SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Zynga Inc‘s chief financial officer, David Wehner, will leave the company for an executive position at Facebook Inc, the gaming company announced Tuesday as it reshuffled its upper ranks.
David Ko, chief mobile officer, has been elevated to become Zynga‘s new chief operations officer.
Mark Vranesh, Zynga’s top accounting executive, will replace Wehner as CFO, Zynga said.
(Reporting By Gerry Shih; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)
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LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – One of Charlie Chaplin’s iconic bowler hats and canes, the staple of Hollywood silent-era comedy, will go under the hammer in Los Angeles this weekend, auction house Bonhams said on Tuesday.
Chaplin’s hat and cane – synonymous with his trademark “Little Tramp” character in films such as “City Lights” and “Modern Times” – are expected to fetch between $ 40,000 and $ 60,000 in the November 18 auction.
It is unknown how many of Chaplin’s bowlers and canes still exist, said Lucy Carr, a memorabilia specialist at Bonhams. The ones up for auction come from a private collection but have a direct link to Chaplin, Carr said.
The waddling and bumbling Little Tramp character propelled Chaplin to global fame. The character, which Hollywood legend says was created by accident on a rainy day at Keystone Studio, first appeared in 1914′s “Kid Auto Races at Venice” and lastly in 1936′s “Modern Times.”
Chaplin’s hat and cane are the highlights of an auction of popular culture artifacts including a saxophone that belonged to jazz pioneer Charlie Parker ($ 22,000-$ 26,000) and a handwritten letter from John Lennon in which The Beatle sketched himself and wife Yoko Ono nude ($ 18,000-$ 22,000).
Other items hitting the block range from an archive of Marilyn Monroe photographs ($ 15,000-$ 20,000), an early Charles Schulz “Peanuts” comic strip ($ 10,000-$ 15,000) and a wicker chair from Rick’s Cafe in “Casablanca” ($ 5,000-$ 7,000).
(Reporting By Eric Kelsey, editing by Jill Serjeant)
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NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – In a new study from two Boston hospitals, one in every 15 patients treated with acetaminophen got more than the maximum daily recommended dose at least once.
Acetaminophen – sold as Tylenol – is a common painkiller on its own, but also an ingredient in stronger narcotics such as Percocet and Vicodin. So without careful monitoring, it’s not always obvious how much a patient has taken.
To protect against liver damage from an acetaminophen overdose, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration sets the maximum daily dose at 4 grams for most people or 3 grams for people 65 and older and those with liver disease.
Dr. Robert Fontana, a liver specialist from the University of Michigan Health System in Ann Arbor, called the new findings “a bit alarming.”
“On the flip side, it doesn’t look like there was any toxicity in these patients,” Fontana, who wasn’t involved in the new research, told Reuters Health.
“I certainly don’t want people thinking, ‘If I go to the hospital I’m going to get acetaminophen toxicity.’”
Researchers led by Dr. Li Zhou from Partners HealthCare System Inc in Wellesley, Massachusetts, reviewed the electronic health records of 23,750 adults treated at two hospitals during the summer of 2010. That included 14,411 people who took any acetaminophen during their stay.
Based on calculations from the electronic records, Zhou’s team determined that 955 of those patients were given over 4 grams of acetaminophen in a 24-hour period, most on more than one occasion.
More than 20 percent of elderly people, and close to that many patients with liver disease, were given over 3 grams in a day.
People in the surgical and intensive care units were especially likely to be over-administered acetaminophen, as were those who took multiple different products containing the drug, according to findings published in the Archives of Internal Medicine.
Nobody developed liver failure due to acetaminophen during the study period. Patients given more than the recommended limit had higher levels of one liver-related enzyme in their blood – but it’s not clear that would have any health consequences.
Fontana said the likelihood of doctors and nurses over-administering acetaminophen will probably drop in the future as the FDA cracks down on high doses of acetaminophen in narcotics.
There’s also a need for more advanced health information technology systems that can track aggregate doses of ingredients that, like acetaminophen, are in multiple medications given to a single patient, according to Zhou.
“This is what we want to see,” she told Reuters Health. “I really think it’s doable.”
As it is, she said, the technology that doctors and nurses use doesn’t make acetaminophen limits obvious. And it’s very difficult for them to calculate by hand exactly how much a patient has received if it’s from different sources.
“It’s so easy to exceed the 4-gram limit,” Zhou said.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/TwzwS7 Archives of Internal Medicine, online November 12, 2012.
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Holly Petraeus and Gen. David Petraeus walk past a seated Paula Broadwell (rear right) at his confirmation hearing …The White House said Tuesday that it was "up to Congress" whether to call former CIA Director David Petraeus to testify about the Sept. 11 attack in Benghazi, Libya.
"Congress [makes] decisions about who is called to testify," press secretary Jay Carney told reporters at his daily briefing.
The Intelligence Committees of the Senate and House of Representatives had been set to hear from Petraeus about the attack on the American compound in separate closed-door hearings on Thursday. But aides to both panels indicated that the retired Army general would be replaced by Mike Morrell, the acting CIA director.
"The president is confident that Acting Director Morrell is fully informed and capable of representing the CIA in a hearing about the incidents in Benghazi," Carney said.
Still, key senators have made it clear that Petraeus, whose shocking resignation came after the public disclosure of an extramarital affair, will ultimately need to be heard. The attack claimed the lives of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat, told MSNBC on Monday that her panel "should go ahead with Mike Morell and the way it is now set up."
"But I also think that the community should know that this is not sufficient," she continued. "And I have no doubt now that we will need to talk with David Petraeus. And we will likely do that in closed session, but it will be done one way or the other."
CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) – The fate of a handful of liquefied natural gas projects planned for Canada’s Pacific coast may depend on the Canadian government‘s willingness to spell out rules for foreign investment in the country’s energy sector, according to a study released on Thursday.
Apache Corp, Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Petronas, BG Group Plc and others are in the planning stages for LNG projects that would take gas from the rich shale fields of northeastern British Columbia and ship it to Asian buyers.
But the federal government’s decision last month to stall the C$ 5.2 billion ($ 5.2 billion) bid by Malaysia’s state-owned Petronas C$ 5.2 billion for Canada‘s Progress Energy Resources Corp could lessen the appetite of Asian buyers for Canadian LNG, energy consultants Wood Mackenzie said.
“Some potential off-takers of Canadian LNG like the idea … because it’s perceived as having low political risk, and another reason is because they see the potential for investment opportunities,” said Noel Tomnay, head of global gas at the consultancy.
“If there are going to be restrictions on how they access those opportunities, if acquisitions are closed to them, then clearly that would restrict the attractiveness of those opportunities. If would-be Asian investors thought that corporate acquisitions were an avenue that was not open to them then Canadian LNG would become less attractive.”
The Canadian government is looking to come up with rules governing corporate acquisitions by state-owned companies and has pushed off a decision on the Petronas bid as it considers whether to approve the $ 15.1 billion offer for Nexen Inc from China’s CNOOC Ltd.
Exporting LNG to Asia is seen as a way to boost returns for natural-gas producers tapping the Montney, Horn River and Liard Basin shale regions of northeastern British Columbia.
Though Wood Mackenzie estimates the fields contain as much as 280 trillion cubic feet of gas, they are far from Canada’s traditional U.S. export market, while growing supplies from American shale regions have cut into Canadian shipments.
Because the region lacks infrastructure, developing the resource will be expensive, requiring new pipelines and multibillion-dollar liquefaction.
Still Wood Mackenzie estimates that the cost of delivery into Asian markets for Canadian LNG would be in the range of $ 10 million to $ 12 per million British thermal units, similar to competing projects in the United States and East Africa.
($ 1 = $ 1.00 Canadian)
(Reporting by Scott Haggett; Editing by Leslie Adler)
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Irish rocker and anti-poverty campaigner Bono will appeal to Democrats and Republicans during a visit to Washington this week to spare U.S. development assistance programs from cuts as Congress tries to avert the looming “fiscal cliff” of tax hikes and spending reductions early next year.
The U2 lead singer’s visit comes as the Obama administration and congressional leaders try to forge a deal in coming weeks to avoid the economy hitting the “fiscal cliff” – tax increases and spending cuts worth $ 600 billion starting in January if Congress does not act.
Analysts say the absence of a deal could shock the United States, the world’s biggest economy, back into recession.
Kathy McKiernan, spokeswoman for the ONE Campaign, said Bono will hold talks with congressional lawmakers and senior Obama administration officials during the November 12-14 visit.
During meetings he will stress the effectiveness of U.S. foreign assistance programs and the need to preserve them to avoid putting at risk progress made in fighting HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, she said.
Bono, a long-time advocate for the poor, will argue that U.S. government-funded schemes that support life-saving treatments for HIV/AIDS sufferers, nutrition programs for malnourished children, and emergency food aid make up just 1 percent of the U.S. government budget but are helping to save tens of millions of lives in impoverished nations.
The One Campaign would not elaborate which lawmakers and senior Obama administration officials Bono will meet.
On Monday, Bono will discuss the power of social movements with students at Georgetown University. He will also meet new World Bank President Jim Yong Kim for a web cast discussion on Wednesday on the challenges of eradicating poverty.
(Editing by W Simon)
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(Reuters) – U.S. inspectors found bugs, a flying bird and other unsterile conditions at Ameridose LLC, an affiliate of the New England Compounding Center at the heart of the deadly meningitis outbreak.
A report from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration detailed a list of failures at Ameridose that also included a failure to appropriately classify patient complaints and the use of “vague, canned language” when describing adverse reactions to its drugs.
The company said it is in the process of preparing a full response to the FDA.
(Reporting By Toni Clarke; Editing by Alden Bentley)
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Former CIA Director David Petraeus and author Paula Broadwell pose for a photo. (AP)A recent University of Denver address by Paula Broadwell has set off a torrent of speculation as to whether her affair with Gen. David Petraeus resulted in a leak of classified national security information.
New York magazine got things started by posting a video of Broadwell, author of Petraeus' biography, "All In," discussing details of the Sept. 11 attack on the American Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, at the Oct. 26 talk.
In the video, since posted by several sources to YouTube, Broadwell states: "Now, I don't know if a lot of you heard this, but the CIA annex had actually, had taken a couple of Libyan militia members prisoner, and they think that the attack on the consulate was an effort to try to get these prisoners back. So that's still being vetted."
That clip has led some to speculate whether Broadwell was exposing previously unreported details about the attack.
Other major media outlets, including CBS News and The Daily Beast, have picked up on the video clip. Wired goes a step further, stating as fact that Broadwell did reveal new information, writing: "It was a surprising disclosure, given the deep classification of the CIA's detention policies—and the enormous political stakes surrounding the Benghazi assault. But in many ways, it was only natural for Broadwell, given her evolution from Petraeus protegee to biographer to paramour and unofficial spokesperson."
And Politico points to a July panel discussion at the Aspen Security Forum during which Broadwell claims to have had access to classified information and to have attended high-level security meetings with Petraeus.
However, Broadwell's sound bite could be entirely innocuous, New York magazine notes: "It's also possible that she just misunderstood something she heard on Fox News."
The Fox News Channel reference concerns a report FNC reporter Jennifer Griffin made earlier the same day as Broadwell's university address, in which Griffin cited sources claiming that the CIA was holding high-value detainees in the Benghazi facility at the time of the attack.
You can watch an excerpt from Broadwell's University of Denver address below:
Griffin has since updated her reporting, noting that a well-placed Washington source confirms that Libyan militiamen were being held at the CIA annex and may have been a possible reason for the attack. Multiple intelligence sources, she also reported, said "there were more than just Libyan militia members who were held and interrogated by CIA contractors at the CIA annex in the days prior to the attack. Other prisoners from additional countries in Africa and the Middle East were brought to this location."
The CIA has denied keeping militants at the facility. CIA spokesman Preston Golson said, "Any suggestion that the agency is still in the detention business is uninformed and baseless."
Basically, so far we have a lot of speculation, with individuals commenting on a potential national security leak concerning details of a situation the government says never took place. Stay tuned.
LONDON (Reuters) – The BBC could be doomed unless it makes radical changes, the head of its governing trust said on Sunday, after its director general quit to take the blame for the airing of false child sex abuse allegations against a former politician.
Chris Patten, chairman of the BBC Trust, said confidence had to be restored if the publicly funded corporation was to withstand pressure from rivals, especially Rupert Murdoch‘s media empire, which would try to take advantage of the turmoil.
“If you’re saying, ‘Does the BBC need a thorough structural radical overhaul?’, then absolutely it does, and that is what we will have to do,” Patten, a one-time senior figure in Prime Minister David Cameron‘s Conservative Party and the last British governor of Hong Kong, told BBC television.
“The basis for the BBC’s position in this country is the trust that people have in it,” Patten said. “If the BBC loses that, it’s over.”
George Entwistle resigned as director general on Saturday, just two months into the job, to take responsibility for the child sex allegation on the flagship news programme Newsnight.
The witness in the report, who says he suffered sexual abuse at a care home in the late 1970s, said on Friday he had misidentified the politician, Alistair McAlpine. Newsnight admitted it had not shown the witness a picture of McAlpine, or approached McAlpine for comment before going to air.
Already under pressure after revelations that a long-time star presenter, the late Jimmy Savile, was a paedophile, Entwistle conceded on the BBC morning news that he had not known – or asked – who the alleged abuser was until the name appeared in social media.
The BBC, celebrating its 90th anniversary, is affectionately known in Britain as “Auntie”, and respected around much of the world.
But with 22,000 staff working at eight national TV channels, 50 radio stations and an extensive Internet operation, critics say it is hampered by a complex and overly bureaucratic and hierarchical management structure.
THOMPSON’S LEGACY
Journalists said this had become worse under Entwistle’s predecessor Mark Thompson, who took over in the wake of the last major crisis to hit the corporation and is set to become chief executive of the New York Times Co on Monday.
In that instance, both director general and chairman were forced out after the BBC was castigated by a public inquiry over a report alleging government impropriety in the fevered build up to war in Iraq, leading to major organisational changes.
One of the BBC’s most prominent figures, Newsnight presenter Jeremy Paxman, said since the Iraq report furore, management had become bloated while cash had been cut from programme budgets.
“He (Entwistle) has been brought low by cowards and incompetents,” Paxman said in a statement, echoing a widely-held view that Entwistle was a good man who had been let down by his senior staff.
Prime Minister Cameron appeared ready to give the BBC the benefit of the doubt, believing that “one of the great institutions of this country” could reform and deal with its failings, according to sources in his office.
Patten, who must find a new director general to sort out the mess, agreed that management structures had proved inadequate.
“Apparently decisions about the programme went up through every damned layer of BBC management, bureaucracy, legal checks – and still emerged,” he said.
“One of the jokes I made, and actually it wasn’t all that funny, when I came to the BBC … was that there were more senior leaders in the BBC then there were in the Chinese Communist Party.”
Patten ruled out resigning himself but other senior jobs are expected to be on the line, while BBC supporters fear investigative journalism will be scaled back. He said he expected to name Entwistle’s successor in weeks, not months.
Among the immediate challenges are threats of litigation.
McAlpine, a close ally of former prime minister Margaret Thatcher, has indicated he will sue for damages.
Claims for compensation are also likely from victims who say Savile, one of the most recognisable personalities on British television in the 1960s, 70s and 80s, sexually abused them as children, sometimes on BBC premises.
INQUIRIES
Two inquiries are already under way, looking at failures at Newsnight and allegations relating to Savile, both of which could make uncomfortable reading for senior figures.
Police have also launched a major inquiry into Savile’s crimes and victims’ allegations of a high-profile paedophile ring. Detectives said they had arrested their third suspect on Sunday, a man in his 70s from Cambridgeshire in central England.
Funded by an annual licence fee levied on all TV viewers, the BBC has long been resented by its commercial rivals, who argue it has an unfair advantage and distorts the market.
Murdoch’s Sun tabloid gleefully reported Entwistle’s departure with the headline “Bye Bye Chump” and Patten said News Corp and others would put the boot in, happy to deflect attention after a phone-hacking scandal put the newspaper industry under intense and painful scrutiny.
He said that “one or two newspapers, Mr. Murdoch’s papers” would love to see the BBC lose its national status, “but I think the great British public doesn’t want to see that happen”.
Murdoch himself was watching from afar.
“BBC getting into deeper mess. After Savile scandal, now prominent news program falsely names senior pol as paedophile,” he wrote on his Twitter website on Saturday.
It is not just the BBC and the likes of Entwistle and Patten who are in the spotlight.
Thompson, whom Entwistle succeeded in mid-September, has also faced questions from staff at the New York Times over whether he is still the right person to take one of the biggest jobs in American newspaper publishing.
Britain’s Murdoch-owned Sunday Times queried how Thompson could have been unaware of claims about Savile during his tenure at the BBC as he had told British lawmakers, saying his lawyers had written to the paper addressing the allegations in early September, while he was still director general.
(Editing by Kevin Liffey and Sophie Hares)
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KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — The sister of a Malaysian man who has been charged with insulting a state sultan on Facebook said Friday that he is innocent and will lodge a complaint over his detention.
Anisa Abdul Jalil said her brother Ahmad Abdul Jalil was charged Thursday with making offensive postings on Facebook last month. But she said there is no evidence linking Ahmad to the posts in question, which were made by someone using the name “Zul Yahaya.”
“This is ridiculous as they have failed to build a case against him. We are very angry. It is a dirty game and an abuse of power, an abuse of the court process,” Anisa told the Associated Press.
Ahmad was freed on bail Thursday after six days of detention, during which he was denied access to lawyers and family members.
Anisa said Ahmad told the family that police tried to force a confession from him but he stood firm. She said Ahmad will file a complaint with police for unlawful detention and intimidation.
Defense lawyer Fadiah Nadwa Fitri said they would appeal to throw out the charges against Ahmad when the case is next heard Nov. 28.
The posts in question were directed at Sultan Ibrahim Iskandar of southern Johor state. Fadiah said that according to the charge sheet, the postings likened the sultan’s skin and behavior to that of a pig, which is viewed as a dirty animal in Islam.
“The charges are unfounded. Ahmad is vocal and is critical about political matter but he didn’t write the postings. It seems that Ahmad is being prosecuted for exercising his rights,” Fadiah said. Ahmad faces up to a year in jail if convicted, she added.
Nine Malaysian states have sultans and other royal figures. Though their roles are largely ceremonial, they command wide respect after centuries of hereditary rule.
Under Malaysian law, acts that provoke hatred against royal rulers are considered seditious. Only a few people have been charged with the crime in recent years.
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