Romney reflects on his loss in call with campaign donors

Mitt Romney told his top donors Wednesday that his loss to President Obama was a disappointing result that neither he nor his top aides had expected, but said he believed his team ran a “superb” campaign with “no drama,” and attributed his rival’s victory to “the gifts” the administration had given to blacks, Hispanics and young voters during Obama’s  first term.

Obama, Romney argued, had been “very generous” to blacks, Hispanics and young voters. He cited as motivating factors to young voters the administration’s plan for partial forgiveness of college loan interest and the extension of health coverage for students on their parents’ insurance plans well into their 20s. Free contraception coverage under Obama’s healthcare plan, he added, gave an extra incentive to college-age women to back the president.

Romney argued that Obama’s healthcare plan’s promise of coverage “in perpetuity” was “highly motivational” to those voters making $25,000 to $35,000 who might not have been covered, as well as to African American and Hispanic voters. Pivoting to immigration, Romney said the Obama campaign’s efforts to paint him as “anti-immigrant” had been effective and that the administration’s promise to offer what he called “amnesty” to the children of illegal immigrants had helped turn out Hispanic voters in record numbers.

PHOTOS: Mitt Romney’s past

“The president’s campaign,” he said, “focused on giving targeted groups a big gift — so he made a big effort on small things. Those small things, by the way, add up to trillions of dollars.”

The Wednesday donor call was organized by Romney’s finance team and included a final rundown of fundraising efforts as well as an analysis by Romney pollster Neil Newhouse, who has been criticized by some Republicans for misleading the candidate about his chances.

“I am very sorry that we didn’t win,” Romney told the donors. “I know that you expected to win. We expected to win…. It was very close, but close doesn’t count in this business.”

Romney reflected on the trajectory that led to last week’s loss, acknowledging that he’d “gotten beat up pretty bad” by Obama and his allies after the primaries, but noting his rebound after the first fall debate.  

The 2012 Republican nominee avoided any recriminations about his team or a second-guessing of their efforts, calling the organization “a very solid team that got along” – an attribute he said he hoped would be reflected in the 2012 campaign books that are being written.

PHOTOS: Paul Ryan's past

Romney added that there was “no drama in the campaign — not that everybody was perfect; everybody has flat sides, but we learned how to accommodate each other’s strengths and weaknesses, to build on the strengths.”

“The organization did not get in the way,” he said.

In words of thanks for his donors, Romney said he never expected the campaign to raise more than $500 million. The Romney team ultimately raised more than $900 million, according to finance chairman Spencer Zwick, who reviewed some of the final tallies during the call.

Romney said he and his team were discussing how to keep the campaign’s donor group connected — perhaps with annual meetings or a monthly newsletter — “so we can stay informed and have influence on the direction of the party, and perhaps the selection of a future nominee.”

“Which, by the way,” the former candidate added with a chuckle, “will not be me.”

The former Massachusetts governor said he was trying to turn his thoughts to his plans going forward.

“But frankly we’re still so troubled by the past, it’s hard to put together our plans for the future,” he said.

PHOTOS: 2016 presidential possibilities

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Infinite Jukebox Lets You Listen to 'Call Me Maybe' Forever

By Philippa Warr, Wired UK

A Music Hack Day event in Boston has yielded The Infinite Jukebox — an app that creates infinitely long and ever-changing versions of uploaded tracks.

The Infinite Jukebox is the handiwork of Paul Lamere, director of developer platform for music intelligence company The Echo Nest and the man behind the Infinite Gangnam Style hack at Reykjavik’s Music Hack Day, and extends his previous project to its universal conclusion.

The app uses The Echo Nest analyzer — a music data service — to break the uploaded MP3 into individual beats. These beats can then be checked against one another to find similar-sounding points in the song. When the song is played, beat by beat there is a chance that the track will transition to one of the matched points rather than just playing normally.

Each track generates its own unique visualization that maps the beats around the circumference of a circle and shows possible transition paths between them.

“I was quite pleased at how the visualization turned out,” says Lamere. “I think it does a good job of helping the listener understand what is going on under the hood, and different songs have very different looks and color palettes. They can be quite attractive.”

The Infinite Jukebox works best with songs that have a lot of repetition, as they contain many transition opportunities — hence why we have been listening to “Call Me Maybe” by Carly Rae Jepson for 55 minutes but uploading an audio file of Richard Dreyfuss’ dramatic reading of the iTunes EULA yielded the error message, “Sorry, can’t make an infinite version of the song, it is too varied.”

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NBC names new top producer for ‘Today’

NEW YORK (AP) — NBC News is staying in-house in its effort to turn around the “Today” show.

The network on Wednesday appointed a 23-year veteran of the morning news show as its new executive producer. Don Nash began working for “Today” as a production assistant in NBC’s Burbank office in 1989 and will now run the four-hour broadcast.

Nash was most recently senior broadcast producer in the show’s control room. He replaces Jim Bell, who shifted to NBC Sports to run its Olympics broadcasts.

After nearly two decades of dominance, “Today” has slipped behind ABC’s “Good Morning America” in the ratings.

NBC also added another layer of management for the show, appointing Alexandra Wallace as the network’s executive in charge of the program.

Entertainment News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Personal Health: Quitting Smoking for Good

Few smokers would claim that it’s easy to quit. The addiction to nicotine is strong and repeatedly reinforced by circumstances that prompt smokers to light up.

Yet the millions who have successfully quit are proof that a smoke-free life is achievable, even by those who have been regular, even heavy, smokers for decades.

Today, 19 percent of American adults smoke, down from more than 42 percent half a century ago, when Luther Terry, the United States surgeon general, formed a committee to produce the first official report on the health effects of smoking. Ever-increasing restrictions on where people can smoke have helped to swell the ranks of former smokers.

Now, however, as we approach the American Cancer Society’s 37th Great American Smokeout on Thursday, the decline in adult smoking has stalled despite the economic downturn and the soaring price of cigarettes.

Currently, 45 million Americans are regular smokers who, if they remain smokers, can on average expect to live 10 fewer years. Half will die of a tobacco-related disease, and many others will suffer for years with smoking-caused illness. Smoking adds $96 billion to the annual cost of medical care in this country, Dr. Nancy A. Rigotti wrote in The Journal of the American Medical Association last month. Even as some adult smokers quit, their ranks are being swelled by the 800,000 teenagers who become regular smokers each year and by young adults who, through advertising and giveaways, are now the prime targets of the tobacco industry.

People ages 18 to 25 now have the nation’s highest smoking rate: about 34 percent, according to the 2010 National Survey on Drug Use and Health. I had to hold my breath the other day as dozens of 20-somethings streamed out of art gallery openings and lighted up. Do they not know how easy it is to get hooked on nicotine and how challenging it can be to escape this addiction?

Challenging, yes, but by no means impossible. On the Web you can download a “Guide to Quitting Smoking,” with detailed descriptions of all the tools and tips to help you become an ex-smoker once and for all.

Or consult the new book by Dr. Richard Brunswick, a retired family physician in Northampton, Mass., who says he’s helped hundreds of people escape the clutches of nicotine and smoking. (The printable parts of the book’s provocative title are “Can’t Quit? You Can Stop Smoking.”)

“There is no magic pill or formula for beating back nicotine addiction,” Dr. Brunswick said. “However, with a better understanding of why you smoke and the different tools you can use to control the urge to light up, you can stop being a slave to your cigarettes.”

Addiction and Withdrawal

Nicotine beats a direct path to the brain, where it provides both relaxation and a small energy boost. But few smokers realize that the stress and lethargy they are trying to relieve are a result of nicotine withdrawal, not some underlying distress. Break the addiction, and the ill feelings are likely to dissipate.

Physical withdrawal from nicotine is short-lived. Four days without it and the worst is over, with remaining symptoms gone within a month, Dr. Brunswick said. But emotional and circumstantial tugs to smoke can last much longer.

Depending on when and why you smoke, cues can include needing a break from work, having to focus on a challenging task, drinking coffee or alcohol, being with other people who smoke or in places you associate with smoking, finishing a meal or sexual activity, and feeling depressed or upset.

To break such links, you must first identify them and then replace them with other activities, like taking a walk, chewing sugar-free gum or taking deep breaths. These can help you control cravings until the urge passes.

If you’ve failed at quitting before, try to identify what went wrong and do things differently this time, Dr. Brunswick suggests. Most smokers need several attempts before they can become permanent ex-smokers.

Perhaps most important is to be sure you are serious about quitting; if not, wait until you are. Motivation is half the battle. Also, should you slip and have a cigarette after days or weeks of not smoking, don’t assume you’ve failed and give up. Just go right back to not smoking.

Aids for Quitting

Many if not most smokers need two kinds of assistance to become lasting ex-smokers: psychological support and medicinal aids. Only about 4 percent to 7 percent of people are able to quit smoking on any given attempt without help, the cancer society says.

All 50 states and the District of Columbia have free telephone-based support programs that connect would-be quitters to trained counselors. Together, you can plan a stop-smoking method that suits your smoking pattern and helps you avoid common pitfalls.

Online support groups and Nicotine Anonymous can help as well. To find a group, ask a local hospital or call the cancer society at (800) 227-2345. Consider telling relatives and friends about your intention to quit, and plan to spend time in smoke-free settings.

More than a dozen treatments can help you break the physical addiction to tobacco. Most popular is nicotine replacement therapy, sold both with and without a prescription. The Food and Drug Administration has approved five types: nicotine patches of varying strengths, gums, sprays, inhalers and lozenges that can curb withdrawal symptoms and help you gradually reduce your dependence on nicotine.

Two prescription drugs are also effective: an extended-release form of the antidepressant bupropion (Zyban or Wellbutrin), which reduces nicotine cravings, and varenicline (Chantix), which blocks nicotine receptors in the brain, reducing both the pleasurable effects of smoking and the symptoms of nicotine withdrawal. Combining a nicotine replacement with one of these drugs is often more effective than either approach alone.

Other suggested techniques, like hypnosis and acupuncture, have helped some people quit but lack strong proof of their effectiveness. Tobacco lozenges and pouches and nicotine lollipops and lip balms lack evidence as quitting aids, and no clinical trials have been published showing that electronic cigarettes can help people quit.

The cancer society suggests picking a “quit day”; ridding your home, car and workplace of smoking paraphernalia; choosing a stop-smoking plan, and stocking up on whatever aids you may need.

On the chosen day, keep active; drink lots of water and juices; use a nicotine replacement; change your routine if possible; and avoid alcohol, situations you associate with smoking and people who are smoking.

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This post has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: November 14, 2012

An earlier version of this column misstated the rate of smoking among young adults. According to the 2010 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, about 34 percent of people ages 18 to 25 smoke cigarettes, not 40 percent. (That is the share of young adults who use tobacco products of any kind, according to the survey.)

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5-Hour Energy Is Cited in 13 Death Reports

Federal officials have received reports of 13 deaths over the last four years that cited the possible involvement of 5-Hour Energy, a highly caffeinated energy shot, according to Food and Drug Administration records and an interview with an agency official.

The disclosure of the reports is the second time in recent weeks that F.D.A. filings citing energy drinks and deaths have emerged. Last month, the agency acknowledged it had received five fatality filings mentioning another popular energy drink, Monster Energy.

Since 2009, 5-Hour Energy has been mentioned in some 90 filings with the F.D.A., including more than 30 that involved serious or life-threatening injuries like heart attacks, convulsions and, in one case, a spontaneous abortion, a summary of F.D.A. records reviewed by The New York Times showed.

The filing of an incident report with the F.D.A. does not mean that a product was responsible for a death or an injury or contributed in any way to it. Such reports can be fragmentary in nature and difficult to investigate.

The distributor of 5-Hour Energy, Living Essentials of Farmington Hills, Mich., did not respond to written questions about the filings, and its top executive declined to be interviewed. Living Essentials is a unit of the product’s producer, Innovation Ventures.

However, in a statement, Living Essentials said the product was safe when used as directed and that it was “unaware of any deaths proven to be caused by the consumption of 5-Hour Energy.”

Since the public disclosure of reports about Monster Energy, its producer, Monster Beverage of Corona, Calif., has repeatedly said that its products are safe, adding that they were not the cause of any of the health problems reported to the F.D.A.

Shares of Monster Beverage, which traded above $80 earlier this year, closed Wednesday at $44.74.

The fast-growing energy drink industry is facing increasing scrutiny over issues like labeling disclosures and possible health risks. Some lawmakers are calling on the F.D.A. to increase its regulation of the products and the New York State attorney general is investigating the practices of several producers.

Unlike Red Bull, Monster Energy and some other energy drinks that look like beverages, 5-Hour Energy is sold in a two-ounce bottle referred to as a shot. The company does not disclose the amount of caffeine in each bottle, but a recent article published by Consumer Reports placed that level at about 215 milligrams.

An eight-ounce cup of coffee, depending on how it is made, can contain from 100 to 150 milligrams of caffeine.

The F.D.A. has stated that it does not have sufficient scientific evidence to justify changing how it regulates caffeine or other ingredients in energy products. The issue of how to do so is complicated by the fact that some high-caffeine drinks, like Red Bull, are sold under agency rules governing beverages, while others, like 5-Hour Energy and Monster Energy, are marketed as dietary supplements. The categories have differing ingredient rules and reporting requirements.

In an interview Wednesday, Daniel Fabricant, the director of the agency’s division of dietary supplement programs, said the agency was looking into the death reports that cited 5-Hour Energy. He said that while medical information in such reports could rule out a link with the product, other reports could contain insufficient information to determine what role, if any, a supplement might have played.

Mr. Fabricant said that the 13 fatality reports that mentioned 5-Hour Energy had all been submitted to the F.D.A. by Living Essentials. Since late 2008, producers of dietary supplements are required to notify the F.D.A. when they become aware of a death or serious injury that may be related to their product.

Currently, the agency does not publicly disclose adverse event filings about dietary supplements like 5-Hour Energy. Companies that market energy drinks as beverages are not required to make such reports to the agency, although they can do so voluntarily, Mr. Fabricant said.

Along with caffeine, 5-Hour Energy contains other ingredients, like very high levels of certain B vitamins and an amino acid called taurine.

Reached by telephone, the chief executive of the Living Essentials, Manoj Bhargava, declined to discuss the filings and said he believed an article about the reports would cast the company in a negative light.

“I am not interested in making any comment,” Mr. Bhargava said.

Subsequently, the company issued a statement, that said, among other things, that it took “reports of any potential adverse event tied to our products very seriously,” adding that the company complied “with all of our reporting requirements” to the F.D.A.

The company also stated that it marketed 5-Hour Energy to “hardworking adults who need an extra boost of energy.” The product’s label recommends that it not be used by woman who are pregnant or by children under 12 years of age.

The number of reports filed with the F.D.A. that mention 5-Hour Energy appears particularly striking. In 2010, for example, the F.D.A. received a total of 17 fatality reports that mentioned a dietary supplement or a weight loss product, two broad categories that cover more than 50,000 products, according to Mr. Fabricant, the F.D.A. official.

He added that it was difficult to put the volume of 5-Hour Energy filings into context because he believed that some supplement manufacturers were probably not following the mandated reporting rules and that consumers and doctors might also be unaware that they can file incident reports with the agency. Last year, the F.D.A. received only 2,000 reports about fatalities or serious injuries that cited dietary supplements and weight loss products, he said.

Another federal agency, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, reported late last year that more than 13,000 emergency room visits in 2009 were associated with energy drinks alone.

Along with Living Essentials, The Times sent queries last week to several producers asking whether they had received reports linking fatalities or serious injuries to their products.

Representatives for two of those companies — Red Bull and Coca-Cola, which sells NOS and Full Throttle — said they were unaware of any such reports. A representative for PepsiCo, which makes Amp, also said it was unaware of any such reports.

In addition to Red Bull, NOS, Full Throttle and Amp are also marketed as beverages, rather than as dietary supplements.

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Obama reassuring liberal allies, prepping for 'fiscal cliff' talks

WASHINGTON -- President Obama is assuring liberal allies that he will fight for the middle class during upcoming fiscal negotiations with Republicans, and he is urging those supporters not to lay down their weapons just because the election is over.

But the White House is also talking about the inevitability of compromise as the administration and congressional Democrats and Republicans prepare to negotiate an end-of-year fiscal deal that will center on the expiration of the George W. Bush-era tax cuts and a spate of automatic spending cuts.

The preparations are bringing progressive allies and business leaders alike to the White House this week, leading up to the president’s summit on Friday with congressional leaders of both parties -- their first session since his reelection.

PHOTOS: Reactions to Obama's victory

In an hourlong meeting with labor and other progressive leaders on Tuesday, the president promised to stand firm on the tax principles he outlined in the campaign, according to several people who were present.

They departed the West Wing under a bright sky, the victory they helped Obama win fresh in their minds. They were heartened that Obama emphasized the need for "balance" between spending cuts and revenue increases, and for the wealthy to bear a fairer share of the tax burden, said Neera Tanden, president of the Center for American Progress.

"He said that this election was about the middle class and fairness," Tanden said. "He’s standing firm on taxes on the wealthiest Americans."

Labor leaders were adamant that the deal protect the middle-class tax cuts, said AFL-CIO chief Rich Trumka. "Do we believe the president is committed to that same thing?" he said after emerging from the West Wing. "Yes, we do."

White House officials are talking about a schedule in which the president would stay on the campaign trail, with the aim of keeping the pressure on House Republicans to renew the expiring tax cuts for the middle class while letting those for the wealthy expire.

PHOTOS: America goes to the polls

As the Tuesday meeting was breaking up, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney was just steps away in the briefing room, talking about the realities of negotiation.

The "whole point of compromise," he said, "is that nobody gets to achieve their maximalist position."

The president in the past has demonstrated a willingness, he said, to "give" in an effort to "meet your negotiating partner somewhere in the middle and reach a deal."

As they stake out their stand, business leaders are signaling resistance to the idea of letting the tax cuts expire for any Americans, including the wealthy.

In a letter to the president, several corporate chief executives warned of the economic perils of cutting spending dramatically while simultaneously raising taxes. If the president and Congress can’t agree on how to head off those automatic changes, they’ll both begin to take effect at the end of the year.

"Experts agree such immediate changes will most likely reduce economic growth and hinder employment in the United States and globally," said the letter by the CEOs, including some who are invited to the White House on Wednesday. "This would be particularly damaging as economies throughout the world struggle and look to us for leadership."

PHOTOS: President Obama’s past

The meeting is expected to be a little tense as the two sides stake out territory. That’s what the progressive leaders hope for.

Quietly, some of them worry about the inevitable "give" that Carney talked about. As they left the White House grounds on Tuesday, they spoke of nothing but optimism -- even as they spoke in terms of supporting particular principles, not particular leaders.

Asked if he would help the president lobby Congress, Trumka said he was “prepared to stand up to make sure that there is shared sacrifice here, so the rich actually start paying their fair share.”

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Tesla's Big Wins Proves EVs Are Ready for Primetime

Electric vehicles have hit the tipping point of mainstream acceptance, and you naysayers just lost your last reason for hating the technology.

MotorTrend magazine’s unanimous decision to name the Tesla Model S its car of the year is more than a big moment for Tesla Motors. It’s a big moment for electric vehicles and, more importantly, internal combustion. The award follows similar nods from Automobile and Yahoo. (Yes, Yahoo does cars.) That only underscores just how good the Model S is, and how solid its underlying technology is.

When an all-electric sedan from an upstart Silicon Valley firm can convince dyed-in-the-wool gearheads to unreservedly declare it the best car on the planet, a paradigm has shifted. No one’s saying we’ll all be driving cars with cords tomorrow, but this is the first big fissure in the internal combustion wall. One by one, the criticisms — electric cars are glorified golf cars, they lack adequate range, they’ll never be as practical as whatever — have been proven wrong.

“We’re going to look back and see this as a point at which the gears of history really turned,” company CEO Elon Musk said at the awards presentation Monday.

He’s right.

It’s worth noting the praise didn’t come from big ad spending, lush journo junkets to exotic locales or the typical wining and dining perpetrated by the major automakers. In other words, Tesla didn’t buy this award. The Model S won on merit alone, and that’s significant.

Look over the judging criteria behind these awards. They favor innovation and functionality. They’re focused on performance and practicality. And they put a premium on day-to-day livability as much as fit, finish and sex appeal. The Model S won on all those fronts, and that marks a shift in both the nature of the awards and the larger view of electric vehicles.

“If the Model S had a gas engine it still would have won,” Jonny Lieberman, MotorTrend Senior Editor and COTY judge told Wired. “It was, without question, the best car in this year’s competition.”

And competition was fierce.

The spate of awards came at a high point for auto enthusiasts. There’s a new Porsche 911 – the benchmark for attainable supercars – and Boxster (a personal favorite), the new Scion FR-S/Subaru BRZ (a clear appeal to gearheads that want a simple, fun and inexpensive sports car). The all-new BMW 3 Series was also in the running, as was Cadillac’s surprisingly fantastic ATS.

The Model S beat them all, with an unprecedented unanimous vote by the judges at MotorTrend.

We’ve been praising the virtues of electric vehicles for years. But the Model S is the departure from dinky, uninspiring econoboxes we’ve been forced to endure. It’s drop-dead gorgeous (if a bit safe). It’s an easy fit for five. It’s got more cargo capacity than most minivans. And those are just the high points on the functionality front.

Loads of pavement-rippling torque available at any speed matched with smooth delivery and Rolls-Royce levels of isolation are just part of the fun. EVs don’t have to worry about fitting a massive engine, bulging transmission and all the assorted ancillary components to make it go. The chassis is essentially a skateboard, with a battery mounted in the middle, allowing unlimited body and interior configurations that were completely unheard of just 10 years ago. The Model S’ platform is set to underpin the Model X SUV, further bolstering both Tesla’s flexibility and economies of scale, and the next few models in the automaker’s pipeline will use the lessons learned from the Model S to further hone the execution of a full line of EVs that will appeal to every price point and performance metric. Musk is even talking about a pickup truck.

And as for the big question – range – the Model S delivered in spades.

“The Models S is the cure for range anxiety,” Lieberman said. It can be driven normally, be it commuting to work or bombing a twisty mountain road, and with an EPA-rated range of 265 miles (MT managed a best run of 285 miles), it’s more than enough for the average driver. “Be honest with yourself and think about how many days per year you actually drive more than 200 miles,” Lieberman goes on. “Very, very few.”

Yes, we’re still in the early days, both for the S and its groundbreaking technology. Like any all-new car, it’s long-term reliability remains in question, especially since Tesla is new to the game.

“[The Model S is a] huge accomplishment from a brand new company in the big picture of the industry,” says Chelsea Sexton of the Lightning Rod Foundation. “It’s also an expensive car and an infant program, so it will undoubtedly have early technical issues and things that wouldn’t necessarily apply to other contenders – which makes the ‘engineering excellence’ and ‘value’ categories somewhat debatable.”

But for now, the Model S sits atop the heap, an innovative outlier that pleases on every level, and vindicates what we’ve been saying all along: EVs are the future and the future is now.

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Twilight cast bids farewell at final premiere

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Thousands of screaming fans lined the black carpet late on Monday for the final “Twilight” film premiere as the cast of “Breaking Dawn – Part 2″ bid farewell to the franchise and its loyal followers.

Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart, Taylor Lautner and other cast members greeted fans known as “Twi-hards,” many of whom had camped out for days in downtown Los Angeles to catch a glimpse of their favorite actors and see the film before it is released in theaters on Friday.

Breaking Dawn – Part 2 will see the love story of human Bella Swan (Stewart), vampire Edward Cullen (Pattinson) and werewolf Jacob Black (Lautner) come to a tantalizing end, when Bella and Edward are forced to protect their child from an ancient vampire coven.

Stewart, who was finally able to embrace her wild side by playing Bella as a vampire, hoped people would enjoy the ultimate transformation of her character in the film.

“Bella has worked pretty hard to get to the point where they can have it all, and it’s fun to be there. She’s always been human, but now that she’s not, you’re just in full blown vampire land and it feels funny in a great way,” Stewart told Reuters.

More than 2,200 fans from all over the world came to camp out on a concrete plaza in downtown Los Angeles last week, where Twilight movie studio Summit laid out activities and marathon screenings of the previous movies.

All of the film’s main actors spent time signing autographs and posing for photographs with the loyal fans who had camped out in chilly November weather over five days.

Pattinson, who plays vampire Edward Cullen, said he hoped the fans would like the franchise’s swan song.

“I hope they feel it kind of respects them, because I think in a lot of ways that’s what we were thinking when we were making it,” the actor said.

Lautner, who plays werewolf Jacob, said he’d be sad to say goodbye to the films and his character and hoped fans would be happy with the conclusion of the final film.

“I’m feeling fantastic, sad, emotional, there’s a lot of things going on inside of me right now but I’m just trying to soak up every moment because this means the world to me,” Lautner said.

The three lead stars were joined by fellow cast members including Nikki Reed, Ashley Greene, Kellan Lutz, Jackson Rathbone, Michael Sheen and Dakota Fanning, as well as director Bill Condon and author Stephenie Meyer, whose Twilight novels kicked off the franchise and phenomenon.

Meyer said she would miss watching the three lead cast members evolve as actors and characters in the films.

“It’s really been great to watch them grow up, particularly Kristen because her character gets to evolve so much in this film, and to watch her be all powerful and really get to where the character was always meant to go, to be the fiercest of the fierce, was really rewarding for me,” the author said.

(Reporting By Piya Sinha-Roy, editing by Paul Casciato)

Movies News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Kidney Donors Given Mandatory Safeguards

ST. LOUIS — Addressing long-held concerns about whether organ donors have adequate protections, the country’s transplant regulators acted late Monday to require that hospitals thoroughly inform living kidney donors of the risks they face, fully evaluate their medical and psychological suitability, and then track their health for two years after donation.

Enactment of the policies by the United Network for Organ Sharing, which manages the transplant system under a federal contract, followed six years of halting development and debate.

Meeting at a St. Louis hotel, the group’s board voted to establish uniform minimum standards for a field long regarded as a medical and ethical Wild West. The organ network, whose initial purpose was to oversee donation from people who had just died, has struggled at times to keep pace with rapid developments in donations from the living.

“There is no question that this is a major development in living donor protection,” said Dr. Christie P. Thomas, a nephrologist at the University of Iowa and the chairman of the network’s living donor committee.

Yet some donor advocates complained that the measures did not go far enough, and argued that the organ network, in its mission to encourage transplants, has a conflict of interest when it comes to safeguarding donors.

Three years ago, the network issued some of the same policies as voluntary guidelines, only to have the Department of Health and Human Services insist they be made mandatory.

Although long-term data on the subject is scarce, few living kidney donors are thought to suffer lasting physical or psychological effects. Kidney donations, known as nephrectomies, are typically done laparoscopically these days through a series of small incisions. The typical patient may spend only a few nights in a hospital and feel largely recovered after several months.

Kidneys are by far the most transplanted organs, and there have been nearly as many living donors as deceased ones over the last decade. What data is available suggests that those with one kidney typically live as long as those with two, and that the risk of a donor dying during the procedure is roughly 3 in 10,000.

But kidney transplants, like all surgery, can sometimes end in catastrophe.

In May at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, a 41-year-old mother of three died when her aorta was accidentally cut during surgery to donate a kidney to her brother. In other recent isolated cases, patients have received donor kidneys infected with undetected H.I.V. or hepatitis C.

Less clear are any longer-term effects on donors. Research conducted by the United Network for Organ Sharing shows that of roughly 70,000 people who donated kidneys between late 1999 and early 2011, 27 died within two years of medical causes that may — or may not — have been related to donation. For a small number of donors, their remaining kidney failed, and they required dialysis or a transplant.

The number of living donors — 5,770 in 2011 — has dropped 10 percent over the last two years, possibly because the struggling economy has made it difficult for prospective donors to take time off from work to recuperate. With the national kidney waiting list now stretching past 94,000 people, and thousands on the list dying each year, transplant officials have said they must improve confidence in the system so more people will donate.

The average age of donors has been rising, posing additional medical risks. And new ethical questions have been raised by the emergence of paired kidney exchanges and transplant chains started by good Samaritans who give an organ to a stranger.

Brad Kornfeld, who donated a kidney to his father in 2004, told the board that it had been impossible to find good information about what to expect, leaving him to search for answers on unreliable Internet chat rooms. He said he had almost backed out.

“If information is power,” said Mr. Kornfeld, a Coloradan who serves on the living donor committee, “the lack of information is crippling.”

Under the policies approved this week, the organ network will require hospitals to collect medical data, including laboratory test results, on most living donors to study lasting effects. Results must be reported at six months, one year and two years.

Similar regulations have been in place since 2000, but they did not require blood and urine testing, and hospitals were allowed to report donors who could not be found as simply lost.

That happened often. In recent years, hospitals have submitted basic clinical information — like whether donors were alive or dead — for only 65 percent of donors and lab data for fewer than 40 percent, according to the organ network. Although the network holds the authority, no hospital has ever been seriously sanctioned for noncompliance.

“It’s time we put some teeth into our policy,” said Jill McMaster, a board member from Tennessee.

By 2015, transplant programs will have to report thorough clinical information on at least 80 percent of donors and lab results on at least 70 percent. The requirements phase in at lower levels for the next two years.

Dr. Stuart M. Flechner of the Cleveland Clinic, the chairman of a coalition of medical societies that made recommendations to the organ network, said 9 of 10 hospitals would currently not meet the new requirement.

Donna Luebke, a kidney donor from Ohio who once served on the organ network’s board, said the new standards would matter only if enforcement were more rigorous. She noted that the organization was dominated by transplant doctors: “UNOS is nothing but the foxes watching the henhouse,” she said.

Another of the new regulations prescribes in detail the medical and psychological screenings that hospitals must conduct for potential donors. It requires automatic exclusion if the potential donor has diabetes, uncontrolled hypertension or H.I.V., among other conditions.

The new policies also require that hospitals appoint an independent advocate to counsel and represent donors, and that donors receive detailed information in advance about medical, psychological and financial risks.

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I.H.T. Special Report | Oil & Money: After Years of Waiting, Virginia Wants to Make Its Name in Oil

Jason Hirschfeld/Associated Press

Hurricane Sandy pounding the coastline last month in Virginia Beach, Va. The state is the new epicenter of efforts by energy companies to get a toehold in the potentially vast resources hidden beneath the Atlantic.

WASHINGTON — When Doug Domenech looks out at the Atlantic Ocean, he sees oil and natural gas and jobs and revenue. Standing between him and those prizes are President Barack Obama, the U.S. Navy and the whales.

Mr. Domenech, Virginia’s secretary of natural resources, is undeterred. He and the state’s Republican governor, Bob McDonnell, have teamed up with Virginia’s two Democratic senators to try to do a run around the president and put Virginia’s coast on the energy map through an act of Congress.

The state is making efforts to restore a lease sale for energy exploration that was canceled in 2010 after the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico followed an explosion on a drilling rig that was connected to a well owned by BP. The efforts have made Virginia the new epicenter of efforts by energy companies to get a toehold in the potentially vast resources hidden beneath the Atlantic.

“The administration not only took away our sale, but they didn’t reinstate it into the next five-year plan. They booted us off to 2017,” Mr. Domenech said. “That’s what made us start pursuing other avenues in Congress.”

Oil companies and government officials believe there is oil and natural gas off the East Coast of the United States. Exploration, however, has been blocked for more than 30 years after a devastating spill off the coast of California turned public opinion against offshore drilling.

That political environment changed in the past decade as oil prices soared and the American public and politicians weighed their fears of offshore drilling against the geopolitical threat of being dependent on oil from hostile nations or unstable regions.

Now seven companies, including Houston-based Global Geo Services and Western Geco, a subsidiary of Schlumberger, have applied for permission to conduct seismic studies along the East Coast from New Jersey all the way to Florida. Efforts are focusing on Virginia because the public, politicians in both parties and energy companies all favor opening the waters to drilling.

To proceed, the would-be explorers will need to bypass the vocal opposition of advocates who say that even the preliminary survey work would harm endangered whales and the U.S. Navy, which uses the waters off Virginia as training grounds for its Norfolk base.

“It’s an important frontier, and it’s right next to a large market,” said Joe Gagliardi, vice president of marine programs at Ion Geophysical Corp., a Houston-based company that has applied to spend six months conducting two-dimensional seismic surveys from New Jersey to Florida. “The Eastern seaboard market is huge.”

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management estimates that there are 3.3 billion barrels of recoverable oil on the Atlantic’s outer continental shelf and another 31.3 trillion cubic feet, or 886.3 million cubic meters, of natural gas. The estimates are based on two-dimensional seismic surveys that were done in the early 1980s.

While they are careful to say that they have no idea what energy resources might be hidden beneath the Atlantic, energy industry executives believe that the B.O.E.M.’s estimates are low, noting the industry's history in the Gulf of Mexico..

“Initial estimates in the Gulf were five billion barrels of oil,” said Andy Radford, senior policy adviser at the American Petroleum Institute. “We’ve already produced over 20 billion, and current estimates are that there are 48 billion more.”

There are other indicators that drilling there could lead to big discoveries.

“We know there are oil seeps all along the East Coast of the U.S.,” Mr. Gagliardi said. “Naturally the earth is leaking oil on a daily basis. There’s a natural petroleum system out there.”

The Eastern Seaboard of the United States was once connected to the coast of West Africa before the continent split in two and the pieces drifted apart, creating the Atlantic Ocean. Nigeria alone has more than 37 billion barrels of proven reserves, much of it off the coast in deep water.

Tullow Oil, a company working on the same theory, struck oil last year off the coast of French Guiana. The company, which is London-based, said it had begun exploring in the area because it believed the geology mirrored its earlier successful discoveries across the ocean off the coast of West Africa.

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