Why Oscar’s “Simple” Date-Change Is a Ticking Time Bomb

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – The press release didn’t look as if it contained big news.

“Key Dates Announced for the 85th Academy Awards,” read the headline on the September 18 announcement, which came significantly later than usual for the Academy and contained one seemingly innocuous line:

“In an effort to provide members and the public a longer period of time to see the nominated films, the Academy will reveal the 85th Academy Awards nominations on January 10, five days earlier than previously announced.”

But that little change – those five days, which moved the nominations from what was already an unusually early slot to the Thursday before the Golden Globes – has shaken all things Oscar, essentially detonating a time bomb across the Academy Awards landscape.

As advertised, the move will give members of the Academy and prospective viewers extra time to see the 35 or so features that will be nominated (plus another 10 documentaries and foreign-language films) – but it’ll give them significantly less time to see the 250 to 300 films that are eligible to be nominated.

“As an Academy member, I’m not happy about it,” said one voter, who was typical of those TheWrap has spoken to. “It’s short-sighted and unfair to members, and they’re limiting the number of movies that might get nominated because members won’t see as many. And as a marketer, it hampers you in every way and forces you to flood people with emails and mailings and screenings and screeners to get all your stuff out by January 1.”

Grumbling, moaning and the occasional gnashing of teeth over the compressed timeline has been almost constant since the announcement. One commonly heard phrase is, “What were they thinking?” Another is, “I know what they were thinking, and it has nothing to do with what they say they were thinking.”

To this latter camp, which includes both outsiders and AMPAS members, the clear intent of the move was to hurt the Golden Globes, the tacky show whose importance on the awards calendar has always rankled the Academy.

The governors were said to be determined to make the Globes (and its presenting body, the much-maligned Hollywood Foreign Press Association) irrelevant by announcing Oscar nominations before the Globes even happen … as if that would stop people from tuning in or persuade NBC, Dick Clark Productions or the HFPA to pull the plug on a multimillion-dollar cash cow that they would no doubt move to Thanksgiving weekend before they’d ever consider giving it up.

Yes, the move will put the Globes in the awkward position of taking place at a point where trade ads are more likely to proudly trumpet “six Oscar nominations!” than “Golden Globe winner!” And by the time Academy members are able to vote, the Globes results will most likely forgotten by anybody casting an Oscar ballot.

The move won’t impact the Globes ratings, but it could conceivably reduce attendance at the show: If a star hoping to use a fabulous Globes acceptance speech to boost an Oscar candidacy winds up not being nominated, will he or she still feel inclined to show up for the HFPA’s dog-and-pony show?

Among other awards shows, the real casualty could be the Broadcast Film Critics Association‘s Critics’ Choice Movie Awards, a reliable Oscar precursor that this year is scheduled to take place the evening of the day on which Oscar noms are announced.

It’s hard to imagine too many actors wanting to put on a brave face and mingle with nominated colleagues only a few hours after learning that Oscar voters have ignored them; I’m guessing the BFCA may find itself with at least a few last-minute cancellations and lame excuses.

But the move’s repercussions go far beyond other awards shows.

A voting window that ends on January 3, immediately after the Christmas/New Year’s holidays, will mean more pressure to book early screenings, more of a push to get parties and Q&As done before the holidays, and outright desperation to have screeners in voters’ hands before they head to Aspen or Hawaii for the break.

And for films released in December – a typical Oscar slot that has been utilized quite effectively in the past by the likes of “Million Dollar Baby” and “Shakespeare in Love” – the new calendar could be a killer: With nominating ballots due so soon after the holidays, films had better be must-sees if they want to get voters to check them out before casting their ballots.

Obviously, that won’t hurt the December releases “Django Unchained,” “Zero Dark Thirty,” “Les Miserables” and “The Hobbit” – those are no-brainers for any Academy member who wants to be the slightest bit thorough. But what about a lower-profile film like Michael Haneke’s “Amour,” which Sony Classics is releasing on December 19?

The Cannes Palme d’Or winner is strong enough to escape the foreign-language category and become a viable Best Picture contender if enough members see it, but SPC may have to push awfully hard to get it in front of voters already facing a year-end crunch.

The move also puts a hit on the Palm Springs International Film Festival, whose annual Awards Gala, which typically honors an array of Oscar hopefuls, now falls three days after polls close.

And the late-January Santa Barbara International Film Festival now sits in the 29-day no-man’s-land between the nominations and the opening of final voting, long enough after nominations that some potential honorees might want to wait for the Academy’s verdict before committing to an SBIFF tribute.

Still, it’ll make things easier for Oscar-watchers who also want to go to the Sundance Film Festival; rather than noms coming in the middle of that fest, they will happen two weeks before Park City kicks off.

And yes, the new calendar will, as advertised, give viewers and voters more time to watch the nominated films.

The same voter who slammed the move as unfair for members and terrible for marketers did concede one thing: “From the exhibition point of view, I think it’s a good thing. You get an additional two weeks in theaters with the films that have been nominated, and we all know that’s where the money is made.”

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HTC “happy” with Apple settlement, slams media estimates

TOKYO (Reuters) – Taiwan’s HTC Corp is happy with its patent settlement with Apple Inc, but regards media reports on details of the licensing agreement as “outrageous”, chief executive Peter Chou told reporters on Tuesday.

HTC and Apple announced a global patent settlement and a 10-year licensing agreement this month after a bruising patent war between the two smartphone makers.

The companies did not disclose details of the settlement or the licensing agreement, but HTC said it will not change its fourth-quarter guidance.

Responding to a question about media reports that HTC will pay Apple $ 6 to $ 8 per Android phone as part of the patent settlement, Chou said it was an outrageous estimate.

“I think that these estimates are baseless and very, very wrong. It is a outrageous number, but I’m not going to comment anything on a specific number. I believe we have a very, very happy settlement and a good ending,” said Chou at a KDDI Corp product launch in Tokyo.

Apple sued the Taiwanese handset maker in 2010, its first major legal salvo against a manufacturer using Google’s Android operating system. Since the suit, a patent war has engulfed competitors including Samsung Electronics Co Ltd and Google’s Motorola Mobility unit.

(Reporting by Mari Saito; Editing by Michael Watson and Muralikumar Anantharaman)

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Palestinian civilian toll climbs in Gaza

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — The Palestinian civilian death toll mounted Monday as Israeli aircraft struck densely populated areas in the Gaza Strip in a campaign to quell militant rocket fire menacing nearly half of Israel's population.

An overnight airstrike on two houses belonging to an extended clan in Gaza City killed two children and two adults, and injured 42 people, said Gaza heath official Ashraf al-Kidra.

Shortly after, Israeli aircraft bombarded the remains of the former national security compound in Gaza City. Flying shrapnel killed one child and wounded others living nearby, al-Kidra said. Five farmers were killed in two separate strikes, al-Kidra said, including three who had been identified earlier by Hamas security officials as Islamic Jihad fighters.

Civilian casualties began to shoot up on Sunday, after Israel said it was stepping up attacks on the homes of suspected Hamas activists. After that warning, an Israeli missile flatted a two-story house in a residential area of Gaza City, killing at least 11 civilians, most of them women and children.

It remained unclear who the target of that missile attack was. However, the new tactic ushered in a new and risky phase of the operation, given the likelihood of civilian casualties in the crowded territory of 1.6 million Palestinians. The rising civilian toll was also likely to intensify pressure on Israel to end the fighting. Hundreds of civilian casualties in an Israeli offensive in Gaza four years ago led to fierce international condemnation of Israel.

In all, 87 Palestinians, including 50 civilians, have been killed in the six-day onslaught and 720 have been wounded.

Three Israeli civilians have died from Palestinian rocket fire and dozens have been wounded. An Israeli rocket-defense system has intercepted hundreds of rockets bound for populated areas.

Monday's air assault in Gaza City reduced two houses to rubble on either side of a street where residents stepped over piles of cinderblocks and twisted metal. Relatives said Ahed Kitati, 38, had rushed out after a warning missile was fired to try to hustle people to safety. But he was fatally struck by a falling cinderblock, leaving behind a pregnant wife, five young daughters and a son, they said.

One of his daughters, Aya Kitati, clutched a black jacket, saying she was freezing, even though the weather was mild. "We were sleeping, and then we heard the sound of the bombs," she said in a whisper, then broke down sobbing.

Ahed's brother, Jawad Kitati, said he plucked the lifeless body of a 2-year-old relative from the street and carried him to an ambulance. Blood stains smeared his jacket sleeve.

Another clan member, Haitham Abu Zour, 24, woke up to the sound of the warning strike and hid in a stairwell. He emerged to find his wife dead and his two infant children buried under the debris, but safe.

Clan elder Mohammed Azzam, 61, denied that anyone in his family had any connections to Hamas.

"The Jews are liars," he said. "No matter how much they pressure our people, we will not withdraw our support for Hamas."

Israel launched the current offensive last Wednesday after months of intensifying rocket fire from the Gaza Strip, which continued despite the strikes. Overnight, the military said, aircraft targeted about 80 militant sites, including underground rocket-launching sites, smuggling tunnels and training bases, as well as command posts and weapons storage facilities located in buildings owned by militant commanders, the military said in a release. Aircraft and gunboats joined forces to attack Hamas police headquarters, and Palestinian rocket squads were struck as they prepared to fire, the release said.

In all, 1,350 targets in the Gaza Strip have been struck since the Israeli operation began on Wednesday. However, military activity over the past two nights has dropped off as targets change and international efforts to wrest a cease-fire plod ahead.

Israel and Hamas have put forth widely divergent conditions for a truce. But failure to end the fighting threatens to touch off an Israeli ground invasion, for which thousands of soldiers, backed by tanks and armored vehicles, have already been mobilized and dispatched to Gaza's border.

President Barack Obama said he was in touch with players across the region in hopes of halting the fighting. While defending Israel's right to defend itself against the rocket fire, he also warned of the risks the Jewish state would take if it were to expand its air assault into a ground war.

"If we see a further escalation of the situation in Gaza, the likelihood of us getting back on any kind of peace track that leads to a two-state solution is going to be pushed off way into the future," Obama said.

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One in 20 youth has used steroids to bulk up: study

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – About five percent of middle and high school students have used anabolic steroids to put on muscle, according to a new study from Minnesota.

In addition to steroid use, more than one-third of boys and one-fifth of girls in the study said they had used protein powder or shakes to gain muscle mass, and between five and 10 percent used non-steroid muscle-enhancing substances, such as creatine.

Researchers said a more muscular body ideal in the media may be one factor driving teens to do anything possible to get toned, as well as pressure to perform in sports.

“Really the pressure to start using (steroids) is in high school,” said Dr. Linn Goldberg, from Oregon Health & Science University in Portland.

“You get the influence of older teens in high school, so when you’re a 14-year-old that comes in, you have 17-year-olds who are the seniors, and they can have great influence as you progress into the next stage of your athletic career.”

The new data came from close to 2,800 kids and teens at 20 different middle and high schools in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area. During the 2009-2010 school year, those students completed a survey on food and weight-related behaviors, including activities tied to muscle gain.

The majority of kids surveyed were poor or middle-class.

Almost all of them had engaged in at least one muscle-building activity in the past year, most often working out more to get stronger. But up to one-third of kids and teens used what the researchers deemed to be unhealthy means to gain muscle mass, including taking steroids and other muscle-building substances or overdoing it on protein shakes, dieting and weight-lifting.

Student-athletes were more likely than their peers to use most methods of muscle-building. Steroid use, however, was equally common among athletes and non-athletes.

According to findings published Monday in the journal Pediatrics, Asian students were three to four times more likely to have used steroids in the past year than white students. Most Asians in the study were Hmong, lead researcher Marla Eisenberg from the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis and her colleagues noted.

Their study shows higher adolescent use of steroids and other muscle-boosting substances than most other recent research and “is cause for concern,” according to the researchers. But it’s not clear whether the findings would apply to an area outside of the Twin Cities, or among wealthier students, they noted.

ROID RAGE?

Anabolic steroids are synthetic versions of testosterone, the male sex hormone. Steroids are prescribed legally to treat conditions involving hormone deficiency or muscle loss, but when they’re used for non-medical purposes, it’s typically at much higher doses, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

In those cases, steroids can cause mood swings – sometimes known as roid rage – and for adolescents, stunted growth and accelerated puberty.

Anabolic steroids have become pervasive in professional sports, including baseball, football and boxing. (Another example of performance-enhancing drug use is “blood doping” with erythropoietin or EPO, which is behind the Lance Armstrong cycling controversy that caused him to be stripped of his Tour de France titles last month.)

Experts have worried that the drive to get ahead of competitors at any cost could trickle down to college and high school athletes, as well.

Goldberg, co-developer of the ATLAS and ATHENA programs to prevent steroid and other substance use on high school teams, said it’s important to give teens healthier alternatives to build muscle.

“I would stay away from all supplements, because you don’t know what’s in them,” Goldberg, who wasn’t involved in the new study, told Reuters Health.

“What’s important is to teach kids how to eat correctly,” he said. Goldberg said getting enough protein through food, eating breakfast and avoiding muscle toxins like alcohol and marijuana can all help young athletes get stronger without shakes or supplements.

Eisenberg’s team did not find clustering of steroid use and other muscle-enhancing behaviors within particular schools.

“Rather than being driven by a particular school sports team coach or other features of a school’s social landscape, this diffusion suggests that muscle-enhancing behaviors are widespread and influenced by factors beyond school, likely encompassing social and cultural variables such as media messages and social norms of behavior more broadly,” the researchers wrote.

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/jsoh2P Pediatrics, online November 19, 2012.

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Canada pledges again to balance budget by 2015

OTTAWA/NEW YORK (Reuters) – The Canadian government on Friday reiterated its intention to balance its budget by 2015, three days after projecting there would be deficits until 2016-17.

In separate appearances in Quebec City and New York, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Finance Minister Jim Flaherty were at pains to say they still intended to end the red ink by 2015.

“It remains the government’s plan, intention, to balance the budget prior to the next federal election. The recent economic and fiscal update by the minister indicates we are actually very close to that objective,” Harper told reporters in Quebec City. The next election is in October 2015.

Flaherty’s fall fiscal update on Tuesday had pushed back the target date for eliminating the deficit by a year, to 2016-17, citing a weak global economy.

But the minister said in a speech in New York that the government was on track to balance the budget in the next two to three years, barring major external events, and he later clarified that he intended a balanced budget by 2015.

“The prime minister’s always correct,” he chuckled.

He sought to explain the discrepancy by saying the fiscal update had built in a C$ 3 billion ($ 3 billion) contingency cushion, meaning there was an underlying surplus of C$ 1.2 billion for 2015-16. He said the projection of a C$ 1.8 billion deficit amounted to about half a percent of the C$ 275 billion federal budget.

“There’s lots of water to go under the bridge between now and then,” he said.

The opposition New Democratic Party noted the discrepancy in a release headlined: “Stephen Harper makes stuff up about balancing the budget.”

It pointed out that balancing the budget by the next election was not the same as balancing it by 2016-17.

As it is, even the 2015-16 timetable is a year later than offered in the Conservative campaign for reelection in May 2011. They had promised a balanced budget by 2014-15, followed by major personal income tax relief before the 2015 election.

Flaherty’s timetable drew criticism this week from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, which said the minister had become expert at kicking the can down the road.

The projections could be thrown out of whack if the United States goes off the fiscal cliff, a set of automatic tax hikes and spending cuts that are to be triggered on January 2 if legislators and the White House cannot agree on a more nuanced budget deal.

Flaherty said U.S. failure to avert the fiscal cliff would cause a significant and immediate decline in Canada’s gross domestic product, and he would counter it.

Referring to a possible economic shock from Europe or the United States, he said: “If that were to happen and if the Canadian economy were to be pushed back into recession with the resulting danger for higher unemployment and the danger always of a prolonged recession, then we would act.”

He added: “We would not stand by and let that happen. The kinds of measure we can take: there are various tax measures we can take, there are measures with respect to stimulus we can take, these are things that we have done before and we can do again.”

On Tuesday, Flaherty spoke of having prepared various contingency plans.

(Additional reporting by Louse Egan; Editing by David Gregorio)

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Justin Bieber gets love at American Music Awards

Justin Bieber may be Canadian, but he was the all-American boy at Sunday night’s American Music Awards.

The pop singer dominated the awards show, winning three trophies, including artist of the year. His mom joined him onstage as he collected the award, beating out Rihanna, Maroon 5, Katy Perry and Drake.

“I wanted to thank you for always believing in me,” Bieber said, looking to his mom.

The 18-year-old also won the honor in 2010. He said it’s “hard growing up with everyone watching me” and asked that people continue to believe in him.

But the teenager who brought his mom as a date also got in some grinding with Nicki Minaj — who shared the stage with him and took home two awards — and a kiss on the neck from presenter Jenny McCarthy.

“Wow. I feel violated right now,” he said, laughing.

“I did grab his butt,” McCarthy said backstage. “I couldn’t help it. He was just so delicious. So little. I wanted to tear his head off and eat it.”

Another collaboration was the night’s most colorful performance: Korean rapper PSY and MC Hammer. Hammer joined the buzzed-about pop star for his viral hit “Gangnam Style.” PSY rocked traditional “Hammer” pants as they danced to his jam and to Hammer’s “Too Legit to Quit.”

Minaj, who wore three different wigs and four outfits throughout the night, repeated her AMAs wins from last year, picking up trophies for favorite rap/hip-hop artist and album for “Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded.” She was in an all-white get-up, including fur coat and pink hair when she performed her new song “Freedom.” The scene was ghostly and snowy, as a choir — also in white — joined her onstage. One background singer stole the performance, belting semi-high notes as Minaj looked on.

Usher kicked off the three-hour show with green laser lights beaming onstage as he performed a medley of songs, including “Numb,” ”Climax” and “Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop,” which featured a smoky floor and a number of backup dancers, as Usher jammed in all black, with the exception of his red shoes. He won favorite soul/R&B male artist.

His protege Bieber won favorite pop/rock male artist in the first award handed out and gave a shout-out to those who didn’t think he would last on the music scene.

“I want to say this is for all the haters who thought I was just here for one or two years. I feel like I’m going to be here for a very long time,” he said.

He also won favorite pop/rock album for his platinum-selling third album, “Believe.” He gave a stripped down, acoustic performance of “As Long As You Love Me,” then transitioned to the dance-heavy “Beauty and a Beat,” where Minaj joined him onstage, grinding with the teen for a few seconds.

Swift won her fifth consecutive award for favorite country female artist.

“This is unreal. I want to thank the fans. You guys are the ones who voted on this,” she said.

Swift gave a masquerade-themed performance of the pop song “I Knew You Were Trouble.” She sang onstage in a light dress while dancers wore mostly black. But then she changed into a red corset and black skirt, matching their dark mood. She even danced and sang on the floor as lights flickered throughout the performance.

Dick Clark, who created the AMAs, was remembered by Ryan Seacrest and an upbeat performance by Stevie Wonder.

“What a producer he was,” said Seacrest, as Wonder sang his hits, including “My Cherie Amour.”

Carly Rae Jepsen, who performed early in the night, won favorite new artist.

“I am floored. Wow,” she said, thanking Bieber and his manager, Scooter Braun.

Party girl Ke$ ha was glammed up on the red carpet, rocking long, flowy blonde hair and a light pink dress. She switched to her normal attire when she performed her hit single “Die Young.” It was tribal, with shirtless dancers in skin-tight pants, silver hair and skeleton-painted faces, who also played the drums. Ke$ ha was pants-less, rocking knee-high boots and rolling on the floor as she finished up the song.

Minaj and Christina Aguilera were blonde bombshells, too: Minaj’s hair was busy and full of volume and she sported a neon strapless gown to accept her first award. Aguilera wore a blonde bob in a purple dress that matched her eyeshadow.

Aguilera performed a medley of material from her new album and joined Pitbull onstage.

Kelly Clarkson also hit the stage, making a nod to her “American Idol” roots with a number on her dress and three judges looking on as she sang “Miss Independent.” Then she went into “Since U Been Gone,” ”Stronger” and “Catch My Breath.”

Fellow “Idol” winner Carrie Underwood won best favorite country album and performed, hitting the right notes while singing “Two Black Cadillacs.” She talked about singing competition shows backstage.

“These people that go on these shows are so talented, you know? And I would love to see if so many of the other artists that are out there today would go back and try out for these shows, because they might get their behinds kicked by some of the contestants,” she said.

Luke Bryan won favorite country male artist and Lady Antebellum favorite country group.

American Music Awards nominees were selected based on sales and airplay, and fans chose the winners by voting online. At this award show, even the stars were fans: Pink said on the red carpet that she’d like to collaborate with Lauryn Hill. Cyndi Lauper said her musical playlist includes Pink and Minaj. Boy band The Wanted said they were excited to see PSY and Colbie Caillat wanted to watch No Doubt.

“What makes the American Music Awards special is the fans choose the winning artists,” said Chester Bennington of Linkin Park, who won favorite alternative rock artist and performed “Burn It Down,” as Brandy sang along and Gwen Stefani, Usher and Phillip Phillips bobbed their heads.

David Guetta won the show’s first-ever electronic dance music award. Non-televised awards went to Katy Perry for pop/rock female artist, Beyonce for soul/R&B female artist, Adele for adult contemporary artist and Shakira for Latin artist.

Along with Rihanna, Minaj was the top nominee with four nominations.

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AP Entertainment Writer Sandy Cohen contributed to this report from Los Angeles.

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Follow Mesfin Fekadu on Twitter at http://twitter.com/MusicMesfin

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Online:

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Facebook takes another shot at settling privacy lawsuit

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – A U.S. judge said he would consider whether to preliminarily approve Facebook‘s second attempt to settle allegations the social networking company violated privacy rights.

Earlier this year, U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg rejected a proposed class action settlement over Facebook’s ‘Sponsored Stories’ advertising feature. But at a hearing on Thursday in San Francisco federal court, Seeborg was much less critical of a revised proposal and promised a ruling “very shortly.”

Five Facebook Inc members filed a lawsuit seeking class-action status against the social networking site, saying its Sponsored Stories feature violated California law by publicizing users’ “likes” of certain advertisers without paying them or giving them a way to opt out. The case involved over 100 million potential class members.

As part of a proposed settlement reached earlier this year, Facebook agreed to allow members more control over how their personal information is used. Facebook also agreed to pay $ 10 million for legal fees and $ 10 million to charity, according to court documents.

However, Seeborg rejected the proposed deal in August, questioning why it did not award any money to members.

In a revised proposal, Facebook and plaintiff lawyers said users now could claim a cash payment of up to $ 10 each to be paid from a $ 20 million total settlement fund. Any money remaining would then go to charity.

The company also said it would engineer a new tool to enable users to view any content that might have been displayed in Sponsored Stories and then opt out if they desire, the court document says.

In court on Thursday, Facebook attorney Michael Rhodes said the settlement provided meaningful protections and that Seeborg’s job was to ensure a fair settlement – not write national privacy policy.

“Trust me, I’m not proposing to set grand policy with privacy issues writ large,” Seeborg said.

Two children’s advocacy groups filed court papers opposing the deal, saying that an opt-in procedure with parental consent should be required before Facebook can use a minor’s content in ads.

However, plaintiff attorney Robert Arns said the deal balances the public good with Facebook’s ability to run a profitable social networking service.

“We believe we cracked the code so that it’s fair,” he said.

If Seeborg grants his preliminary approval, outside groups would be able to file further objections before a final hearing.

The case in U.S. District Court, Northern District of California is Angel Fraley et al., individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated vs. Facebook Inc, 11-cv-1726.

(Reporting By Dan Levine. Editing by Andre Grenon)

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Body found near burned Gulf oil rig

NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Divers hired by the owner of an oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico that caught fire recovered a body in the waters near the site Saturday evening, according to the U.S. Coast Guard and the rig's owner.

Coast Guard spokesman Carlos Vega said late Saturday that the remains of the unidentified person were found by divers hired by Houston-based Black Elk Energy, who were inspecting the platform. Vega said the Coast Guard would be turning over the remains to local authorities.

John Hoffman, the president and CEO of Black Elk Energy, wrote in an email late Saturday that the body is apparently that of one of two crew members missing since an explosion and fire on the oil platform Friday morning. Hoffman said the body was found by a contract dive vessel at 5:25 p.m. CST.

"Divers will continue to search for the second missing worker," Hoffman wrote. "Our thoughts and prayers are with the families."

Hoffman said the body was found close to the leg of the platform, near where the explosion occurred, in about 30 feet of water. He said the missing men were employees of oilfield contractor Grand Isle Shipyard.

"We have notified next of kin of all individuals involved, but in respect for their families and their privacy, we will not be releasing their names," GIS CEO Mark Pregeant said in a statement, according to WWL-TV in New Orleans.

The news came shortly after the Coast Guard suspended a 32-hour-long search for the two missing workers that covered 1,400 square miles (3626 sq. kilometers) near the oil platform, located about 20 miles (40 kilometers) southeast of Grand Isle, La.

"We have saturated the search area several times — the 1400-square-foot area," Vega said. "We saw no signs of life. We have suspended the search... pending further development. If we receive any credible information that there are signs of life, we can resume the search at any time."

Four other workers who were severely burned remained at Baton Rouge General Medical Center on Saturday night.

Coast Guard Chief Petty Officer Bobby Nash said the Guard's search was ended early Saturday evening. Helicopters and a fixed-wing aircraft had been searching by air, while cutters and boat crews searched the sea.

The blaze erupted Friday morning while workers were using a torch to cut an oil line on the platform, authorities said.

Pregeant stressed in his statement that the cause of the fire and explosion is unknown, and said "initial reports that a welding torch was being used at the time of the incident or that an incorrect line was cut are completely inaccurate."

Four workers were severely burned, though Black Elk Energy spokeswoman Leslie Hoffman said their burns were not as extensive as initially feared.

Officials at Baton Rouge General Medical Center said Saturday that two men remained in critical condition, while two men remained in serious condition. The four, being treated in a burn unit, are also employees of Grand Isle Shipyard and are from the Philippines. The hospital said it and Grand Isle Shipyard are trying to reach the men's families in the Philippines.

Grand Isle Shipyard employed 14 of the 22 workers on the platform at the time of the explosion, WWL-TV reported. A man who answered the phone at the company's Galliano, La., office on Saturday said no one was available to comment.

Separate from the accident, Grand Isle Shipyard is facing a lawsuit by a group of former workers from the Philippines who claim they were confined to cramped living quarters and forced to work long hours for substandard pay. The lawsuit was filed in late 2011 in a Louisiana federal court and is pending. Lawyers for the company have said the workers' claims are false and should be dismissed.

Meanwhile, officials said no oil was leaking from the charred platform, a relief for Gulf Coast residents still weary two years after the BP oil spill illustrated the risk that offshore drilling poses to the region's ecosystem and economy.

Friday's fire sent an ominous black plume of smoke into the air reminiscent of the deadly 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion that transformed the oil industry and life along the U.S. Gulf Coast

James A. Watson, the director of Louisiana's Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, said in a statement Saturday that his agency had begun "an investigation into the explosion and fire aboard a Black Elk Energy production platform offshore Louisiana."

"BSEE is committed to determining the direct and indirect causes of the explosion and will take appropriate enforcement action," he said.

The Deepwater Horizon blaze killed 11 workers and led to an oil spill that took months to bring under control. Friday's fire came a day after BP PLC agreed to plead guilty to a raft of charges in the 2010 spill and pay a record $4.5 billion in penalties.

There were a few important differences between this latest blaze and the one that touched off the worst offshore spill in U.S. history: Friday's fire was put out within hours, while the Deepwater Horizon burned for more than a day, collapsed and sank.

The Black Elk Energy facility is a production platform in shallow water, rather than an exploratory drilling rig like the Deepwater Horizon looking for new oil on the seafloor almost a mile (1.6 kilometers) deep.

The depth of the 2010 well blow-out proved to be a major challenge in bringing the disaster under control.

The Black Elk Energy platform is in 56 feet (17 meters) of water — a depth much easier for engineers to manage if a spill had happened.

A sheen of oil about a half-mile (800 meters) long and 200 yards (180 meters) wide was reported on the Gulf surface, but officials believe it came from residual oil on the platform.

"It's not going to be an uncontrolled discharge from everything we're getting right now," Coast Guard Capt. Ed Cubanski said.

Hoffman, the Black Elk Energy spokeswoman, said Saturday that there were still no signs of any leak or spill at the platform site.

BP's blown-out well spewed millions of gallons (liters) of oil into the sea, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi River on the east side of the river delta. The crude fouled beaches, marshes and rich seafood grounds.

After Friday's blaze, 11 people were taken by helicopter to area hospitals or for treatment on shore by emergency medical workers.

The production platform is on the western side of the Mississippi River delta.

"This platform was not in operation and had been shut in since mid-August," Black Elk officials said in a news release Saturday.

Cubanski said the platform appeared to be structurally sound. He said only about 28 gallons (106 liters) of oil were in the broken line on the platform.

David Smith, a spokesman for the Interior Department's Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement in Washington, said an environmental enforcement team was dispatched from a Gulf Coast base by helicopter soon after the Coast Guard was notified of the emergency. Smith said the team would scan for any evidence of oil spilling and investigate the cause of the explosion.

Black Elk Energy is an independent oil and gas company. The company's website says it holds interests in properties in Texas and Louisiana waters, including 854 wells on 155 platforms.

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Associated Press writers Kevin McGill in New Orleans and Jeff Amy in Jackson, Miss., and Norman Gomlak and Greg Schreier in Atlanta contributed to this story.

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Golf-Obsession drove Aussie Batibasaga to mental institution

MELBOURNE, Nov 18 (Reuters) – The desire to improve can drive professional athletes to distraction, but for Australian golfer Rika Batibasaga it became a dangerous obsession that saw him handcuffed and thrown into a Florida mental institution.

In 2008, Batibasaga, whose father played international rugby for Fiji, was a 21-year-old living in Florida and grafting on the Nationwide Tour when his world spectacularly imploded.

“I was living away from home for the first time and it all got too much for me,” Batibasaga told Reuters at the Australian Masters in Melbourne on Sunday.

“I had a psychotic episode – it’s called psychosis. I lost the plot because of a lack of sleep – just due to stress.

“And I couldn’t control it and basically just flipped it out.”

Like hundreds of other young talents drawn to the United States to chase their dreams, Batibasaga felt hard work would prove the difference after he carried countryman and former house-mate Jason Day’s bag at a local tournament.

Feeling his game was not far off the professionals in that tournament, Batibasaga threw himself into a punishing training regime of 10-hour days hitting hundreds of balls, followed by running and gym sessions.

“It was stupid. It became an obsession. I felt I needed to push it a lot harder because I was almost there,” he recalled.

“But my brain just wouldn’t turn off and I would just get so frustrated and angry.

“When I went two or three days without sleep, I panicked and that it made it even worse. It just sort of snowballed.”

Into his sixth consecutive day without sleep, Batibasaga snapped.

Wearing just a pair of underwear, he jumped into a car belonging to the owner of the Orlando house he was living in and crashed it in the garage.

He jumped into another car, this one his house mate’s, and was arrested by police in front of Universal Studios.

“They both had their guns out. I guess it’s just America and they love pulling a gun on someone,” Batibasaga, an affable 25-year-old with a wispy beard, laughed.

“I was just driving around, I had no idea where I was going. I was in no state to drive.

“They put me in an ambulance, they obviously thought I was on drugs. They knocked me out at the hospital and I woke up feeling fine.”

With no phone or identification cards, Batibasaga was taken to a mental hospital where he spent “probably the scariest two days” of his life before being checked out.

The same problems came back to haunt him later, though, and he returned home for further treatment and a course of prescription drugs at a Brisbane hospital where he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

Batibasaga, who made the cut in his debut Australian Masters, has not suffered any further mental illness, and has learnt to take a more measured approach to success and failure.

He continues to grind on the minor tours but has shown signs of his promise, winning A$ 18,459 ($ 19,000) at the European Tour co-sanctioned Perth International last month for finishing joint 25th.

Batibasaga still has the green uniform from the Lakeside mental institution in Florida as a souvenir and wore it out to a New Year’s Eve party.

He says dozens of young golfers struggling to make the step up to the A-grade suffer from anxiety and depression that borders and often crosses over into mental illness.

“It’s rife. Because you’re always by yourself and if you’re not playing well, you go back to your hotel alone,” he said.

“When things aren’t going well, that’s when it’s tough.” ($ 1 = 0.9702 Australian dollars) (Editing by Nick Mulvenney)

Health News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Israel, Gaza fighting rages on as Egypt seeks truce

GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel bombed Palestinian militant targets in the Gaza Strip from air and sea for a fifth straight day on Sunday, preparing for a possible ground invasion though Egypt saw “some indications” of a truce ahead.

Militant rocket fire into Israel subsided during the night but resumed in the morning with three rockets fired at the nearby coastal city of Ashkelon, the Israeli army said.

“As of now we have struck more than 1,000 targets, so Hamas should do the math over whether it is or isn’t worth it to cease fire,” Israeli Vice Prime Minister Moshe Yaalon, over Twitter.

“If there is quiet in the South and no rockets and missiles are fired at Israel’s citizens nor terrorist attacks engineered from the Gaza Strip, we will not attack.”

Forty-eight Palestinians, about half of them civilians, including 13 children, have been killed in Israel’s raids, Palestinian officials said. More than 500 rockets fired from Gaza have hit Israel, killing three people and injuring dozens.

Israel unleashed intensive air strikes on Wednesday, killing the commander of the Hamas Islamist group that governs Gaza and spurns peace with the Jewish state. Israel’s declared goal is to deplete Gaza arsenals and press Hamas into stopping cross-border rocket fire that has plagued Israeli border towns for years.

Air raids continued past midnight into Sunday, with warships shelling from the sea. A Gaza City media building was hit, witnesses said, wounding 6 journalists and damaging facilities belonging to Hamas’s Al-Aqsa TV as well as Britain’s Sky News.

An Israeli military spokeswoman said the strike had targeted a rooftop “transmission antenna used by Hamas to carry out terror activity”.

Two other predawn attacks on houses in the Jabalya refugee camp killed two children and wounded 13 other people, medical officials said.

These attacks followed a defiant statement by Hamas military spokesman Abu Ubaida, who told a news conference: “This round of confrontation will not be the last against the Zionist enemy and it is only the beginning.”

The masked gunman dressed in military fatigues insisted that despite Israel’s blows Hamas “is still strong enough to destroy the enemy”.

An Israeli attack on Saturday destroyed the house of a Hamas commander near the Egyptian border.

Casualties there were averted however, because Israel had fired non-exploding missiles at the building beforehand from a drone, which the militant’s family understood as a warning to flee, and thus their lives were spared, witnesses said.

Israeli aircraft also bombed Hamas government buildings in Gaza on Saturday, including the offices of Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh and a police headquarters.

Among those killed in air strikes on Gaza on Saturday were at least four suspected militants riding motorcycles, and several civilians including a 30-year-old woman.

ISRAELI SCHOOLS SHUT

Israel said it would keep schools in its south shut on Sunday as a precaution to avoid casualties from rocket strikes reaching as far as Tel Aviv and Jerusalem in the past few days.

Israel’s “Iron Dome” missile interceptor system destroyed in mid-air a rocket fired by Gaza militants at Tel Aviv on Saturday, where volleyball games on the beach front came to an abrupt halt as air-raid sirens sounded.

Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack on Tel Aviv, the third against the city since Wednesday. It said it had fired an Iranian-designed Fajr-5 at the coastal metropolis, some 70 km (43 miles) north of Gaza.

In the Israeli Mediterranean port of Ashdod, a rocket ripped into several balconies. Police said five people were hurt.

Israel’s operation has drawn Western support for what U.S. and European leaders have called Israel’s right to self-defense, but there was also a growing number of calls from world leaders to seek an end to the violence.

British Prime Minister David Cameron “expressed concern over the risk of the conflict escalating further and the danger of further civilian casualties on both sides,” in a conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a spokesperson for Cameron said.

London was “putting pressure on both sides to de-escalate,” the spokesman said, adding that Cameron had urged Netanyahu “to do everything possible to bring the conflict to an end.”

Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser to President Barack Obama, said the United States would like to see the conflict resolved through “de-escalation” and diplomacy, but also believes Israel has a right to self-defense.

Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi said in Cairo as his security deputies sought to broker a truce with Hamas leaders, that “there are some indications that there is a possibility of a ceasefire soon, but we do not yet have firm guarantees.”

Egypt has mediated previous ceasefire deals between Israel and Hamas, the latest of which unraveled with recent violence.

A Palestinian official told Reuters the truce discussions would continue in Cairo on Sunday, saying “there is hope,” but it was too early to say whether the efforts would succeed.

In Jerusalem, an Israeli official declined to comment on the negotiations. Military commanders said Israel was prepared to fight on to achieve a goal of halting rocket fire from Gaza, which has plagued Israeli towns since late 2000, when failed peace talks led to the outbreak of a Palestinian uprising.

Diplomats at the United Nations said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is expected to visit Israel and Egypt in the coming week to push for an end to the fighting.

POSSIBLE GROUND OFFENSIVE

Israel, with tanks and artillery positioned along the frontier, said it was still weighing a ground offensive.

Israeli cabinet ministers decided on Friday to more than double the current reserve troop quota set for the Gaza offensive to 75,000 and around 16,000 reservists have already been called up.

Asked by reporters whether a ground operation was possible, Major-General Tal Russo, commander of the Israeli forces on the Gaza frontier, said: “Definitely.”

“We have a plan. … It will take time. We need to have patience. It won’t be a day or two,” he added.

A possible move into the densely populated Gaza Strip and the risk of major casualties it brings would be a significant gamble for Netanyahu, favored to win a January election.

The last Gaza war, a three-week Israeli blitz and invasion over the New Year of 2008-09, killed 1,400 Palestinians, mostly civilians. Thirteen Israelis died in the conflict.

But the Gaza conflagration has stirred the pot of a Middle East already boiling from two years of Arab revolution and a civil war in Syria that threatens to spread beyond its borders.

One major change has been the election of an Islamist government in Cairo that is allied with Hamas, potentially narrowing Israel’s maneuvering room in confronting the Palestinian group. Israel and Egypt made peace in 1979.

(Writing by Allyn Fisher-Ilan; Editing by Douglas Hamilton)

World News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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