Tunisian opposition politician shot dead, protests erupt


Tunis (Reuters) - A Tunisian opposition politician was shot dead on Wednesday, sending thousands of protesters onto the streets of the capital and in Sidi Bouzid, the epicenter of uprisings that swept the Arab world and Tunisia's president from power.


Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali, who said the identity of the attacker was not known, condemned the killing of Shokri Belaid outside his Tunis home as a political assassination and a strike against the "Arab Spring" revolution.


Tension has been growing between Islamists and secularists such as Belaid, who was a staunch opponent of the moderate Islamist-led government elected in October 2011.


As news of the killing spread, more than 1,000 protesters gathered outside the Interior Ministry, many calling for the fall of the government elected after their uprising chased out veteran ruler Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali in January 2011.


Protesters also took to the streets in Sidi Bouzid, where jobless university graduate Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in despair after police confiscated his unlicensed fruit cart, triggering protests that toppled the president.


"More than 4,000 are protesting now, burning wheels and throwing stones at the police", Mehdi Horchani a resident from Sidi Bouzid, told Reuters. "There is a great anger."


Tunisia was the first Arab country to oust its leader and hold free elections as uprisings spread around the region two years ago, leading to the ousting of the rulers of Egypt, Yemen and Libya and the civil war in Syria.


Since the revolution the government has faced a string of protests over economic hardship and Tunisia's future path, with many complaining hardline Salafis were hijacking the revolution in a country dominated previously by a secular elite.


Declining trade with the crisis-hit euro zone has left Tunisians struggling to achieve the better living standards many had hoped for following Ben Ali's departure.


President Moncef Marzouki, who last month warned the tension may lead to "civil war", called for calm and cut short a trip to France as well as cancelling a visit to Egypt scheduled for Thursday after the killing.


"We will continue to fight the enemies of the revolution," he told lawmakers at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, to applause.


FRANCE WORRIED BY RISING VIOLENCE


Compounding the political unrest, Tunisia says al Qaeda-linked militants have been accumulating weapons with the aim of creating an Islamic state.


"The murder of Belaid is a political assassination and the assassination of the Tunisian revolution. By killing him they wanted to silence his voice," said Jebali, who heads the government led by the Ennahda party, which won Tunisia's first post-Arab Spring election.


Belaid, who died in hospital, was a leading member of the opposition Popular Front party. A lawyer and human rights activist he had been a constant critic of the government, accusing it of being a puppet of the rulers in Gulf Arab state of Qatar, which Tunisia denies.


"Shokri Belaid was killed today by four bullets to the head and chest ... doctors told us that he has died. This is a sad day for Tunisia," Ziad Lakhader, a leader of the Popular Front, told Reuters.


French President Francois Hollande condemned the shooting, saying he was concerned by the rise of violence in France's former colony.


"This murder deprives Tunisia of one of its most courageous and free voices," Hollande's office said in a statement.


"France is concerned by the mounting political violence in Tunisia and calls for the ideas cherished by the Tunisian people during their revolution to be respected."


TENSION OVER RULE


Marzouki warned last month that the conflict between Islamists and secularists could lead to civil war and called for a national dialogue that included all political shades.


The secular opposition has accused Ennahda of being too close to hardline Salafi groups, while Salafis who complain Ennahda is failing to defend Islamic values. Ennahda rejects the charges from both sides.


Ennahda party won 42 percent of seats in 2011 elections but formed a government in coalition with two secular parties, the president's Congress for the Republic and Ettakatol.


Marzouki's party threatened on Sunday to withdraw from the government unless it dropped two Islamist ministers.


The opposition threatened unspecified retribution for the killing, that Ennahda president Rached Gannouchi condemned as "aimed at the democratic process of democratic transition". ‮‮‮‮‮‮ ‬‬‬‬‬‬ "The opposition will take historic decisions in response to this cowardly act", Maya Jribi secretary-general of the secularist Republican Party.


(Writing by Alison Williams; Editing by Jon Boyle)


(This story was corrected to fix typo in the third paragraph)



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Kenya tracks Facebook, Twitter for election “hate speech”






NAIROBI (Reuters) – Every day, Kagonya Awori and her tech-savvy team trawl through Facebook and Twitter for warning signs that Kenya‘s elections in March may unleash the same ethnic violence that took the country to the brink of civil war five years ago.


Sifting through blogs and social media sites, the group of six search for hate speech and inflammatory postings – or any early indications that inter-tribal tensions are escalating.






Awori and her colleagues have reason to be worried.


The last presidential vote in late 2007 when incumbent President Mwai Kibaki was declared the re-elected victor was disputed by opponents and erupted into bloodletting.


More than 1,200 people were slaughtered, many butchered by machete, burnt alive or shot with bows and arrows as the country’s biggest tribes turned on one another.


“The amount of dangerous speech is going up but, this time, the people who are saying these things are not hiding at all,” said Awori. She heads Umati, a web-based project monitoring dangerous speech for research firm iHub Research, which conducts Africa-focused tech research out of Nairobi.


“There are outright calls to kill, forcefully evict and steal as well as discriminate against members of particular communities,” she said.


Most of the hate speech Awori’s group has come across so far has been on Facebook, with users frequently revealing their names, and often their location.


Kenya, East Africa’s biggest economy, has ranked second for Twitter use in Africa in recent years, out-tweeting oil-producing powerhouse Nigeria and Egypt, where social media helped galvanise supporters of the Arab Spring revolution.


Kenyan authorities have passed legislation banning media outlets from re-printing hate speech, to curb the spread. But thus far they have been largely powerless to stop ordinary Kenyans from voicing tribal animosities on social media.


Kenyan law prohibits media from re-printing tribal hate speech in full.


Examples of online vitriol include calls to “chinja chinja”, or “butcher butcher” in Swahili, as well as to beat, loot, riot, kill, and drive out other tribes.


A repeat in March of the inter-tribal violence that bloodied the 2007 elections cannot be ruled out.


Alliances forged by Kenya’s main presidential contenders for the 2013 vote are lining up for a rerun of a largely ethnic-based contest for political power.


The two main opposing camps are headed by Prime Minister Raila Odinga, who is backed by Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka, and Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta whose running mate is William Ruto, a former cabinet minister.


The head-on rivalry between Kenyatta, son of Kenya’s founder president and from the predominant Kikuyu tribe, and Odinga, a Luo, raises the spectre again of ethnic confrontation.


Contributing to the tensions, both Kenyatta and Ruto face trial after the March vote at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague for their alleged role in fomenting the election violence five years ago.


EYE ON THREATS


Kenyan authorities say journalists should choose their words with care so as not to inflame tensions.


“We will set you on fire before you set us on fire,” government spokesman Muthui Kariuki warned international journalists at a breakfast meeting on Wednesday.


“We believe to a greater extent that (the violence of) 2007-08 was a result of a lot of information that journalists wrote and passed on to our people,” he said.


In the Kenyan blogosphere online users blast opposing tribe members as “snakes”, “maggots” and “vultures”, among other names.


“These are actually telling people to re-enact what happened in 2007, so it’s very vicious,” Mary Ombara, secretary of Kenya’s media monitoring body, said.


Ombara receives daily reports on online hate speech. The government has hired bloggers to monitor sites for inflammatory content. The government two weeks ago also enlisted the help of Awori’s Umati team and Kenya’s National Human Rights Commission.


Civil society NGOs are also helping.


A national agency formed to reconcile tribes after the last election violence said it was working with police to identify threats and hate speech to avoid a repeat of the 2007 mayhem.


Particular attention is being paid to political rallies and social media, Alice Nderitu, an official at National Cohesion and Integration Commission, told Reuters.


“We are monitoring and will take people to court for using abusive language on social media,” said Nicholas Kamwende, head of the police’s criminal investigations department in Nairobi.


FEAR THE TWEET


Radio has traditionally been the leading medium for the dissemination of hate speech in Kenya – a trend reflected by the inclusion of a local radio presenter among the ICC indictees in the aftermath of the 2007/2008 post-election violence.


Joshua Arap Sang faces charges of crimes against humanity alongside Kenyatta and Ruto. They all say they are innocent.


During the 2007-08 clashes, mobile phone text messages were a powerful tool for organising vigilante groups and mobs, according to the National Human Rights Commission.


To curb this, Kenya has ordered that all lines that cannot be traced to a known user be de-registered in a bid to clamp down on people sending out provocative texts.


However, the arrival of affordable smart phones on the Kenyan market has increased internet use on cell phones and caused an explosion of social media.


Some fear Facebook and Twitter will take the place of the SMS text this time around.


Awori’s team are part of a network called Ushahidi, which is Swahili for “testimony” or “witness,” that uses SMS, e-mail and social media to map out where violence is breaking out.


Created in 2008 as way for Kenyans to report instances of post-election violence, it has since been used to map acts of war in Gaza, earthquake devastation in Haiti and currently U.S. activist use it to chart human rights abuses in Syria.


During Kenya’s 2010 constitutional referendum, Ushahidi also showed it could play a key role in curbing aggression. When it received an SMS message of rumours that machete-wielding men had rushed to a polling station in western Kenya, it verified the threat with its sources on the ground and alerted the police.


Fifteen minutes later, dozens of police officers swooped on the polling station to halt any possible trouble.


“It looked like magic for the guy who sent the SMS,” recalled Daudi Were, Ushahidi’s project manager.


Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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Eva Longoria Reveals Valentine's Day (and Upcoming Birthday!) Plans















02/05/2013 at 06:00 AM EST







Eva Longoria


Denise Truscello/WireImage


Eva Longoria already knows what she'll be doing on Valentine's Day.

The actress visited the new restaurant and nightclub, She by Morton's, in Las Vegas – in which she is a part owner – on Saturday night, and revealed what's on her agenda for the heartfelt holiday.

"Eva said she would be spending Valentine's Day with her girlfriends – like she always does," a source tells PEOPLE. But that's not the only thing on her agenda. The former Desperate Housewives star also said she's also made plans for her March birthday.

"She's taking a charity trip to South America, which she is really excited about," the source says. "She joked that you shouldn't celebrate birthdays after a certain age because we don't want to remind people how old we are!"

– Patrick Gomez


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Bullying study: It does get better for gay teens


CHICAGO (AP) — It really does get better for gay and bisexual teens when it comes to being bullied, although young gay men have it worse than their lesbian peers, according to the first long-term scientific evidence on how the problem changes over time.


The seven-year study involved more than 4,000 teens in England who were questioned yearly through 2010, until they were 19 and 20 years old. At the start, just over half of the 187 gay, lesbian and bisexual teens said they had been bullied; by 2010 that dropped to 9 percent of gay and bisexual boys and 6 percent of lesbian and bisexual girls.


The researchers said the same results likely would be found in the United States.


In both countries, a "sea change" in cultural acceptance of gays and growing intolerance for bullying occurred during the study years, which partly explains the results, said study co-author Ian Rivers, a psychologist and professor of human development at Brunel University in London.


That includes a government mandate in England that schools work to prevent bullying, and changes in the United States permitting same-sex marriage in several states.


In 2010, syndicated columnist Dan Savage launched the "It Gets Better" video project to encourage bullied gay teens. It was prompted by widely publicized suicides of young gays, and includes videos from politicians and celebrities.


"Bullying tends to decline with age regardless of sexual orientation and gender," and the study confirms that, said co-author Joseph Robinson, a researcher and assistant professor of educational psychology at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. "In absolute terms, this would suggest that yes, it gets better."


The study appears online Monday in the journal Pediatrics.


Eliza Byard, executive director of the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network, said the results mirror surveys by her anti-bullying advocacy group that show bullying is more common in U.S. middle schools than in high schools.


But the researchers said their results show the situation is more nuanced for young gay men.


In the first years of the study, gay boys and girls were almost twice as likely to be bullied as their straight peers. By the last year, bullying dropped overall and was at about the same level for lesbians and straight girls. But the difference between men got worse by ages 19 and 20, with gay young men almost four times more likely than their straight peers to be bullied.


The mixed results for young gay men may reflect the fact that masculine tendencies in girls and women are more culturally acceptable than femininity in boys and men, Robinson said.


Savage, who was not involved in the study, agreed.


"A lot of the disgust that people feel when you bring up homosexuality ... centers around gay male sexuality," Savage said. "There's more of a comfort level" around gay women, he said.


Kendall Johnson, 21, a junior theater major at the University of Illinois, said he was bullied for being gay in high school, mostly when he brought boyfriends to school dances or football games.


"One year at prom, I had a guy tell us that we were disgusting and he didn't want to see us dancing anymore," Johnson said. A football player and the president of the drama club intervened on his behalf, he recalled.


Johnson hasn't been bullied in college, but he said that's partly because he hangs out with the theater crowd and avoids the fraternity scene. Still, he agreed, that it generally gets better for gays as they mature.


"As you grow older, you become more accepting of yourself," Johnson said.


___


Online:


Pediatrics: http://www.pediatrics.org


It Gets Better: http://www.itgetsbetter.org


___


AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner


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Stock futures indicate rebound from recent sell-off


NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stock index futures advanced on Tuesday retracing ground lost the prior day, indicating that Wall Street would rebound off its worst daily session since November.


Major averages dropped about 1 percent on Monday, pressured by renewed worries over the euro zone's sovereign debt crisis. While the day's decline pushed the S&P 500 into negative territory for February, equities have been strong performers of late, and the benchmark index is up 4.9 percent for 2013.


Wall Street has advanced on strong fourth-quarter earnings and signs of improved economic growth, suggesting the market's longer-term trend remains higher.


"Markets may have been slightly ahead of themselves, but investors recognize that earnings and data are both more positive than we previously thought, so no one should worry that yesterday was the start of anything bigger," said Oliver Purshe, president of Gary Goldberg Financial Services in Suffern, New York.


Archer Daniels Midland , Walt Disney Co and Kellogg Co are among the companies on tap to report on Tuesday. According to Thomson Reuters data, of the 256 S&P 500 companies that have reported earnings thus far, 68.4 percent have beaten profit expectations, compared with the 62 percent average since 1994 and the 65 percent average over the past four quarters.


Fourth-quarter earnings for S&P 500 companies are expected to rise 4.4 percent, according to the data. That estimate is above the 1.9 percent forecast at the start of earnings season, but well below the 9.9 percent forecast on October 1.


S&P 500 futures rose 7.2 points and were above fair value, a formula that evaluates pricing by taking into account interest rates, dividends and time to expiration on the contract. Dow Jones industrial average futures added 69 points and Nasdaq 100 futures rose 11.5 points.


At current levels, the S&P is about 5.4 percent away from its all-time intraday high of 1,576.09, reached in October 2011.


Investors will also be looking to the Institute for Supply Management's January non-manufacturing index, due at 10 a.m. Economists forecast a reading of 55.2, versus 55.7 in December.


Last week, the ISM's manufacturing index for January showed the pace of growth in manufacturing picked up to its highest level in nine months.


In company news, McGraw-Hill will be in focus a day after news the U.S. Justice Department plans to sue the company's Standard & Poor's unit over its mortgage bond ratings. The action would mark the first such federal action against a credit rating agency related to the recent financial crisis.


The stock plummeted almost 14 percent in Monday's session, its worst daily losses since the October 1987 market crash.


U.S. shares of BP Plc rose 1.9 percent to $44.49 before the bell after the company reported earnings that beat expectations and said underlying financial momentum would be "strongly evident" by 2014.


Dell Inc may also be volatile as the company moved closer to a nearly $24 billion buyout deal to take the company private. The stock rose 1.1 percent to $13.42 in light premarket trading.


U.S. stocks slid on Monday as worries about Europe caused the market to pull back from recent gains.


(Editing by Theodore d'Afflisio)



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Iran's Ahmadinejad in Egypt on historic visit


CAIRO (Reuters) - Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrived in Egypt on Tuesday on the first trip by an Iranian president since the 1979 revolution, underlining a thaw in relations since Egyptians elected an Islamist head of state.


President Mohamed Mursi, the Muslim Brotherhood politician elected in June, kissed Ahmadinejad as he disembarked from his plane at Cairo airport. The leaders walked down a red carpet, Ahmadinejad smiling as he shook hands with waiting dignitaries.


Visiting Cairo to attend an Islamic summit that begins on Wednesday, the president of the Shi'ite Islamist republic is due to meet later on Tuesday with the grand sheikh of al-Azhar, one of the oldest seats of learning in the Sunni world.


Such a visit would have been unthinkable during the rule of Hosni Mubarak, the military-backed autocrat who preserved Egypt's peace treaty with Israel during his 30 years in power and deepened ties between Cairo and the West.


"The political geography of the region will change if Iran and Egypt take a unified position on the Palestinian question," Ahmadinejad said in an interview with Al Mayadeen, a Beirut-based TV station, on the eve of his visit.


He said he wanted to visit the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian territory which neighbors Egypt to the east and is run by the Islamist movement Hamas. "If they allow it, I would go to Gaza to visit the people," Ahmadinejad said.


Analysts doubt that the historic changes that brought Mursi to power in Egypt will result in a full restoration of diplomatic ties between states whose relations were broken off after the Iranian revolution and the conclusion of Egypt's peace treaty with Israel in 1979.


OBSTACLES TO FULL TIES


At the airport the two leaders discussed ways of boosting relations between their countries and resolving the Syrian crisis "without resorting to military intervention", Egyptian state media reported.


Egypt is concerned by Iran's support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who is trying to crush an uprising inspired by the revolt that swept Mubarak from power two years ago. Egypt's overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim population is broadly supportive of the uprising against Assad's Alawite-led administration.


The Mursi administration also wants to safeguard relations with Gulf Arab states that are supporting Cairo's battered state finances and are deeply suspicious of Iran.


Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohamed Kamel Amr reassured Gulf Arab allies that Egypt would not jeopardize their security.


"The security of the Gulf states is the security of Egypt," he told the official MENA news agency, in response to questions about Cairo's opening to Iran and its impact on other states in the region.


Mursi wants to preserve ties with the United States, the source of $1.3 billion in aid each year to the influential Egyptian military.


His government has established close ties with Hamas, a movement backed by Iran and shunned by the West because of its hostility to Israel, but its priority is addressing Egypt's deep economic problems.


"The restoration of full relations with Iran in this period is difficult, despite the warmth in ties ... because of many problems including the Syrian crisis and Cairo's links with the Gulf states, Israel and the United States," said one former Egyptian diplomat.


Speaking to Reuters on the sidelines of preparatory meetings for the two-day Islamic summit, Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said he was optimistic that ties could grow closer.


"We are gradually improving. We have to be a little bit patient. I'm very hopeful about the expansion of the bilateral relationship," he said. Asked where he saw room for closer ties, he said: "Trade and economics."


Ahmadinejad's visit to Egypt follows Mursi's visit to Iran in August for a summit of the Non-Aligned Movement.


Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, head of the 1,000-year-old al-Azhar mosque and university, will meet Ahmadinejad at his offices in mediaeval Islamic Cairo, al-Azhar's media office said.


Salehi, the Iranian foreign Minister, stressed the importance of Muslim unity when he met Sheikh al-Tayeb at al-Azhar last month.


Egypt and Iran have taken opposite courses since the late 1970s. Egypt, under Mubarak's predecessor Anwar Sadat, concluded a peace treaty with Israel in 1979 and became a close ally of the United States and Europe. Iran from 1979 turned into a center of opposition to Western influence in the Middle East.


Symbolically, Iran named a street in Tehran after the Islamist who led the 1981 assassination of Sadat.


Egypt gave asylum and a state funeral to Iran's exiled Shah Reza Pahlavi, who was overthrown by the 1979 Iranian revolution. He is buried in a medieval Cairo mosque alongside his ex-brother-in-law, Egypt's last king, Farouk.


(Additional reporting by Ayman Samir and Alexander Diadosz; Editing by Andrew Roche and Paul Taylor)



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Estonian pleads guilty in U.S. court to Internet advertising scam






NEW YORK (Reuters) – An Estonian man pleaded guilty on Friday in U.S. federal court for his role in a massive Internet scam that targeted well-known websites such as iTunes, Netflix and The Wall Street Journal.


The scheme infected at least four million computers in more than 100 countries, including 500,000 in the United States, with malicious software, or malware, according to the indictment. It included a large number of computers at data centers located in New York, federal prosecutors said.






Valeri Aleksejev, 32, was the first of six Estonians and one Russian indicted in 2011 to enter a plea. They were indicted on five charges each of wire and computer intrusion. One of the defendants, Vladimir Tsastsin, was also charged with 22 counts of money laundering.


In U.S. District Court in Manhattan on Friday, Aleksejev pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit computer intrusion. He faces up to 25 years in prison, deportation and the forfeiture of $ 7 million.


The scam had several components, including a “click-hijacking fraud” in which the malware re-routed searches by users on infected computers to sites designated by the defendants, prosecutors said in the indictment. Users of infected computers trying to access Apple Inc’s iTunes website or Netflix Inc‘s movie website, for example, instead ended up at websites of unaffiliated businesses, according to the indictment.


Another component of the scam replaced legitimate advertisements on websites operated by News Corp’s The Wall Street Journal, Amazon.com Inc and others with advertisements that triggered payments for the defendants, prosecutors said.


The defendants reaped at least $ 14 million from the fraud, prosecutors said. However, Aleksejev’s lawyer, William Stampur, said in court on Friday that Aleksejev has no assets.


Estonian police arrested Aleksejev and the other Estonians in November 2011. One other Estonian, Anton Ivanov, has been extradited, and the extradition of the other four is pending, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office in Manhattan. The Russian, Andrey Taame, remains at large, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office.


Aleksejev told Magistrate Judge James Francis he assisted in blocking anti-virus software updates on infected computers. Francis asked Aleksejev if he knew what he was doing was illegal.


“I thought it was wrong,” Aleksejev said in broken English after a long pause. “But of course I didn’t know all the laws in the U.S.”


Francis set a tentative sentencing date of May 31 for Aleksejev.


The case is USA v. Tsastsin et al, U.S. District Court in Manhattan, No. 11-00878.


(Reporting by Bernard Vaughan; Editing by Dan Grebler)


Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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What Football Game? Beyoncé Rocks the Superdome in Leather & Lace







Style News Now





02/03/2013 at 09:06 PM ET













One thing was certain going into Super Bowl XLVII: Beyoncé was going to put on a killer halftime show, and she was going to look amazing doing it. And if she practiced until her feet bled, there was no sign of it as she danced in her towering heels.


To strut out onstage during ‘Crazy In Love,’ the star wore a belted “liquid nylon” mini with a matching moto jacket by Rubin Singer, but she quickly tore it away to reveal a leather bodysuit with a black lace skirt (also by the designer) worn over her signature fishnets. She completed the look with thigh-highs and sexy black booties.


Destiny’s Child fans missing the trio’s epic matching outfits were given a treat when Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams proved the rumors true, joining Beyoncé onstage for a medley that included ‘Bootylicious’ and ‘Single Ladies.’ Their costumes echoed Bey’s: Rowland wore a revealing V-neck Emilio Pucci bodysuit, while Williams was glam in a tough-girl ribbed leather mini by Rubin Singer (who also created looks for all 120 backup dancers).




And to ensure that Beyoncé’s hair was supremely whip-able (as demonstrated during ‘Baby Boy’ and ‘Halo’), stylist Kim Kimble gave her a “soft glam” look by curling it, then brushing out the curls and smoothing them with Kimble Hair Care Brazilian Nut and Acai serum. She sprayed it with L’Oréal’s classic Elnett hairspray to ensure it wouldn’t budge no matter what the superstar put it through.

Tell us: What did you think of Beyoncé’s Super Bowl outfit — and the Destiny’s Child reunion looks?

–Alex Apatoff

PHOTOS: VOTE ON MORE STAR STYLE HERE!




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Bullying study: It does get better for gay teens


CHICAGO (AP) — It really does get better for gay and bisexual teens when it comes to being bullied, although young gay men have it worse than their lesbian peers, according to the first long-term scientific evidence on how the problem changes over time.


The seven-year study involved more than 4,000 teens in England who were questioned yearly through 2010, until they were 19 and 20 years old. At the start, just over half of the 187 gay, lesbian and bisexual teens said they had been bullied; by 2010 that dropped to 9 percent of gay and bisexual boys and 6 percent of lesbian and bisexual girls.


The researchers said the same results likely would be found in the United States.


In both countries, a "sea change" in cultural acceptance of gays and growing intolerance for bullying occurred during the study years, which partly explains the results, said study co-author Ian Rivers, a psychologist and professor of human development at Brunel University in London.


That includes a government mandate in England that schools work to prevent bullying, and changes in the United States permitting same-sex marriage in several states.


In 2010, syndicated columnist Dan Savage launched the "It Gets Better" video project to encourage bullied gay teens. It was prompted by widely publicized suicides of young gays, and includes videos from politicians and celebrities.


"Bullying tends to decline with age regardless of sexual orientation and gender," and the study confirms that, said co-author Joseph Robinson, a researcher and assistant professor of educational psychology at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. "In absolute terms, this would suggest that yes, it gets better."


The study appears online Monday in the journal Pediatrics.


Eliza Byard, executive director of the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network, said the results mirror surveys by her anti-bullying advocacy group that show bullying is more common in U.S. middle schools than in high schools.


But the researchers said their results show the situation is more nuanced for young gay men.


In the first years of the study, gay boys and girls were almost twice as likely to be bullied as their straight peers. By the last year, bullying dropped overall and was at about the same level for lesbians and straight girls. But the difference between men got worse by ages 19 and 20, with gay young men almost four times more likely than their straight peers to be bullied.


The mixed results for young gay men may reflect the fact that masculine tendencies in girls and women are more culturally acceptable than femininity in boys and men, Robinson said.


Savage, who was not involved in the study, agreed.


"A lot of the disgust that people feel when you bring up homosexuality ... centers around gay male sexuality," Savage said. "There's more of a comfort level" around gay women, he said.


Kendall Johnson, 21, a junior theater major at the University of Illinois, said he was bullied for being gay in high school, mostly when he brought boyfriends to school dances or football games.


"One year at prom, I had a guy tell us that we were disgusting and he didn't want to see us dancing anymore," Johnson said. A football player and the president of the drama club intervened on his behalf, he recalled.


Johnson hasn't been bullied in college, but he said that's partly because he hangs out with the theater crowd and avoids the fraternity scene. Still, he agreed, that it generally gets better for gays as they mature.


"As you grow older, you become more accepting of yourself," Johnson said.


___


Online:


Pediatrics: http://www.pediatrics.org


It Gets Better: http://www.itgetsbetter.org


___


AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner


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Analysis: New miner wants in on the chummy global potash club


NEW YORK (Reuters) - Potash miner Prospect Global Resources Inc won't open its first mine until at least 2015, but the American upstart is already upsetting the multibillion-dollar fertilizer industry where a few players control a crucial ingredient in the global food chain.


China, with an insatiable appetite for fertilizer to help feed its growing population, has long been dependent on Canpotex, the Canadian sales agency that supplies a third of the world's potash.


But in December, Canpotex reluctantly agreed to a six-month supply contract with China at $400 per tonne, a $70 per tonne discount from its last contract price and a steeper cut than expected.


China got the cheaper price partly because it used as leverage a separate 10-year agreement inked last October with Prospect.


While macroeconomic and local factors - from economic growth to weather and production issues - do influence the contracts, Prospect's arrival is chipping away at Canpotex's near-monopoly. The stakes are high in a business that typically has profit margins of around 50 percent.


"We think Prospect Global is the best potash investment opportunity in North America," said Steven Sugarman of COR Capital, a private equity firm that is the company's fifth-largest shareholder. "We like the geology, we like the location and the team they've put together."


With demand for corn and other commodities booming around the world - and potash prices up roughly 150 percent in the past decade - food and fertilizer are hot commodities. Prices have cooled recently, but are still at decade-highs.


BlackRock Inc , Apollo Global Management LLC, and Ted Waitt, the co-founder of computer company Gateway, have taken note. They invested in Prospect - which went public last year - largely as a bet on a shake-up of the fertilizer industry.


Prospect is also helmed by some big names in the fertilizer industry. James Dietz, a Prospect board member, was Potash Corp's chief operating officer for more than 10 years, and Patrick Avery, Prospect's chief executive, previously ran Intrepid Potash Inc , which has mines in New Mexico.


Prospect finds itself an unwelcome new kid on the block, with rivals quick to cast doubt on its ability to hang tough amid the fertilizer industry's highs and lows.


"I don't take it seriously whatsoever," said Jim Prokopanko, chief executive of much-larger rival Mosaic Co , which owns Canada's Esterhazy, the world's largest potash mine.


"It'll be a small producer if it ever sees the light of day," he said in an interview.


That view is being tested as Canpotex, which is controlled by Mosaic, Potash Corp and Agrium Inc , negotiates a supply deal with India. Most analysts expect that contract price to be lower than its predecessor.


SCRATCHING THE SURFACE


Prospect is the largest of three companies developing a potash reserve in Holbrook, Arizona, an arid, flat scruff of land in the state's northeast corner.


Passport Potash Inc and privately held Hunt Consolidated Inc are exploring other parts of the reserve, though Prospect is farthest along in terms of development and funding.


Despite a BNSF train depot and several large tourist attractions - a meteorite exploded over Holbrook 100 years ago, attracting rock collectors - the town's unemployment rate is 13.5 percent. Mining promises to change that.


Arizona's potash deposit was quietly forgotten after a small geological expedition uncovered it in the 1960s. The deposit started to get more attention in 2008, as potash prices started to climb high enough to justify the more than $1 billion needed to develop a mine.


To exploit the land, Avery and other executives initially drew in BlackRock and other high-profile debt and equity investors. The group bought a publicly listed shell company to allow them to quickly become a listed company in June 2012 without going through the normal process of an initial public offering.


Several stock offerings since the firm became listed have diluted shares and pushed Prospect's stock down 40 percent in the past six months. More capital may be needed, a step that could further dent the share price.


"We are talking to other groups about more equity stakes to help us get started on drilling," Avery said.


Apollo is finalizing a $100 million debt financing deal, and BlackRock is the company's third-largest stockholder, with more than 5 million shares.


Top shareholders, many of whom invested before the firm went public, have said they believe the company is a long-term investment that will radically alter the fertilizer market.


If fully developed, Holbrook's fertilizer deposit would nearly double annual U.S. production of potash, one of the most-important nutrients that farmers apply to boost harvests.


Russia and Canada have the world's largest potash reserves, each with more than 3 billion tonnes compared with 130 million tonnes in the United States. The grade of Holbrook's potash deposit, at 11 percent to 13 percent, is roughly half the industry average.


But Prospect's production costs will be lower than those of its rivals because of milder weather and less digging required to reach the deposits, boosting margins.


Canpotex and Russian rivals operate primarily in colder climates and have potash reserves about 3,700 feet deep. Mosaic had to freeze an underground lake just to reach Saskatchewan's Esterhazy mine.


Prospect's Arizona potash deposit, by contrast, is roughly 1,000 feet deep in a year-round warm climate and closer to key West Coast ports than Canpotex facilities in Canada.


"A lot of these positive issues offset the lower grade reports," said Steven Rauzi of the Arizona Oil & Gas Conservation Commission, which oversees potash drilling in the state.


Prospect expects it will only cost about $112 per tonne to produce potash at its Arizona mine. The industry average is roughly $135 per tonne. That makes profit margins especially high, with market prices for potash above $400 per tonne.


China is taking 25 percent of Prospect's forecast 2 million tonnes of annual potash production, or 500,000 tonnes a year, an amount that will still make China the largest importer of American potash. The rest, if sold abroad, will only further roil Prospect's rivals when it hits the global market as competition intensifies to feed a growing population.


Canpotex will supply 1 million tonnes to China under a six-month supply contract that expires in June. But the fact that China was able to cut part of its dependence on Canadian potash showed that the world's second-largest economy is getting creative to feed its people.


For every $10 per tonne drop in the price of potash, Potash Corp's earnings slip by 7 cents per share, according to Credit Agricole.


That's not lost on Potash Corp analysts and investors, who peppered CEO Bill Doyle about Prospect in an earnings call last fall. Doyle played down the threat.


"If you look at the economics of the business today, there is no return on that investment," Doyle said of Prospect Global. "We don't pay much attention to it."


Prospect CEO Avery, however, points to the world's growing need for food, and adds that he is bullish on his company's potential - if for no other reason than the land on which it sits. "It is amazing," he said, "how well situated our plot of land is."


(Reporting By Ernest Scheyder; Editing by Patricia Kranz and Claudia Parsons)



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