Aides: Chavez in tough fight, may miss swearing-in

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Somber confidants of President Hugo Chavez say he is going through a difficult recovery after cancer surgery in Cuba, and one close ally is warning Venezuelans that their leader may not make it back for his swearing-in next month.

Information Minister Ernesto Villegas said Wednesday night that Chavez was in “stable condition” and was with close relatives in Havana. Reading a statement, he said the government invites people to “accompany President Chavez in this new test with their prayers.”

Villegas expressed hope about the president returning home for his Jan. 10 swearing-in for a new six-year term, but said in a written message on a government website that if Chavez doesn’t make it, “our people should be prepared to understand it.”

Villegas said it would be irresponsible to hide news about the “delicateness of the current moment and the days to come.” He asked Venezuelans to see Chavez’s condition as “when we have a sick father, in a delicate situation after four surgeries in a year and a half.”

Moving to prepare the public for the possibility of more bad news, Vice President Nicolas Maduro looked grim when he acknowledged that Chavez faced a “complex and hard” process after his latest surgery.

At the same time, officials sought to show a united front amid the growing worries about Chavez’s health and Venezuela’s future. Key leaders of Chavez’s party and military officers appeared together on television as Maduro gave updates on Chavez’s condition.

“We’re more united than ever,” said Maduro, who was flanked by National Assembly President Diosdado Cabello and Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez, both key members of Chavez’s inner circle. “We’re united in loyalty to Chavez.”

Analysts say Maduro could eventually face challenges in trying to hold together the president’s diverse “Chavismo” movement, which includes groups from radical leftists to moderates, as well as military factions.

Tapped by the 58-year-old president over the weekend as his chosen political heir, Maduro is considered to be a member of radical left wing of Chavez’s movement that is closely aligned with Cuba’s communist government.

Cabello, a former military officer who also wields power within Chavez’s movement, shared the spotlight with Maduro by speaking at a Mass for Chavez’s health at a military base.

Just returned from being with Chavez for the operation, Cabello called the president “invincible” but said “that man who is in Havana … is fighting a battle for his life.”

After Chavez’s six-hour operation Tuesday, Venezuelan television broadcast religious services where people prayed for Chavez, interspersed with campaign rallies for upcoming gubernatorial elections.

On the streets of Caracas, people on both sides of the country’s deep political divide voiced concerns about Chavez’s condition and what might happen if he died.

At campaign rallies ahead of Sunday’s gubernatorial elections, Chavez’s candidates urged Venezuelans to vote for pro-government candidates while they also called for the president to get well.

“Onward, Commander!” gubernatorial candidate Elias Jaua shouted to a crowd of supporters at a rally Wednesday. Many observers said it was likely Chavez’s candidates could get a boost from their supporters’ outpouring of sympathy for Chavez.

Opposition leader Henrique Capriles, who lost to Chavez in the October presidential election and is running against Jaua, complained Wednesday that Chavez’s allies are taking advantage of the president’s health problems to try to rally support. He took issue with Jaua’s statement to supporters that “we have to vote so that the president recovers.”

Maduro looked sad as he spoke on television, his voice hoarse and cracked at times after meeting in the pre-dawn hours with Cabello and Ramirez. The pair returned to Venezuela about 3 a.m. after accompanying Chavez to Cuba for his surgery.

“It was a complex, difficult, delicate operation,” Maduro said. “The post-operative process is also going to be a complex and hard process.”

Without giving details, Maduro reiterated Chavez’s recent remarks that the surgery presented risks and that people should be prepared for any “difficult scenarios.”

The constitution says presidents should be sworn in before the National Assembly, and if that’s not possible then before the Supreme Court.

Former Supreme Court magistrate Roman Duque Corredor said a president cannot delegate the swearing-in to anyone else and cannot take the oath of office outside Venezuela. A president could still be sworn in even if temporarily incapacitated, but would need to be conscious and in Venezuela, Duque told The Associated Press.

If a president-elect is declared incapacitated by lawmakers and is unable to be sworn in, the National Assembly president would temporarily take charge of the government and a new presidential vote must be held within 30 days, Duque said.

Chavez said Saturday that if an election had to be held, Maduro should be elected president.

The dramatic events of this week, with Chavez suddenly taking a turn for the worse, had some Venezuelans wondering whether they were being told the truth because just a few months ago the president was running for his fourth presidential term and had said he was free of cancer.

Lawyer Maria Alicia Altuve, who was out in bustling crowds in a shopping district of downtown Caracas, said it seemed odd how Maduro wept at a political rally while talking about Chavez.

“He cries on television to set up a drama, so that people go vote for poor Chavez,” Altuve said. “So we don’t know if this illness is for that, or if it’s that this man is truly sick.”

Some Chavez supporters said they found it hard to think about losing the president and worried about the future. His admirers held prayer vigils in Caracas and other cities this week, holding pictures and singing hymns.

Chavez has undergone four cancer-related surgeries since June 2011. He has also undergone months of chemotherapy and radiation treatments. Throughout his treatments, Chavez has kept secret some details of his illness, including the exact location and type of the tumors.

Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa wished his close ally the best, while also acknowledging the possibility that cancer might end his presidency. “Chavez is very important for Latin America, but if he can’t continue at the head of Venezuela, the processes of change have to continue,” Correa said at a news conference in Quito.

___

Associated Press writer Christopher Toothaker contributed to this report.

Latin America News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Media mogul and banker Allbritton dies at 87

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Joe Lewis Allbritton, a media mogul and owner of the scandal-plagued Riggs National Bank, died on Wednesday at a hospital in Houston. He was 87.

Allbritton died of heart ailments, said Jerald Fritz, a senior vice president of Allbritton Communications.

Allbritton’s media empire included newspapers throughout the U.S. Northeast and ABC network affiliates. Allbritton’s son, Robert, recently founded the influential political publication Politico.

But Joe Allbritton, a Mississippi native, was famously known for owning and running Riggs, the Washington-based bank that had been a dominant force in diplomatic banking in the nation’s capital.

Allbritton’s banking career was tarnished when it was revealed that Riggs bank failed to report suspicious activity in the accounts held by former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and Equatorial Guinea officials.

Riggs bank pleaded guilty in 2005 to violating anti-money laundering laws and was fined a total of $ 41 million.

Allbritton did not seek re-election to Riggs’ board of directors and the storied bank was eventually acquired by PNC Financial Services.

Allbritton is survived by his wife, son and two grandchildren.

(Reporting By Rachelle Younglai; Editing by Eric Beech)

Celebrity News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Fewer cancer patients pick CPR after video demo

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Dying cancer patients are less likely to want aggressive end-of-life care if they watch a short video about CPR than if they simply hear about it, according to a new study.

“These are huge differences. You will die very differently if you watch the video than if you don’t,” said Dr. Angelo Volandes, the study’s lead author from Boston’s Massachusetts General Hospital.

“All these patients had a terminal condition. It’s not like there was another treatment they were trying…So (CPR) was prolonging the dying process,” he said.

The researchers found in a group of 150 cancer patients, who were thought to have less than a year to live, 48 percent wanted CPR after being told about it, compared to 20 percent in the group who also watched a video showing compressions on a dummy and the inserting of a breathing tube.

“It’s one of the most important issues in American medicine today. People are getting medical interventions that, if they had more knowledge, they would simply not want,” said Volandes.

The new study builds off previous research with similar findings by the same group. The earlier research, however, was only conducted with brain cancer patients at one medical center.

For the new study, published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, the researchers included a wider variety of cancer patients at four medical centers in Massachusetts, New York and Tennessee.

All of the patients who agreed to participate in the study were read a standardized description of CPR — described as pressing on their chest and using an electric shock to “get your heart to beat again if it stops.”

The description also said CPR does not revive most patients with advanced cancer, and the patient would likely be put in the ICU with a breathing machine if it worked.

The researchers then randomly selected 70 of the patients to watch a three-minute video demonstration.

In the group that was only told about CPR, about half of the 80 patients said they wouldn’t want doctors or nurses to revive them. That compared to 79 percent of the patients who also watched the video.

Nine out of every ten patients who watched the video also said it was “helpful.”

PART OF A BIGGER CONVERSATION

Volandes told Reuters Health that the video may reinforce the information patients usually get from their doctors.

“People aren’t clinicians. They don’t have clinic experience to understand what this looks like,” he said.

Dr. Susan Gaeta, an assistant professor at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, told Reuters Health she likes the idea of using the videos, but said they need to be part of a bigger conversation.

“What we’re trying to do is to have conversation with patients on what their goals and values are,” said Gaeta.

She added that the question should not be, “Do you want this?” It should be, “Is this medically appropriate based on your goals and values?”

Volandes said their collection of 25 videos on various topics, including CPR and breathing tubes, are used by over 30 healthcare systems across the country.

Gaeta added that her hospital is developing their own videos that incorporate their focus of goals and values.

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/TP4qV1 Journal of Clinical Oncology, online December 10, 2012.

Diseases/Conditions News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Why Hillary Clinton won't get a break from public life

By Walter Shapiro

The envelope, please. The 2012 award for the most candid comment by a prominent public official goes to Hillary Clinton. Her uncharacteristic burst of honesty adds a layer of complexity to the premature speculation about her political future.

In an interview with the New York Times columnist Gail Collins, Clinton revealed her fantasy for 2013 after she takes her final globe-girdling flight as secretary of state: “I just want to sleep and exercise and travel for fun. And relax. It sounds so ordinary, but I haven’t done it for 20 years. I would like to see whether I can get untired.”

The dream seems so modest: to see whether her 65-year-old body can recover from years of too much stress and too little sleep. But Hillary Clinton, Private Citizen will soon have to confront the world clamoring at her door with its own set of expectations, requests and demands for clarity about running for president in 2016.

Friends who want her to speak, receive an award or grace a charitable event have been told to hold off asking until April or May, according to a front-page story in last Sunday’s Times by Jodi Kantor. As an indication of the coming news media frenzy, the New York Times is already lavishing more space on the whither-Hillary beat than the tabloids devote to Lindsay Lohan and Kate Middleton. Combined.

What this means, of course, is no rest for the weary and world-famous.

Sure, Clinton may take two months or so off, interspersed with such restful tasks as house-hunting (the Clintons are said to be tempted by the Hamptons), hiring a staff, talking to a lecture agent, contemplating a book and presumably chatting with the most persistent political callers. If she does manage to sneak off on a vacation (Iowa is always lovely in March), rest assured that the paparazzi and the political press will be close behind.

Try as she might, Clinton will find it difficult, if not impossible, to avoid being entangled in a web of obligation. Legions of friends (and, unlike the norm in politics, her longstanding friendships appear genuine) will ask her for time-consuming favors that cannot all be rejected. The do-gooder side of her nature will propel her into too many events and trips for worthy causes. And, as a Clinton, she knows all too well how easily political supporters bristle when their egos are not being stroked.

I first interviewed Hillary Clinton in the governor’s mansion in Little Rock in 1992. And since then, I have made my contributions to that mushrooming branch of journalism called Hillary Studies. This experience has left me with an appreciation for her complexity as a person—and a reluctance to assume that her only motivations are ambition and a feminist obligation to seize the opportunity to become the first woman president.

So I have no idea if she will run in 2016, and I doubt if she does either. Clinton’s State Department spokesman Philippe Reines got it right when he cautioned the Times, “Be very wary of those pretending to bear actual knowledge.” Over the next two years, everyone in politics could learn enough classical Greek to read “The Iliad” in the time that they will devote to devouring speculative articles built around anonymous quotes from “Clinton friends.”

If she does make another bid for the White House, Clinton will have been granted the ultimate luxury in presidential politics. And that is to take the time in advance to contemplate what she would want to accomplish in the White House rather than having to focus solely on the mechanics for getting there.

The only post-war presidents who have had a chance to think seriously about governing from the White House before they took office were Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. And in politics, as in country music, two out of three ain’t bad.

Since Reagan in 1980, every new president simultaneously held a normally demanding day job (vice president, governor or senator) when he was elected. Bill Clinton, for example, rushed from a 1990 reelection campaign as Arkansas governor to a roller-coaster race for the White House to president-elect without a moment for reflection. And this careening from crisis to crisis contributed to Clinton’s disastrous first two years in the White House.

But with Hillary Clinton it could be different. She has the right instincts about what she wants to do with the long-awaited gift of free time. Reading something other than briefing books and classified memos would add to her already impressive breadth of her knowledge. Unstructured conversations with old friends and major thinkers might lead her in surprising intellectual directions. Such a laid-back interlude would make her, if elected, a better and more thoughtful president in 2017.

That is the theory. But the sad truth is that Hillary Clinton will never be allowed to go off the grid for long. Her celebrity is too great; the clamor for a piece of her political future is too intense.

So Clinton will dutifully do what is expected of her as a private citizen: attending an international conference in Bangladesh, holding an off-the-record meeting with potential political donors, writing a book, making a few policy addresses on national security. And someday, if she does return to the White House in 2017, she will still fantasize about being untired.

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Aides: Chavez in tough fight, may miss swearing-in

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Somber confidants of President Hugo Chavez say he is going through a difficult recovery after cancer surgery in Cuba, and one close ally is warning Venezuelans that their leader may not make it back for his swearing-in next month.

Information Minister Ernesto Villegas said Wednesday night that Chavez was in “stable condition” and was with close relatives in Havana. Reading a statement, he said the government invites people to “accompany President Chavez in this new test with their prayers.”

Villegas expressed hope about the president returning home for his Jan. 10 swearing-in for a new six-year term, but said in a written message on a government website that if Chavez doesn’t make it, “our people should be prepared to understand it.”

Villegas said it would be irresponsible to hide news about the “delicateness of the current moment and the days to come.” He asked Venezuelans to see Chavez’s condition as “when we have a sick father, in a delicate situation after four surgeries in a year and a half.”

Moving to prepare the public for the possibility of more bad news, Vice President Nicolas Maduro looked grim when he acknowledged that Chavez faced a “complex and hard” process after his latest surgery.

At the same time, officials sought to show a united front amid the growing worries about Chavez’s health and Venezuela’s future. Key leaders of Chavez’s party and military officers appeared together on television as Maduro gave updates on Chavez’s condition.

“We’re more united than ever,” said Maduro, who was flanked by National Assembly President Diosdado Cabello and Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez, both key members of Chavez’s inner circle. “We’re united in loyalty to Chavez.”

Analysts say Maduro could eventually face challenges in trying to hold together the president’s diverse “Chavismo” movement, which includes groups from radical leftists to moderates, as well as military factions.

Tapped by the 58-year-old president over the weekend as his chosen political heir, Maduro is considered to be a member of radical left wing of Chavez’s movement that is closely aligned with Cuba’s communist government.

Cabello, a former military officer who also wields power within Chavez’s movement, shared the spotlight with Maduro by speaking at a Mass for Chavez’s health at a military base.

Just returned from being with Chavez for the operation, Cabello called the president “invincible” but said “that man who is in Havana … is fighting a battle for his life.”

After Chavez’s six-hour operation Tuesday, Venezuelan television broadcast religious services where people prayed for Chavez, interspersed with campaign rallies for upcoming gubernatorial elections.

On the streets of Caracas, people on both sides of the country’s deep political divide voiced concerns about Chavez’s condition and what might happen if he died.

At campaign rallies ahead of Sunday’s gubernatorial elections, Chavez’s candidates urged Venezuelans to vote for pro-government candidates while they also called for the president to get well.

“Onward, Commander!” gubernatorial candidate Elias Jaua shouted to a crowd of supporters at a rally Wednesday. Many observers said it was likely Chavez’s candidates could get a boost from their supporters’ outpouring of sympathy for Chavez.

Opposition leader Henrique Capriles, who lost to Chavez in the October presidential election and is running against Jaua, complained Wednesday that Chavez’s allies are taking advantage of the president’s health problems to try to rally support. He took issue with Jaua’s statement to supporters that “we have to vote so that the president recovers.”

Maduro looked sad as he spoke on television, his voice hoarse and cracked at times after meeting in the pre-dawn hours with Cabello and Ramirez. The pair returned to Venezuela about 3 a.m. after accompanying Chavez to Cuba for his surgery.

“It was a complex, difficult, delicate operation,” Maduro said. “The post-operative process is also going to be a complex and hard process.”

Without giving details, Maduro reiterated Chavez’s recent remarks that the surgery presented risks and that people should be prepared for any “difficult scenarios.”

The constitution says presidents should be sworn in before the National Assembly, and if that’s not possible then before the Supreme Court.

Former Supreme Court magistrate Roman Duque Corredor said a president cannot delegate the swearing-in to anyone else and cannot take the oath of office outside Venezuela. A president could still be sworn in even if temporarily incapacitated, but would need to be conscious and in Venezuela, Duque told The Associated Press.

If a president-elect is declared incapacitated by lawmakers and is unable to be sworn in, the National Assembly president would temporarily take charge of the government and a new presidential vote must be held within 30 days, Duque said.

Chavez said Saturday that if an election had to be held, Maduro should be elected president.

The dramatic events of this week, with Chavez suddenly taking a turn for the worse, had some Venezuelans wondering whether they were being told the truth because just a few months ago the president was running for his fourth presidential term and had said he was free of cancer.

Lawyer Maria Alicia Altuve, who was out in bustling crowds in a shopping district of downtown Caracas, said it seemed odd how Maduro wept at a political rally while talking about Chavez.

“He cries on television to set up a drama, so that people go vote for poor Chavez,” Altuve said. “So we don’t know if this illness is for that, or if it’s that this man is truly sick.”

Some Chavez supporters said they found it hard to think about losing the president and worried about the future. His admirers held prayer vigils in Caracas and other cities this week, holding pictures and singing hymns.

Chavez has undergone four cancer-related surgeries since June 2011. He has also undergone months of chemotherapy and radiation treatments. Throughout his treatments, Chavez has kept secret some details of his illness, including the exact location and type of the tumors.

Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa wished his close ally the best, while also acknowledging the possibility that cancer might end his presidency. “Chavez is very important for Latin America, but if he can’t continue at the head of Venezuela, the processes of change have to continue,” Correa said at a news conference in Quito.

___

Associated Press writer Christopher Toothaker contributed to this report.

Latin America News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Lidl Christmas dinner offer goes viral on Twitter

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Discount retailer Lidl faces a 200,000-euro ($ 260,000) Christmas dinner bill after an offer of chicken vol-au-vents and ice cream cake for the poor went viral.

The supermarket launched a Twitter campaign in Belgium on Monday, saying it would hand out five four-course Christmas dinners to food banks for each tweet on a hash tag.

Lidl had expected to hand out about 1,000 of the 20-euro dinner packs, consisting of tomato soup, vol-au-vents with chips, an ice-cream cake and chocolates, a spokesman for the German-based company’s Belgium unit said on Wednesday.

But local newspapers wrote about the offer and people retweeted using the hash tag – #luxevooriedereen, Dutch for “luxury for everyone”.

By the end of the 24-hour campaign, 1,500 people had tweeted, meaning Lidl has to deliver 7,500 dinners. That sparked reports the supermarket had been caught out by its campaign.

To quash such talk, Lidl rounded up the number of dinners to 10,000, and branded the campaign a success.

Lidl said it had not yet decided whether to repeat the exercise next year.

“We’ve learnt quite a few lessons over the past 48 hours, to say the least,” the spokesman said.

($ 1 = 0.7693 euros)

(Reporting By Ben Deighton. Editing By Sebastian Moffett.)

Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Best Pals Paralyzed Just 2 Years Apart

Alan Brown had just wrapped up a fundraiser for his high school best friend, Danny Heumann, who had been paralyzed after he broke his back in a car accident.

“We were 18 years old, ready to live life,” said Brown, who became his friend’s caregiver, staying by his side at New York City‘s Rusk Institute after the 1985 accident.

But just six weeks after he had helped raise $ 15,000 for his friend’s new foundation, Brown himself suffered a cruel twist of fate. He, too, was paralyzed after diving into the surf on a Club Med vacation in Martinique. It was Jan. 2, 1988, a bit more than two years after Heumann’s accident.

Brown said that he quite literally “saw the light” when he shattered his neck. The undertow threw him head-first against the ocean floor.

“I heard it snap,” he said. “I was under water two or three minutes holding my breath to survive. But I thought this was it.”

He never lost consciousness and remembered from his friend’s accident not to be jostled, so he refused a ride in the bumpy ambulance until he could be airlifted to the hospital. En route, he said he quoted lines from the comedy film, “Fletch” — “It’s all ball bearings.”

Just short of his 21st birthday, he lost the use of his legs, but not his sense of humor or his drive.

Today, at 45, Brown says he is doing what he has always done best: facing a challenge.

He has pledged to raise $ 250,000 — $ 25,000 for each year he has been paralyzed — for the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation. His one-year campaign is aptly named the “Power of We.”

“There’s no ego here — we’re building an army,” said Brown, who is director of impact for the Reeve Foundation. “Spinal cord injuries don’t discriminate. In one split second my life changed.”

Both Heumann and Brown now sit on the board of the Reeve Foundation.

An estimated 5.6 million Americans live with some form of paralysis, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and most, like Brown, were injured when they were young.

The Reeve Foundation has become the “hub” of most of the research and advocacy for those who suffer from paralysis. It is named for the actor Christopher Reeve, who was injured in a horseback riding accident and died in 2004. His wife, Dana, worked with him and chaired the foundation; she died in 2006.

Spinal cord research is “painstakingly slow and expensive,” according to Susan Howley, executive vice-president of research at the Reeve Foundation. And there are never any quick fixes.

But this is a pivotal time in research and more is being done to improve quality of life and independence for those who are paralyzed.

“It’s actually a phenomenally interesting and exciting time in the field of spinal cord research,” said Howley. “The old dogmas haven’t really been overturned for a very long time.”

As recently as two decades ago, an injured adult was never expected to recover. Today, scientists are discovering activity-based exercise or locomotor training that can “remind” the spinal cord how to step and stand again, she said.

But being wheelchair-bound is only part of the medical, psychological and financial challenge of a spinal cord injury.

Depending on the severity of the injury, the yearly expense for treatment can be anywhere from $ 300,000 to nearly $ 1 million, according to The University of Alabama National Spinal Cord Injury Statistical Center and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The lifetime cost of caring for a 25-year-old can range from $ 1.5 to $ 4 million.

Pain, Bladder and Skin Issues Plague Those With Paralysis

The secondary effects of spinal cord injuries are as challenging as the mobility issues: constant pain, bowel and bladder issues, and skin problems; shoulder and back injuries from years of strain and aging in a wheelchair.

“There are so many of them,” said Brown. “Care giving and the psychological are part of it — developing your own confidence to face the world. Some people don’t even want to leave their homes.”

Brown’s generation is the first to even survive spinal cord injuries. “There is no road map for us,” he said. “In the past, if they didn’t die, they were put away in a nursing home to die.”

Relationships are tested; Brown said his own marriage broke up.

Since the early days of treatment at Jackson Memorial in Miami and later in outpatient therapy at Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York City, his humor has kept him going.

“They put me in a halo backwards and had to unscrew it and screw it back into my head,” said Brown. “I laughed the entire time. I laughed every day and cried every day.”

He said he learned to hold his breath so the nurses would talk to him.

Laughter has carried him through six surgeries and physical ordeals. “I am an emergency room frequent flyer,” Brown jokes.

He has 11 screws and two metal plates that were inserted after his neck was rebuilt.

“Technically I’m three people,” said Brown. “My head is screwed on, my body is in the middle and there is my soul.”

Brown has always been a giver — as a child growing up in a Jewish family in New York City, he used to help prepare dead bodies for burial — “one of the biggest mitzvahs,” he said.

“I was always a person who wanted to overcome, an overachiever,” he said. “I wasn’t a great student, but I was there by your side. I would help the elderly at Rosh Hashanah — it’s in my make-up.”

While he was still bedridden and his health was touch and go, Brown asked his rabbi what he would say in a eulogy. The rabbi told Brown he had the “spirit to help others.”

Today he says he leads a full life, helping to raise his two sons, Max, 15, and Sam, 10.

Brown uses a power wheelchair and has difficulty using his hands. He said he battles constant pain, but is able to get himself in and out of the chair and drives a car.

A former hockey player, Brown keeps fit. He participates in marathons in his wheelchair and has tried both scuba and sky diving.

Professionally, Brown has worked his entire life — at public relations, recruiting NFL players for ad campaigns and even running a radio station.

“Nothing will ever stop me,” said Brown, who has also begun a book.

He confesses he doesn’t sleep much, especially with an eye to the fundraising campaign for the Reeve Foundation.

“There totally is hope,” he said when talking about medical advances. “Cures come in different shapes and sizes. A lot of us would take just not being in pain.”

Meanwhile, Brown’s attitude and energy astound his colleagues.

“Alan lives with his injury day in and day out,” said Howley at the Reeve Foundation. “He, better than anyone else, understands what the challenges and needs are. He is so articulate and compassionate. We are very lucky. God bless him.”

For more information and to help, go to the donor page for the Alan T. Brown Power of We Campaign.

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Seniors/Aging News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Outgoing husband and wife reps at odds on fiscal cliff deal

Spinners and Winners

Husband-and-wife team Reps. Connie Mack, R-Fla., and Mary Bono Mack, R-Calif., got some bad news on November 6. Both lost their elections and are now leaving Congress at the same time. But they've got one foot out the door during one of the most controversial lame duck sessions in recent history. Neither is budging on their votes -- though they don't exactly see eye-to-eye on the ongoing fiscal cliff negotiations with the White House.

Bono Mack is more open to compromising on taxes than Mack is, joking that Spinners and Winners was trying to start a fight by bringing up the topic!

"I think if this is the best possible deal we can get, and for me I think that it is, I think we ought to go for it," Bono Mack said.

"She's for extending the tax cuts for the middle class, but we all know what that means—that means that what the bill actually is going to do is raise taxes on people who do make more than $250,000," Mack said. "A lot of us would say that that's raising taxes on small businesses, the very people that we rely on to go out and create jobs."

Bono Mack says she thinks President Obama and Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, will reach a deal that she will be able to support; Mack says if tax increases are part of the deal, it won't get his vote.

Bono Mack came to Congress in an unconventional way 14 years ago after her former husband, Rep. Sonny Bono, suddenly died. The brand new congresswoman found herself on the House Judiciary Committee in the midst of the Clinton impeachment hearings. She voted in favor of impeaching President Clinton at the time. Clinton is now one of the most respected political figures, but Bono Mack says she does not regret her decision, but says she thinks Republicans "overplayed their hand" at the time.

"It's not good to do it, it's not easy to do, it's not good for the American people, and if we should ever do it, it better be for very serious reasons, because it really tears us apart as a people," Mary said.

As for those incoming representatives, Mack has some advice: Build strong relationships with your fellow representatives, and don't get too attached to anything.

"If you ever question your permanency here, just look at your furniture," Connie said. "There's a bar code on the furniture in your office, and as quickly as they can move you in they can move you out."

To hear more from the Congressional couple, including their future plans, check out this week's Spinners and Winners.

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Britney Spears, Taylor Swift are top-earning women in music

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Pop star Britney Spears edged past Taylor Swift to claim the title of top-earning woman in music after bringing in an estimated $ 58 million from her album, endorsements and a perfume in the past year, Forbes said on Wednesday.

Country-pop singer Swift, 22, was a close second with an estimated $ 57 million paycheck thanks to her tour – which made more than $ 1 million each night – a contract with CoverGirl cosmetics, her own line of fragrances and her new album “Red.”

R&B star Rihanna, 24, earned an estimated $ 53 million to put her at No. 3, two places up from last year, followed by Lady Gaga, 26, who slipped from No. 1 in 2011 to fourth place with $ 52 million.

Katy Perry, 28, the only musician other than Michael Jackson to produce five No. 1 hit singles from one album, rounded out the top five with about $ 45 million in earnings.

“I think people love the comeback story – Britney never really finished her run as a superstar,” Steve Stoute, marketing expert and author of “The Tanning of America” told Forbes.

Spears, 31, who was No. 10 last year, earned most of her money from her latest album “Femme Fatale” and her tour, according to Forbes, which compiled the list with estimated earnings from May 2011 to May 2012.

In September, Spears became a judge on the reality TV singing show “The X Factor,” reportedly for $ 15 million.

Despite their huge incomes, only eight of the top women music earners were among the 25 best-paid musicians, which Forbes attributes in part to career breaks to have children.

Madonna made the list in ninth place with an estimated $ 30 million in earnings, which did not include profits from her latest tour because it was outside the time period considered for the ranking.

Forbes compiled the list after estimating pretax income based on record sales, touring information merchandise sales and interviews with concert promoters, lawyers and managers.

The full list can be found at http://www.forbes.com/sites/zackomalleygreenburg/2012/12/12/the-top-earning-women-in-music-2012/

(Reporting by Patricia Reaney; Editing by Nick Zieminski and Maureen Bavdek)

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North Korea’s new leader burnishes credentials with rocket

SEOUL/TOKYO (Reuters) – North Korea successfully launched a rocket on Wednesday, boosting the credentials of its new leader and stepping up the threat the isolated and impoverished state poses to its opponents.

The rocket, which North Korea says put a weather satellite into orbit, has been labeled by the United States, South Korea and Japan as a test of technology that could one day deliver a nuclear warhead capable of hitting targets as far as the continental United States.

“The satellite has entered the planned orbit,” a North Korean television news-reader clad in traditional Korean garb triumphantly announced, after which the station played patriotic songs with the lyrics “Chosun (Korea) does what it says”.

The rocket was launched just before 10 a.m. Korea time (9 p.m. ET on Tuesday), according to defense officials in South Korea and Japan, and easily surpassed a failed April launch that flew for less than two minutes.

The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) said that it “deployed an object that appeared to achieve orbit”, the first time an independent body has verified North Korean claims.

North Korea followed what it said was a similar successful launch in 2009 with a nuclear test that prompted the United Nations Security Council to stiffen sanctions that it originally imposed in 2006 after the North’s first nuclear test.

The state is banned from developing nuclear and missile-related technology under U.N. resolutions, although Kim Jong-un, the youthful head of state who took power a year ago, is believed to have continued the state’s “military first” programs put into place by his deceased father Kim Jong-il.

North Korea lauded Wednesday’s launch as celebrating the prowess of all three Kims to rule since it was founded in 1948.

“At a time when great yearnings and reverence for Kim Jong-il pervade the whole country, its scientists and technicians brilliantly carried out his behests to launch a scientific and technological satellite in 2012, the year marking the 100th birth anniversary of President Kim Il Sung,” its KCNA news agency said.

Washington condemned Wednesday’s launch as a “provocative action” and breach of U.N. rules, while Japan’s U.N. envoy called for a Security Council meeting. However, diplomats say further tough sanctions are unlikely to be agreed at the body as China, the North’s only major ally, will oppose them.

“The international community must work in a concerted fashion to send North Korea a clear message that its violations of United Nations Security Council resolutions have consequences,” the White House said in a statement.

Japan’s likely next prime minister, Shinzo Abe, who is leading in opinion polls ahead of an election on December 16 and who is known as a North Korea hawk, called on the United Nations to adopt a resolution “strongly criticizing” Pyongyang.

BEIJING BLOCK

China had expressed “deep concern” prior to the launch which was announced a day after a top politburo member, representing new Chinese leader Xi Xinping, met Kim Jong-un in Pyongyang.

On Wednesday its tone was measured, regretting the launch but calling for restraint on possible counter-measures, in line with previous policy when it has effectively vetoed tougher sanctions.

“China believes the Security Council’s response should be cautious and moderate, protect the overall peaceful and stable situation on the Korean peninsula, and avoid an escalation of the situation,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei told journalists.

Bruce Klingner, a Korea expert at the Heritage Foundation, told a conference call: “China has been the stumbling block to firmer U.N. action and we’ll have to see if the new leadership is any different than its predecessors.”

A senior adviser to South Korea’s president said last week it was unlikely there would be action from the U.N. and that Seoul would expect its allies to tighten sanctions unilaterally.

Kim Jong-un, believed to be 29 years old, took power when his father died on December 17 last year and experts believe the launch was intended to commemorate the first anniversary of the death.

The April launch was timed for the centennial of the birth of Kim Il Sung, the grandfather of its current ruler.

Wednesday’s success puts the North ahead of the South which has not managed to get a rocket off the ground.

“This is a considerable boost in establishing the rule of Kim Jong-un,” said Cho Min, an expert at the Korea Institute of National Unification.

There have been few indications the secretive and impoverished state, where the United Nations estimates a third of the population is malnourished, has made any advances in opening up economically over the past year.

North Korea remains reliant on minerals exports to China and remittances from tens of thousands of its people working on labor projects overseas.

The 22 million population often needs handouts from defectors who have escaped to South Korea in order to afford basic medicines.

Given the puny size of its economy – per capita income is less than $ 2,000 a year – one of the few ways the North can attract world attention is by emphasizing its military threat.

Pyongyang wants the United States to resume aid and to recognize it diplomatically, although the April launch scuppered a planned food deal.

It is believed to be some years away from developing a functioning nuclear warhead although it may have enough plutonium for around half a dozen nuclear bombs, according to nuclear experts.

The North has also been enriching uranium, which would give it a second path to nuclear weapons as it sits on vast natural uranium reserves.

“A successful launch puts North Korea closer to the capability to deploy a weaponized missile,” said Denny Roy, a senior fellow at the East-West Center in Hawaii.

“But this would still require fitting a weapon to the missile and ensuring a reasonable degree of accuracy. The North Koreans probably do not yet have a nuclear weapon small enough for a missile to carry.”

Pyongyang says that its development is part of a civil nuclear program, but has also boasted of it being a “nuclear weapons power”.

(Additional reporting by Jumin Park and Yoo Choonsik in SEOUL; David Alexander, Matt Spetalnick and Paul Eckert in WASHINGTON; Linda Sieg in TOKYO; Sui-Lee Wee in BEIJING; Rosmarie Francisco in MANILA; Writing by David Chance; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)

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