Director John Singleton, Paramount settle lawsuit

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Director John Singleton and Paramount Pictures Corp. have settled a lawsuit over his claim that the studio broke an agreement to let him produce two films in exchange for the rights to distribute the Oscar-nominated movie "Hustle & Flow."

Court records show the deal was reached late Thursday in Los Angeles, just days before a trial was scheduled to begin.

Attorneys for Singleton and Paramount said the settlement terms are confidential, but the matter was amicably resolved.

Singleton produced "Hustle & Flow" and claimed he agreed to work with Paramount on distribution rights because of the opportunity to make two films for the studio.

A judge had previously ruled Singleton was not entitled to re-acquire rights to 2005's "Hustle & Flow," which earned a best actor nomination for Terrence Howard and won for best song.

Read More..

Study: Stem cells from strangers can repair hearts

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Researchers are reporting a key advance in using stem cells to repair hearts damaged by heart attacks. In a study, stem cells donated by strangers proved as safe and effective as patients' own cells for helping restore heart tissue.

The work involved just 30 patients in Miami and Baltimore, but it proves the concept that anyone's cells can be used to treat such cases. Doctors are excited because this suggests that stem cells could be banked for off-the-shelf use after heart attacks, just as blood is kept on hand now.

Results were discussed Monday at an American Heart Association conference in California and published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The study used a specific type of stem cells from bone marrow that researchers believed would not be rejected by recipients. Unlike other cells, these lack a key feature on their surface that makes the immune system see them as foreign tissue and attack them, explained the study's leader, Dr. Joshua Hare of the University of Miami.

The patients in the study had suffered heart attacks years earlier, some as long as 30 years ago. All had developed heart failure because the scar tissue from the heart attack had weakened their hearts so much that they grew large and flabby, unable to pump blood effectively.

Researchers advertised for people to supply marrow, which is removed using a needle into a hip bone. The cells were taken from the marrow and amplified for about a month in a lab at Baltimore's Johns Hopkins University, then returned to Miami to be used for treatment, which did not involve surgery.

The cells were delivered through a tube pushed through a groin artery into the heart near the scarred area. Fifteen patients were given cells from their own marrow and 15 others, cells from strangers.

About a year later, scar tissue had been reduced by about one-third. Both groups had improvements in how far they could walk and in quality of life. There was no significant difference in one measure of how well their hearts were able to pump blood, but doctors hope these patients will continue to improve over time, or that refinements in treatment will lead to better results.

The big attraction is being able to use cells supplied by others, with no blood or tissue matching needed.

"You could have the cells ready to go in the blood bank so when the patient comes in for a therapy — there's no delay," Hare said. "It's also cheaper to make the donor cells," and a single marrow donor can supply enough cells to treat as many as 10 people.

Dr. Elliott Antman of Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston who heads the heart conference, praised the work.

"That opens up an entire new avenue for stem cell therapy, like a sophisticated version of a blood bank," he said. There's an advantage in not having to create a cell therapy for each patient, and it could spare them the pain and wait of having their own marrow harvested, he said.

The study was sponsored by the National Institutes of Health. Hare owns stock in a biotech company working on a treatment using a mixture of cells.

Juan Lopez received his own cells in the study, and said it improved his symptoms so much that at age 70, he was able to return to his job as an engineer and sales manager for a roofing manufacturer and ride an exercise bike.

"It has been a life-changing experience," said Lopez, who lives in Miami. "I can feel day by day, week by week, month by month, my improvement. I don't have any shortness of breath and my energy level is way up there. I don't have any fluid in my lungs."

And, he said happily, "My sex drive has improved!"

___

Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP .

Read More..

Race for the White House: Join us live

The first election-related federal lawsuit has already been filed in South Florida, where some citizens waited over seven hours to vote early over the weekend. In an area that includes Palm Beach, Miami-Dade and Broward County -- yes, that Broward County -- Florida Democrats scrambled to extend early voting hours over the weekend citing "inadequate polling facilities" in a complaint filed in a Miami federal court on Sunday. "The extraordinarily long lines deterred or prevented voters from waiting to vote," says the lawsuit. ...

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Composer Elliott Carter dies in NY at age 103

NEW YORK (AP) — Classical composer and Pulitzer Prize winner Elliott Carter has died in New York City at age 103.

Music publishing company Boosey and Hawkes says Carter died Monday. It hasn't given a cause of death.

Carter's challenging, rhythmically complex works earned him widespread admiration and two Pulitzer Prizes. His work had different instruments interacting in complex ways, which made it dramatic for listeners to hear but complicated for orchestras to learn.

He won his first Pulitzer Prize in 1960 for his Second String Quartet. His second award was in 1973 for his Third String Quartet.

He is survived by his son and grandson.

Read More..

Study: Stem cells from strangers can repair hearts

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Researchers are reporting a key advance in using stem cells to repair hearts damaged by heart attacks. In a study, stem cells donated by strangers proved as safe and effective as patients' own cells for helping restore heart tissue.

The work involved just 30 patients in Miami and Baltimore, but it proves the concept that anyone's cells can be used to treat such cases. Doctors are excited because this suggests that stem cells could be banked for off-the-shelf use after heart attacks, just as blood is kept on hand now.

Results were discussed Monday at an American Heart Association conference in California and published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The study used a specific type of stem cells from bone marrow that researchers believed would not be rejected by recipients. Unlike other cells, these lack a key feature on their surface that makes the immune system see them as foreign tissue and attack them, explained the study's leader, Dr. Joshua Hare of the University of Miami.

The patients in the study had suffered heart attacks years earlier, some as long as 30 years ago. All had developed heart failure because the scar tissue from the heart attack had weakened their hearts so much that they grew large and flabby, unable to pump blood effectively.

Researchers advertised for people to supply marrow, which is removed using a needle into a hip bone. The cells were taken from the marrow and amplified for about a month in a lab at Baltimore's Johns Hopkins University, then returned to Miami to be used for treatment, which did not involve surgery.

The cells were delivered through a tube pushed through a groin artery into the heart near the scarred area. Fifteen patients were given cells from their own marrow and 15 others, cells from strangers.

About a year later, scar tissue had been reduced by about one-third. Both groups had improvements in how far they could walk and in quality of life. There was no significant difference in one measure of how well their hearts were able to pump blood, but doctors hope these patients will continue to improve over time, or that refinements in treatment will lead to better results.

The big attraction is being able to use cells supplied by others, with no blood or tissue matching needed.

"You could have the cells ready to go in the blood bank so when the patient comes in for a therapy — there's no delay," Hare said. "It's also cheaper to make the donor cells," and a single marrow donor can supply enough cells to treat as many as 10 people.

Dr. Elliott Antman of Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston who heads the heart conference, praised the work.

"That opens up an entire new avenue for stem cell therapy, like a sophisticated version of a blood bank," he said. There's an advantage in not having to create a cell therapy for each patient, and it could spare them the pain and wait of having their own marrow harvested, he said.

The study was sponsored by the National Institutes of Health. Hare owns stock in a biotech company working on a treatment using a mixture of cells.

Juan Lopez received his own cells in the study, and said it improved his symptoms so much that at age 70, he was able to return to his job as an engineer and sales manager for a roofing manufacturer and ride an exercise bike.

"It has been a life-changing experience," said Lopez, who lives in Miami. "I can feel day by day, week by week, month by month, my improvement. I don't have any shortness of breath and my energy level is way up there. I don't have any fluid in my lungs."

And, he said happily, "My sex drive has improved!"

___

Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP .

___

Online:

Heart Association: http://www.heart.org

JAMA: http://www.jama.ama-assn.org

Read More..

My plea to the undecided: Stay home!

By Jeff Greenfield

As the momentous day approaches, with epochal consequences for an anxiously awaiting world, I take pen in hand—make that apply fingertips to keypad—to renew a traditional plea I first made more than 30 years ago. It’s a plea I’ve made in print, on the air and, now, through the miracle of digital technology. But its message never changes.

It’s a plea directed to those of you who are still uncertain about which way to vote. And it’s as simple as it is heartfelt: Stay home.

The candidates have been at this for years; both President Obama and Mitt Romney began running for the presidency six years ago. They’ve made speeches, answered (or evaded) questions and raised billions to convince you of their worth—or the other guy’s worthlessness.

The media have been covering their every move and word, even when the candidates thought they weren’t. (Can you say, “Cling to their religion and guns”? “47 percent”?) The coverage has been slanted, scrupulously fair, superficial, in-depth, misleading, dead-on. With the flip of a page or the click of a mouse, you have been able to find out every conceivable piece of information you might want on their backgrounds, families, values, experience, positions taken, positions abandoned, promises made, promises broken, and the music on their iPods.

And after all this time, you’re still trying to make up your minds. The overwhelmingly likely reason is this: You have the reasoning power of a baked potato.

OK, I grant that you may be of the small minority of concerned citizens who are genuinely torn and who have not yet evaluated the relative worth of health care reform notions, the vagaries of the tax proposals or the respective approaches to the increasing power of the renminbi.

But I wouldn’t bet a nickel on it.

The odds are, you’ve just been too busy obsessing about the misfortunes of the Kardashians or the quality of your ringtone, to spend any time thinking about who might be the better president.

Well, that’s your right. Unlike the Australians, we don’t compel people to vote, and it would likely be a First Amendment violation if we tried. A refusal to vote can be seen as a statement that the electoral system is rigged, meaningless or so thoroughly corrupt as to deserve contempt. (“I never vote,” one citizen said long ago. “It only encourages them.”)

And there are other valid reasons for not voting. As a personal matter, I stopped voting more than a decade ago, on the grounds that it helped me as an analyst not to think about making a choice in the voting booth.

So it strikes me as a sound, honest statement for a prospective voter to say: “Look, I haven’t given this election a minute’s thought, and it’s just not fair for me to cancel out the vote of someone who actually gives a damn.”

Indeed, it’s not just sound and honest—it’s the ethically responsible thing to do.

Men and women in my lifetime have died fighting for the right to vote: people like James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, who were murdered while registering black voters in Mississippi in 1964, and Viola Liuzzo, who was murdered by the Ku Klux Klan in 1965 during the Selma march for voting rights. In these days of early voting, we’ve seen people waiting in line for hours to exercise the franchise. Countless others, who have never had to fight for it, have spent real time either trying to decide how to cast their vote or donating their time to persuading others.

So if you’re one of those folks who have stayed utterly disengaged through all of this, do the honorable thing: Honor those for whom the vote really matters by staying home.

You’ll be doing yourself—and the country—a favor.

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US Air Force keeps fleet of aging warhorses flying

TOKYO (AP) — For decades, the U.S. Air Force has grown accustomed to such superlatives as unrivaled and unbeatable. These days, some of its key combat aircraft are being described with terms like geriatric, or decrepit.

The aging of the U.S. Air Force, a long-simmering topic in defense circles, made a brief appearance in the presidential debates when Republican nominee Mitt Romney cited it as evidence of the decline of U.S. military readiness. His contention that the Navy is the smallest it's been since 1917 got more attention, thanks to President Barack Obama's quip that the Navy also has fewer "horses and bayonets."

But analysts say the Air Force has a real problem, and it will almost certainly worsen no matter who wins Tuesday's election. It was created in part by a lack of urgency in the post-Cold War era, and by design glitches and cost overruns that have delayed attempts to build next-generation aircraft.

Looming budget cuts limit the force's ability to correct itself, they argue, as China's rise as a world power heightens its need to improve. And though the world's most formidable air force never had much use for bayonets, it's got more than its share of warhorses.

___

IKE'S LEGACY — THE KC-135 STRATOTANKER

The U.S. probably couldn't have fought the air wars over Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya without the KC-135 Stratotanker, the Air Force's main aerial refueler, which allows fighter jets to remain airborne on long flights.

America has President Eisenhower to thank for that.

The KC-135 came into service during his watch in 1956. The newest of the roughly 400 Stratotankers in service started flying nearly half a century ago, in 1964.

"We are in unknown territory," said Lt. Col. Brian Zoellner, who has been flying the KC-135 for 15 years and is head of operations for 909th Air Refueling Squadron at Kadena Air Base on Japan's southwestern island of Okinawa. "The unknown is at what point does the KC-135 become unusable."

The KC-46A refueling tanker is being developed as a replacement, but probably won't start delivery for another five years. If Congress has its way, some Stratotankers could still be taking off well into the 2040s.

THAT '70s SHOW — THE F-15, F-16 AND A-10

The F-15, America's workhorse warplane since the Vietnam War, was designed to have a service life of about 5,000 flight hours. The Air Force has more than tripled that, to 18,000 hours.

The F-16, another key fighter, has been in use since 1979. The Air Force began retiring the oldest ones two years ago.

Another '70s-era fighter is the A-10 Thunderbolt, which provides close air support for ground troops. It's now being rewinged because its old ones were riddled with cracks. The General Accounting Office estimates the cost of upgrading and refurbishing the aircraft will be $2.25 billion through 2013.

The Air Force is revamping its fighter fleet with the stealthy F-22 Raptor and F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, but production of the F-22 was cut short after its price tag swelled to nearly half a billion dollars a pop. Delays and escalating costs have also dogged the F-35, which is now the most expensive Department of Defense procurement program ever.

SPY PLANES FROM THE '50s — THE U-2

The fabled U-2 "Dragon Lady" spy plane is still being used to keep watch over North Korea and other hot spots. The first U-2 flew in 1955, and the legendary Skunk Works aircraft became a household name for its role in the Cuban missile crisis, not to mention the propaganda bonanza the Soviet Union got by shooting one down in 1960 and capturing its CIA pilot, Francis Gary Powers.

Many analysts argue the unmanned Global Hawk could do the job more effectively, but Congress has nixed that idea for now. More than $1.7 billion has been invested in upgrading the U-2.

MAJOR KONG'S FAVORITE BOMBER — THE B-52

Iconic, yes. State-of-the-art, no. The venerable B-52, remembered by movie fans for its starring role in the 1964 Cold War comedy "Dr. Strangelove," remains the backbone of the Air Force's strategic bomber force. It dates to 1954 and was already losing its edge by the end of the Vietnam War, but nearly 100 B-52s remain in service.

The Air Force developed the B-1 in the 1970s as the B-52's replacement. President Jimmy Carter killed it, President Ronald Reagan brought it back, and none have been delivered since 1988.

Next up was the stealth B-2 Spirit, which first flew in 1989. Because only 21 were built, they ended up costing a prohibitive $2 billion each. The Air Force is now hoping to upgrade with what it calls the Long Range Strike Bomber, but it's not clear when it will be ready.

___

To be sure, all of these aircraft have undergone massive overhauls and updates, and most experts agree the U.S. Air Force remains the best-equipped in the world. Its aircraft aren't likely to soon start falling out of the sky, either, thanks to intensive, and expensive, maintenance.

Zoellner, the KC-135 pilot, bristled at the idea his Stratotankers aren't safe. He said they "fly like a champ."

But Loren Thompson, of the Lexington Institute, a conservative think tank, said the graying Air Force is evidence of how Washington has failed to keep its eye on the ball.

"The reason the fleet is so decrepit is because for the first 10 years after the Cold War ended, policymakers thought the United States was in an era of extended peace," he said. "Then it spent the next 10 years fighting an enemy with no air force and no air defenses. So air power was neglected for 20 years, and today the Air Force reflects that fact."

Former Air Force Col. Robert Haffa, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, added that although ground forces were the primary concern in Iraq and Afghanistan, air power will be a key to future security requirements as the United States turns its attention to the Pacific and a strengthening China.

Unlike America's more recent adversaries, China has a credible air force that could conceivably strike U.S. bases in the region, requiring a deterrent force that is based farther away, out of range. America's bases in Japan — and possibly Guam — also are within striking distance of a North Korean missile attack.

"As the nation looks to increased focus in the Pacific, these long-range strike platforms will be especially important," Haffa said. "Planes like the B-52 simply cannot survive."

Read More..

Google's Android software in 3 out of 4 smartphones

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Dizzying array of media streams spotlight election

NEW YORK (AP) — The days of watching Election Night coverage on a single television set may soon be a quaint anachronism.

Americans have an array of alternatives for following returns on Tuesday night. Television news divisions are throwing everything they have into the story. People will be able to construct their own media experiences, seek out desired information instead of waiting for it, participate in conversations and hear analysis that reflects their own perspectives or none in particular.

Virtually all of the media organizations covering the election promise an abundance of information available online, from interactive maps that display state-by-state results to data from exit polls.

It's expected to be a huge night for social media. And news organizations say they will monitor the conversations and have their own journalists actively participate.

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Floods render NYC hospitals powerless

NEW YORK (AP) — There are few places in the U.S. where hospitals have put as much thought and money into disaster planning as New York. And yet two of the city's busiest, most important medical centers failed a fundamental test of readiness during Superstorm Sandy this week: They lost power.

Their backup generators failed, or proved inadequate. Nearly 1,000 patients had to be evacuated.

The closures led to dramatic scenes of doctors carrying patients down dark stairwells, nurses operating respirators by hand, and a bucket brigade of National Guard troops hauling fuel to rooftop generators in a vain attempt to keep the electricity on.

Both hospitals, NYU Langone Medical Center and Bellevue Hospital Center, were still trying to figure out exactly what led to the power failures Thursday, but the culprit appeared to be the most common type of flood damage there is: water in the basement.

While both hospitals put their generators on high floors where they could be protected in a flood, other critical components of the backup power system, such as fuel pumps and tanks, remained in basements just a block from the East River.

Both hospitals had fortified that equipment against floods within the past few years, but the water — which rushed with tremendous force — found a way in.

"This reveals to me that we have to be much more imaginative and detail-oriented in our planning to make sure hospitals are as resilient as they need to be," said Irwin Redlener, director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health.

The problem of unreliable backup electricity at hospitals is nothing new.

Over the first six months of the year, 23 percent of the hospitals inspected by the Joint Commission, a health care facility accreditation group, were found to be out of compliance with standards for backup power and lighting, according to a spokesman.

Power failures crippled New Orleans hospitals after Hurricane Katrina. The backup generator failed at a hospital in Stafford Springs, Conn., after the remnants of Hurricane Irene blew through the state in 2011. Hospitals in Houston were crippled when Tropical Storm Allison flooded their basements and knocked out electrical equipment in 2001.

When the Northeast was hit with a crippling blackout in 2003, the backup power at several of New York City's hospitals failed or performed poorly. Generators malfunctioned or overheated. Fuel ran out too quickly. Even where the backup systems worked, they provided electricity to only some parts of the hospital and left others in the dark.

Afterward, a mayoral task force recommended upgrading testing standards for generators and requiring backup plans for blood banks and health care facilities that provide dialysis treatment.

Alan Aviles, president of New York City's Health and Hospitals Corp., which operates Bellevue, said that after a scare last summer when Hurricane Irene threatened to cause flooding, Bellevue put its basement-level fuel pumps in flood-resistant chambers.

It still isn't clear whether water breached those defenses, but when an estimated 17 million gallons of water rushed through loading docks and into the hospital's 1-million-square-foot basement, the fuel feed to the generators stopped working. The floodwaters also knocked out the hospital's elevators.

For two days, National Guardsmen carried fuel to the generators, but conditions inside the hospital for patients and staff deteriorated anyway. The generators were designed to supply only 30 percent of the usual electrical load at the hospital, leaving a lot of equipment and labs hobbled. The hospital also lost all water pressure on Tuesday. Nearly 700 patients had been evacuated by Thursday afternoon.

"The precautions we had taken to date had served us well," Aviles said. "But Mother Nature can always up the stakes."

NYU Langone Medical Center had also tried to armor itself against floods.

All seven of the generators providing backup power to the parts of the hospital involved in patient care are only a few years old and are on higher floors. The fuel tank is in a watertight vault. New fuel pumps were installed just this year in a pump house upgraded to withstand a high flood, said the hospital's vice president of facilities operation, Richard Cohen.

"The medical center invested quite a bit of money to upgrade the facility," he said.

The pump house remained "bone dry," Cohen said. But water shoved aside plastic and plywood defenses and infiltrated the fuel vault, where sensors detected the potentially damaging liquid and shut the generators down. "The force of the surge that came in was unbelievable. It dislodged our additional protection and caused a breach of the vault as well," Cohen said.

The power at NYU went out in a flash, leaving the staff scrambling to evacuate 300 patients with no notice.

Dr. Robert Berg, an obstetrician, said that when he lost power in his apartment, he went to the hospital to charge his cellphone and was stunned to find it in chaos.

"It didn't really occur to me that the hospital was going to be in trouble," he said. Even after finding the lobby dark, "I thought, 'We'll have power upstairs. We're an operating room.'"

He wound up carrying two patients down flights of stairs on a "med sled."

"There was a Category 1 outside and a Category 4 inside," he said. "I can't say that they were very well prepared for it."

That has left only one hospital, Beth Israel Medical Center, functioning in the southern third of Manhattan. It is also on backup power, but brought in two huge new generators Thursday, just in case.

Aviles said Bellevue might be out of commission for at least two more weeks. NYU Langone's generators are operating again, but the hospital is waiting for Consolidated Edison to restore its power before it starts taking patients again. That could happen in a matter of days.

Flooding may pose less of a danger to the hospital's power supply in the future. Construction is under way on a new power plant, at a cost of more than $200 million, that will run on natural gas and supply all the hospital's power needs.

"It's a tremendous facility, with a lot of hardening built into it," Cohen said.

___

AP Medical Writer Mike Stobbe contributed to this report.

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