r4 r4i news-yy: 2012

2012年12月27日星期四

Nasty storms blamed 1 death, make travel tough

Quarter-sized hail reported early Tuesday in western Louisiana was expected to be just the start of a severe weather threat on the Gulf Coast, said meteorologist Mike Efferson at the weather service office in Slidell, La.

The holiday may conjure visions of snow and ice, but twisters this time of year are not unheard of. Ten storm systems in the last 50 years have spawned at least one Christmastime tornado with winds of 113 mph or more in the South, said Chris Vaccaro, a National Weather Service spokesman in Washington, via email.

Meanwhile, blizzard conditions were possible for parts of Illinois, Indiana and western Kentucky with predictions of 4 to 7 inches of snow. Much of Oklahoma and Arkansas braced under a winter storm warning of an early mix of rain and sleet forecast to eventually turn to snow. About a dozen counties in Missouri were under a blizzard warning from Tuesday night to noon Wednesday.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Freezing rain and sleet made for a sloppy Christmas trek in parts of the nation's midsection, while residents along the Gulf Coast faced thunderstorms, high winds and tornadoes that were doing damage in some areas.

The storm was moving quickly as it headed into northeast Louisiana and Mississippi into the late afternoon and early evening, said Bill Adams at the weather service's Shreveport, La., office.

AP Business Writer Daniel Wagner in Washington and Associated Press Writer Ramit Plushnick-Masti in Houston contributed to this report.

At least three tornadoes were reported in Texas, though only one building was damaged, according to the National Weather Service. Tornado watches were in effect across southern Louisiana and Mississippi.

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Fog blanketed highways, including arteries in the Atlanta area where motorists slowed as a precaution. In New Mexico, drivers across the eastern plains had to fight through snow, ice and low visibility.

Nasty storms blamed 1 death, make travel tough

American is headquartered and has its biggest hub at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport.

Some mountainous areas of Arkansas' Ozark Mountains could get up to 10 inches of snow, which would make travel "very hazardous or impossible" in the northern tier of the state from near whiteout conditions, the National Weather Service said.

More than 180 flights nationwide were canceled by midday, according to the flight tracker FlightAware.com. More than half were canceled by American Airlines and its regional affiliate, American Eagle.

The most lethal were the storms of Dec. 24-26, 1982, when 29 tornadoes in Oklahoma, Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee and Mississippi killed three people and injured 32; and those of Dec. 24-25, 1964, when two people were killed and about 30 people injured by 14 tornadoes in seven states.

Storms along the Gulf Coast could bring winds up to 70 mph, heavy rain, more large hail and dangerous lightning in Louisiana and Mississippi, Efferson said. Furthermore, warm, moist air colliding with a cold front could produce dangerous straight-line winds.

In Mississippi, Gov. Phil Bryant urged residents to have a plan for any severe weather.

"It only takes a few minutes, and it will help everyone have a safe Christmas," Bryant said.

Winds toppled a tree onto a pickup truck in the Houston area, killing the driver. Icy roads already were blamed for a 21-vehicle pileup in Oklahoma, where authorities warned would-be travelers to stay home.

Christmas lights also were knocked out with more than 70,000 people without power in east Texas, Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana.

Trees fell on a few houses in central Louisiana's Rapides Parish but there were no injuries reported so far and crews were cutting trees out of roadways to get to people in their homes, said sheriff's Lt. Tommy Carnline. Possible damage also was reported near McNeil, Miss.

Winter storms hit eastern U.S., snarl post-holiday travel

Some flights headed for New York, Philadelphia and Newark, New Jersey, experienced delays averaging one to four hours due to the inclement weather, the Federal Aviation Administration said.

Storm clouds are seen on the east…

Article: Factbox: Entergy says 150,000 lack power in Arkansas after storm

The National Weather Service issued blizzard and winter storm warnings in Illinois, Indiana and Ohio, as well as much of the Northeast, and cautioned that the wintry weather would create "treacherous" driving conditions.

The city of Mobile appeared to be hardest hit, with damage to as many as 100 structures, including the historic Trinity Episcopal Church, according to the Alabama Emergency Management Agency.

She and her son Zachary Bartscherer, 24, a lobbyist from Washington D.C., had planned to visit family but instead waited forlornly in the baggage claim area for a ride back home. They expected to return to the airport early on Thursday to try again.

Damage assessments were conducted in the 11 Alabama counties that reported varying degrees of property destruction from Tuesday's storms.

"We were going to have dinner and see my 2-year-old niece," Mindy Bartscherer said of their thwarted plans for Wednesday night.

More than six inches of snow might fall in those regions, while the area from western New York up into central Maine could get from 12 to 18 inches, the NWS said.

Twisters struck in Alabama, Mississippi, Texas and Louisiana, flattening houses and causing injuries, according to the weather service. The storm also dumped record snowfalls in North Texas and Arkansas.

Downed trees and power lines caused…

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A young man is loaded into an ambulance…

All four runways at Philadelphia International Airport were open on Wednesday, but that didn't prevent cancellation of physical therapist Mindy Bartscherer's flight to Minneapolis.

About 1,000 people spent the night on cots at the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport after some 400 flights were canceled there on Tuesday due to weather, said Cynthia Vega, media relations manager at the airport.

On Wednesday morning, some 50 more flights were canceled, she said.

"We're hoping to get passengers back on track," Vega said. "It's probably going to be a little hectic at the airport."

2 hrs 10 mins ago

Downed trees and power lines along…

Severe thunderstorms and widespread rain were expected from southeast Virginia to Florida, the NWS said, and the eastern counties in North Carolina and South Carolina were under tornado watches or warnings for much of the day.

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(Reporting by Colleen Jenkins; Additional reporting by Corrie MacLaggan, Eileen O'Grady, Steve Olafson and Dave Warner; Editing by Paul Thomasch and Gunna Dickson)

WINSTON-SALEM, North Carolina (Reuters) - The severe winter weather that hit parts of the central and southern United States on Christmas Day moved eastward on Wednesday, causing flight delays and dangerous road conditions for holiday travelers in the Northeast and Ohio Valley.

As of Wednesday morning, Bloomington, Indiana, already had nearly a foot of snow and Indianapolis had about seven inches, according to AccuWeather.com.

A Texas man died after an accident involving a toppled tree in the road, and icy roads contributed to the deaths of four people in auto crashes in Oklahoma and Arkansas, according to police.

Governor Phil Bryant declared a state of emergency in Mississippi, where a dozen counties reported damage and more than 25 people were injured on Tuesday.

About 1,300 U.S. flights had been canceled on Wednesday, according to FlightAware.com. Several airlines waived ticket change fees for affected customers.

The severe holiday weather also contributed to a 21-vehicle pile-up that shut Interstate 40 in downtown Oklahoma City on Tuesday and caused power outages for tens of thousands of residents.

Study finds spiritual care still rare at end of life

Study finds spiritual care still rare at end of life

"Indeed we found that on average 73 percent reported time to be a significant barrier to spiritual care provision to patients," Balboni told Reuters Health in an email.

In fact, a lack of training stood out as the biggest barrier to providing spiritual care in this small study.

The participants' answers indicated that, on the contrary, a majority of providers and patients supported the appropriateness of eight specific examples of spiritual care, such as a doctor or nurse praying with a patient at his or her request or referring the patient to a hospital chaplain.

Current U.S. palliative care guidelines encourage medical practitioners to pay close attention to religious and spiritual needs that may arise during a patient's end-of-life care.

However, the 204 physicians who participated in the study reported providing spiritual care to just 24 percent of their patients. Among 118 nurses, the figure was 31 percent.

"There are some basic models, but a rigorously developed spiritual care training model has not been established," she said.

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/Zm7Fey Journal of Clinical Oncology, online December 17, 2012

Puchalski, who invented a basic spiritual assessment questionnaire that is in wide use, added that the study could have benefitted by asking patients if nurses and doctors acted compassionately toward them, which is another example of spiritual care.

But those who had training were seven to 11 times more likely to provide spiritual care to their patients than those who hadn't been trained.

"We can't practice what we don't know," she said. "Physicians and nurses have never been taught to access and respond to spiritual need."

To gain more insight, Balboni and her colleagues designed a survey - the first of its kind, to their knowledge - to compare attitudes toward spiritual care across randomly chosen patients, nurses and doctors in oncology departments at four hospitals.

But those who noted insufficient time as a problem provided spiritual care just as often as those who reported having enough time. That suggested time was not an issue after all, she added.

Ferrell, who leads End-of-Life Nursing Education Consortium workshops, said such small-scale organized training opportunities are drops in the bucket of a huge unmet training need.

The questions were geared toward identifying barriers preventing healthcare professionals from delivering spiritual care, beginning with whether anyone felt it was inappropriate for them to be doing so.

Only 13 percent of doctors and nurses reported having ever received spiritual care training.

Yet the reasons why spiritual care is rarely incorporated into patient treatment and dialogue have been poorly understood.

In a country full of diverse cultures, spiritual care may be intimidating to medical workers, but training can help with that, Ferrell said.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Physicians and nurses at four Boston medical centers cited a lack of training to explain why they rarely provide spiritual care for terminally ill cancer patients - although most considered it an important part of treatment at the end of life.

"For example, if we have a patient who says, 'I'm very devout in my faith and I never make decisions without consulting my rabbi,' then we immediately take that into account - perhaps by giving the patient extra time between procedures," she noted.

"There is quite a bit of controversy about asking only about religion," Puchalski said. "But previous studies have shown that it's not a patient's particular religious denomination that matters, but what gives meaning and purpose in peoples' lives -things such as family, arts, work, nature, yoga and other values."

Past research has shown that spiritual care for seriously ill patients improves their quality of life, increases their overall satisfaction with hospital care and decreases aggressive medical treatment, which may in turn result in lower overall health spending.

"I was quite surprised that it was really just lack of training that dominated the reasons why," senior author Dr. Tracy Balboni, a radiation oncologist at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, told Reuters Health.

"There was a time when nurses and physicians may have said, 'That's not my job,' but I think the tides are changing," said palliative care researcher Betty Ferrell of City of Hope, a cancer research and treatment hospital in Duarte, California.

A lack of "models" for training healthcare professionals to tend to patients' spiritual needs seems to be the underlying problem, Balboni told Reuters Health.

In addition to training, the field of spiritual care needs a clear definition, said Dr. Christina Puchalski, director of the George Washington Institute for Spirituality and Health in Washington, D.C.

"I think we are realizing we can no longer ignore this aspect of care," said Ferrell, a professor of nursing who was not involved in the new study.

The 69 patients with advanced cancers who took the survey reported even lower rates, saying 14 percent of nurses and six percent of physicians had provided them some sort of spiritual care.

"Patients are telling us spiritual care has to be done with greater intention," Ferrell said.

Next, the researchers asked participants to rate previous spiritual care experiences. Again, most ranked these as having a positive impact on care. A fourth possibility offered to nurses and doctors was lack of time.

2 actors we loved knowing, who seemed to know us

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They never go out of style. They never lose their appeal. They are never put away because their looks have faded or their waistline thickened. We stick with them, just as they stick with us. (Durning was working into his late 80s in a recurring role as the irascible father of Denis Leary's firefighter protagonist on the drama "Rescue Me"). In this way, too, they resemble everybody we truly love: We love them in every phase of their lives.

NEW YORK (AP) 鈥?What a couple of mugs, sporting less-than-perfect physiques in the bargain.

FILE - In this May 20, 1973 file…

Now, with their passing, we don't feel the pain of loss as much as gratitude for all the happy hours shared with Durning and Klugman. We are so glad for knowing them. Never mind we never met.

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FILE - In this Dec. 3, 1992 file…

FILE - In this Saturday, March…

2 actors we loved knowing, who seemed to know us
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Sure, we love being dazzled by Hollywood glamour. We love stars who make us weak in the knees.

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But was there anything lovelier than Jack Klugman or Charles Durning doing what they did for an audience?

Even with a certain "always-a-bridesmaid-never-a-bride" taint attached to it, the term "character actor" commands respect and affection among audiences, even audience members who may not quite realize their level of investment in such artistry.

But an actor like Klugman or Durning bears a message that applies far beyond the realm of Tinseltown, a message worth remembering with every performance: Beauty is, as beauty does.

Rumpled Klugman exploding at his prissy flat-mate Tony Randall in the long-running sitcom "The Odd Couple." Portly Durning hoofing, fleet of foot, and singing how "Ewwwww, I love to do a little sidestep" in the film "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas." Each was a luminous display of the extraordinary possibilities of the ordinary.

EDITOR'S NOTE 鈥?Frazier Moore is a national television columnist for The Associated Press. He can be reached at fmoore(at)ap.org and at http://www.twitter.com/tvfrazier

Traditional stardom 鈥?"leading man" status 鈥?is conferred on the actors who embody a fantasy, an ideal. They are famously out of reach of a ticket holder or a couch potato, other than through sitting back and watching from afar. Dreams are a powerful engine of Hollywood, and these actors 鈥?whether Clark Gable or Will Smith 鈥?are thrilling dream agents.

In this Sunday, Jan. 27, 2008 photo,…

Klugman and Durning (both of whom died Monday, Klugman at 90 in Los Angeles, Durning at 89 in New York) spent storied careers building catalogues of roles that classed them indisputably as "character actors."

But there's another breed of actor 鈥?the group in which Klugman and Durning reign supreme 鈥?who sustains us in more comfortable ways. If a star like Brad Pitt stirs the frisson of eternal longing in the audience (oh, to be with him, or be him!), a character actor serves another need: cinematic kinship.

Like most of us, the character actor seldom if ever gets the girl or saves the world. They aren't flashy. But with their own special magnetism, they remind us, in role after role, that everyday people are special, too.

Klugman solving crimes as a lab geek on his series "Quincy, M.E.," or Durning as a stressed-out cop ("Dog Day Afternoon") or a romantic who's smitten with Dustin Hoffman in drag ("Tootsie") 鈥?these are actors we identify with, instantly and eagerly. Nothing seems to stand between us and what they do. They, with their just-coping-with-life heroics, show us who we are, or could be if we try a little harder (or warn us of the jam that might befall us if we don't). They are our proxies.

Nurses at 9 Bay Area hospitals go on day strike

As in previous strikes, the hospitals brought in replacement nurses to fill in for striking nurse, but unlike past strikes, returning nurses won't be "locked out" and will be able to return to work at Sutter's facilities when the one-day strike ends, Kemp said.

"We are deeply disappointed the union is taking nurses away from the bedside, particularly during the holiday season, when only are sickest patients are with us," said Carolyn Kemp, a spokeswoman for Alta Bates Summit Medical Center, one of the Sutter facilities hit by the strike.

Also last month, a one-day strike by custodians and electrical workers shut down the Port of Oakland, workers at West Sacramento-based grocery chain Raley's walked off the job — the first strike in the company's 77-year-history — and nurses at Sonoma County's Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital walked off the job for three days.

Hospital officials also criticized the union for calling the strike on Christmas Eve.

About 90 percent of 5,000 nurses represented by CNA took part in the strike, the union said, while hospital officials said about only half of the union nurses refused to go to work.

Nurses at 9 Bay Area hospitals go on day strike

"They may be critical of us, but no nurse wants to strike," Jung said. "Management has given us no alternative."

The strike — the eighth by the union since September 2011 — comes as both sides remain at odds in a lingering dispute over health benefits, staffing levels and other issues.

As in the previous strikes, both sides traded barbs, disagreeing over the need for a strike, the number of nurses who refused to show up for work and the quality of care the replacement nurses would provide.

The walkout by the nurses joined a growing list of recent strikes by workers represented by other unions in California, including an eight-day walk-off by clerical workers at the Los Angeles and Long Beach harbors that stalled billions of dollars of cargo and left container ships stranded off the California coast.

Union spokeswoman Joanne Jung said the union called the strike because of the hospital's demands to eliminate health benefits for nurses who work fewer than 30 hours a week, disagreements over sick pay and other issues.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Thousands of nurses at nine San Francisco Bay area hospitals walked off the job on the morning of Christmas Eve — a day a hospital spokeswoman described as a time when "only the sickest of the sick are in the hospital."

Nurses who try to return to work at the two Hospital Corporation of America hospitals won't be allowed to return to work for an additional four days after the strike ends because the facilities hired replacement nurses on five-day contracts, said Leslie Kelsay, a spokeswoman for Good Samaritan Hospital, one of the HCA hospitals where the nurses went on strike.

Registered nurses and technicians at seven hospitals operated by Sutter Health and at two San Jose hospitals affiliated with the Hospital Corporation of America went on a one-day strike at 7 a.m. Monday, said hospital officials and representatives with the California Nurses Association.

2012年12月26日星期三

Christmas storms all over US blamed for 2 deaths_1

In Louisiana, quarter-sized hail was reported early Tuesday in the western part of the state and a WDSU viewer sent a photo to the TV station of what appeared to be a waterspout around the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway in New Orleans. There were no reports of crashes or damage.

The snowstorm that caused numerous accidents pushed out of Oklahoma late Tuesday, carrying with it blizzard warnings for parts of northeast Arkansas, where 10 inches of snow was forecast. Freezing rain clung to trees and utility lines in Arkansas and winds gusts up to 30 mph whipped them around, causing about 71,000 customers to lose electricity.

This NOAA satellite image taken…

Christmas storms all over US blamed for 2 deaths Related Content prevnext

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In Mobile, a large section of the roof on the Trinity Episcopal Church is missing and the front wall of the parish wall is gone, said Scott Rye, a senior warden at the church in the Midtown section of the city.

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Geraldine Pedersen and her dog…

More than 400 flights nationwide were canceled by the evening, according to the flight tracker FlightAware.com. More than half were canceled into and out of Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport that got a few inches of snow.

"We haven't verified what it was, but we have an area that we heard has damage to homes," she said.

Members of the Alpine Volunteer…

MOBILE, Ala. (AP) — A Christmas Day twister outbreak left damage across the Deep South while holiday travelers in the nation's much colder midsection battled sometimes treacherous driving conditions from freezing rain and blizzard conditions.

The church finished a $1 million-plus renovation campaign in June 2011, which required the closure of the historic sanctuary for more than a year.

The most lethal were the storms of Dec. 24-26, 1982, when 29 tornadoes in Oklahoma, Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee and Mississippi killed three people and injured 32.

Al Horne looks up at the rain falling…

Conditions were volatile throughout the afternoon and into the night with tornado warnings in Alabama and the Florida Panhandle. The storms were blamed for two deaths, several injuries, and left homes from Louisiana to Alabama damaged.

Shoppers line-up to check out at…

Mary Cartright said she was working at the Fast Track convenience store in the town on Christmas evening when the wind started howling and the lights flickered, knocking out the store's computerized cash registers.

"We've had some pretty heavy weather," said Cartright in a phone interview. "Our cash registers are down so our doors are closed."

No injuries were confirmed immediately, but fire crews were still making door-to-door checks in the hardest hit areas of Mobile. The Mobile Fire-Rescue Department, which was providing storm updates through Twitter, said Murphy High School was damaged and that there was a gas leak at a nearby apartment building.

In Mobile, Ala., a tornado or high winds damaged homes and knocked down power lines and large tree limbs in an area just west of downtown around nightfall, said Nancy Johnson, a spokeswoman for the Mobile County Commission. WALA-TV's tower camera captured a large funnel cloud headed toward downtown.

2012年12月25日星期二

'Odd Couple' star Jack Klugman dies in LA at 95

He also appeared in several episodes of "The Twilight Zone," including a memorable 1963 one in which he played a negligent father whose son is seriously wounded in Vietnam. His other TV shows included "The Defenders" and the soap opera "The Greatest Gift."

"We had some wonderful writers," he said in a 1987 Associated Press interview. "Quincy was a muckraker, like Upton Sinclair, who wrote about injustices. He was my ideal as a youngster, my author, my hero.

Fans and fellow actors agreed it worked, posting clips of their favorite Klugman roles on Twitter and other social networking sites late Monday.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — For many, Jack Klugman will always be the messy one.

"Now I love being around them."

"The guy is so vital emotionally, but physically he can't be," Klugman said. "We treat old people so badly. There is nothing easy about 80."

Klugman died Monday at age 90 in suburban Northridge with his wife at his side. His sons called on his fans to embrace their father's tenacious and positive spirit.

Throat cancer took away his raspy voice for several years in the 1980s. When he was back on the stage for a 1993 revival of "Three Men on a Horse," the AP's review said, "His voice may be a little scratchy but his timing is as impeccable as ever."

FILE - In this June 15, 2008 file…

The son of Russian Jewish immigrants, he was born in Philadelphia and began acting in college at Carnegie Institute of Technology. After serving in the Army during World War II, he went on to summer stock and off-Broadway, rooming with fellow actor Charles Bronson as both looked for paying jobs. He made his Broadway debut in 1952 in a revival of "Golden Boy."

The cause of Klugman's death was not immediately known. Adam Klugman said his father had been slowing down in recent years, but wasn't battling cancer, which robbed him of his voice in the 1980s. Klugman taught himself to speak again, and kept working.

For his 1987 role as 81-year-old Nat in the Broadway production of "I'm Not Rappaport," Klugman wore leg weights to learn to shuffle like an elderly man. He said he would wear them for an hour before each performance "to remember to keep that shuffle."

Despite his on-screen wars with Tony Randall's neat-freak character Felix Unger on "Odd Couple," the show created a friendship between the men that endured after the series ended.

In "Quincy, M.E.," which ran from 1976 to 1983, Klugman played an idealistic, tough-minded medical examiner who tussled with his boss by uncovering evidence of murder in cases where others saw natural causes.

Off-screen, Klugman owned racehorses and enjoyed gambling, although acting remained his passion.

Klugman's wife, actress-comedian Brett Somers, played his ex-wife, Blanche, in the "Odd Couple" series. The couple, who married in 1953 and had two sons, Adam and David, had been estranged for years by the time of her death in 2007.

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Biographical material in this story was written by former AP staffer Polly Anderson, and AP sports writer Beth Harris contributed to this report.

His film credits included Sidney Lumet's "12 Angry Men" and Blake Edwards' "Days of Wine and Roses" and an early television highlight was appearing with Humphrey Bogart and Henry Fonda in a production of "The Petrified Forest." His performance in the classic 1959 musical "Gypsy" brought him a Tony nomination for best featured (supporting) actor in a musical.

"I always loved to gamble," he said. "I never got close to a horse. Fate dealt me a terrible blow when it gave me a good horse the first time out. I thought how easy this is.

"There's nobody better to improvise with than Tony," Klugman said. "A script might say, 'Oscar teaches Felix football.' There would be four blank pages. He would provoke me into reacting to what he did. Mine was the easy part."

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"He had a great life and he enjoyed every moment of it, and he would encourage others to do the same," son Adam Klugman said.

In February 2008, at age 85, Klugman married longtime girlfriend Peggy Crosby, who was by his side when he died Monday.

The "Odd Couple," which ran from 1970 to 1975, was based on Neil Simon's play about mismatched roommates — divorced New Yorkers who end up living together. The comedy came from their opposite personalities — Klugman playing a writer whose sloppiness consistently irritated the Randall's fussy photographer character. The pairing was so good, the show didn't need constant help from the writers.

He remained popular for decades simply by playing the type of man you could imagine running into at a bar or riding on a subway with — gruff, but down-to-earth, his tie stained and a little loose, a racing form under his arm, a cigar in hand during the days when smoking was permitted.

Klugman's hobby was horse racing and he eventually took up raising them, too.

A horse Klugman co-owned, Jacklin Klugman, finished third in 1980's Kentucy Derby and fourth in that year's Preakness Stakes.

His portrayal of sloppy sportswriter Oscar Madison on TV's "The Odd Couple" left viewers laughing but it also gave Klugman the leverage to create a more serious character, the gruff medical examiner in "Quincy M.E." His everyman ethos and comic timing endeared him to audiences and led to a prolific, six-decade acting career that spanned stage, screen and television.

When Randall died in 2004 at age 84, Klugman told CNN: "A world without Tony Randall is a world that I cannot recognize."

In his later years, he guest-starred on TV series including "Third Watch" and "Crossing Jordan" and appeared in a 2010 theatrical film, "Camera Obscura."

FILE - In this June 15, 2008 file…

"RIP Jack Klugman. You made my whole family laugh together," actor-director Jon Favreau wrote on Twitter.

"They were going to do cops and robbers with 'Quincy.' I said, 'You promised me I could do causes.' They said, 'Nobody wants to see that.' I said, 'Look at the success of '60 Minutes.' They want to see it if you present it as entertainment."

"Everybody said, 'Quincy'll never be a hit.' I said, 'You guys are wrong. He's two heroes in one, a cop and a doctor.' A coroner has power. He can tell the police commissioner to investigate a murder. I saw the opportunity to do what I'd gotten into the theater to do — give a message.

His attorney Larry Larson wrote in an email that Klugman is also survived by two grandchildren and that memorial services have not been set.

"The only really stupid thing I ever did in my life was to start smoking," he said in 1996. Seeing people smoking in television and films "disgusts me, it makes me so angry — kids are watching," he said.

'Odd Couple' star Jack Klugman dies in LA at 90 Related Content

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"He was a wonderful man and supremely talented actor," wrote actor Max Greenfield, who worked with Klugman several years ago. "He will be missed."

2012年12月24日星期一

Gun-toting activist causes scare in Portland, Maine

Gun-toting activist causes scare in Portland, Maine

An "open carry" gun activist caused a scare in Portland, Maine, on Monday after dozens of residents reported a man walking around with an assault rifle like the one used in the Newtown, Conn., school massacre.

Maine allows unloaded firearms to be carried openly in public.

Police began receiving calls about 11 a.m. and located the unidentified man carrying an AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle along a popular recreation trail that loops around the city's Back Cove. The gun was fitted with a high-capacity magazine.

The man "identified himself as an open carry activist who was exercising his Second Amendment rights" under Maine law to openly carry an unloaded firearm in public, according to a police news release. Police said he was not violating any laws or ordinances.

The Portland Press Herald writes that the man "recorded his conversation with police, who made sure the man knew the law before letting him go about his business."

Officers gave the area "heavy special attention" until about 2:30 p.m., when the man left.

Between 11 a.m. and about 2:30 p.m., police received about 65 calls about a man with a gun walking around the West End and Back Cove areas.

In June, Portland police twice stopped and questioned a man spotted carrying a gun. The man, later identified as a law student, took video of the interactions and posted them on YouTube.

The Press Herald says that for the past two years, open carry activists periodically have walked around with weapons and record their interactions with police. In 2010, the city council tried unsuccessfully to ban guns from public facilities.

Maine prevents cities and counties from enacting gun regulations that are stricter than state law.

2012年12月23日星期日

Battle Lines Drawn Over Stricter Gun Laws

Battle Lines Drawn Over Stricter Gun Laws
WASHINGTON—Congressional battle lines hardened Sunday over firearms restrictions, laying the foundation for what will likely be a fight over any proposed new gun laws.

Speaking Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press," Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) said he owned an AR-15, an assault-style rifle, at his home and suggested that the solution isn't to take his firearm away but to provide better school security and focus more on mental health as a way to cut gun violence. "I don't suggest you take my right to buy an AR-15 away from me, because I don't think that it will work," he said.

Since the American Revolution, when colonists went to war against Great Britain, the right to bear arms has been central to – and controversial in – American culture.

View Interactive

Take a look back over milestones in America's relationship with and regulation of firearms.

Gun-control proposals, nonstarters in recent years, have drawn renewed interest in the aftermath of the Dec. 14 shootings in Newtown, Conn., where suspected gunman Adam Lanza killed 20 students and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Law-enforcement officials said he also killed his mother and himself. Authorities said a version of the AR-15 was one of the weapons used in the school assault.

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Fear of New Restrictions Drives Crowds to Gun Shows
The incident has sparked calls for a ban on assault weapons and ammunition magazines that hold more than 10 shots.

The National Rifle Association entered the fray on Friday, calling for armed security at all of the nation's schools. Speaking Sunday on "Meet the Press," the organization's executive vice president, Wayne LaPierre, adamantly opposed new restrictions and faulted federal authorities for failing to adequately enforce existing ones. "One more law on top of 20,000 laws" already on the books would do no good, he said.

Sen. Charles Schumer (D., N.Y.), appearing later on the same show, said the country can't reduce gun violence without considering access to firearms and ammunition. That would be "like trying to prevent lung cancer without talking about cigarettes," he said.

Gun-control advocates, speaking in interviews, said President Barack Obama has authority to tighten access to certain guns and bolster the background-check system, even with no action from Congress.

The White House took the first steps last week toward drawing up its list of proposed changes to gun laws. The White House has acknowledged it has options beyond congressional action but has declined to specify what those might be.

Mr. Obama has administrative powers under a 1968 law to ban the import of certain assault weapons. In 1989, former President George H.W. Bush used that law in issuing an executive order to ban the importation of assault weapons not used for sport. His action was superseded by congressional passage of a 10-year ban on assault weapons in 1994.

The importation of assault weapons could be "cut off tomorrow," said Kristen Rand, legislative director for the Violence Policy Center, which backs tighter gun controls. "We argue that is the single most important thing they could do under their administrative authority." Opponents of an importation ban say assault weapons are no more likely to be used in crimes than are other guns.

Other steps Mr. Obama can take include bolstering the background-check system used in gun purchases by ordering that local law enforcement be notified when someone fails a background check.

That action has found broad support before. A federal program created in the 1990s in Richmond, Va., became a model that was emulated by federal prosecutors elsewhere. Called Project Exile, the program toughened prosecutions of gun offenses and was widely credited with lowering Richmond's violent crime rate.

Some state officials said they too would press for tougher regulations. Last week, Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley said his administration would focus on restricting access to certain firearms. But with porous lines between the states, Mr. O'Malley, a Democrat, said federal action would be more effective.

In his remarks Sunday, Mr. LaPierre reiterated the NRA's support for the Project Exile initiative, "where every time you catch a criminal with a gun … you prosecute them 100% of the time," he said.

The NRA also supports efforts to speed records into the background-check system. After the April 2007 Virginia Tech shootings, it emerged that the mental-health records of the assailant, Seung-Hui Cho, hadn't been entered into the federal background-check system. The omission allowed Mr. Cho to pass background checks.

With NRA support, Congress passed a law to strengthen the system by giving states financial incentives to send in records. In the 14 years the background-check system has operated, some 9,877 attempted gun purchases from federally licensed dealers have been stopped for mental-health reasons. More than one-third have come in the past two years, as states have increased their participation.

Ladd Everitt, spokesman for the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, said the administration could support the confirmation of a director for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and shift resources to the agency. The ATF, which has been embroiled in the fallout of an ill-fated federal gun-trafficking probe, has been without a confirmed director for six years and its budget has been relatively stagnant. At $1.15 billion, the 2012 budget was $39 million higher than the 2011 budget. The proposed budget request from the Justice Department for 2013 amounts to a $1.3 million increase.

2012年12月20日星期四

Boehner abandons fiscal cliff plan as Republicans balk

Republican lawmakers delivered a stinging rebuke to their leader, House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner, on Thursday when they failed to back an effort designed to extract concessions from President Barack Obama in year-end "fiscal cliff" talks.
The dramatic twist threw into disarray attempts to head off $600 billion worth of indiscriminate tax hikes and spending cuts that could push the U.S. economy into recession next year.
It also cast doubt over Boehner's future as speaker after failing to control unruly conservatives in his caucus.
With only 11 days left for bickering politicians to prevent automatic tax hikes and spending cuts, U.S. stock futures fell sharply on the news of the rebuke to Boehner.
The Ohio congressman had hoped to demonstrate Republican unity by passing a bill through the House, known as "Plan B," that would limit income-tax increases to the wealthiest sliver of the population - those earning $1 million and more, a far smaller slice of taxpayers than Obama wants to pay higher taxes.
But Boehner canceled the vote after failing to round up enough support from his party because many conservative Republicans are opposed to tax hikes on even the richest wage-earning Americans.
"The House did not take up the tax measure today because it did not have sufficient support from our members to pass," Boehner said in a statement after huddling with other Republican leaders.
The White House pledged to work with Congress to reach a deal as quickly as possible.
"We are hopeful that we will be able to find a bipartisan solution quickly that protects the middle class and our economy," White House spokesman Jay Carney said in a statement.
The bill, had it passed, would have put Republicans on record as supporting a tax increase on those who earn more than $1 million per year, breaking with decades of orthodoxy. It won the blessing of influential anti-tax activist Grover Norquist, but other conservative groups fiercely opposed it and many rank-and-file members said they would not support it.
Obama wants to raise taxes on families earning more than $400,000, a much lower threshold.
RECESSION THREAT
Obama and Boehner aim to reach a deal before the New Year, when taxes will automatically rise for nearly all Americans and the government will have to scale back spending on domestic and military programs. Economists say the combined $600 billion hit to the economy could push the U.S. economy into recession.
Boehner said Obama now must first pass a bill through the Democratic-controlled Senate before he holds another vote in the House.
Democrats said Boehner should first hammer out a deal with Obama. "The only way to avoid the cliff altogether is for Speaker Boehner to return to negotiations," said Adam Jentleson, a spokesman for Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid.
With Republicans in chaos, Boehner will almost certainly need support from House Democrats to pass a deal before the end of the year. But he will have to keep an eye on his right flank before he stands for re-election as the top House lawmaker on January 3.
Alternatively, Boehner could wait until the new year to hold a vote. At that point, tax cuts passed in 2001 and 2003 will have expired for all Americans, and it presumably would be easier to pass a bill that would restore tax cuts for most.
Opinion polls show that more Americans would blame Republicans rather than Obama if they don't reach a deal before then.
So far, negotiations appear to be following the dysfunctional pattern set by the 2011 battle over the debt ceiling: fitful progress alternating with public posturing. Boehner also struggled during that showdown to corral the most conservative members of his own party.
Washington narrowly avoided defaulting on the U.S. government's debt in August 2011, but the down-to-the-wire nature of the effort prompted a first-ever debt rating downgrade and spooked investors and consumers.
This time around, concern over the fiscal cliff has weighed on markets but analysts say that investors appear to be assuming that the two sides will avert disaster.
"The markets are likely to interpret this as signaling even tougher negotiations in coming days," Mohamed El-Erian, chief executive of bond giant PIMCO, told Reuters.
S&P 500 stock futures fell 1.6 percent while Dow Jones stock futures and Nasdaq futures both lost 1.5 percent. At one point S&P 500 e-mini futures were down as much as 3.6 percent.
Lawmakers had hoped to wrap up work before the year-end Christmas break, but leaders in both the House and the Senate have indicated that they may call members back to work next week.
"The brinkmanship will continue," said a senior Republican aide. "This isn't the end of the story. More drama to come."
(Additional reporting by Thomas Ferraro, Mark Felsenthal, Richard Cowan, Jennifer Ablan, Dominic Lau and Kim Dixon; Writing by Andy Sullivan; Editing by Philip Barbara)

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