for a fifth non-consecutive week with sales of 208,000, according to figures from Nielsen SoundScan.

Mars’ second album, “Unorthodox Jukebox,” sold 192,000 copies in its opening week to take the No. 2 slot.

The album’s lead single, “Locked Out of Heaven,” stayed at the top spot on the Billboard Hot 100 chart for a second week, and is the singer’s fourth chart-topping single. It also tops the Digital Songs chart this week.

Hip hop artist The Game entered the chart at No. 6 with his fifth studio album, “Jesus Piece,” selling 86,000 copies.

Four festive albums sat in the top ten this week, with Michael Buble‘s “Christmas” at No. 3, Rod Stewart‘s “Merry Christmas Baby” at No. 5, Blake Shelton‘s “Cheers, It’s Christmas” at No. 8, and Lady Antebellum‘s “On This Winter’s Night” at No. 10.

(Reporting by Piya Sinha-Roy Editing by Jill Serjeant, Gary Hill)

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The Benghazi Report and Parents of Children With Mental Illness: Today’s Qs for O’s WH, 12/20/12

TAPPER: Has the president read the Accountability Review Board report?

CARNEY: I don’t know. I haven’t – I know he has been briefed on it. I don’t know if he’s read it word for word, but he’s a voracious reader, so he may have.

TAPPPER: The – I believe one person has resigned and three have been – stepped down from their current duties but are still State Department employees. There might – there might have been an update for that since I last read about that. Is that sufficient for the president? Is that – is that enough accountability from the Accountability Review Board?

CARNEY: I think by every measure, the report has been assessed to be – to have been sharply critical and very blunt and clear-eyed about both problems that exist, problems that need to be fixed and the need for accountability, and actions are – already have been taken, as you just – as you just noted.

TAPPER: I’m not questioning the report. I’m -

CARNEY: Well, again, I think -

TAPPER: I’m wondering: is that enough?

CARNEY: I think independent experts here, Admiral Mullen and Ambassador Pickering, oversaw a – Accountability Review Board which I think everyone is judging to have been quite – and the recommendations that they have made are being adopted in full, and there has already been, in this very short period of time, actions that demonstrate accountability is being upheld.

I don’t – I mean I haven’t had a discussion with the president, but I think he is both appreciative of Ambassador Pickering and Admiral Mullen for the service they provided to the nation here, for the depth that they delved into in this report and the seriousness of the recommendations, the speed with which they acted; and, you know, he intends to make sure that the administration, as the secretary of state has said, begins implementation of all of these recommendations before the next secretary of state takes office.

Some of this has to do – some of it will have to do with working with Congress to ensure that Congress provides the necessary funds to allow for enhanced security at our diplomatic missions around the world. So there is obviously more action that needs to be taken, but this is a very serious report and the president has indicated that he expects it to be implemented fully.

TAPPER: Again, I’m not disparaging the report. I’m just wondering if -

(Cross talk.)

CARNEY: Again, I think – I don’t have another answer for you. Four people have already, in one way or another, been held accountable, fairly senior people, so -

TAPPER: Is that sufficient for the president? That’s the only question.

CARNEY: I believe the president believes that the recommendations and the actions taken have been the right ones.

TAPPER: O.K., one other thing I wanted to ask about the mental health ramifications following Sandy Hook, and that is there have been some interesting personal stories in the media about parents – a lot of them single parents, but not exclusively – struggling with children who are mentally ill, some of them violently so, most of them not, who do not have enough help from society. They fall through some holes, some cracks in the system. I’m just wondering if the president has seen any of these, have read any of the – of the essays that have been written, and caught any of them on television, because it’s been – it’s actually been – it’s been remarkable to hear, because normally you don’t hear stories like this.

CARNEY: Well, I haven’t had that discussion with him. He is someone who reads widely, and it would surprise me if he hasn’t read or seen some of the reports that you’re talking about, probably more likely to have read rather than seen, with all due respect to the broadcast media.

But the fact is that he believes very strongly that mental health is one of the major areas that needs to be addressed as we take a kind of comprehensive approach to this problem. It’s why – setting aside the issue of gun violence – but the issue of mental health in general is extremely important to – in the president’s view, to our – what our overall approach to health care in this country ought to be, which is why, as you know, he made sure that the health care law that he passed with Congress will ensure 30 million more Americans have access to mental health services, and that will also – makes recommended mental health services available without a co-pay or a deductible – again, part of the effort here to make it clear that issues of mental health are as important, both for the individual and for the society, as issues of physical health.

So – but as it relates to the gun violence there is no question that this is something that needs more exploration and likely more action, which is why the president has taken the action that he has.

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