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)
Gaming News Headlines – Yahoo! News
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)
Celebrity News Headlines – Yahoo! News
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.
Seniors/Aging News Headlines – Yahoo! News
TORONTO (Reuters) – Canada‘s main stock index slipped to a two-month low on Tuesday, dragged down by resource and financial shares, as investors fixated on fears of a fiscal crisis in the United States and economic turmoil in Europe.
The Toronto Stock Exchange‘s S&P/TSX composite index <.GSPTSE> unofficially closed down 56.80 points, or 0.47 percent, at 12,134.66.
(Reporting by Claire Sibonney; Editing by Jeffrey Hodgson)
Economy News Headlines – Yahoo! News
PERTH, Australia (AP) — In a new twist to the Gen. David Petraeus sex scandal, the Pentagon said Tuesday that the top American commander in Afghanistan, Gen. John Allen, is under investigation for alleged “inappropriate communications” with a woman who is said to have received threatening emails from Paula Broadwell, the woman with whom Petraeus had an extramarital affair.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said in a written statement issued to reporters aboard his aircraft, en route from Honolulu to Perth, Australia, that the FBI referred the matter to the Pentagon on Sunday.
Panetta said that he ordered a Pentagon investigation of Allen on Monday.
A senior defense official traveling with Panetta said Allen’s communications were with Jill Kelley, who has been described as an unpaid social liaison at MacDill Air Force Base, Fla., which is headquarters to the U.S. Central Command. She is not a U.S. government employee.
Kelley is said to have received threatening emails from Broadwell, who is Petraeus’ biographer and who had an extramarital affair with Petraeus that reportedly began after he became CIA director in September 2011.
Petraeus resigned as CIA director on Friday.
Allen, a four-star Marine general, succeeded Petraeus as the top American commander in Afghanistan in July 2011.
The senior official, who discussed the matter only on condition of anonymity because it is under investigation, said Panetta believed it was prudent to launch a Pentagon investigation, although the official would not explain the nature of Allen’s problematic communications.
The official said 20,000 to 30,000 pages of emails and other documents from Allen’s communications with Kelley between 2010 and 2012 are under review. He would not say whether they involved sexual matters or whether they are thought to include unauthorized disclosures of classified information. He said he did not know whether Petraeus is mentioned in the emails.
“Gen. Allen disputes that he has engaged in any wrongdoing in this matter,” the official said. He said Allen currently is in Washington.
Panetta said that while the matter is being investigated by the Defense Department Inspector General, Allen will remain in his post as commander of the International Security Assistance Force, based in Kabul. He praised Allen as having been instrumental in making progress in the war.
The FBI’s decision to refer the Allen matter to the Pentagon rather than keep it itself, combined with Panetta’s decision to allow Allen to continue as Afghanistan commander without a suspension, suggested strongly that officials viewed whatever happened as a possible infraction of military rules rather than a violation of federal criminal law.
Allen was Deputy Commander of Central Command, based in Tampa, prior to taking over in Afghanistan. He also is a veteran of the Iraq war.
In the meantime, Panetta said, Allen’s nomination to be the next commander of U.S. European Command and the commander of NATO forces in Europe has been put on hold “until the relevant facts are determined.” He had been expected to take that new post in early 2013, if confirmed by the Senate, as had been widely expected.
Panetta said President Barack Obama was consulted and agreed that Allen’s nomination should be put on hold. Allen was to testify at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday. Panetta said he asked committee leaders to delay that hearing.
NATO officials had no comment about the delay in Allen’s appointment.
“We have seen Secretary Panetta‘s statement,” NATO spokeswoman Carmen Romero said in Brussels. “It is a U.S. investigation.”
Panetta also said he wants the Senate Armed Services Committee to act promptly on Obama’s nomination of Gen. Joseph Dunford to succeed Allen as commander in Afghanistan. That nomination was made several weeks ago. Dunford’s hearing is also scheduled for Thursday.
___
Associated Press writer Slobodan Lekic in Kabul, Afghanistan, contributed to this report.
Asia News Headlines – Yahoo! News
(Reuters) – Microsoft Corp said the head of its flagship Windows division and the driving force behind Windows 8, Steven Sinofsky, will be leaving the company with immediate effect, days after the software giant launched the Surface tablet.
Sinofsky, who presented at the launch of the Windows 8 operating system in New York City last month, will be succeeded by Julie Larson-Green, who will head the Windows hardware and software division, the company said in a statement.
Tami Reller will remain chief financial officer and chief marketing officer and will assume responsibility for the business of Windows.
Both executives will report directly to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, Microsoft said.
At the launch event in October, Sinofsky and his team showed off a range of devices running Windows 8 from PC makers such as Lenovo Group Ltd and Acer Inc, but devoted most of their energy to the second half of the presentation and the Surface tablet, the first computer Microsoft has made itself.
(Reporting by Sakthi Prasad and Nicola Leske; Editing by Edmund Klamann)
Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The puppeteer and voice behind the character Elmo on “Sesame Street” has taken a leave of absence from the children’s television show following allegations that he had a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old boy, producers said on Monday.
New York-based Sesame Workshop said in a statement that its own inquiry concluded that the claim of underage sexual conduct was unsubstantiated, and that puppeteer Kevin Clash has denied any wrongdoing and called the allegation “false and defamatory.”
But the company said Clash, 52, was disciplined after an internal investigation showed he “exercised poor judgment and violated company policy regarding Internet usage.”
The Sesame Workshop statement said the puppeteer was “taking actions to protect his reputation” and that Sesame Workshop has “granted him a leave of absence to do so.”
Neither Clash nor his personal publicist was immediately available for comment.
CNN quoted a statement from Clash acknowledging a relationship with his accuser but denying he had sexual contact with a minor.
“I am a gay man. I have never been ashamed of this or tried to hide it,” it quoted him as saying. “I had a relationship with the accuser, it was between two consenting adults, and I am deeply saddened that he is characterizing it as something other than what it was.”
The statement went on to say, “I’m taking a break from Sesame Workshop to deal with this false and defamatory allegation.”
Sesame Workshop said the matter came to its attention when it received a communication in June from accuser, now aged 23, alleging that he had a relationship with Clash beginning when he was 16 years old.
“We took the allegation very seriously and took immediate action,” the company said, adding that it met with the accuser twice and had “repeated communications with him.” The company said it also discussed the matter with Clash, who denied the allegations.
A spokeswoman for the show said she did not know whether law enforcement authorities were looking into the allegations.
Clash officially joined the “Sesame Street” cast in 1984, assuming the Elmo role that year.
Elmo’s character had debuted on the show in 1979, and though Clash was the third performer to animate the child-like shaggy red monster, Sesame Workshop credits him with turning Elmo into the international sensation he became.
For now, producers promised that Elmo would remain on the show despite the absence of Clash, saying “Elmo is bigger than any one person and will continue to be an integral part of ‘Sesame Street.’”
(Reporting and writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Cynthia Osterman)
TV News Headlines – Yahoo! News
(Reuters) – Mark Thompson reported to work as the New York Times Co chief executive on Monday, confronting challenges ranging from making the publisher less dependent on advertising to trimming costs and figuring out what to do with its pile of cash.
Thompson is also dealing with questions pertaining to a series of scandals at the BBC, where he served as director-general from 2004 until September this year.
George Entwistle, who succeeded Thompson at the British broadcaster, resigned on Saturday and two of its top news directors stepped aside on Monday.
The BBC has come under fire for its handling of two investigations at its flagship news show, “Newsnight”. One is a massive sexual abuse scandal involving the late Jimmy Savile, a former presenter at the network. The other is a news story of an allegation that a former top politician sexually abused children, which was later proven to be false.
The latter report occurred after Thompson left the BBC. However, an unaired program about Savile was produced while Thompson was director-general of the broadcasting company.
In a staff memo obtained by Reuters, New York Times Chairman Arthur Sulzberger welcomed Thompson but sidestepped addressing the BBC scandals.
“We welcome him at a time of tremendous change and challenge, which must be met with equal focus and innovation,” Sulzberger said in the memo distributed on Monday.
“Mark will lead us as we continue our digital transformation, bolster our international growth, drive our productivity and introduce new technologies that will help us become better storytellers and enrich the experience for our readers and viewers.”
British ITV filmed Thompson as he arrived at the New York Times headquarters on Monday near Manhattan’s Times Square. “I’m looking forward to starting work there right now,” said Thompson, who was dressed in a navy blue suit, red tie and had a backpack slung over his right shoulder.
Asked if the BBC saga would be a distraction, he said: “I believe it will not in any way affect my job, which I’m starting right now as chief executive of the New York Times Company.”
Still, the volley of news about the turmoil at BBC has been coming fast across the Atlantic since a rival British broadcaster aired a bombshell investigation about Savile in October.
There is little to suggest the pace will slacken as the chairman of the BBC Trust called for a “thorough structural radical overhaul” of the organization, and police and parliament have opened inquiries.
Ken Doctor, an analyst with Outsell Research, said the BBC scandals will replace “hackgate” – the phone hacking controversy that shook News Corp’s British newspaper arm – in the UK popular press and in parliament.
Indeed, News Corp founder, Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch, who has criticized the publicly funded BBC in the past, tweeted on Saturday, “BBC getting into deeper mess. After Savile scandal, now prominent news program falsely names senior pol as pedophile.”
Thompson said in a letter to British lawmakers he would be happy to appear in front of the parliamentary committee or any other inquiry in the future.
The British investigations into the BBC could prove to be a distraction for Thompson if they are drawn out.
“It’s clearly a distraction,” Doctor said, who added that he believes Thompson should have stepped aside over the weekend.
“How big, how long this is going to last is unknown. For anybody who cares about the New York Times and its journalism this is an unneeded distraction.”
Doctor is another voice in a growing chorus to question whether Thompson is fit to serve as CEO.
New York Times Public Editor Margaret Sullivan wrote on Monday a second column about Thompson.
She praised the coverage in Times about the BBC saga and Thompson, saying it “pulled no punches in reporting,” and noted that the scandal is being felt in New York.
“It’s safe to say that everyone here – from the Times’ board of directors to the mail clerks — hopes that Mr. Sulzberger’s faith in Mr. Thompson will be rewarded,” she wrote.
“What happens in London reverberates in New York. And the chaos at the BBC – in which many of the people Mr. Thompson has supervised stepped aside as recently as this past weekend — feels uncomfortably close to home.”
Thompson did not immediately respond to a request for comment regarding Entwistle’s resignation. Earlier, he declined to be interviewed about his plans for the New York Times.
TAKING CARE OF BUSINESS
Thompson took the helm at the New York Times just weeks after the company reported that it missed third-quarter revenue and profit expectations, which sent its stock tumbling 22 percent.
His arrival on Monday marks the first time the company has had a CEO since the abrupt ouster of Janet Robinson last December.
In addition to the business challenges, Thompson must also manage the desires of the Ochs-Sulzberger family, which has controlled The New York Times for more than 100 years. The company’s business issues have forced the family to forego a dividend since 2009.
“The first thing he will have to focus on is the balance sheet,” Barclay’s analyst Kannan Venkateshwar said of Thompson’s priorities.
Analysts widely expect the company to reinstate a dividend since it will end the year with about $ 1 billion in cash, due in part to sales of some of its newspapers and its digital group About.com. Debt is about $ 700 million and therefore is very manageable in the context of cash, Venkateshwar said.
Beyond the balance sheet, Thompson will have to tackle the declining advertising revenue in both print and digital while convincing readers to pay more for its products.
While the company’s circulation revenue – which includes both print and digital subscribers – makes up 52 percent of total revenue, that percentage must increase to offset persistent advertising losses.
“I think there are a lot of hurdles to the NYTimes.com pay model,” Morningstar analyst Jocelyn Mackay said. “I do wonder if their price point is too expensive.”
(Reporting by Jennifer Saba; Editing by Peter Lauria, Maureen Bavdek and Richard Chang)
Business News Headlines – Yahoo! News
I am happy to share that HP Cloud Compute now supports Microsoft Windows Server 2008 instances in addition to the variety of Linux distributions that are already available. Windows Server instances can now be launched in our US-West region. Since HP Cloud Compute is in public beta, all customers receive a 50% discount (see pricing below).
It is a priority for us to provide the tools that enable developers to quickly build, test, deploy and scale their applications in the cloud. That is why we created our CLI for Windows so that developers working in a Windows Server environment can quickly launch and manage their instances using the command line.
The three Windows Server images available are the Enterprise Editions of Windows Server 2008 SP2 (32 bit), Windows Server 2008 SP2 (64 bit) and Windows Server 2008 R2 (64 bit). All Windows Server instances are created with a randomly generated password, which is then encrypted. You can create and manage your Windows Server instances from our console, UNIX CLI and Windows CLI. For information about how to access your Windows Server instances using Remote Desktop (RDP), please review our documentation here.
The licenses for a Windows Server instance are included in the hourly rate for your instance, so you can spin up a server and get started without needing to worry about any additional licensing concerns. Please see the table below for details about the hourly fees for both standard HP Cloud Compute Linux Instances and HP Cloud Compute Windows Server Instances. While HP Cloud Compute continues in public beta, all customers receive a 50% discount off the prices listed below.
| HP Cloud Compute Instance Types | Linux (per hour) | Windows (per hour) |
| Extra Small (1GB RAM, 1 core, 30GB disk) | $ 0.04 | $ 0.06 |
| Small (2GB RAM, 2 cores, 60GB disk) | $ 0.08 | $ 0.12 |
| Medium (4GB RAM, 2 cores, 120GB disk) | $ 0.16 | $ 0.24 |
| Large (8GB RAM, 4 cores, 240GB disk) | $ 0.32 | $ 0.48 |
| Extra Large (16GB RAM, 4 cores, 480GB disk) | $ 0.64 | $ 0.96 |
| Double Extra Large (32GB RAM, 8 cores, 960GB disk) | $ 1.28 | $ 1.92 |
Our team has been working hard to ensure that we are able to support all of your public cloud needs and appreciate all those that participated in our private and public betas. We are very excited about the launch of Windows Server instances. Stay tuned as we plan to launch support for additional versions of Windows Server including Windows Server 2012 in the coming months. As always, feel free to leave a comment, connect with us on chat or email or find us on twitter (@hpcloud) if you have any questions.
Linux/Open Source News Headlines – Yahoo! News
(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)
Medications/Drugs News Headlines – Yahoo! News
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