Canadian October home sales dip, latest sign of cooling

TORONTO (Reuters) – Sales of existing homes in Canada fell in October from September and year-over-year sales were down as well, the Canadian Real Estate Association said on Thursday in the latest signal that the housing market is slowing.

The industry group for Canadian real estate agents said sales were down 0.1 percent in October from September. Actual sales for October, not seasonally adjusted, were down 0.8 percent from a year earlier.

The housing market, which roared higher in 2011 and the first half of 2012, started to slow after the government tightened rules on mortgage lending in July in a bid to cool the market and prevent home buyers from taking on too much debt.

“Housing market trends in Canada for 2012 can be characterized as before and after regulatory changes,” TD Economics senior economist Sonya Gulati said in a research note.

“In the first half of the year, sales and price gains were modest, but positive. More stringent mortgage rules and tighter mortgage underwriting rules have ‘purposely’ knocked the wind out of the housing market sails,” she said.

The home sales data showed diverging paths in Canadian housing depending on location. In Toronto and Vancouver, where sales and price gains were red hot in 2011 and early in 2012, the market has been cooling. But markets in the resource-rich western provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta have been gaining strength.

“Opinions differ about how sharply sales have slowed depending on the local housing market,” Gregory Klump, CREA’s chief economist, said in a statement.

Led by Calgary, sales in October were up from a year earlier in almost two-thirds of local markets. Sales remained blow year-earlier levels in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal, CREA said.

“These results suggest that the Canadian housing market overall has returned to a more sustainable pace,” Klump said.

CREA’s Home Price Index rose 3.6 percent in October from a year earlier, the sixth consecutive month in which gains in prices slowed, and the slowest rate of increase since May 2011.

While tighter mortgage rules have worked to slow the market, TD’s Gulati said the big question is what will happen when that temporary cooling effect wears off in early 2013.

“What happens thereafter is less certain. The low interest rate environment could pull homeowners back onto the market, causing home prices to once again trek upwards. Alternatively, an absence of pent-up demand may leave the market in a bit of a lull until interest rate hikes resume in late 2013,” she wrote.

“Under either scenario, it is safe to say that there is a low probability of out-sized home price gains over the near-term.”

A total of 402,322 homes traded hands via Canadian MLS systems over the first 10 months of 2012, up 0.8 percent from the same period last year and 0.4 percent below the 10-year average for the period, the data showed.

The number of newly listed homes fell 3.8 percent in October following a jump in September. Monthly declines were reported in almost two-thirds of local markets, with Toronto and Vancouver exerting a large influence on the national trend.

Nationally, there were 6.5 months of inventory at the end of October, little changed from the reading of 6.4 months at the end of September.

(Editing by Peter Galloway)

Canada News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Honey Boo Boo Gets Trashy and Some Really Cute Dumb Ways to Die

We realize there’s only so much time one can spend in a day watching new trailers, viral video clips, and shaky cell phone footage of people arguing on live television. This is why every day The Atlantic Wire highlights the videos that truly earn your five minutes (or less) of attention. Today:

RELATED: Catching Kangaroos Seems Pretty Easy; ‘The Dark Knight’ Goes Pee-wee

So, we’re not quite sure what kind of spirit moved artist Jason Mecier to create a Honey Boo Boo portrait from 25 pounds of trash. But it did. And we’re thankful (sort of?): 

RELATED: Dating Is Just So Depressing

RELATED: A Dubstep Birthday for Michael Jackson and One Soggy Koala

And thank god for YouTube. Besides going to America’s shopping malls, how else would we find terrible parents and gullible children? And how else would we know that we were entertained by these fascinating creatures? 

RELATED: Ai Weiwei’s ‘Gangnam Style’ Isn’t Bad

RELATED: ‘What Makes You Beautiful’ Gets Beautiful

Now that the Dark Knight trilogy is over, aren’t you in the mood for something lighter? Another prequel? How about a fan-made video (which we’re guessing took hours and hours and footage from the 90s and beyond) which imagines all Dark Knight‘s characters in high school?

OMGosh Melbourne Metro this is like the cutest video on earth! You guys are adorable, like we’re talking totes adorable squeeeee—Oh wait. We take that back. We take all of it back. 

Wireless News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

At Washington’s James Bond exhibit, villains are forever

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Fans of fictional super spy James Bond rely on the durable film franchise for must-have elements, such as jaw-dropping stunts, great clothes, sultry women – and villains who are drop-dead evil.

An exhibition that opened on Friday makes clear that the nasty types that 007 has battled for five decades have changed but one constant remains. The only true match for the world’s greatest secret agent are characters that moviegoers love to hate.

“Exquisitely Evil: 50 Years of Bond Villains” at the International Spy Museum in downtown Washington, is dedicated to the most memorable bad guys and gals in the 23-film series.

From the eponymous “Dr. No” in 1962 to the just-released “Skyfall,” the exhibit shows links between fact and fiction and how villains have kept pace with an evolving world.

“Bond seems the same, but the villains have all changed. They have changed to reflect the changing times,” Anna Slafer, the museum’s director of exhibitions, told a news conference.

In “Dr. No,” the villain schemes against the U.S. space program. Probing the nuclear fears of the 1970s, tycoon Karl Stromberg plots genocide in “The Spy Who Loved Me” (1977).

The information age turns up with Max Zorin, who lusts to corner the microchip market in “A View to a Kill” (1985). In “Skyfall” cyberterrorist Silva tries to hack British intelligence computers.

THINK BIG

But some things have remained the same for the Bond villain, said Alexis Albion, a guest curator and intelligence historian.

They are highly successful, often charming, live in isolated places, generate fanatical loyalty, and think big, she said. “They are on a level that we have to send someone like James Bond after them.”

They also “are off physically,” Albion said. Le Chiffre in “Casino Royale” (2006) weeps blood, Dr. No has a magnetic claw in place of a hand, and the hitman Jaws in “The Spy Who Loved Me” and “Moonraker” (1979) is a giant with steel teeth.

A galaxy of well-known actors – and a few actresses – from around the world have faced off against the six men who have played Bond, from Sean Connery to Daniel Craig.

Yaphet Kotto, Max von Sydow, Sean Bean, Javier Bardem, Donald Pleasence, Christopher Lee, Michael Lonsdale, Lotte Lenya, Mads Mikkelsen, Jeroen Krabbe, Christopher Walken and Telly Savalas all have gone mano-a-mano with 007, and lost.

The International Spy Museum‘s show was timed to the release of “Skyfall” and done in cooperation with EON Productions, which makes the Bond movies.

The exhibit, which includes more than 110 movie and historical artifacts, including Jaws’ teeth, interactive stations, and videos, runs through 2014. General admission to the museum is $ 19.95.

(Reporting by Ian Simpson; Editing by Paul Simao)

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Tulsa Town Hall: Nutrition a valuable tool in health care

Weil spoke as part of the Tulsa Town Hall series of speakers.

The United States has an expensive health-care system that doesn’t produce good results, he said.

“Something is very wrong with this picture,” he said. “We’re spending more and more and we have less and less to show for it.”

Changes in diet can be an effective treatment for many conditions, but American physicians are functionally illiterate in nutrition, he said.

“The whole subject of nutrition is omitted in medical education,” he said.

There are many ways of managing diseases other than drugs, he said. Integrative medicine, which can include dietary supplements and practices like meditation, is the future of health care, he said.

The health system is resistant to change because of entrenched vested interests. That includes pharmaceutical companies that do direct-to-consumer advertising, which should be stopped, he said.

“As dysfunctional as our health-care system is at the moment – and it is very dysfunctional – it is generating rivers of money,” he said. “That money is going into very few pockets.”

Weil has developed an anti-inflammatory diet based on the Mediterranean diet but with Asian influences.

Inflammation is associated with some heart disease, Alzheimer’s disease and some cancers, he said. And as a result, people should be eating real, unprocessed foods and whole grains. They should stay away from sugar-sweetened beverages, including fruit juice, he said.

“The new research that’s being done on sugar is not very comforting,” he said.

The aging process can’t be avoided, but age-related diseases can be avoided by proper care, he said.

“The goal should be to live long and well with a big drop off at the end,” he said.

Weil is the director of the University of Arizona’s Center for Integrative Medicine.

Tickets to the Tulsa Town Hall series are sold as a $ 75 subscription and cover five lectures. Tickets for individual lectures are not available.

To subscribe, visit tulsaworld.com/tulsatownhall, call 918-749-5965 or write to: Tulsa Town Hall, Box 52266, Tulsa, OK 74152.

Future speakers include journalist Ann Compton on Feb. 8; author James B. Stewart on April 5; historian and cinematographer Rex Ziak on May 10.

Original Print Headline: Speaker highlights nutrition

---

Shannon Muchmore 918-581-8378
shannon.muchmore@tulsaworld.com
Diseases/Conditions News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Israel hits Hamas government buildings, reservists mobilized

GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli aircraft bombed Hamas government buildings in Gaza on Saturday, including the prime minister's office, after Israel's cabinet authorized the mobilization of up to 75,000 reservists in preparation for a possible ground invasion.

Palestinian militants in Gaza kept up cross-border salvoes, firing a rocket at Israel's biggest city Tel Aviv for the third straight day. Police said it was destroyed in mid-air by an Iron Dome anti-missile battery deployed hours earlier, and no one was injured.

Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist group that runs the Gaza Strip, said Israeli missiles wrecked the office building of Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh - where he had met on Friday with the Egyptian prime minister - and struck a police headquarters.

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

With Israeli tanks and artillery positioned along the Gaza border and no end in sight to hostilities now in their fourth day, Tunisia's foreign minister travelled to the enclave in a show of Arab solidarity.

Officials in Gaza said 41 Palestinians, nearly half of them civilians including eight children and a pregnant woman, had been killed since Israel began its air strikes. Three Israeli civilians were killed by a rocket on Thursday.

In Cairo, a presidential source said Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi would hold four-way talks with the Qatari emir, the prime minister of Turkey and Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal in the Egyptian capital on Saturday to discuss the Gaza crisis.

Egypt has been working to reinstate calm between Israel and Hamas after an informal ceasefire brokered by Cairo unraveled over the past few weeks. Meshaal, who lives in exile, has already held a round of talks with Egyptian security officials.

Israel uncorked its massive air campaign on Wednesday with the declared goal of deterring Hamas from launching rockets that have plagued its southern communities for years. The salvoes recently intensified, and are now displaying greater range.

The operation has drawn Western support for what U.S. and European leaders have called Israel's right to self-defense, along with appeals to both sides to avoid civilian casualties.

Hamas, shunned by the West over its refusal to recognize Israel, says its cross-border attacks have come in response to Israeli strikes against Palestinian fighters in Gaza.

"We have not limited ourselves in means or in time," Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said on Israel's Channel One television. "We hope that it will end as soon as possible, but that will be only after all the objectives have been achieved."

Hamas says it is committed to continued confrontation with Israel and is eager not to seem any less resolute than smaller, more radical groups that have emerged in Gaza in recent years.

The Islamist movement has ruled Gaza since 2007. Israel pulled settlers out of Gaza in 2005 but maintains a blockade of the tiny, densely populated coastal territory.

RESERVE TROOP QUOTA DOUBLED

At a late night session on Friday, Israel's cabinet decided to more than double the current reserve troop quota set for the Gaza offensive to 75,000, political sources said.

The move did not necessarily mean all would be called up or that an invasion would follow. Tanks and self-propelled guns were seen near the sandy border zone on Saturday, and around 16,000 reservists have already been summoned to active duty.

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.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is expected to visit Israel and Egypt next week to push for an end to the fighting in Gaza, U.N. diplomats said on Friday.

Hamas's armed wing claimed responsibility for Saturday's rocket attack on Tel Aviv, saying it had fired a longer-range, Iranian-designed Fajr-5 at the coastal metropolis, some 70 km (43 miles) north of the Gaza Strip.

After air raid sirens sounded, witnesses saw two white plumes rise into the sky over the southern outskirts of Tel Aviv and heard an explosion when the incoming rocket was hit.

The anti-missile battery had been due to take delivery of its fifth Iron Dome battery early next year but it was rushed into service near Tel Aviv after rockets were launched toward the city on Thursday and Friday. Those attacks caused no damage or casualties.

In Jerusalem, targeted by a Palestinian rocket on Friday for the first time in 42 years, there was little outward sign on the Jewish Sabbath that the attack had any impact on the usually placid pace of life in the holy city.

In Gaza, some families abandoned their homes - some of them damaged and others situated near potential Israeli targets - and packed into the houses of friends and relatives.

ISRAEL'S GAZA TARGETS

The Israeli army said it had zeroed in on a number of government buildings during the night, including Haniyeh's office, the Hamas Interior Ministry and a police compound.

Taher al-Nono, a spokesman for the Hamas government, held a news conference near the rubble of the prime minister's office and pledged: "We will declare victory from here."

A three-storey house belonging to Hamas official Abu Hassan Salah was also hit and totally destroyed early on Saturday. Rescuers said at least 30 people were pulled from the rubble.

In Washington, U.S. President Barack Obama commended Egypt's efforts to help defuse the Gaza violence in a call to Mursi on Friday, the White House said in a statement, and underscored his hope of restoring stability there.

On Friday, Egyptian Prime Minister Hisham Kandil paid a high-profile visit to Gaza, denouncing what he called Israeli aggression and saying Cairo was prepared to mediate a truce.

Egypt's Islamist government, freely elected after U.S.-backed autocrat Hosni Mubarak fell to a popular uprising last year, is allied with Hamas but Cairo is also party to a 1979 peace treaty with Israel.

In a call to Netanyahu, Obama discussed options for "de-escalating" the situation, the White House said, adding that the president "reiterated U.S. support for Israel's right to defend itself, and expressed regret over the loss of Israeli and Palestinian civilian lives".

Hamas fighters are no match for the Israeli military. The last Gaza war, involving a three-week long Israeli air blitz and ground invasion over the New Year period of 2008-09, killed over 1,400 Palestinians, mostly civilians. Thirteen Israelis died.

But few believe Israeli military action can snuff out militant rocket fire entirely without a reoccupation of Gaza, an option all but ruled out because it would risk major casualties and an international outcry.

While Hamas rejects the Jewish state's existence, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who rules in areas of the nearby West Bank not occupied by Israelis, does recognize Israel but peace talks between the two sides have been frozen since 2010.

(Additional reporting by Maayan Lubell, Jeffrey Heller and Ori Lewis in Jerusalem and Louis Charbonneau at the United Nations; Writing by Jeffrey Heller; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

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Canadian October home sales dip, latest sign of cooling

TORONTO (Reuters) – Sales of existing homes in Canada fell in October from September and year-over-year sales were down as well, the Canadian Real Estate Association said on Thursday in the latest signal that the housing market is slowing.

The industry group for Canadian real estate agents said sales were down 0.1 percent in October from September. Actual sales for October, not seasonally adjusted, were down 0.8 percent from a year earlier.

The housing market, which roared higher in 2011 and the first half of 2012, started to slow after the government tightened rules on mortgage lending in July in a bid to cool the market and prevent home buyers from taking on too much debt.

“Housing market trends in Canada for 2012 can be characterized as before and after regulatory changes,” TD Economics senior economist Sonya Gulati said in a research note.

“In the first half of the year, sales and price gains were modest, but positive. More stringent mortgage rules and tighter mortgage underwriting rules have ‘purposely’ knocked the wind out of the housing market sails,” she said.

The home sales data showed diverging paths in Canadian housing depending on location. In Toronto and Vancouver, where sales and price gains were red hot in 2011 and early in 2012, the market has been cooling. But markets in the resource-rich western provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta have been gaining strength.

“Opinions differ about how sharply sales have slowed depending on the local housing market,” Gregory Klump, CREA’s chief economist, said in a statement.

Led by Calgary, sales in October were up from a year earlier in almost two-thirds of local markets. Sales remained blow year-earlier levels in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal, CREA said.

“These results suggest that the Canadian housing market overall has returned to a more sustainable pace,” Klump said.

CREA’s Home Price Index rose 3.6 percent in October from a year earlier, the sixth consecutive month in which gains in prices slowed, and the slowest rate of increase since May 2011.

While tighter mortgage rules have worked to slow the market, TD’s Gulati said the big question is what will happen when that temporary cooling effect wears off in early 2013.

“What happens thereafter is less certain. The low interest rate environment could pull homeowners back onto the market, causing home prices to once again trek upwards. Alternatively, an absence of pent-up demand may leave the market in a bit of a lull until interest rate hikes resume in late 2013,” she wrote.

“Under either scenario, it is safe to say that there is a low probability of out-sized home price gains over the near-term.”

A total of 402,322 homes traded hands via Canadian MLS systems over the first 10 months of 2012, up 0.8 percent from the same period last year and 0.4 percent below the 10-year average for the period, the data showed.

The number of newly listed homes fell 3.8 percent in October following a jump in September. Monthly declines were reported in almost two-thirds of local markets, with Toronto and Vancouver exerting a large influence on the national trend.

Nationally, there were 6.5 months of inventory at the end of October, little changed from the reading of 6.4 months at the end of September.

(Editing by Peter Galloway)

Canada News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Honey Boo Boo Gets Trashy and Some Really Cute Dumb Ways to Die

We realize there’s only so much time one can spend in a day watching new trailers, viral video clips, and shaky cell phone footage of people arguing on live television. This is why every day The Atlantic Wire highlights the videos that truly earn your five minutes (or less) of attention. Today:

RELATED: Catching Kangaroos Seems Pretty Easy; ‘The Dark Knight’ Goes Pee-wee

So, we’re not quite sure what kind of spirit moved artist Jason Mecier to create a Honey Boo Boo portrait from 25 pounds of trash. But it did. And we’re thankful (sort of?): 

RELATED: Dating Is Just So Depressing

RELATED: A Dubstep Birthday for Michael Jackson and One Soggy Koala

And thank god for YouTube. Besides going to America’s shopping malls, how else would we find terrible parents and gullible children? And how else would we know that we were entertained by these fascinating creatures? 

RELATED: Ai Weiwei’s ‘Gangnam Style’ Isn’t Bad

RELATED: ‘What Makes You Beautiful’ Gets Beautiful

Now that the Dark Knight trilogy is over, aren’t you in the mood for something lighter? Another prequel? How about a fan-made video (which we’re guessing took hours and hours and footage from the 90s and beyond) which imagines all Dark Knight‘s characters in high school?

OMGosh Melbourne Metro this is like the cutest video on earth! You guys are adorable, like we’re talking totes adorable squeeeee—Oh wait. We take that back. We take all of it back. 

Wireless News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Tulsa Town Hall: Nutrition a valuable tool in health care

Weil spoke as part of the Tulsa Town Hall series of speakers.

The United States has an expensive health-care system that doesn’t produce good results, he said.

“Something is very wrong with this picture,” he said. “We’re spending more and more and we have less and less to show for it.”

Changes in diet can be an effective treatment for many conditions, but American physicians are functionally illiterate in nutrition, he said.

“The whole subject of nutrition is omitted in medical education,” he said.

There are many ways of managing diseases other than drugs, he said. Integrative medicine, which can include dietary supplements and practices like meditation, is the future of health care, he said.

The health system is resistant to change because of entrenched vested interests. That includes pharmaceutical companies that do direct-to-consumer advertising, which should be stopped, he said.

“As dysfunctional as our health-care system is at the moment – and it is very dysfunctional – it is generating rivers of money,” he said. “That money is going into very few pockets.”

Weil has developed an anti-inflammatory diet based on the Mediterranean diet but with Asian influences.

Inflammation is associated with some heart disease, Alzheimer’s disease and some cancers, he said. And as a result, people should be eating real, unprocessed foods and whole grains. They should stay away from sugar-sweetened beverages, including fruit juice, he said.

“The new research that’s being done on sugar is not very comforting,” he said.

The aging process can’t be avoided, but age-related diseases can be avoided by proper care, he said.

“The goal should be to live long and well with a big drop off at the end,” he said.

Weil is the director of the University of Arizona’s Center for Integrative Medicine.

Tickets to the Tulsa Town Hall series are sold as a $ 75 subscription and cover five lectures. Tickets for individual lectures are not available.

To subscribe, visit tulsaworld.com/tulsatownhall, call 918-749-5965 or write to: Tulsa Town Hall, Box 52266, Tulsa, OK 74152.

Future speakers include journalist Ann Compton on Feb. 8; author James B. Stewart on April 5; historian and cinematographer Rex Ziak on May 10.

Original Print Headline: Speaker highlights nutrition

---

Shannon Muchmore 918-581-8378
shannon.muchmore@tulsaworld.com
Diseases/Conditions News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Israel launches scores of airstrikes into Gaza

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israel bombarded the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip with nearly 200 airstrikes early Saturday, the military said, widening a blistering assault on Gaza rocket operations to include the prime minister's headquarters, a police compound and a vast network of smuggling tunnels.

The new attacks, which Gaza officials say left 10 dead, followed an unprecedented rocket strike aimed at the contested holy city of Jerusalem that raised the stakes in Israel's violent confrontation with Palestinian militants and extended the battlefield.

Israeli aircraft also kept pounding their original targets, the militants' weapons storage facilities and underground rocket launching sites. They also went after rocket squads more aggressively. The military has called up thousands of reservists and massed troops, tanks and other armored vehicles along the border with Gaza, signaling a ground invasion could be imminent.

Militants, undaunted by the heavy damage the Israeli attacks have inflicted, have unleashed some 500 rockets against the Jewish state, including new, longer-range weapons turned for the first time this week against Jerusalem and the Tel Aviv heartland. Following those attacks, the military deployed an Iron Dome rocket defense battery in central Israel on Saturday. The system, devised precisely to deflect the Gaza rocket threat, was deployed two months earlier than planned, the Defense Ministry said.

Ten people, including eight militants, were killed and dozens were wounded in the various attacks early Saturday, Gaza health official Ashraf al-Kidra said. In all, 40 Palestinians including 13 civilians and three Israeli civilians have been killed since the Israeli operation began.

The violence has widened the instability gripping the Mideast. At the same time, revolts against entrenched regional regimes have opened up new possibilities for Hamas. Islamists across the Mideast have been strengthened, bringing newfound recognition to Hamas, shunned by the international community because of its refusal to recognize Israel and renounce violence.

A high-level Tunisian delegation, led by Foreign Minister Rafik Abdessalem, drove that point home with a visit to Gaza on Saturday. The foreign minister's first stop was the still-smoldering ruins of the three-story office building of Gaza's prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas.

"Israel has to understand that there is an international law and it has to respect the international law to stop the aggression against the Palestinian people," Abdessalem told The Associated Press during a tour of Gaza's main hospital, Shifa, later Saturday. He said his country was doing whatever it can to promote a cease-fire, but did not elaborate.

It was the first official Tunisian visit since Hamas's violent 2007 takeover of the territory. Egypt's prime minister visited Friday and a Moroccan delegation is due on Sunday, following a landmark visit by Qatar's leader last month that implied political recognition.

Israel had been incrementally expanding its operation beyond military targets but before dawn on Saturday it ramped that up dramatically, hitting Hamas symbols of power. Israeli defense officials, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss confidential decisions, said military chief Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz personally ordered the scope of the airstrikes to be increased.

Haniyeh's three-story office building was flattened by an airstrike that blew out windows in neighboring homes. He was not inside the building at the time.

The building's security chief said Hamas scored points despite Israel's military superiority.

"Hamas responded to the Zionist aggression and hit them in the depth of their land," he said, referring to rockets aimed Friday at Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

Another airstrike brought down the three-story home of a Hamas commander in the Jebaliya refugee camp near Gaza City, critically wounding him and injuring other residents of the building, medics said.

Missiles smashed into two small security facilities and the massive Hamas police headquarters in Gaza City, setting off a huge blaze that engulfed nearby houses and civilian cars parked outside, the Interior Ministry reported. No one was inside the buildings.

The Interior Ministry said a government compound was also hit while devout Muslims streamed to the area for early morning prayers, although it did not report any casualties from that attack.

Air attacks knocked out five electricity transformers, cutting off power to more than 400,000 people in southern Gaza, according to the Gaza electricity distribution company. People switched on backup generators for limited electrical supplies.

In southern Gaza, aircraft went after underground tunnels militants use to smuggle in weapons and other contraband from Egypt, residents reported. A huge explosion in the area sent buildings shuddering in the Egyptian city of El-Arish, 45 kilometers (30 miles) away, an Associated Press correspondent there reported.

The Israeli military said more than 800 targets have been struck since the operation began.

The widened scope of targets brings the scale of fighting closer to that of the war the two groups waged four years ago. Hamas was badly bruised during that conflict, but has since restocked its arsenal with more and better weapons, and has been under pressure from smaller, more militant groups to prove its commitment to fighting Israel.

The attack aimed at Jerusalem on Friday and two strikes on metropolitan Tel Aviv showcased the militants' new capabilities, including a locally made rocket that appears to have taken Israeli defense officials by surprise. Both areas had remained outside the gunmen's reach before.

Just a few years ago, Palestinian rockets were limited to crude devices manufactured in Gaza. But in recent years, Israeli officials say, Hamas and other armed groups have smuggled in sophisticated, longer-range rockets from Iran and Libya.

Israeli leaders have threatened to widen the operation even further if the rocket fire doesn't halt. Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said options included the possible assassination of Haniyeh, the prime minister.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met in emergency session with Cabinet ministers Friday and they approved mobilizing up to 75,000 reservists, more than doubling the number authorized earlier this week. That would be the largest call-up in a decade. At a parking lot in central Israel, uniformed reservists waited to board buses. One prayed, covered in a Jewish prayer shawl.

Lt. Col. Avital Leibovich, a military spokeswoman, said 16,000 reservists were called to duty on Friday and others could soon follow.

She said no decision had been made on a ground offensive but all options are on the table.

President Barack Obama spoke separately to Israeli and Egyptian leaders Friday as the violence in Gaza intensified. In a conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he reiterated U.S. support for Israel's right to self-defense. To Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi, he praised Egypt's efforts to ease regional tensions.

___

Teibel reported from Jerusalem. Associated Press writers Karin Laub in Gaza City and Matthew Daly in Washington contributed reporting.

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At Washington’s James Bond exhibit, villains are forever

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Fans of fictional super spy James Bond rely on the durable film franchise for must-have elements, such as jaw-dropping stunts, great clothes, sultry women – and villains who are drop-dead evil.

An exhibition that opened on Friday makes clear that the nasty types that 007 has battled for five decades have changed but one constant remains. The only true match for the world’s greatest secret agent are characters that moviegoers love to hate.

“Exquisitely Evil: 50 Years of Bond Villains” at the International Spy Museum in downtown Washington, is dedicated to the most memorable bad guys and gals in the 23-film series.

From the eponymous “Dr. No” in 1962 to the just-released “Skyfall,” the exhibit shows links between fact and fiction and how villains have kept pace with an evolving world.

“Bond seems the same, but the villains have all changed. They have changed to reflect the changing times,” Anna Slafer, the museum’s director of exhibitions, told a news conference.

In “Dr. No,” the villain schemes against the U.S. space program. Probing the nuclear fears of the 1970s, tycoon Karl Stromberg plots genocide in “The Spy Who Loved Me” (1977).

The information age turns up with Max Zorin, who lusts to corner the microchip market in “A View to a Kill” (1985). In “Skyfall” cyberterrorist Silva tries to hack British intelligence computers.

THINK BIG

But some things have remained the same for the Bond villain, said Alexis Albion, a guest curator and intelligence historian.

They are highly successful, often charming, live in isolated places, generate fanatical loyalty, and think big, she said. “They are on a level that we have to send someone like James Bond after them.”

They also “are off physically,” Albion said. Le Chiffre in “Casino Royale” (2006) weeps blood, Dr. No has a magnetic claw in place of a hand, and the hitman Jaws in “The Spy Who Loved Me” and “Moonraker” (1979) is a giant with steel teeth.

A galaxy of well-known actors – and a few actresses – from around the world have faced off against the six men who have played Bond, from Sean Connery to Daniel Craig.

Yaphet Kotto, Max von Sydow, Sean Bean, Javier Bardem, Donald Pleasence, Christopher Lee, Michael Lonsdale, Lotte Lenya, Mads Mikkelsen, Jeroen Krabbe, Christopher Walken and Telly Savalas all have gone mano-a-mano with 007, and lost.

The International Spy Museum‘s show was timed to the release of “Skyfall” and done in cooperation with EON Productions, which makes the Bond movies.

The exhibit, which includes more than 110 movie and historical artifacts, including Jaws’ teeth, interactive stations, and videos, runs through 2014. General admission to the museum is $ 19.95.

(Reporting by Ian Simpson; Editing by Paul Simao)

Movies News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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