Syrian rebels kill 28 soldiers, several executed

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Anti-government rebels killed 28 soldiers on Thursday in attacks on three army checkpoints around Saraqeb, a town on Syria’s main north-south highway, a monitoring group said.

Some of the dead were shot after they had surrendered, according to video footage. Rebels berated them, calling them “Assad’s Dogs”, before firing round after round into their bodies as they lay on the ground.

The highway linking the capital Damascus to the contested city of Aleppo, Syria’s commercial center, has been the scene of heavy fighting since rebels cut the road last month. Saraqeb lies about 40 km (25 miles) south of Aleppo

In other developments, China put forward a new initiative to resolve the 19-month-old conflict, including a phased, region-by-region ceasefire and the setting up of a transitional governing body.

A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said Beijing had made the proposal to international peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi – whose own call for a truce over the Muslim holiday of Eid was largely ignored by both sides.

The United States meanwhile has called for an overhaul of Syria’s opposition leadership, signaling a break with the largely foreign-based Syrian National Council to bring in more credible figures.

A meeting in Qatar next week of foreign powers backing the rebels will be an opportunity to broaden the coalition against President Bashar al-Assad, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in Zagreb on Wednesday.

The United States and its allies have struggled for months to craft a credible opposition coalition, while Assad has counted on the support of Russia, Iran and, to a lesser extent, China. International efforts to end the violence have all foundered.

More than 32,000 people have been killed since protests against Assad, an Alawite who succeeded his late father Hafez in ruling the mostly Sunni Muslim country, first broke out on city streets. The revolt has since degenerated into full-scale civil war, with the government forces relying heavily on artillery and air strikes to thwart the rebels.

CHECKPOINT ATTACKS

The army has lost swathes of land in Idlib and Aleppo provinces but is fighting to control towns along supply routes to Aleppo city, where its forces are fighting in many districts.

The head of the pro-opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdelrahman, said two of the attacked checkpoints at Saraqeb were on the Damascus-Aleppo highway. The third was near a road linking Aleppo with Latakia, a port city still mostly controlled Assad’s forces.

“The rebels will not stay at the checkpoints for long as Syrian warplanes normally bomb positions after rebels move in,” Abdelrahman said.

Five rebels died in the fighting and at least 20 soldiers were killed at the third site, including those shot after surrendering, he said.

The video footage showed a group of petrified men, some bleeding, lying on the ground as rebels walked around, kicking and stamping on their captives.

One of the captured men says: “I swear I didn’t shoot anyone” to which a rebel responds: “Shut up you animal … Gather them for me.” Then the men are shot dead.

Reuters could not independently verify the footage.

The Observatory said the al Qaeda-inspired Jabhat al-Nusra rebel group was responsible for the executions.

Islamist rebel units are growing in prominence in the war – a cause for concern for international powers as they weigh up what kind of support to give the opposition.

U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration has said it is not providing arms to internal opponents of Assad and is limiting its aid to non-lethal humanitarian assistance. It concedes, however, that some of its allies are providing lethal assistance.

Russia and China have blocked three U.N. Security Council resolutions aimed at increasing pressure on the Assad government, leading the United States and its allies to say they could move beyond U.N. structures for their next steps.

China has been strongly criticized by some Arab countries for failing to take a stronger stance on the conflict. Beijing has urged the Assad government to talk to the opposition and take steps to meet demands for political change.

“More and more countries have come to realize that a military option offers no way out, and a political settlement has become an increasingly shared aspiration,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said in Beijing.

He said China’s new proposal was aimed at building international consensus and supporting peace envoy Brahimi’s mediation efforts.

(Additional reporting by Ayat Basma, Laila Bassam and Dominic Evans in Beirut and Terril Yue Jones in Beijing; Writing by Oliver Holmes; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

World News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Microsoft vs Google trial raises concerns over secrecy

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Two weeks before a high-stakes trial pitting Google's Motorola Mobility unit against Microsoft, Google made what has become a common request for a technology company fighting for billions of dollars: A public court proceeding, conducted largely in secret.

Google and Microsoft, like rivals embroiled in smartphone patent wars, are eager to keep sensitive business information under wraps - in this case, the royalty deals they cut with other companies on patented technology. Microsoft asked for similar protections in a court filing late on Thursday.

Such royalty rates, though, are the central issue in this trial, which begins November 13 in Seattle.

U.S. District Judge James Robart has granted requests to block many pre-trial legal briefs from public view. Though he warned he may get tougher on the issue, the nature of the case raises the possibility that even his final decision might include redacted, or blacked-out, sections.

Legal experts are increasingly troubled by the level of secrecy that has become commonplace in intellectual property cases where overburdened judges often pay scant attention to the issue.

Widespread sealing of documents infringes on the basic American legal principle that court should be public, says law professor, Dennis Crouch, and encourages companies to use a costly, tax-payer funded resource to resolve their disputes.

"There are plenty of cases that have settled because one party didn't want their information public," said Crouch, an intellectual property professor at University of Missouri School of Law.

Tech companies counter that they should not be forced to reveal private business information as the price for having their day in court.

The law does permit confidential information to be kept from public view in some circumstances, though companies must show the disclosure would be harmful.

Google argues that revelations about licensing negotiations would give competitors "additional leverage and bargaining power and would lead to an unfair advantage."

Robart has not yet ruled on Google and Microsoft's requests, which, in the case of Google includes not only keeping documents under seal, but also clearing the courtroom during crucial testimony.

It is also unclear whether Robart will redact any discussion of royalty rates in his final opinion. The judge, who will decide this part of the case without a jury, did not respond to requests for comment.

NOT PAYING ATTENTION

Apple Inc and Microsoft Corp have been litigating in courts around the world against Google Inc and partners like Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, which use the Android operating system on their mobile devices.

Apple contends that Android is basically a copy of its iOS smartphone software, and Microsoft holds patents that it contends cover a number of Android features.

Google bought Motorola for $12.5 billion, partly to use its large portfolio of communications patents as a bargaining chip against its competitors.

Robart will decide how big a royalty Motorola deserves from Microsoft for a license on some Motorola wireless and video patents.

Apple, for its part, is set to square off against Motorola on Monday in Madison, Wisconsin, in a case that involves many of the same issues.

In Wisconsin, Apple and Motorola have filed most court documents entirely under seal. U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb did not require them to seek advance permission to file them secretly, nor did she mandate that the companies make redacted copies available for the public.

Judges have broad discretion in granting requests to seal documents. The legal standard for such requests can be high, but in cases where both sides want the proceedings to be secret, judges have little incentive to thoroughly review secrecy requests.

In Apple's Northern California litigation against Samsung, both parties also sought to keep many documents under seal. After Reuters challenged those secrecy requests, on grounds it wanted to report financial details, U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh ordered both companies to disclose a range of information they considered secret - including profit margins on individual products - but not licensing deals. Apple and Samsung are appealing the disclosure order.

In response to questions from Reuters last week, Judge Crabb in Wisconsin, who will also decide the case without a jury, acknowledged she had not been paying attention to how many documents were being filed under seal. Federal judges in Madison will now require that parties file redacted briefs, she said, though as of Wednesday, Apple and Motorola were still filing key briefs entirely under seal.

"Just because there is a seed or kernel of confidential information doesn't mean an entire 25-page brief should be sealed," said Bernard Chao, an intellectual property professor at University of Denver Sturm College of Law.

Crabb promised that the upcoming trial would be open.

"Whatever opinion I make is not going to be redacted," she told Reuters in an interview.

CHECKING THE COMPS

Microsoft sued Motorola two years ago, saying Motorola had promised to license its so-called "standards essential" patents at a fair rate, in exchange for the technology being adopted as a norm industrywide. But by demanding roughly $4 billion a year in revenue, Microsoft says Motorola broke its promise.

Robart will sort out what a reasonable royalty for those standards patents should be, partly by reviewing deals Motorola struck with other companies such as IBM and Research in Motion - much like an appraiser checking comparable properties to figure out whether a home is priced right.

In this case, though, the public may not be able to understand exactly what figures Robart is comparing. Representatives for Microsoft and Google declined to comment.

In its brief, Microsoft said licensing terms could be sealed without the need to clear the courtroom.

"Permitting redaction of this information will minimize the harm to Microsoft and third parties while also giving due consideration to the public policies favoring disclosure," the company argued.

IBM and RIM have also asked Robart to keep licensing information secret.

Chao doesn't think Robart will ultimately redact his own ruling, even though it may include discussion of the specific royalty rates. "I can't imagine that," he said.

Most judges cite lack of resources and overflowing dockets as the reason why they don't scrutinize secrecy requests more closely, especially when both parties support them.

In Wisconsin, Crabb said that even though she will now require litigants to ask permission to file secret documents, it is highly unlikely that she will actually read those arguments - unless someone else flags a problem.

"We're paddling madly to stay afloat," Crabb said.

The Wisconsin case in U.S. District Court, Western District of Wisconsin is Apple Inc. vs. Motorola Mobility Inc., 11-cv-178. The Seattle case in U.S. District Court, Western District of Washington is Microsoft Corp. vs. Motorola Inc., 10-cv-1823.

(Reporting by Dan Levine in San Francisco; Additional reporting by Bill Rigby in Seattle.; Editing by Jonathan Weber, Andrew Hay and Bernadette Baum)

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Pradaxa bleeding risk appears no worse than warfarin – FDA

(Reuters) – The risk of serious bleeding among new users of Pradaxa, a blood-clot preventer made by Germany’s Boehringer Ingelheim, appeared to be no higher than in patients on the widely used standard blood thinner warfarin, U.S. regulators said.

The announcement Friday by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration may allay some safety concerns about Pradaxa, a pill developed by the privately held drugmaker Boehringer, to prevent strokes among patients with an irregular heartbeat known as atrial fibrillation.

The regulator’s findings were based on an assessment of insurance claims and other data.

Over the past year, the FDA has been analyzing reports of serious bleeding among patients prescribed Pradaxa, including gastrointestinal bleeding and bleeding in the brain.

The agency said on Friday a comparable risk of serious bleeding for Pradaxa and warfarin was suggested by its review of insurance claims and by analyzing electronic healthcare data from multiple other sources.

The FDA said it was also planning other assessments of Pradaxa’s bleeding risks.

The medicine competes with Xarelto, a stroke-prevention pill for atrial fibrillation patients developed by Johnson & Johnson and Bayer AG.

A similar pill being developed by Bristol-Myers Squibb and Pfizer Inc, Eliquis, is awaiting U.S. approval and is deemed by many Wall Street analysts to be the most impressive of a new generation of oral drugs to replace warfarin.

(Reporting by Ransdell Pierson in New York; Editing by Bernadette Baum)

Medications/Drugs News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Ralph Nader to Stephen Colbert: Give me your Super PAC cash!

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Stephen Colbert‘s super PAC is sitting on nearly $ 778,000 in cash, and five-time presidential candidate Ralph Nader knows exactly where to spend it.

On Ralph Nader.

If only Colbert would listen.

The longtime consumer advocate told TheWrap in an exclusive interview that he has been trying to get the “Colbert Report” host to donate the money remaining in Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow’s coffers to the nonprofit American Museum of Tort Law he plans to build.

Dedicated to personal injury and other tort cases, the museum will go up in Nader’s hometown of Winsted, Conn. Nader announced the plans, and started fundraising, 14 years ago.

“Since he deals with wrongful injuries and reputations night after night, there must be a little humor here,” Nader told TheWrap. “Tell him we’ll name the courtroom after him.”

There’s just one problem: Nader can’t get to Colbert, even though Nader feels responsible for the Comedy Central host’s success.

In 2004, while Colbert was hosting “The Daily Show” during the birth of Jon Stewart’s first child, Nader was the interviewed guest. A year later, Colbert got his own show.

“He did so well that they gave him his own program,” Nader said. “So you’d think he’d be accessible to me, right?”

Apparently, wrong.

Even as Colbert trolled the Republican presidential campaigns as a possible third-party candidate during the primary earlier this year, Nader – the nation’s perennial third-party runner – couldn’t get in touch with him.

“Forget it, forget it,” he said. “It’s almost impossible to reach celebrity media these days.”

A spokesman for Colbert and Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow did not respond to repeated emails and phone calls from TheWrap requesting comment.

Nader did tell TheWrap that he was happy to see Colbert satirize the growing role of money in electoral politics and draw attention to a candidate outside the two-party nexus.

“Since our elections are for sale at ever-higher auction prices, it’s good that he did this satirical effort to highlight the absurdity of it all,” Nader said.

Colbert first announced the formation of his own super PAC during a March 2011 segment of his show. He set up a company in the regulatory oasis of Delaware called Anonymous Shell Company and began raising funds for a farcical campaign.

After briefly declaring his candidacy for “President of the United States of South Carolina,” Colbert launched a series of ads urging voters to cast ballots for Rick Parry — a spinoff of then-candidate Texas Gov. Rick Perry. Later, he threw his support behind Herman Cain, the pizza mogul who was widely mocked for his candidacy and seemingly far-fetched tax plans.

While he scored around $ 1 million for his PAC, the $ 778,000, according to an SEC filing, is what’s left after advertising and expenses.

So far, Nader seems to be one of the few people gunning for the funds. But Colbert has floated at least one idea about how to spend it.

After real-estate-mogul-cum-reality-star-cum-political-blowhard Donald Trump offered President Obama $ 5 million to a charity of his choice to reveal his college and medical records, Colbert made Trump an offer.

The comedian said he’d donate $ 1 million to a charity of Trump’s choice – if he allows Colbert to dip his testicles in his mouth.

So far, at least, Trump has not accepted the offer.

TV News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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The strategy: Grind it out, get out the vote

WASHINGTON (AP) — For President Barack Obama, winning re-election rests on a workman-like, get-out-the-vote strategy aimed at protecting key territory in the Midwest, ramping up minority turnout and building early voting leads that could protect against a late surge by Republican challenger Mitt Romney.

It's a far cry from the lofty rhetoric and gauzy closing argument advertisements that defined Obama's final push in 2008. And it's a reflection of a race that remains tight in its final days, and an outcome that could hinge on little more than battleground state turnout.

"We have two jobs: One, persuade the undecideds, and two, to turn our voters out," said Jim Messina, Obama's data-driven campaign manager.

Obama himself has gotten deeply involved in those efforts. He made a personal appeal to 9,000 undecided voters on a conference call from Air Force One, promoted early voting by casting his own ballot before Election Day and offered encouragement to staff and volunteers during numerous stops to battleground state campaign offices.

"I hate to put the burden of the entire world on you, but basically it's all up to you," Obama told volunteers this week in Orlando, Fla. His comments were meant to be light-hearted, but they spoke to the degree to which his campaign is counting on its massive ground game to carry Obama to re-election.

The campaign relied heavily on that operation this week when Superstorm Sandy forced Obama off the campaign trail and back to Washington for three days to oversee the federal response. The Democratic get-out-the-vote effort kept churning, allowing Obama to project presidential leadership and offer comfort in a crisis — intangibles his campaign knows could be beneficial in persuading late-breaking voters.

They helped him win over at least one person: New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, an independent, who said Obama's handling of the storm was key his decision to endorse the president.

Obama, in his closing argument to voters, is trying to burnish his bipartisan credentials, seeking to convince voters he's the same man who burst into the political spotlight eschewing the notion of red states or blue states.

Polls show Obama and Romney tied nationally. But the president's advisers say the map of competitive states tilts in their favor. The president started the race with more pathways than Romney for reaching the required 270 Electoral College votes, and aides say all of those options are still within reach. Romney's campaign, on the other hand, is still grappling for a clear roadmap to 270.

Nine states are up for grabs: Ohio, Florida, Virginia, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Iowa, Wisconsin, Colorado and Nevada.

Key to Obama's electoral strategy is protecting a Midwestern firewall: Ohio, Iowa and Wisconsin, a three-state combination that would put him over the necessary threshold. The president will visit those states multiple times in the campaign's final stretch, including four straight days of travel to Ohio.

Obama can win without Ohio. But if he does carry the state's 18 electoral votes, it would make Romney's path to victory far more difficult, requiring the Republican to win nearly every other competitive state or pull off upsets in traditionally Democratic states.

Private polling from both parties has Obama leading Romney in Ohio, where the president's bailout of the auto industry is popular. And more Democrats than Republicans in the state have cast early votes.

Romney's campaign is looking to expand the battleground map by making a late play for a trio of left-leaning states: Pennsylvania, Michigan and Minnesota. That's forced Obama's team to buy television advertising time in states where it had hoped to avoid spending money.

Obama aides insist it's not in trouble in those states and aides say there are no plans for Obama or Vice President Joe Biden to travel there in the campaign's closing days. Instead, they say their strong fundraising efforts have given them the financial means to defend against Romney's criticism wherever he decides to run ads.

But aides say turnout, not ads, will determine the election. Obama's team has put particular emphasis on ramping up turnout during early voting periods, especially among "sporadic" voters who may be less likely to go to the polls on Election Day.

Their efforts appear to be bearing fruit. Democrats have an edge in votes cast in Florida, Iowa, Nevada, North Carolina and Ohio. Republicans have an advantage in Colorado.

Obama's campaign says boosting early vote totals could put some states out of reach for Romney even before Election Day. In Ohio, for example, Obama aides estimate the Republican would need to carry at least 53 percent of the vote cast there on Tuesday in order to remain in contention.

It's more than just party registration that has Obama's team feeling confident. They tout data showing two-third of those who have already voted were women, young people, blacks and Hispanics. Obama is almost certain to win the majority of those voting blocs.

Aides say minority voting in particular is on track to reach an all-time high, perhaps as high as 28 percent of all voters.

___

Follow Julie Pace at http://twitter.com/jpaceDC

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Mexico’s Day of Dead brings memories of missing

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Maria Elena Salazar refuses to set out plates of her missing son’s favorite foods or orange flowers as offerings for the deceased on Mexico‘s Day of the Dead, even though she hasn’t seen him in three-and-a-half years.

The 50-year-old former teacher is convinced that Hugo Gonzalez Salazar, a university graduate in marketing who worked for a telephone company, is still alive and being forced to work for a drug cartel because of his skills.

“The government, the authorities, they know it, that the gangs took them away to use as forced labor,” said Salazar of her then 24-year-old son, who disappeared in the northern city of Torreon in July 2009.

The Day of the Dead — when Mexicans traditionally visit the graves of dead relatives and leave offerings of flowers, food and candy skulls — is a difficult time for the families of the thousands of Mexicans who have disappeared amid a wave of drug-fueled violence.

With what activists call a mix of denial, hope and desperation, they refuse to dedicate altars on the Nov. 1-2 holiday to people often missing for years. They won’t accept any but the most certain proof of death, and sometimes reject even that.

Numbers vary on just how many people have disappeared in recent years. Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission says 24,000 people have been reported missing between 2000 and mid-2012, and that nearly 16,000 bodies remain unidentified.

But one thing is clear: just as there are households without Day of the Dead altars, there are thousands of graves of the unidentified dead scattered across the country, with no one to remember them.

An investigation conducted by the newspaper Milenio this week, involving hundreds of information requests to state and municipal governments, indicates that 24,102 unidentified bodies were buried in paupers’ or common graves in Mexican cemeteries since 2006. The number is almost certainly incomplete, since some local governments refused to provide figures, Milenio reported.

And while the number of unidentified dead probably includes some indigents, Central American migrants or dead unrelated to the drug war, it is clear that cities worst hit by the drug conflict also usually showed a corresponding bulge in the number of unidentified cadavers. For example, Mexico City, which has been relatively unscathed by drug violence, listed about one-third as many unidentified burials as the city of Veracruz, despite the fact that Mexico City’s population is about 15 times larger.

Consuelo Morales , who works with dozens of families of disappeared in the northern city of Monterrey, said that “holidays like this, that are family affairs and are very close to our culture, stir a lot of things up” for the families. But many refuse to accept the deaths of their loved ones, sometimes even after DNA testing confirms a match with a cadaver.

“They’ll say to you, ‘I’m not going to put up an altar, because they’re not dead,” Martinez noted. “Their thinking is that ‘until they prove to me that my child is dead, he is alive.”

Martinez says one family she works with at the Citizens in Support of Human Rights center had refused to accept their son was dead, even after three rounds of DNA testing and the exhumation of the remains.

“It was their son, he was very young, and he had been burned alive,” Martinez said by way of explanation.

The refusal to accept what appears inevitable may be a matter of desperation. Martinez said some families in Monterrey also believe their missing relatives are being held as virtual slaves for the cartels, even though federal prosecutors say they have never uncovered any kind of drug cartel forced-labor camp, in the six years since Mexico launched an offensive against the cartels.

But many people like Salazar believe it must be true. “Organized crime is a business, but it can’t advertise for employees openly, so it has to take them by force,” Salazar said.

While she refuses to erect an altar-like offering for her son, she does perform other rituals that mirror the Day of the Dead customs, like the one that involves scattering a trail of flower petals to the doorsteps of houses to guide spirits of the departed back home once a year.

Salazar and her family still live in the same home in Torreon, though they’d like to move, in the hopes that Hugo will return there. They pray three times a day for God to guide him home.

“We live in the same place, and we try to do the same things we used to,” said Salazar, “because he is going to come back to his place, his home, and we have to be waiting for him.”

Mistrust of officials has risen to such a point that some families may never get an answer they’ll accept.

The problem is that, with forensics procedures often sadly lacking in Mexican police forces, the dead my never be connected with the living, which is the whole point of the Mexican traditions.

“As long as the authorities don’t prove the opposite, for us they’re still alive,” Salazar said. “Let them prove it, but let us have some certainty, not just the authorities saying ‘here he is.’ We don’t the government to just give us bodies that aren’t theirs, and that has happened.”

Latin America News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Microsoft pushes new Windows to developers

SEATTLE (Reuters) - Days after launching Windows 8, Microsoft Corp is mounting a strong campaign to win over the software developers it needs to kick-start its new operating system.

A lack of apps is Microsoft's Achilles heel as it attempts to catch Apple Inc and Google Inc in the rush toward mobile computing.

Windows 8, the new Surface tablet and a range of Windows-based phones - all unveiled in the past week - are designed to close that gap, but the world's largest software company still needs to convince developers to recreate the thriving 'ecosystem' that made PCs so successful.

"Please go out and write lots of applications," Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer pleaded with 2,000 developers on Tuesday, kicking off an annual, four-day meeting at its campus near Seattle.

The event, called 'Build,' is the equivalent of Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference and Google's I/O event.

Microsoft gave each paying attendee one of its Surface tablets and 100 gigabytes of free space on its SkyDrive online storage service. On top of that, handset partner Nokia threw in a free Lumia 920 smartphone running Windows Phone 8.

The unprecedentedly generous give-away signals the intent of what Microsoft openly calls "evangelism." Most developers at the meeting, who paid up to $2,000 to attend, are already converted to the Windows religion. But this year there is a feeling that Microsoft can re-establish itself as a relevant platform for developers.

"The sessions are overflowing. Everybody wants to learn," said Greg Lutz, product manager at development tools company ComponentOne, who is attending the conference.

"The Surface is really exciting. It's been interesting to see people that would normally be critics of Microsoft surprised to see how good it is," said Lutz, whose company makes features that developers can use in apps, such as calendars or charts.

Microsoft recognizes it needs apps to flesh out its new online Windows Store and make Windows 8 machines more attractive to users, said Russ Whitman, chief strategy officer at Ratio Interactive, a design agency that helps companies create apps.

"The catalog (of apps) is where they are weak, there's no doubt," he said. "But if Microsoft stays focused on quality not quantity, they can win."

DEVELOPER DOUBTS

When Windows 8 launched on Friday, some major content providers had prominent apps in the Windows store, such as Netflix Inc, the New York Times and Rovio's Angry Birds Space. But big names such as Facebook and Twitter were missing.

Twitter moved to rectify that on Tuesday, announcing that a native Windows app would be rolled out "in the months ahead." Dropbox, a fast-growing cloud storage service, also announced it would soon have a Windows app, as did online payment firm PayPal and sports network ESPN.

But Facebook, which now has more than 1 billion users, has not yet made public any plans for a Windows app, despite the fact Microsoft is a minor shareholder.

And Microsoft still has to overcome indifference from many developers who do not see demand from users or simply do not have the resources to build Windows apps alongside iOS and Android.

"Windows 8 is getting good reviews and the tile user interface is a great fit with our geo-visual content," said Jason Karas, CEO at website Trover, where users can share photos of interesting discoveries. "It's on the roadmap for Trover, but we are still a very lean team, so we're hesitant to support a third platform until we have all the innovations we want to see in iPhone and Android in place."

Microsoft has yet to persuade other influential online services, for example car-rental firm Zipcar or real estate information firm Zillow, to develop for Windows 8.

To get more developers on board, Microsoft is spending this week demonstrating how it is making it easier to develop apps for Windows and get them into the real world.

A key part of that is a new set of tools tying in its Azure cloud service, which allows Windows apps to easily harness data stored in remote servers.

"Some of the new changes are pretty incredible and are going to make developing, especially some of the mobile apps, much easier," said Mike Cousins, a software developer following the conference by webcast from Calgary, Canada.

"It just makes it super-easy to integrate mobile clients into your application," said Cousins, who is developing Shuttr, a site for photographers to display and sell their work. "It's been reduced from probably a week's work to minutes."

400 MILLION NEW MACHINES

Microsoft's best argument to developers is the sheer size of the Windows user base.

Microsoft sold 4 million upgrades to Windows 8 in its first four days, a mere fraction of the 670 million or so machines running Windows 7. Ballmer said there would be 400 million new devices running Windows next year, including PCs, tablets and phones, and the company would be marketing heavily to consumers.

That is an attractive audience for developers, and Whitman at Ratio Interactive said he saw many new faces at Microsoft's event this week who previously were more interested in web-based apps and other platforms.

"There's a new generation of developers that can build on Windows 8 that have been building using JavaScript and HTML," he said. "Seeing some of those developers show up and talk about building apps using other languages is pretty cool. It's a whole different group than Microsoft has traditionally been able to court."

One Wall Street analyst said developers may even be tempted to switch back to Microsoft after working with Apple's iOS platform.

"There does seem to be some excitement about the new operating system and many of the new devices that are coming to market," said Jason Maynard, an analyst at Wells Fargo Securities. "We have heard some developers talk about 're-Microsofting' and moving from their Macs for app development."

Cousins said that once developers see the user base for Windows 8 grow, the momentum will start to have an effect.

"All the new PCs people buy will be Windows 8, and people will start demanding Windows 8 apps from companies, and then they will start making them," he said. "I think we'll see a wave of apps coming out pretty soon."

(Reporting By Bill Rigby; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)

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'A mess everywhere': East Coast struggles to recover

(Reuters) - Rescuers searched flooded streets and swamped houses for survivors, drivers lined up for hours to get scarce gasoline and millions remained without power on Thursday as New York City and nearby coastal towns struggled to recover from one of the biggest storms ever to hit the United States.

New Yorkers heard the rumble of subway trains for the first time in four days as limited service resumed, but the lower half of Manhattan still lacked power and surrounding areas including Staten Island, the New Jersey shore and the city of Hoboken remained crippled from a record storm surge and flooding.

At least 87 people died in the "superstorm" that ravaged the northeastern United States on Monday night. Officials said the number could climb as rescuers searched house-to-house through coastal towns.

The hunt for gasoline added to a climate of uncertainty as the death toll and price tag of the storm rose.

"I'm so stressed out," said Jessica Bajno, 29, a school teacher from Elmont, Long Island, who was waiting in line for gas. "I've been driving around to nearby towns all morning, and being careful about not running out of gas in the process. Everything is closed. I'm feeling anxious."

More deaths were recorded overnight in the New York City borough of Staten Island, where authorities recovered 17 bodies after the storm lifted whole houses off their foundations. Among the dead were two boys, aged 4 and 2, who were swept from their mother's arms by the floodwaters, police said.

In all, 38 people died in New York City, officials said.

The financial cost of the storm also promised to be staggering. Disaster modeling company Eqecat estimates Sandy caused up to $20 billion in insured losses and $50 billion in economic losses, double its previous forecast.

At the high end of the range, Sandy would rank as the fourth-costliest catastrophe ever in the United States, according to the Insurance Information Institute, behind Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the September 11 attacks of 2001, and Hurricane Andrew in 1992.

JERSEY SHORE STAGGERS

In hard-hit New Jersey, where oceanside towns saw entire neighborhoods swallowed by seawater and the Atlantic City boardwalk was destroyed, the death toll doubled to 12.

Floodwaters finally receded from the streets of Hoboken, just across the Hudson River from Manhattan, leaving behind a stinky mess of submerged basements and displaced cars littering the sidewalks.

"The water was rushing in. It was like a river coming," said Benedicte Lenoble, a photo researcher from Hoboken. "Now it's a mess everywhere. There's no power. The stores aren't open. Recovery? I don't know."

In neighboring Jersey City, drivers negotiated intersections without traffic lights. Shops were shuttered and lines formed outside pharmacies while people piled sodden mattresses and furniture along the streets. The city imposed a curfew and banned driving from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m.

New Jersey favorite son Bruce Springsteen, along with Jon Bon Jovi and Sting, will headline a benefit concert for storm victims Friday night on NBC television, the network announced.

The U.S. government agreed to cover 100 percent of emergency power and public transportation costs through November 9 in eight New Jersey counties. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, which already pledged aid directly to victims and local governments, told New Jersey's U.S. senators of the decision, an aide to Senator Frank Lautenberg said.

Sandy started as a late-season hurricane in the Caribbean, where it killed 69 people, before smashing ashore in the United States with 80 mph winds. It stretched from the Carolinas to Connecticut and was the largest storm by area to hit the United States in decades.

About 4.6 million homes and businesses in 15 U.S. states were without power on Thursday, down from a record high of nearly 8.5 million.

Sandy made landfall in New Jersey with a full moon around high tide, creating a record storm surge that flooded lower Manhattan. By Thursday, the storm had dissipated over the North American mainland.

OBAMA BACK ON CAMPAIGN

After a four-day suspension to deal with the storm, President Barack Obama returned to the campaign trail. Polls show him locked in a virtual tie with Republican challenger Mitt Romney before Tuesday's presidential election.

The president toured devastated New Jersey areas on Wednesday with the state's Republican governor, Chris Christie, a vocal Romney supporter who nonetheless strongly praised Obama's response to the disaster.

Obama received an update on storm recovery efforts Thursday from his crisis management team, White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters on Air Force One.

More than 36,000 disaster survivors from New York, New Jersey and Connecticut have applied for federal disaster assistance and more than $3.4 million in direct assistance has already been approved, Carney said.

GASOLINE SCARCE

Fuel supplies into New York and New Jersey were being choked off in several ways. Two refineries that make up a quarter of the region's refining capacity were still idle due to power outages or flooding. The New York Harbor waterway that imports a fifth of the area's fuel was still closed to traffic, and major import terminals were damaged and powerless.

In addition, the main oil pipeline from the Gulf Coast, which pumps 15 percent of the East Coast's fuel, remained shut.

The scarcity of fuel, electricity and supplies made cleanup more daunting for barrier towns such as Seaside Heights, part of the Jersey Shore.

Seaside Heights residents who obeyed the mandatory evacuation order were cut off from their homes. The entire community was submerged by the storm surge that washed over the island and into the bay that separates it from the mainland.

"The bay met the ocean," said Frank Meszaros, 43, standing next to the closed bridge that kept him from returning home.

Chris Delman, 30, saw a photograph of his house in a local newspaper Wednesday, noticing it was still standing.

"We ain't living in Seaside no more, that's obvious," Delman said. "I just want to know what I have left."

(Additional reporting by Reuters bureaus throughout the U.S. Northeast; Writing by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Doina Chiacu)

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Kardashian boosts “X Factor” ratings, but wins few fans

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Khloe Kardashian‘s first outing as the new co-host of “The X Factor” helped boost the show’s audience by 30 percent, yet the reality star got mixed reviews for a nipple-baring debut that made headlines – but many TV critics found awkward.

Kardashian, 28, best known for starring with socialite sisters Kim and Kourtney in “Keeping Up with the Kardashians,” shocked some viewers by wearing a sheer purple blouse without a bra on Wednesday’s first live episode of the TV singing contest.

“I think the air conditioning is on high tonight. It’s very distracting,” judge and producer Simon Cowell quipped on the show, apparently referring to the glimpses of nipple.

But Kardashian was less impressive in her hosting duties.

The Washington Post said Kardashian “came across like the novice she is, shouting her lines despite the mic clutched in her hand and making awkward small talk with contestants and judge and executive producer Simon Cowell.”

Nevertheless, Kardashian brought more eyeballs to the show. Some 7.4 million viewers watched “The X Factor” on Fox television, according to early ratings data, up some 30 percent from last week’s 5.7 million and a 13 percent increase in the 18-49 age group most coveted by advertisers.

Kardashian was Cowell’s personal pick for the job as part of his efforts to revamp the singing contest after a disappointing first season. But the reality star’s lack of experience had already raised eyebrows, and “X Factor” has often drawn a smaller audience than last year.

Cowell told reporters earlier this week that Kardashian “wants to prove (to) anyone who doubted her that she’s capable of doing the job … she really has got a fun personality.”

The New York Daily News called Kardashian a “surprisingly good host,” while The Hollywood Reporter said “both Kardashian and (co-host Mario) Lopez seemed at ease in their new roles.”

The Hollywood Gossip website, however, said Kardashian was “every bit as boring and awkward as we imagined she would be.”

“The X Factor” is broadcast on Fox, a unit of News Corp.

(Reporting by Jill Serjeant; Editing by Jan Paschal)

TV News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Syrian air force on offensive after failed truce

AMMAN (Reuters) – Syrian warplanes bombed rebel targets with renewed intensity on Tuesday after the end of a widely ignored four-day truce between President Bashar al-Assad‘s forces and insurgents.

State television said “terrorists” had assassinated an air force general, Abdullah Mahmoud al-Khalidi, in a Damascus suburb, the latest of several rebel attacks on senior officials.

In July, a bomb killed four of Assad‘s aides, including his brother-in-law Assef Shawkat and the defense minister.

Air strikes hit eastern suburbs of Damascus, outlying areas in the central city of Homs, and the northern rebel-held town of Maarat al-Numan on the Damascus-Aleppo highway, activists said.

Rebels have been attacking army bases in al-Hamdaniya and Wadi al-Deif, on the outskirts of Maarat al-Numan.

Some activists said 28 civilians had been killed in Maarat al-Numan and released video footage of men retrieving a toddler’s body from a flattened building. The men cursed Assad as they dragged the dead girl, wearing a colorful overall, from the debris. The footage could not be independently verified.

The military has shelled and bombed Maarat al-Numan, 300 km (190 miles) north of Damascus, since rebels took it last month.

“The rebels have evacuated their positions inside Maarat al-Numaan since the air raids began. They are mostly on the frontline south of the town,” activist Mohammed Kanaan said.

Maarat al-Numan and other Sunni towns in northwestern Idlib province are mostly hostile to Assad’s ruling system, dominated by his minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi’ite Islam.

Two rebels were killed and 10 wounded in an air strike on al-Mubarkiyeh, 6 km (4 miles) south of Homs, where rebels have besieged a compound guarding a tank maintenance facility.

Opposition sources said the facility had been used to shell Sunni villages near the Lebanese border.

“WE’LL FIX IT”

The army also fired mortar bombs into the Damascus district of Hammouria, killing at least eight people, activists said.

One video showed a young girl in Hammouria with a large shrapnel wound in her forehead sitting dazed while a doctor said: “Don’t worry dear, we’ll fix it for you.”

Syria’s military, stretched thin by the struggle to keep control, has increasingly used air power against opposition areas, including those in the main cities of Damascus and Aleppo. Insurgents lack effective anti-aircraft weapons.

U.N.-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi has said he will pursue his peace efforts despite the failure of his appeal for a pause in fighting for the Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday.

But it is unclear how he can find any compromise acceptable to Assad, who seems determined to keep power whatever the cost, and mostly Sunni Muslim rebels equally intent on toppling him.

Big powers and Middle Eastern countries are divided over how to end the 19-month-old conflict which has cost an estimated 32,000 dead, making it one of the bloodiest of Arab revolts that have ousted entrenched leaders in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya.

The United Nations said it had sent a convoy of 18 trucks with food and other aid to Homs during the “ceasefire”, but had been unable to unload supplies in the Old City due to fighting.

“We were trying to take advantage of positive signs we saw at the end of last week. The truce lasted more or less four hours so there was not much opportunity for us after all,” said Jens Laerke, a U.N. spokesman in Geneva.

The prime minister of the Gulf state of Qatar told al-Jazeera television late on Monday that Syria’s conflict was not a civil war but “a war of annihilation licensed firstly by the Syrian government and secondly by the international community”.

Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani said some of those responsible were on the U.N. Security Council, alluding to Russia and China which have vetoed three Western-backed U.N. draft resolutions condemning Assad.

He said that the West was also not doing enough to stop the violence and that the United States would be in “paralysis” for two or three weeks during its presidential election.

(Additional reporting by Raissa Kasolowsky in Abu Dhabi and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; Writing by Oliver Holmes; Editing by Alistair Lyon)

World News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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