MEXICO CITY: At least 14 people died and 80 were injured in a blast that rocked the Mexico City skyscraper that houses the headquarters of oil giant Pemex on Thursday, Mexico's interior minister said.
"We have 13 dead at the scene and one more at the hospital. There are more than 80 wounded and we continue to look for survivors in the debris," Interior Minister Miguel Angel Osorio Chong told reporters.
Amazon Studios will produce pilots for five original children's shows that are expected to make their debuts on Amazon's Web-streaming services, the company announced today.
The new pilots, which include series from the creators of "Blue's Clues" and "Sid the Science Kid," add to the six Amazon Studios pilots -- original comedies announced in December -- that are already in production.
The children's series are "Creative Galaxy," an arts and music show from "Blue's Clues" creator Angela Santomero; "Oz Adventures," a problem-solving program featuring the kids of characters from L. Frank Baum's "The Wizard of Oz;" "Teeny Tiny Dogs," a series produced by The Jim Henson Company and created by "Rugratz" director Howard Baker; "Tumbleaf," a stop-motion show for preschoolers; and an untitled series from "Dino Dan" creator J.J. Johnson about a young scientist named Anne who does experiments with the help of three robot assistants.
The 11 pilots will air on Amazon Instant Video, Prime Instant Video, Lovefilm UK, and Lovefilm Germany for free, so that Amazon Studios can gather feedback and decide which programs should get a full season of episodes. The completed shows will be available to Amazon Prime subscribers.
The efforts are in line with Amazon's push for original programming. The online retail giant pushed its way into the home-entertainment industry with its streaming services. It's now creating original content to compete with rival companies -- including Netflix, Hulu, and YouTube -- that are creating their own programming. The competition is fierce. Netflix outbid AMC and HBO to snag "House of Cards," a series starring Kevin Spacey that premieres tomorrow, as its first original TV series.
Photograph from AFP/Getty Images
The sinkhole that formed in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou (pictured) is, unfortunately, not a new occurrence for the country.
Many areas of the world are susceptible to these sudden formations, including the U.S. Florida is especially prone, but Guatemala, Mexico, and the area surrounding the Dead Sea in the Middle East are also known for their impressive sinkholes. (See pictures of a sinkhole in Beijing that swallowed a truck.)
Published January 31, 2013
If every undocumented immigrant had cast a vote for President Obama in 2012, he would have won Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina and Texas, and he would have beaten Mitt Romney by nearly 11 percentage points nationally, instead of three.
Only citizens can vote, however, and 11.2 million unauthorized residents didn't get the chance.
But with immigration overhaul on the table, legalizing new Democratic voters looms as a threat for conservatives who don't want to hand their political foes a potential windfall of 11.2 million new voters with the creation of a pathway to citizenship -- and to voting rights -- with a comprehensive bill.
"The fear that many people have is that the Democrats aren't interested in border security, that they want this influx," Rush Limbaugh griped during his Tuesday interview with overhaul champion Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida. "For example, if 70 percent of the Hispanic vote went Republican, do you think the Democrats would be for any part of this legislation?"
New immigration policies could mean in influx of new voters, but Republicans needn't worry about it in the short term.
See Also: Gang of Eight Accelerates Immigration Reform Pace
"Under almost any scenario, it's pretty far in the distance," Jeff Passell, senior demographer at the Pew Hispanic Center, said of the prospect that unauthorized immigrants' gaining voting rights would pump up numbers significantly enough to meaningfully change the U.S. electorate.
Whitney Curtis/Getty Images
And yet, the "influx" wouldn't be negligible: "Realistically, we're talking about potentially adding probably 5 million potential voters or so in 10 years," he said.
Hispanic voters broke 71 percent for Obama in November, and Republican strategists recognize that the party has failed to court Hispanic voters effectively. But depending on how slowly the citizenship line moves, the Republican Party will have a decade or so to shake its anti-Hispanic stigma.
See also: A Glossary for Immigration Reform
"It's a long time coming. You're talking about 15 to 20 years before we're talking about a whole slew of new voters coming into the electorate," said Jennifer Korn, executive director of the Hispanic Leadership Network, who served as Hispanic outreach director for George W. Bush's presidential campaign.
"If Republicans can map out and change their positions with things that Hispanics do support -- on less government, lower taxes, less regulations on small businesses -- then they can really compete for the Hispanic vote over the next 20, 30 years."
There are 11.2 unauthorized immigrants living in the United States, according to the Pew Hispanic Center's estimate. While most are of voting age (Pew estimates just 1 million younger than 18), the deluge of new Democratic voters might not be as substantial as Limbaugh implied.
In other words, it's not as if Democrats will gain 11.2 million votes in the next few years. Here are some things to keep in mind:
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TOKYO: Japan on Thursday said the nation's factory output for December rose 2.5 per cent from the previous month thanks to brisk production of cars and semiconductors.
The gain -- still worse than a 4.0 per cent expansion expected by the market -- came as Japan's new government under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe vows to breathe new life into the world's third-largest economy with huge stimulus and easing aimed at tackling long-running deflation.
"Industrial production shows signs of having bottomed out," said a statement from the economy ministry.
The ministry added that a survey of manufacturers found they expected another output increase for January and February of 2.6 per cent and 2.3 per cent, respectively.
Annual industrial output figures were not immediately released, but on a quarterly basis the country's factory output was down 1.9 per cent from the previous three months.
And the rosy monthly data comes just a week after Japan said it logged a record trade deficit for 2012 as exports were hit by a bitter diplomatic spat with its biggest market China and plunging demand in debt-wracked Europe.
Japan's economy contracted in the third quarter, meeting the technical definition of a recession.
The figures underscored the size of the task ahead for the new government which has heaped pressure on the Bank of Japan for aggressive easing measures to boost the country's fortunes.
- AFP/ck
Russian blogger Eldar Murtazin claims this is Vertu's new 3,000-euro Android smartphone.
If you were planning to drop several thousands of dollars on a "luxury smartphone," what operating system would you insist such an elite device rock?
According to one Russian blogger claiming knowledge of British snobphone maker Vertu's plans, the company -- which was once a division of Nokia before the company sold all but 10 percent of it last year -- is looking to launch a fancy
Android phone starting at 3,000 euros and running as high as $10,000 if you want a model made from unobtainium or some such silliness, I suppose.
Good thing Vertu didn't have to pay more for the operating system, or this line of phones might have been really expensive. (Like Android, the sarcasm is free.)
Murtazin says to expect the device in the second half of this year, but few other details are available. Engadget believes the first Android phone from Vertu will be equipped with Android 4.0.4, an 800x480 display, a 1.5GHz processor, Bluetooth 4.0, and NFC.
Hopefully the butler who operates it for you is also included in the price.
It may sound warm and fuzzy, but deer antler velvet is at the center of a new sports controversy involving Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis.
Lewis, who's headed to the Superbowl in New Orleans this weekend, looked into using a nasal spray made of deer antler velvet to heal his torn right triceps, Sports Illustrated reported in their February 4 issue. Lewis denies the story, calling the rumor a "trick of the devil," according to USA Today.
Made from the soft fuzz that grows annually on male deer antlers, the unproven performance enhancer is often used by athletes who believe it helps heal cartilage and tendon injuries more quickly and boosts strength and endurance.
However, it's not approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and is banned by the National Football League.
Even so, it's a big business, especially in New Zealand, a major exporter of deer velvet, which ships tens of millions of dollars worth of the substance to Asia and the U.S. each year, according to the New York University Langone Medical Center.
Deer farming is a huge industry in the country, with about 2,800 farmers that own approximately 1.1 million deer, most of them red deer, elk, and red deer-elk hybrids, according to the company New Zealand Deer Velvet.
Before removing the velvet from a stag's antlers, certified veterinarians or farmers give the animal stag a local anesthetic to minimize stress.
We asked a few medical experts to give us the facts on deer antler velvet.
What Is It?
Deer antler velvet is essentially a growth hormone called "insulin-like growth factor 1," or IGF-1.
Growth hormones, which are naturally produced by the liver, regulate how our bodies grow. If the body doesn't produce enough growth hormones, dwarfism can occur; too much, and a person may get acromelagy, a type of gigantism. (See a human-body interactive.)
Doctors give growth hormones to young people with stunted growth, but they don't recommend it for athletes or bodybuilders, according to Spyros Mezitis, an endocrinologist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City.
That's because many athletes take several times the recommended dosage, which can result in adverse effects, Mezitis said. For example, too much IGF-1 may cause tendons to become too tight and break or may disrupt how the body metabolizes fats and sugars.
What Does It Do?
Early research shows that IGF-1 may be effective in healing some cartilage and tendon injuries, noted Leon Popovitz, an orthopedic surgeon and founder of New York Bone & Joint in Manhattan.
A recent study found that taking IGF-1 supplements is linked to improving cartilage damage in joints due to repetitive trauma, Popovitz said.
Even so, such studies are still very preliminary, and growth hormone research is still unproven, he cautioned. At the moment, deer antler velvet is available as an unregulated supplement.
"What often happens is these supplement companies grab these promising [hormone] factors, jump on them, and market them before the entire medical community has the ability to know the real detrimental effects," Popovitz said.
How Does It Work?
IGF-1 affects how the body repairs itself. First, the hormone aids in building up a matrix or base—essentially a building block of protein—that's needed for cells to grow.
Then, the substance increases the number of new cells that accumulate on that base, which get busy healing the injury.
What's the Bottom Line?
IGF-1 has shown promise for helping kids with stunted growth or people with dwarfism, as well as for healing cartilage or tendon injuries. It should not be used without a doctor's care, especially as a performance enhancer.
But as far as linebacker Lewis goes, since he's "looking to improve his recovery, I don't think he's necessarily doing anything wrong," noted Popovitz.
That said, "we have to be mindful that professional athletes are not typical athletes," Popovitz said, noting some are known for taking extreme measures.
For your average weekend warrior, he said, "it's a little too soon to be rushing to use it."
President Barack Obama expressed confidence on Wednesday that he would sign comprehensive immigration reform into law by the end of this year.
In an interview with Univision's Maria Elena Salinas, Obama explained that significant details of a bill still must be worked out by lawmakers, including the structure of a pathway to citizenship for many of the 11 million undocumented immigrants. But Obama said that the progress made by a bipartisan group of lawmakers in the Senate has given him hope that a deal can get done.
See Also: What Will Be Obama's Immigration Legacy?
When asked by Salinas if we will have immigration reform by the end of the year, Obama said, "I believe so."
"You can tell our audience, 'Sí, se puede?'" Salinas asked.
"Sí, se puede," Obama responded.
Later in the interview, Obama said that he hopes a bill could be passed as early as this summer.
But cognizant of deep divisions a topic like immigration has sewn in the past, Obama said that's contingent on bipartisan negotiations continuing to proceed well.
"The only way this is going to get done is if the Republicans continue to work with Democrats in Congress, in both chambers, to get a bill to my desk," he said. "And I'm going to keep on pushing as hard as I can. I believe that the mood is right."
Although the president threatened to introduce his own bill if negotiations in Congress stall during his speech in Las Vegas, Nevada, on Tuesday, he said he is content to let lawmakers hash out the details among themselves for the time being.
"If they are on a path as they have already said, where they want to get a bill done by March, then I think that's a reasonable timeline and I think we can get that done. I'm not going to lay down a particular date because I want to give them a little room to debate," he said. "If it slips a week, that's one thing. If it starts slipping three months, that's a problem."
The president's principles and the Senate's principles on immigration broadly align with one another, but there are still thorny issues that could spark a division between Obama and Republicans, such as the pathway to citizenship.
The Senate's path to citizenship would allow many undocumented immigrants to obtain legal status immediately upon passage of the law. But their ability to then seek legal permanent residency would be contingent upon the U.S.-Mexico border being deemed secure. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), a member of the bipartisan "Gang of Eight" on immigration, has been particularly vocal in stating that border security is a precondition for gaining legal permanent residence, and then citizenship.
While the White House has said that it is withholding judgment on that plan until actual legislative language is drafted, Obama said that he wants a bill that makes it clear from the outset that undocumented immigrants eligible to earn their way to citizenship can eventually obtain it.
"What we don't want to do is create some kind of vague prospect in the future that somehow comprehensive immigration reform that includes a pathway to citizenship will happen, you know, mañana," Obama said. "We want to make sure we are very clear this legislation provides a real pathway."
The president said that enhancing border security measures and workplace enforcement provisions are a part of his plan, as well as the Senate's, and cited his administration's efforts to bulk up border security during the past four years, saying that illegal crossings have dropped 80 percent since 2000.
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