Gulf harvesters offered more money for BP damage (AP)

NEW ORLEANS ? Gulf of Mexico shrimpers and crabbers, who've reported diminished catches since the BP oil spill, are being offered a more generous settlement package because of lingering uncertainties over seafood.

Kenneth Feinberg is overseeing payments from a $20 billion compensation fund for victims of the 2010 oil spill. On Tuesday he said he would offer shrimpers and crabbers four times their documented losses in 2010 to settle their claims against BP.

On its website, the Gulf Coast Claims Facility said it recognized "the ongoing uncertainty regarding the state of the commercial harvesting of shrimp and crabs in the Gulf and the uncertainty of any ongoing impact from the spill."

But the heftier offer is unlikely to assuage many shrimpers and crab harvesters who say the claims process has been unfair.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/mexico/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111130/ap_on_re_us/us_gulf_oil_spill_claims

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Feisty Cain presses ahead with bid (AP)

WEST CHESTER, Ohio ? His campaign rocked anew, a feisty Herman Cain claimed a "groundswell of positive support" from backers on Wednesday and accused critics of trying to derail his White House bid as he worked to stem the fallout from allegations of a 13-year extramarital affair.

"They're attacking my character, my reputation and my name in order to try to bring me down," a feisty Cain told a friendly crowd without naming his critics. "But, you see, I don't believe that America is going to let that happen."

Questions about the campaign's viability hovered over Cain's one-day bus tour through Ohio.

It came a day after the candidate told staff he was reassessing his campaign after Ginger White, an Atlanta businesswoman, alleged in media interviews that she and Cain had a long-running sexual affair.

"We are reassessing as we speak. Reassessment means reevaluation," Cain told reporters Wednesday after his well-received speech to roughly 150 people in a hotel meeting room. He gave no indication to the audience that he was considering abandoning his bid despite telling staff that he would make a decision in the next few days about whether to continue it.

Cain received a standing ovation after he spoke about what a "Cain administration" would do. And he said that while some people predicted that the room would be empty, "I don't see any empty seats."

"It's been a groundswell of positive support," Cain insisted to reporters later, even as some backers in early voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire who had stuck by him after decade-old allegations of sexual harassment surfaced several weeks ago now indicated they were abandoning him.

Cain's latest turmoil comes just five weeks before the first votes are cast in the state-by-state march to the nomination. The earlier sexual harassment accusations that have taken a toll on both his standing in polls and, supporters say, his fundraising. Prominent conservatives who rushed to his defense earlier this month were all but silent when White stepped forward on Monday to accuse Cain of a consensual sexual relationship that ended this year before he became a White House candidate.

The candidate has denied the affair, and in a letter addressed to "patriots and supporters," called her allegations "completely false" and labeled her "troubled."

White steadfastly stood by her assertion in an interview Wednesday on ABC's "Good Morning America" and said she was "disappointed" by Cain's characterization of her. She called her relationship with Cain "a very casual affair" that lasted more than a dozen years.

"I'm not here to say anything negative about Mr. Cain," White said, although White added that she didn't think he should be president.

She elaborated on her claims, saying she took several trips with Cain, including a flight to Las Vegas to see a Mike Tyson-Evander Holyfield boxing match. She also said she had "consistently" received gifts and money from Cain over the past two and a half years, but said it was "not sex for cash."

Following Monday's developments, some Cain supporters have started to defect.

New Hampshire state Rep. William Panek endorsed Cain at a news conference earlier this year. But he changed his mind Tuesday after seeing reports that White showed evidence that she had traded 61 text messages and cellphone calls with the candidate. Panek has endorsed former House Speaker Newt Gingrich in the upcoming primary.

"I felt like we were being lied to," he said. "I'm putting my name in New Hampshire as a state rep behind him, and I just didn't like the way it was being played out."

In Iowa, Cain's campaign has lost some precinct-level supporters following the new allegations, according to Steve Grubbs, Cain's Iowa chairman. Cain was in Iowa for a day last week to film a new ad, but aides say that spending to air it was on hold pending the fundraising in the days to come.

Still, some are sticking by him.

Florida state Rep. Scott Plakon, one of four chairmen for Cain's Florida campaign, said he wanted to see more evidence.

"If it is true that he didn't do this, I think he should fight and kick and scratch and win," Plakon said.

But if Cain did have the affair, Plakon said, "that would be very problematic," he said. "There's the affair itself and then there's the truthful factor. He's been so outspoken in these denials."

White's revelation was the latest setback for a candidate who has been under scrutiny in the past month, since it was revealed that the National Restaurant Association paid settlements to two women who claimed Cain sexually harassed them while he was president of the organization. A third woman told The Associated Press that Cain made inappropriate sexual advanced toward her but that she didn't file a complaint. A fourth woman also stepped forward to accuse Cain of groping her in a car in 1997.

Cain has denied wrongdoing in all cases.

Outwardly on Wednesday, the candidate tried to project an image of a campaign focused on winning ? and not damage control. He planned to continue his bus tour in Dayton and Columbus before heading to New Hampshire later in the day.

On Tuesday, Cain delivered a national security speech to nearly 1,000 people at conservative Hillsdale College in Michigan. He didn't address White's allegations; he also avoided speaking to reporters and stuck to his plan to present his foreign policy vision, one in which the U.S. would stand by friendly nations such as Israel, quit giving money to countries he considered enemies and spend more on defense.

Earlier that day, he acknowledged the "firestorm" that White sparked, and he acknowledged he was assessing whether her claims are too much for his candidacy to go forward.

"If a decision is made, different than to plow ahead, you all will be the first to know," Cain said during the call, according to a transcript from the National Review, which listened in.

In connection with the White allegation, Cain said: "With this latest one, we have to do an assessment as to whether or not this is going to create too much of a cloud, in some people's minds, as to whether or not they would be able to support us going forth."

__

Associated Press writers Kathy Barks Hoffman in Hillsdale, Mich., Ray Henry in Atlanta, Thomas Beaumont in Des Moines, Iowa, and Steve Peoples in Amherst, N.H., contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/politics/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111130/ap_on_el_pr/us_cain

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Octogenarian migrant smuggler faces prison terms (AP)

SAN DIEGO ? Federal prosecutors in San Diego want an 85-year-old woman to spend more than three years in prison for smuggling migrants to the United States illegally.

Felicitas Gurrola is scheduled to be sentenced Thursday. She stands out at a time when the smuggling business has turned increasingly violent and is dominated by large, mostly male operations that choose perilous routes through remote mountains and deserts.

Investigators say Gurrola ran a mostly female smuggling ring and picked the busiest U.S. border post for her crossing of choice. The legal U.S. resident had customers assume false identities to get past border inspectors.

Her attorney says she ran her business for four decades without hurting any of her customers.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/crime/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111201/ap_on_re_us/us_octogenarian_smuggler

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Some smartphone models more vulnerable to attack

ScienceDaily (Nov. 30, 2011) ? New research from North Carolina State University shows that some smartphones specifically designed to support the Android mobile platform have incorporated additional features that can be used by hackers to bypass Android's security features, making them more vulnerable to attack. Android has the largest share of the smartphone market in the U.S.

"Some of these pre-loaded applications, or features, are designed to make the smartphones more user-friendly, such as features that notify you of missed calls or text messages," says Dr. Xuxian Jiang, an assistant professor of computer science at NC State and co-author of a paper describing the research. "The problem is that these pre-loaded apps are built on top of the existing Android architecture in such a way as to create potential 'backdoors' that can be used to give third-parties direct access to personal information or other phone features."

In essence, these pre-loaded apps can be easily tricked by hackers. For example, these "backdoors" can be used to record your phone calls, send text messages to premium numbers that will charge your account or even completely wipe out all of your settings.

The researchers have tested eight different smartphone models, including two "reference implementations" that were loaded only with Google's baseline Android software. "Google's reference implementations and the Motorola Droid were basically clean," Jiang says. "No real problems there."

However, five other models did not fare as well. HTC's Legend, EVO 4G and Wildfire S, Motorola's Droid X and Samsung's Epic 4G all had significant vulnerabilities -- with the EVO 4G displaying the most vulnerabilities.

The researchers notified manufacturers of the vulnerabilities as soon as they were discovered, earlier this year.

"If you have one of these phones, your best bet to protect yourself moving forward is to make sure you accept security updates from your vendor," Jiang says. "And avoid installing any apps that you don't trust completely."

Researchers now plan to test these vulnerabilities in other smartphone models and determine whether third-party firmware has similar vulnerabilities.

The paper, "Systematic Detection of Capability Leaks in Stock Android Smartphones," will be presented Feb. 7, 2012, at the 19th Network and Distributed System Security Symposium in San Diego, Calif. The paper was co-authored by Jiang and NC State Ph.D. students Michael Grace, Yajin Zhou and Zhi Wang. The research was supported by the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Army Research Office.

The full paper, with technical details, is available here.

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Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/11/111130100228.htm

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2 killed in mobile lift collapse in Atlanta (Providence Journal)

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Pakistan PM: No more "business as usual" with U.S. (Reuters)

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) ? Pakistan's Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani ruled out "business as usual" with the United States on Monday after a NATO attack killed 24 Pakistani soldiers, and the army threatened to curtail cooperation with Washington on Afghanistan drastically.

Saturday's incident on Pakistan's border with Afghanistan has complicated U.S. attempts to ease a crisis in relations with Islamabad and stabilize the region before foreign combat troops leave Afghanistan.

"Business as usual will not be there," Gilani told CNN when asked if the relationship with the United States would continue. "We have to have something bigger so as to satisfy my nation."

Gilani's comments reflect the fury of the Pakistani government and military, and the pressure they are under from their own people. "You cannot win any war without the support of the masses," he said. "We need the people with us."

The relationship, he said, would continue only if based on "mutual respect and mutual interest." Asked if Pakistan was receiving that respect, Gilani replied: "At the moment, not."

Gilani's comments cap a day of growing pressure from the Pakistani military, which threatened to reduce cooperation on peace efforts in Afghanistan.

"This could have serious consequences in the level and extent of our cooperation," military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas told Reuters.

Pakistan has a long history of ties to militant groups in Afghanistan so it is uniquely positioned to help bring about a peace settlement, a top foreign policy and security goal for the Obama administration.

Washington believes Islamabad can play a critical role in efforts to pacify Afghanistan before all NATO combat troops pull out in 2014, and cannot afford to alienate its ally.

Pakistan shut down NATO supply routes into Afghanistan in retaliation for the weekend shooting incident, the worst of its kind since Islamabad allied itself with Washington in 2001.

"We have been here before. But this time it's much more serious," said Farzana Sheikh, associate fellow of the Asia program at Chatham House in London.

"The government has taken a very stern view. It's not quite clear at this stage what more Pakistani authorities can do, apart from suspending supplies to NATO forces in Afghanistan."

Adding a new element to tensions, and a diplomatic boost for Islamabad, Pakistan's ally China said it was "deeply shocked" by the incident and expressed "strong concern for the victims and profound condolences for Pakistan.

Russia, which has been seeking warmer relations with Pakistan as worry grows over the NATO troop pullout in Afghanistan, said it was "unacceptable" to violate the sovereignty of states even when hunting "terrorists."

On Saturday, NATO helicopters and fighter jets attacked two military outposts in northwest Pakistan, killing the 24 soldiers and wounding 13 others, the army said.

"TRAGIC, UNINTENDED"

NATO described the killings as a "tragic, unintended incident" and said an investigation was underway. A Western official and an Afghan security official who requested anonymity said NATO troops were responding to fire from across the border.

Pakistan's military denied NATO forces had come under fire before launching the attack, saying the strike was unprovoked and reserving the right to retaliate.

Abbas said the attack lasted two hours despite warnings from Pakistani border posts. "They were contacted through the local hotline and also there had been contacts through the director-general of military operations. But despite that, this continued," he said.

After a string of deadly incidents in the largely lawless and confusing border region, NATO and Pakistan set up the hotline that should allow them to communicate in case of confusion over targets and avoid "friendly fire."

Both the Western and Pakistani explanations are possibly correct: that a retaliatory attack by NATO troops took a tragic, mistaken turn in harsh terrain where differentiating friend from foe can be difficult.

An Afghan Taliban commander, Mullah Samiullah Rahmani, said the group had not been engaged in any fighting with NATO or Afghan forces in the area when the incident took place. But he added that Taliban fighters control several Afghan villages near the border with Pakistan.

A similar cross-border incident on September 30, 2010, which killed two Pakistani service personnel, led to the closure of one of NATO's supply routes through Pakistan for 10 days.

The attack was the latest perceived provocation by the United States, which infuriated and embarrassed Pakistan's powerful military in May with a unilateral special forces raid that killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

OBAMA EFFIGY BURNED

The main Pakistani association that delivers fuel to NATO forces in Afghanistan said it would not resume supplies soon in protest against the NATO strike.

In the Mohmand region, where the attack took place, hundreds of angry tribesmen yelled "Death to America." About 200 lawyers protested in Peshawar city, some burning an effigy of U.S. President Barack Obama.

Newspaper editorials were strident. "We have to send a clear and unequivocal message to NATO and America that our patience has run out. If even a single bullet of foreign forces crosses into our border, then two fires will be shot in retaliation," said the mass-circulation Urdu language Jang newspaper.

The NATO strike has shifted attention away from what critics say is Pakistan's failure to go after militants.

Pakistan joined the U.S. global war on militancy launched after al Qaeda's September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, and won billions of dollars in aid in return.

But the unstable, nuclear-armed country has often been described as an unreliable ally, and the United States has resorted to controversial drone aircraft strikes against militants on Pakistani territory to pursue its aims.

U.S. frustrations grew so much that Obama ordered the raid that killed bin Laden in Pakistan be kept secret, knowing it could make the United States even more unpopular in Pakistan.

(Additional reporting by Zeeshan Haider and Rebecca Conway in ISLAMABAD, Izaz Mohmand, Jibran Ahmad and Faris Ali in PESHAWAR, and William Maclean in LONDON; Writing by Michael Georgy; Editing by David Stamp)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/asia/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111128/wl_nm/us_pakistan_nato

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NY film critics pick 'The Artist' as best film (AP)

NEW YORK ? The New York Film Critics Circle named the silent film ode "The Artist" the year's best film Tuesday, giving the nostalgic black-and-white movie an early boost to its already promising Academy Awards prospects.

"The Artist," which is silent like the films to which it pays homage, also earned best director for the French filmmaker Michel Hazanavicius.

"It's a celebration of cinema," said John Anderson, chairman of the group and critic. "It's clever and it's upbeat and all that, but it's really about the movies. Of course, that's going to strike a chord among critics."

The boldly old-fashioned "The Artist," which the Weinstein Company opened in limited release last week, has emerged as an unlikely front-runner in the early stages of the Oscar race. The Spirit Awards, which honor independent film, also bestowed five nominations on it Tuesday.

The critics otherwise, as they usually do, spread the awards around. Brad Pitt won best actor for his performances in the baseball film "Moneyball" and Terrence Malick's cosmic drama "Tree of Life." Both of those films also earned other awards: "Tree of Life" for best cinematography by Emmanuel Lubezki and "Moneyball" for Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin's screenplay.

Meryl Steep was chosen as best actress for her performance as Margaret Thatcher in the upcoming "The Iron Lady." The suddenly ubiquitous Jessica Chastain won best supporting actress for a trio of performances in "Tree of Life," "The Help" and "Take Shelter."

Albert Brooks earned best supporting actor for his against-type performance as a violent villain in the drama "Drive."

The New York Film Critics moved up their annual vote this year, a shift that was widely seen as a bid for greater relevance in the fall award season, which effectively began in earnest Tuesday. The move also meant some finagling: The critics screened "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" on Monday, and were not able to see the eagerly anticipated 9/11 drama "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close."

Anderson didn't deny that the move was partially for a louder voice in the awards conversation, but said other reasons were foremost.

"I thought it would be interesting for us to be able to vote without other awards having been given out," said Anderson, a critic for Variety and Newsday. "Subconsciously or consciously, people are affected by other groups' voting. It may sound petty, but if (the Los Angeles Film Critics) gives a film best picture, a lot of our members are inclined to go the other way."

Anderson said the group might return to a later time next year because a number of members didn't like jamming in the screenings in a smaller window.

Werner Herzog's 3-D documentary "Cave of Forgotten Dreams" was selected as best nonfiction film. The financial industry thriller "Margin Call" won best first feature. And the Iranian drama "A Separation" was picked for best foreign film.

The year's special award was given posthumously to the prolific Chilean-born filmmaker Raoul Ruiz, who died in August, shortly after the U.S. release of his acclaimed "Mysteries of Lisbon."

The New York Film Critics Circle, a body of 33 New York-based critics founded in 1935, announced their annual vote on Twitter for the first time. The group describes its awards as "a principled alternative to the Oscars, honoring esthetic merit in a forum that is immune to commercial and political pressures." The group last year chose the Facebook drama "The Social Network" as best picture.

Among the films snubbed by the critics were Alexander Payne's "The Descendants," Martin Scorsese's "Hugo" and Steven Spielberg's "War Horse."

The awards will be handed out at a ceremony Jan. 9.

___

Online:

http://www.nyfcc.com/

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/movies/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111129/ap_on_en_mo/us_film_ny_critics_awards

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