Kellan Lutz, Hugh Jackman Take Bites and Swipes & More Casting News

By Julia Haskins

12/02/2012 at 07:00 PM EST

Kellan Lutz (left) and Hugh Jackman

Christopher Polk/Getty, Han Myung-Gu/WireImage

It's comeback time. Whether seeking revenge or reprising beloved roles, a fresh crop of movies shows that the best characters always come back for more.

Twilight's Kellan Lutz feasts on others as a vampire, but this time, he's utilizing his own body for powers, Zimbio reports.

The actor will star in Tatua as a tattooed assassin whose weapons are extracted from the ink on his body. The process is a strain on the hit man, but he must put that aside when his son is kidnapped by a dangerous foe.

Hugh Jackman is set to reprise his role as Wolverine in
X-Men: Days of Future Past, the Hollywood Reporter. Ian McKellen (Magneto) and Patrick Stewart (Professor Xavier), will also be joining Jennifer Lawrence, James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender and Nicholas Hoult.

Charlize Theron will star in an adaptation of the final installment of a South Korean revenge trilogy, the Hollywood Reporter also says. The original movie revolves around a woman wrongfully imprisoned for 13 years who then sets out to seek her long-awaited revenge. Writer William Monahan says the English-language remake will be "very American – and very unexpected."

The made-for-TV Disney channel movie Life-Size is getting a sequel, Variety reports. Tyra Banks will reprise her role as Eve, the doll who comes to life, and also executive produce the movie. No word yet on whether Lindsay Lohan, who played Eve's owner, will be making a return.

Also coming soon:

Beyoncé won't be slowing down after her Super Bowl performance in February. Just a couple weeks later, she'll introduce her still untitled, feature-length documentary on HBO, Deadline reports. The documentary airs Feb. 16.

Bridesmaids' Rose Byrne will be going through the motions as a newlywed in I Give it a Year, Zimbio reports. As if being newly married wasn't tough enough, the "too perfect" ex Anna Faris will be shaking up an already teetering balance.

Cate Blanchett will be stirring up her wicked ways as the evil stepmother in a live-action adaptation of Disney's Cinderella, also according to Zimbio.

And George Clooney is sticking to his winning formula by joining forces with his Argo team to produce an untitled crime drama, Variety reports.

Read More..

Asperger's dropped from revised diagnosis manual

CHICAGO (AP) — The now familiar term "Asperger's disorder" is being dropped. And abnormally bad and frequent temper tantrums will be given a scientific-sounding diagnosis called DMDD. But "dyslexia" and other learning disorders remain.

The revisions come in the first major rewrite in nearly 20 years of the diagnostic guide used by the nation's psychiatrists. Changes were approved Saturday.

Full details of all the revisions will come next May when the American Psychiatric Association's new diagnostic manual is published, but the impact will be huge, affecting millions of children and adults worldwide. The manual also is important for the insurance industry in deciding what treatment to pay for, and it helps schools decide how to allot special education.

This diagnostic guide "defines what constellations of symptoms" doctors recognize as mental disorders, said Dr. Mark Olfson, a Columbia University psychiatry professor. More important, he said, it "shapes who will receive what treatment. Even seemingly subtle changes to the criteria can have substantial effects on patterns of care."

Olfson was not involved in the revision process. The changes were approved Saturday in suburban Washington, D.C., by the psychiatric association's board of trustees.

The aim is not to expand the number of people diagnosed with mental illness, but to ensure that affected children and adults are more accurately diagnosed so they can get the most appropriate treatment, said Dr. David Kupfer. He chaired the task force in charge of revising the manual and is a psychiatry professor at the University of Pittsburgh.

One of the most hotly argued changes was how to define the various ranges of autism. Some advocates opposed the idea of dropping the specific diagnosis for Asperger's disorder. People with that disorder often have high intelligence and vast knowledge on narrow subjects but lack social skills. Some who have the condition embrace their quirkiness and vow to continue to use the label.

And some Asperger's families opposed any change, fearing their kids would lose a diagnosis and no longer be eligible for special services.

But the revision will not affect their education services, experts say.

The new manual adds the term "autism spectrum disorder," which already is used by many experts in the field. Asperger's disorder will be dropped and incorporated under that umbrella diagnosis. The new category will include kids with severe autism, who often don't talk or interact, as well as those with milder forms.

Kelli Gibson of Battle Creek, Mich., who has four sons with various forms of autism, said Saturday she welcomes the change. Her boys all had different labels in the old diagnostic manual, including a 14-year-old with Asperger's.

"To give it separate names never made sense to me," Gibson said. "To me, my children all had autism."

Three of her boys receive special education services in public school; the fourth is enrolled in a school for disabled children. The new autism diagnosis won't affect those services, Gibson said. She also has a 3-year-old daughter without autism.

People with dyslexia also were closely watching for the new updated doctors' guide. Many with the reading disorder did not want their diagnosis to be dropped. And it won't be. Instead, the new manual will have a broader learning disorder category to cover several conditions including dyslexia, which causes difficulty understanding letters and recognizing written words.

The trustees on Saturday made the final decision on what proposals made the cut; recommendations came from experts in several work groups assigned to evaluate different mental illnesses.

The revised guidebook "represents a significant step forward for the field. It will improve our ability to accurately diagnose psychiatric disorders," Dr. David Fassler, the group's treasurer and a University of Vermont psychiatry professor, said after the vote.

The shorthand name for the new edition, the organization's fifth revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, is DSM-5. Group leaders said specifics won't be disclosed until the manual is published but they confirmed some changes. A 2000 edition of the manual made minor changes but the last major edition was published in 1994.

Olfson said the manual "seeks to capture the current state of knowledge of psychiatric disorders. Since 2000 ... there have been important advances in our understanding of the nature of psychiatric disorders."

Catherine Lord, an autism expert at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York who was on the psychiatric group's autism task force, said anyone who met criteria for Asperger's in the old manual would be included in the new diagnosis.

One reason for the change is that some states and school systems don't provide services for children and adults with Asperger's, or provide fewer services than those given an autism diagnosis, she said.

Autism researcher Geraldine Dawson, chief science officer for the advocacy group Autism Speaks, said small studies have suggested the new criteria will be effective. But she said it will be crucial to monitor so that children don't lose services.

Other changes include:

—A new diagnosis for severe recurrent temper tantrums — disruptive mood dysregulation disorder. Critics say it will medicalize kids' who have normal tantrums. Supporters say it will address concerns about too many kids being misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder and treated with powerful psychiatric drugs. Bipolar disorder involves sharp mood swings and affected children are sometimes very irritable or have explosive tantrums.

—Eliminating the term "gender identity disorder." It has been used for children or adults who strongly believe that they were born the wrong gender. But many activists believe the condition isn't a disorder and say calling it one is stigmatizing. The term would be replaced with "gender dysphoria," which means emotional distress over one's gender. Supporters equated the change with removing homosexuality as a mental illness in the diagnostic manual, which happened decades ago.

___

AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner .

Read More..

Healthcare law will have new California Legislature scrambling

SACRAMENTO — When state lawmakers are sworn in Monday for the new legislative session, they will have little time to enjoy the pomp and circumstance.

Facing a federal deadline, the Legislature must move quickly to pass measures to implement President Obama's healthcare law and revamp the state's insurance market. New legislation will help extend coverage to millions of uninsured Californians and solidify the state's reputation as a key laboratory for the federal law.

Legislative leaders have said they also want to overhaul environmental regulations, curb soaring tuition at public colleges, and tweak the state's tax structure and ballot-initiative system.

But healthcare remains one of the largest and most immediate challenges.

The federal Affordable Care Act takes effect in January 2014, when most Americans face the requirement to buy health insurance or pay a penalty. State lawmakers must pass a series of rules to clear the way for enrollment in a new state-run insurance market next fall, including a requirement for insurers to cover consumers who have preexisting medical conditions and limits on how much they can charge based on age.

Gov. Jerry Brown is expected to call a special session of the Legislature next month — concurrent with the regular session — so healthcare bills that he signs can take effect within 90 days rather than the next year.

"It's a very, very big undertaking to make the promise of the Affordable Care Act a reality," said state Health and Human Services Secretary Diana Dooley. "We are working as hard and as fast as we can in a very complex area with a lot of conflicting information."

As an early adopter of the Affordable Care Act, California has already laid much of the groundwork.

It was the first state to establish an insurance exchange after Congress passed the legislation in 2010. More than 30 other states have since sought federal help in enacting their own. Millions of Californians will be able to purchase coverage, with federal subsidies earmarked for families earning about $92,000 or less annually.

One of the most significant proposals will be an expansion of Medi-Cal, the state's health insurance program for the poor. About 2 million low-income Californians would be newly eligible under the expansion, with the federal government subsidizing costs for the first three years. The state would then shoulder a portion of the bill.

According to a Kaiser Family Foundation study, the expansion could cost the state $6.3 billion over a decade, meaning a 1.7% increase in the amount California spends on Medi-Cal.

California got a head start on the effort by signing up more than 550,000 low-income people in a temporary program. They are expected to automatically move into Medi-Cal in 2014.

Lawmakers will also consider legislation that would create a health plan for people who cannot afford insurance on the open market but make too much money to qualify for Medi-Cal. The option, known as the Basic Health Plan, would provide coverage for individuals with incomes between 133% and 200% of the federal poverty level, or between $15,000 and $21,800 a year.

State Sen. Ed Hernandez (D-West Covina), chairman of the Senate Health Committee and author of the proposal, said the plan was needed to help California's working poor. "I don't think they should be choosing between putting food on the table and buying health insurance," he said.

Insurers urged lawmakers to resist requirements that could make policies offered through the exchange unaffordable.

"We think the Affordable Care Act does much to get millions of people coverage, but new insurance taxes, costly benefit requirements and age pricing restrictions all have the potential of driving up costs," said Nicole Evans, a spokeswoman for the California Assn. of Health Plans.

Healthcare advocates said it was critical for the Legislature to promote policies that would ensure a mix of healthy and sick policyholders to keep premiums affordable.

"It should be a goal of the state to have millions of people enrolled on Day 1," said Anthony Wright, executive director of the consumer group Health Access California, "to bring in those federal dollars and make healthcare cheaper for everybody."

michael.mishak@latimes.com

Read More..

With Aid, Afghan ‘Honor’ Victim Inches Back

Mauricio Lima for The New York Times

Gul Meena, who was reportedly attacked by her brother for dishonoring their family, recovering at a hospital in Jalalabad.

JALALABAD, Afghanistan — It is doubly miraculous that the young woman named Gul Meena is alive. After she was struck by an ax 15 times, slashing her head and face so deeply that it exposed her brain, she held on long enough to reach medical care and then, despite the limitations of what the doctors could do, clung to life.

“We had no hope she would survive,” said Dr. Zamiruddin, a neurosurgeon at the Nangarhar Regional Medical Center in the eastern city of Jalalabad who, like many Afghans, uses only one name. After she was brought in, he worked for more than six hours in the hospital’s rudimentary operating theater, gently reinserting her brain and stitching her many wounds.

For weeks afterward, she was often unconscious, always uncommunicative and, but for the hospital staff, utterly alone, with no family members to care for her. That is because, if the accounts from her home province are true, she is an adulterer: though already married, she ran away with another man, moving south until her family caught up with them.

Locals say that the man who wielded the ax against her, and also killed the man with her, was most likely her brother.

That she reached a hospital and received care at all is the second part of the miracle: the villagers, doctors and nurses who helped her were bucking a deeply ingrained tradition that often demands death for women who dishonor their families.

Such “honor killings” of women exist in a number of cultures, but in Afghanistan they are firmly anchored by Pashtunwali, an age-old tribal code prevalent in the ethnic Pashtun areas of the country that the government and rights advocates have fought for years to override with a national civil legal system. This year, six such killings have been reported in Afghanistan’s far east alone, more than in each of the past two years, and for every one that comes to light, human rights advocates believe a dozen or more remain hidden.

Gul Meena’s story, as best it can be pieced together from relatives, tribal elders and others, gives insight into that deeply entrenched tribal culture. But it is also a story about a society struggling to come to terms with a different way of thinking about women.

The Americans and Europeans have put a special emphasis on programs to help Afghan women and raise awareness of their rights. Now, as the Western money and presence are dwindling, women’s advocates fear that even the limited gains will erode and a more tribal and Taliban culture will prevail, especially in the south and east of the country, where Pashtun tribal attitudes toward women are strongly held.

It is a credit to many people — villagers, doctors, the police, rights advocates — that they chose to help Gul Meena, overcoming centuries of distaste for dealing with so-called moral crimes. The doctors at the Nangarhar Regional Medical Center who first treated her and cared for her for weeks were aware of her likely transgressions and chose to ignore them. However, the doctors, who say Gul Meena is about 18, were also bewildered about what to do with her.

“She has no one; no mother has come, no father, no one from her tribe has come,” said Dr. Abdul Shakoor Azimi, the hospital’s medical director, as he stood at the foot of her bed looking at her. “What is the solution? Even the government, the police, even the Women’s Affairs Ministry, they are not coming here to follow up and visit the patient.”

A patient in an Afghan hospital without a family member is a neglected soul. Most hospitals are so impoverished that they offer only the bed itself and limited medical care. Gul Meena lay in her own urine when a reporter first visited her because no relative was there to change her sheets. Hospital staff members were able to tend to her sporadically, but they are overstretched. Without a relative, the patient has no one to pay for drugs, drips, needles or food, no one to bring fresh clothes.

Sangar Rahimi contributed reporting from Jalalabad, and an employee of The New York Times from Kunar Province.

Read More..

Ashley Hebert and J.P. Rosenbaum Are Married

People Exclusive

By Monica Rizzo

12/01/2012 at 06:15 PM EST

J.P. Rosenbaum and Ashley Hebert

Victor Chavez/Getty

It’s official: Bachelorette star Ashley Hebert and her fiancé J.P. Rosenbaum tied the knot Saturday afternoon in Pasadena, Calif.

Surrounded by family, friends and fellow Bachelor and Bachelorette alumni like Ali Fedotowsky, Emily Maynard, and Jason and Molly Mesnick, the couple said "I do" in an outdoor ceremony officiated by franchise host Chris Harrison.

"Today is all about our friends and family," Hebert, whose nuptials will air Dec. 16 on a two-hour special on ABC, tells PEOPLE. "It's about standing with J.P., looking around at all the people we love in the same room there to celebrate our love."

The 28-year-old dentist from Madawaska, Maine, met New York construction manager Rosenbaum, 35, on season 7 of The Bachelorette. The couple became engaged on the season finale.

Hebert and Rosenbaum are the second couple in the franchise's 24 seasons to make it from their show finale to the altar, following in the footsteps of Bachelorette Trista Rehn, who married Vail, Colo., firefighter Ryan Sutter in 2003.

Read More..

Asperger's dropped from revised diagnosis manual

CHICAGO (AP) — The now familiar term "Asperger's disorder" is being dropped. And abnormally bad and frequent temper tantrums will be given a scientific-sounding diagnosis called DMDD. But "dyslexia" and other learning disorders remain.

The revisions come in the first major rewrite in nearly 20 years of the diagnostic guide used by the nation's psychiatrists. Changes were approved Saturday.

Full details of all the revisions will come next May when the American Psychiatric Association's new diagnostic manual is published, but the impact will be huge, affecting millions of children and adults worldwide. The manual also is important for the insurance industry in deciding what treatment to pay for, and it helps schools decide how to allot special education.

This diagnostic guide "defines what constellations of symptoms" doctors recognize as mental disorders, said Dr. Mark Olfson, a Columbia University psychiatry professor. More important, he said, it "shapes who will receive what treatment. Even seemingly subtle changes to the criteria can have substantial effects on patterns of care."

Olfson was not involved in the revision process. The changes were approved Saturday in suburban Washington, D.C., by the psychiatric association's board of trustees.

The aim is not to expand the number of people diagnosed with mental illness, but to ensure that affected children and adults are more accurately diagnosed so they can get the most appropriate treatment, said Dr. David Kupfer. He chaired the task force in charge of revising the manual and is a psychiatry professor at the University of Pittsburgh.

One of the most hotly argued changes was how to define the various ranges of autism. Some advocates opposed the idea of dropping the specific diagnosis for Asperger's disorder. People with that disorder often have high intelligence and vast knowledge on narrow subjects but lack social skills. Some who have the condition embrace their quirkiness and vow to continue to use the label.

And some Asperger's families opposed any change, fearing their kids would lose a diagnosis and no longer be eligible for special services.

But the revision will not affect their education services, experts say.

The new manual adds the term "autism spectrum disorder," which already is used by many experts in the field. Asperger's disorder will be dropped and incorporated under that umbrella diagnosis. The new category will include kids with severe autism, who often don't talk or interact, as well as those with milder forms.

Kelli Gibson of Battle Creek, Mich., who has four sons with various forms of autism, said Saturday she welcomes the change. Her boys all had different labels in the old diagnostic manual, including a 14-year-old with Asperger's.

"To give it separate names never made sense to me," Gibson said. "To me, my children all had autism."

Three of her boys receive special education services in public school; the fourth is enrolled in a school for disabled children. The new autism diagnosis won't affect those services, Gibson said. She also has a 3-year-old daughter without autism.

People with dyslexia also were closely watching for the new updated doctors' guide. Many with the reading disorder did not want their diagnosis to be dropped. And it won't be. Instead, the new manual will have a broader learning disorder category to cover several conditions including dyslexia, which causes difficulty understanding letters and recognizing written words.

The trustees on Saturday made the final decision on what proposals made the cut; recommendations came from experts in several work groups assigned to evaluate different mental illnesses.

The revised guidebook "represents a significant step forward for the field. It will improve our ability to accurately diagnose psychiatric disorders," Dr. David Fassler, the group's treasurer and a University of Vermont psychiatry professor, said after the vote.

The shorthand name for the new edition, the organization's fifth revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, is DSM-5. Group leaders said specifics won't be disclosed until the manual is published but they confirmed some changes. A 2000 edition of the manual made minor changes but the last major edition was published in 1994.

Olfson said the manual "seeks to capture the current state of knowledge of psychiatric disorders. Since 2000 ... there have been important advances in our understanding of the nature of psychiatric disorders."

Catherine Lord, an autism expert at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York who was on the psychiatric group's autism task force, said anyone who met criteria for Asperger's in the old manual would be included in the new diagnosis.

One reason for the change is that some states and school systems don't provide services for children and adults with Asperger's, or provide fewer services than those given an autism diagnosis, she said.

Autism researcher Geraldine Dawson, chief science officer for the advocacy group Autism Speaks, said small studies have suggested the new criteria will be effective. But she said it will be crucial to monitor so that children don't lose services.

Other changes include:

—A new diagnosis for severe recurrent temper tantrums — disruptive mood dysregulation disorder. Critics say it will medicalize kids' who have normal tantrums. Supporters say it will address concerns about too many kids being misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder and treated with powerful psychiatric drugs. Bipolar disorder involves sharp mood swings and affected children are sometimes very irritable or have explosive tantrums.

—Eliminating the term "gender identity disorder." It has been used for children or adults who strongly believe that they were born the wrong gender. But many activists believe the condition isn't a disorder and say calling it one is stigmatizing. The term would be replaced with "gender dysphoria," which means emotional distress over one's gender. Supporters equated the change with removing homosexuality as a mental illness in the diagnostic manual, which happened decades ago.

___

AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner .

Read More..

Army sergeant killed in Afghanistan

A self-described "meat and potatoes" conservative, Tony Ruiz often argued politics with his son.

They clashed over perceptions of Islam after the U.S. Embassy in Benghazi was overrun. But Tony said his son, Clinton, made some good points.

"He drew a very clear distinction between Muslim radicals and the Islam religion," Tony said. "It actually did convince me."

He is still convinced, a month after his son, Sgt. Clinton K. Ruiz, was killed by small-arms fire in Afghanistan, serving a tour as a psychological operations specialist with the 9th Military Information Support Battalion, 8th Military Information Support Group.

"It was one man pulling the trigger," the elder Ruiz said firmly. "Harboring ill will is not going to serve my son's memory."

Born in Poway and raised in Murrieta, Clinton was the type of kid who could always find a reason to be in a good mood, Ruiz said. In junior soccer leagues he defended the ball like a "bulldog with a pork chop," but he always had a kind word for anyone who scored a goal, said his mother, Carla Trease.

When he lost at board games, he'd heap accolades on the victor until they started to laugh. He lavished praise on his mother's cooking, sang along to the radio in the car and never minded if his younger siblings followed him around.

"I don't know how he did it." Trease said. "I was never a good cook. but he just made you feel good just by being in the room."

At school, Clinton was confident and athletic, but never a prom king candidate. He was quiet, but his smile won him friends. He tested well, but homework bored him, said Trease, an elementary school teacher. He felt most at home on a four-wheeler, conquering the hills near their Riverside County home at top speed.

"He just always wanted to be going somewhere and doing something," Trease said.

After graduating in 2008, Ruiz enrolled in summer college classes because he knew Trease wanted him to try. But even then, the only class that excited him was a course on emergency medical triage, Trease said. Before the summer was out, he had joined the Army.

Kira Ruiz, Clinton's wife, first met him in training camp as they stood shoulder to shoulder in formation for morning drills. Clinton was wearing Rayban glasses with the logo blacked out in Sharpie because regulations prohibited recruits to wear brand names.

"I looked up at him and said 'nice glasses,' and he started laughing," said Kira, who was also a psychological operations specialist.

When Kira became a squad leader during drills, Clinton took a position at road guard to be a few paces closer. Soon, he asked her out. She refused. He asked again, every day, for three weeks.

"I wasn't sure I liked him as more than a friend," Kira said. "But he was pretty sure."

Won over by Clinton's persistence, she started dating him, sneaking moments between language classes at their base, Ft. Bragg. One morning Clinton appeared in Kira's bedroom and shook her awake. In his right hand, he was carrying a caramel macchiato; in his left hand, a ring.

They got married in the county courthouse, after Kira's deployment was moved up. Clinton's father got a text the day of the wedding.

"It said, 'I got married lol,'" Tony Ruiz said. "Not a big planner, that one."

Late last year, soon after Kira gave birth to their son, Caleb, Clinton reenlisted with the Army. The decision sent him to Afghanistan and put him face to face with the small-arms fire that claimed his life.

Trease fought his decision and recalls a strong sense of foreboding. She called, texted and emailed until she feared she was "sounding like a broken record," Trease said.

"But he would always call back. He'd always say, 'I know, Mom, I know,' " Trease said.

Clinton was killed in the Oruzgan province in mountainous central Afghanistan. His awards include the Bronze Star Medal, Purple Heart and the National Defense Service Medal. He was buried at the Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery in San Diego.

One of the last times Trease saw her son, they were driving home from a dinner with her two sons.

She remembers it because the Ruizes are a family that sings in the car during road trips, Trease said. The song doesn't matter as much as singing loudly and remembering as many words as you can. The singer Adele came on the radio and someone turned up the volume. They all belted the song at the top of their lungs until the car pulled into the driveway.

"I just remember thinking, oh, I hope this song never ends," Trease said. "It was a good, long one."

frank.shyong@latimes.com

Read More..

Syria Rebels Find Skype Useful, but Dangers Lurk

In a demonstration of their growing sophistication and organization, Syrian rebels responded to a nationwide shutdown of the Internet by turning to satellite technology to coordinate within the country and to communicate with outside activists.

When Syria’s Internet service disappeared Thursday, government officials first blamed rebel attacks. Activist groups blamed the government and viewed the blackout as a sign that troops would violently clamp down on rebels.

But having dealt with periodic outages for more than a year, the opposition had anticipated a full shutdown of Syria’s Internet service providers. To prepare, they have spent months smuggling communications equipment like mobile handsets and portable satellite phones into the country.

“We’re very well equipped here,” said Albaraa Abdul Rahman, 27, an activist in Saqba, a poor suburb 20 minutes outside Damascus. He said he was in touch with an expert in Homs who helped connect his office and 10 others like it in and around Damascus.

Using the connection, the activists in Saqba talked to rebel fighters on Skype and relayed to overseas activists details about clashes with government forces. A video showed the rebels’ bare-bones room, four battery backups that could power a laptop for eight hours and a generator set up on a balcony.

For months, rebels fighting to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad have used Skype, a peer-to-peer Internet communication system, to organize and talk to outside news organizations and activists. A few days ago, Jad al-Yamani, an activist in Homs, sent a message to rebel fighters that tanks were moving toward a government checkpoint.

He notified the other fighters so that they could go observe the checkpoint. “Through Skype you know how the army moves or can stop it,” Mr. Yamani said.

On Friday, Dawoud Sleiman, 39, a member of the antigovernment Ahrar al-Shamal Battalion, part of the Free Syrian Army, reached out to other members of the rebel group. They were set up at the government’s Wadi Aldaif military base in Idlib, a province near the Turkish border that has seen heavy fighting, and connected to Skype via satellite Internet service.

Mr. Sleiman, who is based in Turkey, said the Free Syrian Army stopped using cellphone networks and land lines months ago and instead relies almost entirely on Skype. “Brigade members communicate through the hand-held devices,” he said.

This week rebels posted an announcement via Skype that called for the arrest of the head of intelligence in Idlib, who is accused of killing five rebels. “A big financial prize will be offered to anyone who brings the head of this guy,” the message read. “One of our brothers abroad has donated the cash.”

If the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt were Twitter Revolutions, then Syria is becoming the Skype Rebellion. To get around a near-nationwide Internet shutdown, rebels have armed themselves with mobile satellite phones and dial-up modems.

In many cases, relatives and supporters living outside Syria bought the equipment and had it smuggled in, mostly through Lebanon and Turkey.

That equipment has allowed the rebels to continue to communicate almost entirely via Skype with little interruption, despite the blackout. “How the government used its weapons against the revolution, that is how activists use Skype,” Mr. Abdul Rahman said.

“We haven’t seen any interruption in the way Skype is being used,” said David Clinch, an editorial director of Storyful, a group that verifies social media posts for news organizations, including The New York Times (Mr. Clinch has served as a consultant for Skype).

Mr. Assad, who once fashioned himself as a reformer and the father of Syria’s Internet, has largely left the country’s access intact during the 20-month struggle with rebels. The government appeared to abandon that strategy on Thursday, when most citizens lost access. Some Syrians could still get online using service from Turkey. On Friday, Syrian officials blamed technical problems for the cutoff.

The shutdown is only the latest tactic in the escalating technology war waged in Arab Spring countries.

But several technology experts warned that the use of the Internet by rebels in Syria, even those relying on Skype, could leave them vulnerable to government surveillance.

Liam Stack contributed reporting from New York; Hala Droubi from Dubai, United Arab Emirates; and Hwaida Saad from Beirut, Lebanon.

Read More..

Dennis Quaid Files for Divorce, Seeks Joint Custody

By Mike Fleeman

11/30/2012 at 09:20 PM EST

Kimberly Buffington-Quaid and Dennis Quaid

Casey Rodgers/NBC/AP

Dennis Quaid is ready to end his marriage for good.

After his wife of eight years, Kimberly Buffington-Quaid, sought legal separation in October, the Vegas star filed Friday for divorce in Los Angeles Superior Court.

The actor requests joint physical and legal custody of their 4-year-old twins, Thomas and Zoe, and offers to pay spousal support, according to the petition.

This will be the third divorce for Quaid, 58, who was previously married to Meg Ryan and P.J. Soles.

Kimberly, a former real estate agent, initially filed for divorce in March. She
put the divorce on hold a month later, pulling the papers so they could work on their marriage, before then filing for separation.

Read More..

Kenya village pairs AIDS orphans with grandparents

NYUMBANI, Kenya (AP) — There are no middle-aged people in Nyumbani. They all died years ago, before this village of hope in Kenya began. Only the young and old live here.

Nyumbani was born of the AIDS crisis. The 938 children here all saw their parents die. The 97 grandparents — eight grandfathers among them — saw their middle-aged children die. But put together, the bookend generations take care of one another.

Saturday is World AIDS Day, but the executive director of the aid group Nyumbani, which oversees the village of the same name, hates the name which is given to the day because for her the word AIDS is so freighted with doom and death. These days, it doesn't necessarily mean a death sentence. Millions live with the virus with the help of anti-retroviral drugs, or ARVs. And the village she runs is an example of that.

"AIDS is not a word that we should be using. At the beginning when we came up against HIV, it was a terminal disease and people were presenting at the last phase, which we call AIDS," said Sister Mary Owens. "There is no known limit to the lifespan now so that word AIDS should not be used. So I hate World AIDS Day, follow? Because we have moved beyond talking about AIDS, the terminal stage. None of our children are in the terminal stage."

In the village, each grandparent is charged with caring for about a dozen "grandchildren," one or two of whom will be biological family. That responsibility has been a life-changer for Janet Kitheka, who lost one daughter to AIDS in 2003. Another daughter died from cancer in 2004. A son died in a tree-cutting accident in 2006 and the 63-year-old lost two grandchildren in 2007, including one from AIDS.

"When I came here I was released from the grief because I am always busy instead of thinking about the dead," said Kitheka. "Now I am thinking about building a new house with 12 children. They are orphans. I said to myself, 'Think about the living ones now.' I'm very happy because of the children."

As she walks around Nyumbani, which is three hours' drive east of Nairobi, 73-year-old Sister Mary is greeted like a rock star by little girls in matching colorful school uniforms. Children run and play, and sleep in bunk beds inside mud-brick homes. High schoolers study carpentry or tailoring. But before 2006, this village did not exist, not until a Catholic charity petitioned the Kenyan government for land on which to house orphans.

Everyone here has been touched by HIV or AIDS. But only 80 children have HIV and thanks to anti-retroviral drugs, none of them has AIDS.

"They can dream their dreams and live a long life," Owens said.

Nyumbani relies heavily on U.S. funds but it is aiming to be self-sustaining.

The kids' bunk beds are made in the technical school's shop. A small aquaponics project is trying to grow edible fish. The mud bricks are made on site. Each grandparent has a plot of land for farming.

The biggest chunk of aid comes from the United States President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which has given the village $2.5 million since 2006. A British couple gives $50,000 a year. A tree-growing project in the village begun by an American, John Noel, now stands six years from its first harvest. Some 120,000 trees have already been planted and thousands more were being planted last week.

"My wife and I got married as teenagers and started out being very poor. Lived in a trailer. And we found out what it was like to be in a situation where you can't support yourself," he said. "As an entrepreneur I looked to my enterprise skills to see what we could do to sustain the village forever, because we are in our 60s and we wanted to make sure that the thousand babies and children, all the little ones, were taken care of."

He hopes that after a decade the timber profits from the trees will make the village totally self-sustaining.

But while the future is looking brighter, the losses the orphans' suffered can resurface, particularly when class lessons are about family or medicine, said Winnie Joseph, the deputy headmaster at the village's elementary school. Kitheka says she tries to teach the kids how to love one another and how to cook and clean. But older kids sometimes will threaten to hit her after accusing her of favoring her biological grandchildren, she said.

For the most part, though, the children in Nyumbani appear to know how lucky they are, having landed in a village where they are cared for. An estimated 23.5 million people in sub-Saharan Africa have HIV as of 2011, representing 69 percent of the global HIV population, according to UNAIDS. Eastern and southern Africa are the hardest-hit regions. Millions of people — many of them parents — have died.

Kitheka noted that children just outside the village frequently go to bed hungry. And ARVs are harder to come by outside the village. The World Health Organization says about 61 percent of Kenyans with HIV are covered by ARVs across the country.

Paul Lgina, 14, contrasted the difference between life in Nyumbani, which in Swahili means simply "home," and his earlier life.

"In the village I get support. At my mother's home I did not have enough food, and I had to go to the river to fetch water," said Lina, who, like all the children in the village, has neither a mother or a father.

When Sister Mary first began caring for AIDS orphans in the early 1990s, she said her group was often told not to bother.

"At the beginning nobody knew what to do with them. In 1992 we were told these children are going to die anyway," she said. "But that wasn't our spirit. Today, kids we were told would die have graduated from high school."

___

On the Internet:

http://www.trees4children.org/

Read More..