“Silver Linings” David O. Russell on how Jennifer Lawrence skyped her way to Oscar front-runner

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Jennifer Lawrence is at the forefront of best actress Oscar talk for her lead role in “Silver Linings Playbook.” But, as writer-director David O. Russell explained to the audience at TheWrap screening series Thursday night, he was so convinced she wasn’t right for the role that he only had her audition via Skype.

“Quite frankly, it was like a formality,” Russell told the capacity crowd at the Landmark Theatre. “I didn’t think she was really a contender. We had three very serious contenders (already). We had a lot of major actresses in town interested in the role, from Angelina Jolie to some other big stars, because it’s a dimensional role for a young woman. Jennifer we frankly thought was too young” -until she pointed the tiny camera at herself at her parents’ home in Kentucky.

“She kind of has an ageless quality about her, which is remarkable,” said Russell. “Harvey (Weinstein) said, ‘Isn’t she too young?’ I said, ‘I don’t know, she could be 20, she could be 40. Look for yourself’- and I showed him the Skype (audition), and he said ‘Wow.’ So that was a blessing for us to find our Tiffany. She came onto the set saying to Bradley Cooper, ‘Wow, what’s it like for people to take pictures of you?’ By the end of the shoot, I think she knew for herself. Now she can’t get rid of people taking pictures of her.”

Russell added that “we saw her become a woman before our eyes. She has a presence about her and an emotion that’s very available. She’s a little bit like her character. But she’s not neurotic; she’s direct, she speaks her mind. And she’s kind of confident and fearless – but so far, not in an obnoxious way. She has a lot of power coming her way she’s going to have to deal with.”

Russell’s five-year quest to make the film involved a lot of casting turnover and near-misses. “I originally wrote it for other people. But as Matt Damon very graciously said to me about the Christian Bale role in ‘The Fighter’–which he was originally intended to play – ‘It just goes to show, the right people play the right role at the right time.’”

With “Silver Linings,” “I wrote it with Vince (Vaughn) and Zooey (Deschanel) in mind, because I love Vince’s cadences.” But these developments are “in the hands of the movie gods. And then Mark Wahlberg, who I love and made three movies with, there was a moment where he was going to do it. That didn’t work out with Harvey and him, and it was out of my hands.”

Few of the movie’s champions (who seem, with the exception of New Yorker critic David Denby, nearly universal) would argue that the casting didn’t end up exactly as it should, however many disagreements there were between Russell and Weinstein about it along the way.

(“There were instances where Harvey really wanted somebody and I did not. We had about a one or two year standoff about that at one point,” Russell admitted.) But moderator Steve Pond, TheWrap’s awards editor, confessed that, like many, he “didn’t know Bradley Cooper had it in him” until the proof was on the “Silver” screen.

“I did know,” said Russell, “the way I knew Amy Adams had it in her for ‘The Fighter.’ People said, ‘Amy Adams, the princess from “Enchanted”? I’m not gonna believe her as a barmaid bitch in Lowell, Massachusetts.’ Or Christian Bale having a goofy warmth to him. So I welcome as a director the opportunity to surprise audiences with a performance that they don’t see coming, and to turn out an actor in new ways.”

It was seeing Cooper in “Wedding Crashers” that convinced Russell the actor could be a convincing bipolar rageaholic in his off-the-meds scenes. “From that role, I thought, this seems like an angry guy – I mean, the guy off the camera as well as the guy on the camera. I told him that when I met him, and his reaction was not at all defensive. He said that he had been an angry guy, at the time, and less happy, and that he had weighed 30 pounds more – and so far I’m the character, the character, the character! He had substance issues, which is different. But he was so open and vulnerable and honest about it. And I saw that, combined with the scary/angry thing he had done. There’s nothing like the hunger in an actor when he really, really, really wants it bad. Because that matched up to the hunger of the character. The character wanted to get his life back really bad.”

And, Russell added, “it didn’t hurt” that Cooper had made “Limitless” with Robert DeNiro and the two had developed “a father/son-type thing.” As for “Mr. DeNiro,” as Russell always refers to him, “He has had family experiences such as I had, and it was very personal to him as well. When I met him at his home to discuss the script and my own life, he cried. I thought this meant he was really taking this project seriously and it was personal to him. And it did mean that. It shows up on the screen.”

The filmmaker was explicit about just what kind of “family experiences” he was referring to, and that there’s nothing glib or unknowing about the film’s treatment of mental illness, however many the laughs or however happy the denouements.

“I did it because my son has bipolar issues,” Russell said, “and I had long been looking for a project that would invite his world into the world and put it on the screen for him — which you want to do for your kids — so he didn’t feel so different, and so he could also feel like he was part of my work.

Bradley Cooper and Mr. DeNiro are in a world that is about things he can relate to very directly. And he earned a role in the picture. He had to do very good at school and in his behavior. So he was the guy who rings the doorbell” – playing a pesky student who wants to interview the family for a school project on mental illness.

The source novel immediately connected with Russell when should-have-been producers Sydney Pollack and Anthony Minghella gave it to him “the year they both died.” “I think the sensibility of the book is a sensibility I understand: It’s emotional and it dares to be romantic but it’s also funny – and based in reality. I think those are the big lessons I’ve learned in what I call the second phase of my filmmaking life: do it from the heart, really make it life or death emotionally, and make it real. So if something’s funny, it has to be because it’s real. I think ‘Raging Bull’ is one of the funniest films I’ve ever seen, because of how real the people are.”

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Diabetes may be linked to hearing loss: study

(Reuters) – Diabetes has already been tied to an increased risk of kidney and cardiovascular troubles, nerve damage and vision loss, and now a Japanese study finds diabetics to be more than twice as likely as those without the disease to have hearing impairment.

In a review of past research on the issue, published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, scientists found that younger diabetics were at even higher risk than older adults, though they could not explain why.

“Current meta-analysis suggests that the higher prevalence of hearing impairment in diabetic patients compared with nondiabetic patients was consistent regardless of age,” wrote lead researcher Chika Horikawa, at Niigata University Faculty of Medicine, and colleagues.

It’s not the first time researchers have found a link between diabetes and hearing loss. In 2008, researchers from the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) saw similar patterns in a sample of more than 11,000 people, with people with diabetes twice as likely to have hearing loss as those without.

It’s thought that high blood sugar levels brought on by diabetes may lead to hearing loss by damaging blood vessels in the ears, said Horikawa.

Horikawa and colleagues collected information from 13 previous studies examining the link between diabetes and hearing loss and published between 1977 and 2011. Together, the data covered 7,377 diabetes and 12,817 people without the condition.

Overall, Horikawa‘s team found that diabetics were 2.15 times as likely as people without the disease to have hearing loss. But when the results were broken down by age, people under 60 had 2.61 times the risk while people over 60 hand 1.58 times higher risk.

Some experts caution that this kind of study does not prove that diabetes is directly responsible for the greater hearing loss rates.

“It doesn’t definitively answer the question, but it continues to raise an important point that patients might ask about,” said Steven Smith, a diabetes specialist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.

The researchers note that future studies that take more factors into account, such as age and noisy environment, are needed to clarify the link between diabetes and hearing loss.

Still, Horikawa told Reuters Health in an email, people should recognize that diabetics may be at risk for hearing loss based on their results.

“Furthermore, these results propose that diabetic patients are screened for hearing impairment from (an) earlier age compared with non-diabetics,” said Horikawa, adding that hearing loss has also been linked to an increased risk of depression and dementia. SOURCE: http:.//bit.ly/RIVeeW

(Reporting from New York by Andrew Seaman at Reuters Health; editing by Elaine Lies)

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MPs in minority women job warning

2 December 2012 Last updated at 02:29 ET

Black and minority ethnic women face “catastrophic” levels of unemployment and are discriminated against at “every stage” of the recruitment process, a group of MPs has warned.

The BBC has seen a report from the all-party parliamentary group on race and community which says racial bias holds some women back from getting a job.

Labour MP David Lammy, the committee’s chairman, says the situation is “deeply worrying”.

The report will be published on Friday.

The inquiry examined written and verbal evidence through the summer.

Despite latest official figures showing, nationally, unemployment has continued to fall, the report says racial bias is holding some women back from getting a job.

One woman said she changed her Muslim-sounding name after using a different one secured her more job interviews.

And a black African woman said she was overlooked for a law-based job in favour of two less qualified white women, but then offered the job when the women were sacked for incompetence.

Mr Lammy said: “There have been a lot of cuts to the public sector. Black and minority ethnic women have been traditionally employed in the public sector and are losing their jobs in droves at this time.

“They complain of struggling with no support around child care and around helping them to stay in work. Many are doing just casual employment, so the picture is bleak and depressing.”

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Egypt’s Mursi calls referendum as Islamists march

CAIRO (Reuters) – Egypt‘s President Mohamed Mursi called a December 15 referendum on a draft constitution on Saturday as at least 200,000 Islamists demonstrated in Cairo to back him after opposition fury over his newly expanded powers.

Speaking after receiving the final draft of the constitution from the Islamist-dominated assembly, Mursi urged a national dialogue as the country nears the end of the transition from Hosni Mubarak‘s rule.

“I renew my call for opening a serious national dialogue over the concerns of the nation, with all honesty and impartiality, to end the transitional period as soon as possible, in a way that guarantees the newly-born democracy,” Mursi said.

Mursi plunged Egypt into a new crisis last week when he gave himself extensive powers and put his decisions beyond judicial challenge, saying this was a temporary measure to speed Egypt’s democratic transition until the new constitution is in place.

His assertion of authority in a decree issued on November 22, a day after he won world praise for brokering a Gaza truce between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist Hamas movement, dismayed his opponents and widened divisions among Egypt’s 83 million people.

Two people have been killed and hundreds wounded in protests by disparate opposition forces drawn together and re-energized by a decree they see as a dictatorial power grab.

A demonstration in Cairo to back the president swelled through the afternoon, peaking in the early evening at least 200,000, said Reuters witnesses, basing their estimates on previous rallies in the capital. The authorities declined to give an estimate for the crowd size.

“The people want the implementation of God’s law,” chanted flag-waving demonstrators, many of them bussed in from the countryside, who choked streets leading to Cairo University, where Mursi’s Muslim Brotherhood had called the protest.

Tens of thousands of Egyptians had protested against Mursi on Friday. “The people want to bring down the regime,” they chanted in Cairo‘s Tahrir Square, echoing the trademark slogan of the revolts against Hosni Mubarak and Arab leaders elsewhere.

Rival demonstrators threw stones after dark in the northern city of Alexandria and a town in the Nile Delta. Similar clashes erupted again briefly in Alexandria on Saturday, state TV said.

“COMPLETE DEFEAT”

Mohamed Noshi, 23, a pharmacist from Mansoura, north of Cairo, said he had joined the rally in Cairo to support Mursi and his decree. “Those in Tahrir don’t represent everyone. Most people support Mursi and aren’t against the decree,” he said.

Mohamed Ibrahim, a hardline Salafi Islamist scholar and a member of the constituent assembly, said secular-minded Egyptians had been in a losing battle from the start.

“They will be sure of complete popular defeat today in a mass Egyptian protest that says ‘no to the conspiratorial minority, no to destructive directions and yes for stability and sharia (Islamic law)’,” he told Reuters.

Mursi has alienated many of the judges who must supervise the referendum. His decree nullified the ability of the courts, many of them staffed by Mubarak-era appointees, to strike down his measures, although says he respects judicial independence.

A source at the presidency said Mursi might rely on the minority of judges who support him to supervise the vote.

“Oh Mursi, go ahead and cleanse the judiciary, we are behind you,” shouted Islamist demonstrators in Cairo.

Mursi, once a senior Muslim Brotherhood figure, has put his liberal, leftist, Christian and other opponents in a bind. If they boycott the referendum, the constitution would pass anyway.

If they secured a “no” vote to defeat the draft, the president could retain the powers he has unilaterally assumed.

And Egypt’s quest to replace the basic law that underpinned Mubarak’s 30 years of army-backed one-man rule would also return to square one, creating more uncertainty in a nation in dire economic straits and seeking a $ 4.8 billion loan from the IMF.

“NO PLACE FOR DICTATORSHIP”

Mursi’s well-organized Muslim Brotherhood and its ultra-orthodox Salafi allies, however, are convinced they can win the referendum by mobilizing their own supporters and the millions of Egyptians weary of political turmoil and disruption.

“There is no place for dictatorship,” the president said on Thursday while the constituent assembly was still voting on a draft constitution which Islamists say enshrines Egypt’s new freedoms.

Human rights groups have voiced misgivings, especially about articles related to women’s rights and freedom of speech.

The text limits the president to two four-year terms, requires him to secure parliamentary approval for his choice of prime minister, and introduces a degree of civilian oversight over the military – though not enough for critics.

The draft constitution also contains vague, Islamist-flavored language that its opponents say could be used to whittle away human rights and stifle criticism.

For example, it forbids blasphemy and “insults to any person”, does not explicitly uphold women’s rights and demands respect for “religion, traditions and family values”.

The draft injects new Islamic references into Egypt’s system of government but retains the previous constitution’s reference to “the principles of sharia” as the main source of legislation.

“We fundamentally reject the referendum and constituent assembly because the assembly does not represent all sections of society,” said Sayed el-Erian, 43, a protester in Tahrir and member of a party set up by opposition figure Mohamed ElBaradei.

Several independent newspapers said they would not publish on Tuesday in protest. One of the papers also said three private satellite channels would halt broadcasts on Wednesday.

Egypt cannot hold a new parliamentary election until a new constitution is passed. The country has been without an elected legislature since the Supreme Constitutional Court ordered the dissolution of the Islamist-dominated lower house in June.

The court is due to meet on Sunday to discuss the legality of parliament’s upper house.

“We want stability. Every time, the constitutional court tears down institutions we elect,” said Yasser Taha, a 30-year-old demonstrator at the Islamist rally in Cairo.

(Additional reporting by Marwa Awad, Yasmine Saleh and Tom Perry; Editing by Myra MacDonald and Jason Webb)

World News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Facebook Cover Photos Are Disappearing

In the scope of a couple of days, several people — including Mashable staffers — have seen their Facebook cover photos disappear without explanation. The issue appears to be a move by Facebook to aggressively crack down on images that are considered promotional.

[More from Mashable: 500,000 Facebook Users Chase Fake $ 1 Million From Powerball ‘Winner’]

I first encountered the issue yesterday when Facebook ostensibly removed a promotional still from the TV series Doctor Who that I used as a cover photo. When I attempted to upload another image, I saw this message:

Pick a unique photo from your life to feature at the top of your timeline. Note: This space is not meant for banner ads or other promotions. Please don’t use content that is commercial, promotional, copyright-infringing or already in use on other people’s covers.

[More from Mashable: This Facebook App Gives Annoying Friends a ‘Time Out’]

Since we published the original article about the incident, several readers have come forward, reporting the same thing happened to them in the comments. In addition, three other Mashable staffers reported Facebook removing their cover photos in the last 24 hours.

When asked if there was some kind of crackdown going on, a Facebook spokesperson told Mashable via email that Facebook’s policies regarding photos and cover photos haven’t changed. Facebook’s terms of service specifies that a cover photo should be a “unique image that represents your Page.”

The exact reason why Facebook removed each cover is a mystery, since the user is not informed, except by the glaring empty space where the photo used to be. It could be due to a copyright violation or that the photo was deemed to “promotional.” Although Facebook removes the photo from the cover position, it doesn’t actually delete the photo itself.

“Facebook is in business to make money,” says Lou Kerner, a former social media analyst and founder of the Social Internet Fund. “The great thing about that is most ways they’re going to make money is by letting people do what they want — as long as it doesn’t break the law. For the most part, if they act in the user’s best interest, they act in their own best interests.”

While I speculated Facebook was removing cover photos to prevent the site from becoming too tacky, one of Mashable‘s commenters suggested Facebook was looking to preserve its business model. After all, if brands recruit “ambassadors” by encouraging — or paying — them upload promotional cover photos, that would detract from Facebook’s own tools that are meant to help brands engage with their fans on the service.

Disney, for example, offers fans of its franchises images to download that are specifically formatted for Facebook Timeline. If this is indeed a crackdown, that practice could cease.

“That seems more heavy-handed than Facebook generally acts,” says Kerner. “That sounds very egregious to me in terms of how they want brands and people to interact. I don’t see how Facebook benefits by not allowing a brand’s fans to engage with the brand like that.”

How widespread is the practice? It’s hard to say from the evidence so far, but based on Twitter reactions over the last day, it’s definitely been happening regularly. Although some users say the removed photos were their own, the pattern that seems to be emerging is that the photos are either promotional or violate copyright:

Why do you think Facebook is removing users’ cover photos and should it be doing so? Share your reactions in the comments.

1. Red Bull

Not only has Red Bull taken advantage of Timeline, it has also created a scavenger hunt with prizes to get fans interacting with the company’s history.

Click here to view this gallery.

This story originally published on Mashable here.

Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Obama warns of Scrooge Christmas

30 November 2012 Last updated at 16:33 ET

US President Barack Obama has warned of a “Scrooge Christmas” if tax breaks are not renewed for working families in a deal to avert a so-called fiscal cliff.

Mr Obama made the remarks as he tried to win public support for his plan on a visit to a toy-maker in Pennsylvania.

But Republican House Speaker John Boehner said talks with the White House had gone “almost nowhere”.

He said President Obama’s plan to raise $ 1.6tn (£1tn) of revenue over 10 years was not a “serious proposal”.

Planned tax rises and spending cuts due to take effect on 1 January could send the US back into recession, economists warn.

‘Lump of coal’

On Friday, Mr Obama toured the Rodon Group manufacturing facility, where parts for the children’s toy K’nex are made.

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

There’s a stalemate – let’s not kid ourselves”

End Quote John Boehner Speaker of the House

The Democratic president said it was the type of company that depended on middle-class customers to buy its goods, adding it would be hurt if ordinary Americans faced a tax rise.

In a speech at the factory, Mr Obama said both parties would have to “get out of our comfort zones” in order to negotiate a deal on the fiscal cliff, and pledged he would be willing to do the same.

He said that if Congress did not extend soon-to-expire tax breaks for the middle-class, it would be like receiving a “lump of coal” at Christmas.

“That’s a Scrooge Christmas,” Mr Obama added.

Tax cuts passed during the presidency of George W Bush are due to expire under the fiscal cliff.

Mr Obama favours extending the break for households earning below $ 250,000. But he wants taxes to rise for those on income above that sum.

Mr Boehner said that asking the top 2% of US taxpayers to pay more would deal a “crippling blow” to a fragile economy.

He also criticised as inadequate spending cuts that were proposed on Thursday by the Obama administration.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner put forward a plan to congressional leaders that would raise $ 1.6 trillion in higher taxes over a decade.

Continue reading the main story

What is the fiscal cliff?

• Under a deal reached last year between President Obama and the Republican-controlled Congress, existing stimulus measures – mostly tax cuts – will expire on 1 January 2013


• Cuts to defence, education and other government spending will then automatically come into force – the “fiscal cliff” – unless Congress acts


• The economy does not have the momentum to absorb the shock from going over the fiscal cliff without going into recession

The proposal also envisages spending more money to help the unemployed and struggling homeowners.

And it called for savings of as much as $ 400bn from Medicare and other benefit programmes over 10 years.

Mr Boehner told reporters on Friday: “There’s a stalemate. Let’s not kid ourselves. Right now, we’re almost nowhere.”

Some Republicans have said they would consider increased tax revenue as part of a deal to avoid the fiscal cliff.

But the White House believes that simply ending tax deductions would not address the yawning budget deficit.

White House press secretary Jay Carney has indicated Mr Obama would not support any deal that did not increase tax rates on the wealthiest.

The fiscal cliff would suck about $ 600bn (£347bn) out of the economy.

The measures were partly put in place within a 2011 deal to curb the yawning US budget deficit.

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Oliver Stone, Benicio del Toro visit Puerto Rico

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Benicio Del Toro didn’t wait long to collect on a favor that Oliver Stone owed him for working extra hours on the set of his most recent movie, “Savages”, released this year.

The favor? A trip to Del Toro‘s native Puerto Rico, which Stone hadn’t visited since the early 1960s.

“I told him, you owe me one,” Del Toro said with a smile as he recalled the conversation during a press conference Friday in the U.S. territory, where he and Stone are helping raise money for one of the island’s largest art museums.

Del Toro, wearing jeans, a black jacket and a black T-shirt emblazoned with the name of local reggaeton singer Tego Calderon, waved to the press as he was introduced.

“Hello, greetings. Is this a press conference?” he quipped as he and Stone awaited questions.

Both men praised each other’s work, saying they would like to work with each other again.

“I deeply admire him as an actor, the way he thinks, the way he expresses himself,” Stone said. “Of all the actors I’ve worked with, he’s the most interesting.”

Stone said Del Toro always delivers surprises while acting, even when it’s as something as subtle as certain gestures between dialogue.

“I think Benicio is the master of keeping you watching,” he said.

Stone said he enjoys meeting up with Del Toro off-set because he’s one of the few actors in Hollywood who can talk about something other than movies.

“He is very interested in the world around him,” Stone said, adding that the conversations sometimes center around politics and other topics.

Del Toro declined to answer when asked what he thought about Puerto Rico’s referendum earlier this month, which aimed to determine the future of the island’s political status. He said the results did not seem to point to a clear-cut outcome.

Del Toro then said he would like the island’s movie business to grow, especially in a way that would encourage learning.

“I’m talking about movies in an educational sense, as a way to discover other parts of the world,” he said. “Create a film class. You’ll see, kids won’t skip it.”

Del Toro also shared his thoughts on being a father after having a daughter with Kimberly Stewart in August 2011.

He said the girl is learning how to swim and is discovering the world around her.

“She has her own personality,” Del Toro said. “She’s not her mother. She’s not me.”

Both Del Toro and Stone are expected to remain in Puerto Rico through the weekend to raise money for the Art Museum of Puerto Rico, which is hosting its annual movie festival and will honor Stone’s movies.

Museum curator Juan Carlos Lopez Quintero said the money raised will be used to enhance the museum’s permanent collection, especially with Puerto Rican paintings from the 19th century and early 20th century.

Latin America News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Act of kindness turns New York cop into media darling

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The U.S. national media just got the perfect holiday gift: a feel-good tale about a young police officer who dug into his own pocket to put boots on a barefoot panhandler on a freezing city sidewalk.

Even better was the way the story of New York City Police Officer Larry DePrimo‘s kindness unfolded.

Thanks to a blurry Facebook photo snapped on a cell phone by a tourist who happened the incident in Times Square, DePrimo, 25, went from anonymous Good Samaritan to national media celebrity in less than 72 hours.

The photo of the officer crouching with the new pair of boots next to the bedraggled man was featured on the front pages of New York‘s two popular tabloids, the New York Post and the New York Daily News, on Friday. An article describing the good deed was the most viewed story of The New York Times’s website on Friday morning.

DePrimo told and retold the story of his labor of love in interviews Friday on a half dozen national TV morning shows, including NBC’s “Today” show, ABC’s “Good Morning America,” CBS’s “Morning Show,” CNN’s “Starting Point” and Fox News’s “Fox & Friends.”

“We’ve been speaking a lot the last couple of days about who should be the ‘Time’ person of the year — Time magazine. I’d like to nominate you,” “Fox & Friends” host Gretchen Carlson told DePrimo.

Little was known about the man to whom DePrimo gave the boots. He is said to be a veteran who was at one time homeless and was placed in veterans’ housing sometime in the past year, according to NBC 4 New York.

DePrimo’s story has been particularly appealing because most pictures and video civilians take of police officers expose cruelty, not generosity, said Roy Peter Clark, a senior scholar at the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Florida.

In contrast, “everything about this feels good and right and worthy,” Clark said, adding that the way the story came to the media’s attention contributed to its poignancy.

Squeezed into the spotlight was Jennifer Foster, the tourist who quietly snapped the photo of DePrimo that was posted to the New York Police Department’s Facebook page on Tuesday afternoon. She was flown to New York from Arizona for a Friday morning appearance on “Today” with DePrimo – meeting him for the first time.

“We decided that we were best friends now,” Foster said on the program.

Back in Times Square, television trucks and their crews swarmed the Skechers store where DePrimo bought the boots with the help of a worker who rang up the purchase with his employee discount. Even the small kindness of the discount triggered a wave of thank you calls and emails to the store, including from a retired detective from Arizona, said assistant manager Holli Barton.

(Reporting by Peter Rudegeair; Editing by Barbara Goldberg and Leslie Adler)

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Obama cranks up “fiscal cliff” pressure, Boehner says talks stalemated

HATFIELD, Penn. (Reuters) – President Barack Obama turned up the pressure in “fiscal cliff” talks on Friday, hitting the road to drum up support for his drive to raise taxes on the wealthy and warning Americans that Republicans were offering them “a lump of coal” for Christmas.

In a visit to a Pennsylvania toy factory, Obama portrayed congressional Republicans as Scrooges who risked sending the country over the fiscal cliff rather than strike a deal to avert the tax increases and spending cuts that begin in January unless Congress intervenes.

In Washington, House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner declared a stalemate in the talks and said Obama’s plan to raise taxes on the rich was the wrong approach.

“There is a stalemate. Let’s not kid ourselves,” the Ohio Republican said. “Right now we are almost nowhere.”

Lawmakers are nervously eyeing the markets as the deadline approaches, with gyrations likely to intensify pressure to bring the drama to a close.

Major stock market indexes fell as Boehner spoke but recovered afterward. It was a repeat of the pattern earlier in the week when the Speaker offered a gloomy assessment.

The latest round of high-stakes gamesmanship focuses on whether to extend the temporary tax cuts that originated under former President George W. Bush beyond their December 31 expiration date for all taxpayers, as Republicans want, or just for those with income under $ 250,000, as Obama and his fellow Democrats want.

“If Congress does nothing, every family in America will see their taxes automatically go up on January 1,” Obama said during his visit to a factory in suburban Philadelphia. “That’s sort of like the lump of coal you get for Christmas. That’s a Scrooge Christmas.”

Obama, who made higher tax rates for the wealthy a centerpiece of his re-election campaign, said Americans should pressure Republicans to quickly agree to extend the middle-class tax cuts that cover 98 percent of the public.

“We already all agree, we say, on making sure middle-class taxes don’t go up. So let’s get that done. Let’s go ahead and take the fear out for the vast majority of American families so they don’t have to worry,” Obama said at The Rodon Group factory, which makes K’NEX building toy systems as well as Tinkertoys and consumer products.

‘VICTORY LAP’

Obama’s trip to Pennsylvania was part of a renewed public relations push on the fiscal cliff that the White House hopes will build support for his stance. The effort has infuriated Republicans, with Boehner calling it a “victory lap” on Thursday as he rejected Obama’s proposals to avoid the cliff.

“It tells you he’s not interested in negotiating. He’s more interested in traveling around the country trying to campaign,” Representative Jim Gerlach, a Pennsylvania Republican, said on CNBC on Friday.

The effort continues next week, as Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, Obama’s lead negotiator in the talks, makes the rounds of television talk shows on Sunday. Obama will meet a bipartisan group of governors at the White House on Tuesday, and the president will address the Business Roundtable on Wednesday.

Boehner is scheduled for an appearance on Fox News Sunday.

Obama and Boehner both said they still believe the two sides can work together to find a solution before the end-of-year deadline.

But Boehner has been scrambling to keep his House Republicans in line, with some signaling more flexibility on ways to find a combination of new revenue and spending cuts that could yield an agreement.

Most House Republicans refuse to back higher rates, preferring to raise revenue through tax reform. But some have suggested they would support a deal with higher rates for the rich if it includes significant cuts in the government-sponsored Medicare and Medicaid healthcare entitlement programs.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky told the Wall Street Journal in an interview that Republicans would agree to more revenue – although not higher tax rates – if Democrats agreed to such changes as raising the eligibility age for Medicare and slowing cost-of-living increases in the Social Security retirement program.

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of California, who has opposed such changes, brushed off the comments. “Nothing new in that statement from Mitch McConnell,” she said.

Moderate Republican Representative Steven LaTourette of Ohio, who is retiring at year’s end, said he would back some high-end tax rate increases if the deal reforms Medicare.

He said he would support new limits on high-income earners’ Medicare benefits, and raising the eligibility age for entitlement programs.

Obama said he was encouraged by the shifting views of some Republicans, and urged House approval of a bill that has already cleared the Democratic-controlled Senate that would lock in the middle-class tax cuts and raise the rates for the rich.

“If we can get a few House Republicans on board, we can pass the bill … . I’m ready to sign it,” Obama said.

(Additional reporting by Richard Cowan, Thomas Ferraro, Kim Dixon, Edward Krudy; Writing by John Whitesides; Editing by Fred Barbash and Xavier Briand)

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Noisy city: Cacophony in Caracas sparks complaints

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — This metropolis of 6 million people may be one of the world’s most intense, overwhelming cities, with tremendous levels of crime, traffic and social strife. The sounds of Caracas‘ streets live up to its reputation.

Stand on any downtown corner, and the cacophony can be overpowering: Deafening horns blast from oncoming buses, traffic police shrilly blow their whistles and sirens shriek atop ambulances stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic.

Air horns routinely used by bus drivers are so powerful they make pedestrians on crosswalks recoil, and can even leave their ears ringing. Loud salsa music blares from the windows of buses, trucks with old mufflers rumble past belching exhaust, and “moto-taxis” weave through traffic beeping high-pitched horns.

Growing numbers of Venezuelans are saying they’re fed up with the noise that they say is getting worse, and the numbers of complaints to the authorities have risen in recent years.

One affluent district, Chacao, put up signs along a main avenue reading: “A honk won’t make the traffic light change.”

“The noise is terrible. Sometimes it seems like it’s never going to end,” said Jose Santander, a street vendor who stands in the middle of a highway selling fried pork rinds and potato chips to commuters in traffic.

Prosecutor General Luisa Ortega recently told a news conference that officials have started “putting an increased emphasis on promoting peaceful coexistence” by punishing misdemeanors such as violations of anti-noise regulations and other minor crimes. That effort has translated into hundreds of noise-related cases in recent years.

Some violators are ordered to perform community service. For instance, two young musicians who were recently caught playing loud music near a subway station were sentenced to 120 hours of community service giving music lessons to students in public schools.

Others caught playing loud music on the street have been charged with disturbing the peace after complaints from neighbors. Fines can run as high as 9,000 bolivars, or $ 2,093.

On the streets of their capital, however, Venezuelans have grown used to living loudly. The noisescape adds to a general sense of anarchy, with many drivers ignoring red lights and blocking intersections along potholed streets strewn with trash.

“This is something that everybody does. Nobody should be complaining,” said Gregorio Hernandez, a 23-year-old college student, as he listened to Latin rock songs booming from his car stereo on a Saturday night in downtown Caracas. “We’re just having fun. We’re not hurting anybody.”

Adding to the mess is the country’s notoriously divisive politics, which regularly fill the streets with marches and demonstrations.

On many days, the shouts of protesters streaming through downtown can be heard from blocks away, demanding pay hikes or unpaid benefits.

And the sporadic crackling of gunfire in the slums can be confused for firecrackers tossed by boisterous partygoers.

It’s difficult to rank the world’s noisiest cities because many, including Venezuela’s capital, don’t take measurements of sound pollution, said Victor Rastelli, a mechanical engineering professor and sound pollution expert at Simon Bolivar University in Caracas. But Rastelli said he suspects Caracas is right up there among the noisiest, along with Sao Paulo, Mexico City and Mumbai.

Excessive noise can be more than simply an annoyance, Rastelli said. “This is a public health problem.”

Dr. Carmen Mijares, an audiologist at a private Caracas hospital, said she treats at least a dozen patients every month for hearing damage caused by prolonged exposure to loud noises.

“Many of them work in bars or night clubs, and their maladies usually include temporary hearing loss and headaches,” Mijares said. For others, she said, the day-to-day noise of traffic, car horns and loud music can exacerbate stress and sleeping disorders.

Several cities have successfully reduced noise pollution, said Stephen Stansfeld, a London psychiatry professor and coordinator of the European Network on Noise and Health.

One of the most noteworthy initiatives, Stansfeld said, was in Copenhagen, Denmark, where officials used sound walls, noise-reducing asphalt and other infrastructure as well as public awareness campaigns to fight noise pollution.

But such high-tech solutions seem like a remote possibility in Caracas, where streets are literally falling apart and aging overpasses regularly lack portions of their guard rails. Prosecutors, angry neighbors and others hoping to fight the noise will have to persuade Venezuelans to do nothing less than change their loud behavior.

For Carlos Pinto, however, making noise is practically a political right.

The 26-year-old law student and his friends danced at a recent street party to house music booming from woofers in his car’s open trunk, with neon lights on the speakers that pulsed to the beat.

When asked about the noise, he answered: “We will be heard.”

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AP freelance video journalist Ricardo Nunes contributed to this report.

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Christopher Toothaker on Twitter: http://twitter.com/ctoothaker

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