Gaza Clash Escalates With Deadliest Israeli Strike

Bernat Armangue/Associated Press

Smoke rose over Gaza City on Sunday, as Israel widened its range of targets to include buildings used by the news media.

CAIRO — Emboldened by the rising power of Islamists around the region, the Palestinian militant group Hamas demanded new Israeli concessions to its security and autonomy before it halts its rocket attacks on Israel, even as the conflict took an increasing toll on Sunday.

After five days of punishing Israeli airstrikes on the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip and no letup in the rocket fire in return, representatives of Israel and Hamas met separately with Egyptian officials in Cairo on Sunday for indirect talks about a truce.

The talks came as an Israeli bomb struck a house in Gaza on Sunday afternoon, killing 11 people, in the deadliest single strike since the conflict between Israel and Hamas escalated on Wednesday. The strike, along with several others that killed civilians across the Gaza Strip, signaled that Israel was broadening its range of targets on the fifth day of the campaign.

By the end of the day, Gaza health officials reported that 70 Palestinians had been killed in airstrikes since Wednesday, including 20 children, and that 600 had been wounded. Three Israelis have been killed and at least 79 wounded by unrelenting rocket fire out of Gaza into southern Israel and as far north as Tel Aviv.

Hamas, badly outgunned on the battlefield, appeared to be trying to exploit its increased political clout with its ideological allies in Egypt’s new Islamist-led government. The group’s leaders, rejecting Israel’s call for an immediate end to the rocket attacks, have instead laid down sweeping demands that would put Hamas in a stronger position than when the conflict began: an end to Israel’s five-year-old embargo of the Gaza Strip, a pledge by Israel not to attack again and multinational guarantees that Israel would abide by its commitments.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel stuck to his demand that all rocket fire cease before the air campaign lets up, and Israeli tanks and troops remained lined up outside Gaza on Sunday. Tens of thousands of reserve troops had been called up. “The army is prepared to significantly expand the operation,” Mr. Netanyahu said at the start of a cabinet meeting.

Reda Fahmy, a member of Egypt’s upper house of Parliament and of the nation’s dominant Islamist party, who is following the talks, said Hamas’s position was just as unequivocal. “Hamas has one clear and specific demand: for the siege to be completely lifted from Gaza,” he said. “It’s not reasonable that every now and then Israel decides to level Gaza to the ground, and then we decide to sit down and talk about it after it is done. On the Israeli part, they want to stop the missiles from one side. How is that?”

He added: “If they stop the aircraft from shooting, Hamas will then stop its missiles. But violence couldn’t be stopped from one side.”

Hamas’s aggressive stance in the cease-fire talks is the first test of the group’s belief that the Arab Spring and the rise in Islamist influence around the region have strengthened its political hand, both against Israel and against Hamas’s Palestinian rivals, who now control the West Bank with Western backing.

It also puts intense new pressure on President Mohamed Morsi of Egypt, a former leader of the Muslim Brotherhood who was known for his fiery speeches defending Hamas and denouncing Israel. Mr. Morsi must now balance the conflicting demands of an Egyptian public that is deeply sympathetic to Hamas and the Palestinian cause against Western pleadings to help broker a peace and Egypt’s need for regional stability to help revive its moribund economy.

Indeed, the Egyptian-led cease-fire talks illustrate the diverging paths of the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, a Palestinian offshoot of the original Egyptian Islamist group. Hamas has evolved into a more militant insurgency and is labeled a terrorist organization by the United States and Israel, while the Brotherhood has effectively become Egypt’s ruling party. Mr. Fahmy said in an interview in March that the Brotherhood’s new responsibilities required a step back from its ideological cousins in Hamas, and even a new push to persuade the group to compromise.

Reporting was contributed by Ethan Bronner, Irit Pazner Garshowitz and Isabel Kershner from Jerusalem, and Peter Baker from Bangkok.

Read More..

Wii U Launch Day: Everything You Need to Know

For Nintendo fans, the big day has arrived. Nintendo‘s newest console, the Wii U, began selling at midnight on Sunday morning across the United States.

[More from Mashable: Meet the Super Fan Who Waited in Line for a Month for a Wii U [VIDEO]]

The Wii U boasts high definition graphics and an innovative, new tablet controller called the GamePad. The GamePad can act as a second screen, either mirroring or displaying asynchronous content from the console. The GamePad can also function without the television even turned on.

Nintendo hosted a launch event at its Nintendo World store in Rockefeller Center in New York on Saturday night. Some fans had been lined up for a week or longer to pick up a console, and as the countdown ticked down to midnight, the line wrapped around the building. The event was attended by Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Amie, who addressed the crowd, as well as other Nintendo executives.

[More from Mashable: Marijuana Vending Machine Maker’s Stock Skyrockets and Everybody Freaks Out]

But demand for the console may not reach the insatiable levels of the 2006′s Wii launch, which sold out in stores across the country preceding the holidays. At 11:30 a.m., a Nintendo World employee said they still had consoles in stock, though there was a line of 30 people outside. Mashable was able to pick up a Wii U in a Brooklyn Target with no lines at 9:30 a.m.

We collected peoples’ photos and tweets of their experiences waiting in line across the country with Storify.

We want to hear your stories. Are you picking up a Wii U today? Drop a note in the comments or tweet a picture with the hashtag #wiiulines.

Assassin’s Creed III

A version of the latest chapter in the Assassin’s Creed saga, a week after it was released on other console.

Click here to view this gallery.

This story originally published on Mashable here.

Gaming News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

RuPaul's Drag Race Season 5 Contestants Announced

TV Watch

By Maggie Coughlan

11/19/2012 at 09:30 AM EST

Start your engines ... RuPaul's Drag Race is back!

Fresh on the heels of RuPaul's All Stars Drag Race, the fifth season ofRuPaul's Drag Race is slated to premiere in January 2013.

Not only will 14 contestants from around the world compete for the coveted title of America's Next Drag Superstar, there's also $100,000 cash at stake.

"As we start our fifth season, I'm thrilled to announce that Britney Spears, Demi Lovato, Mariah Carey, Nicki Minaj and Keith Urban will not be joining us as full time judges," RuPaul said in a statement. "Don't get me wrong, I love them all. But we're gonna keep it all hood up in here. Because that's what makes RuPaul's Drag Race the best damn show on TV."

The season five contestants are Alaska, Alyssa Edwards, Coco Montrese, Detox, Honey Mahogany, Ivy Winters, Jade Jolie, Jinkx Monsoon, Lineysha Sparx, Monica Beverly Hillz, Penny Tration, Roxxxy Andrews, Serena ChaCha and Vivienne Pinay.

Get a sneak peek of the new queens below – and try not to gag on all the eleganza.

Read More..

EU drug regulator OKs Novartis' meningitis B shot

LONDON (AP) — Europe's top drug regulator has recommended approval for the first vaccine against meningitis B, made by Novartis AG.

There are five types of bacterial meningitis. While vaccines exist to protect against the other four, none has previously been licensed for type B meningitis. In Europe, type B is the most common, causing 3,000 to 5,000 cases every year.

Meningitis mainly affects infants and children. It kills about 8 percent of patients and leaves others with lifelong consequences such as brain damage.

In a statement on Friday, Andrin Oswald of Novartis said he is "proud of the major advance" the company has made in developing its vaccine Bexsero. It is aimed at children over two months of age, and Novartis is hoping countries will include the shot among the routine ones for childhood diseases such as measles.

Novartis said the immunization has had side effects such as fever and redness at the injection site.

Recommendations from the European Medicines Agency are usually adopted by the European Commission. Novartis also is seeking to test the vaccine in the U.S.

Read More..

Sikh religion joining California universities' curriculum

SANTA CRUZ — The first slide professor Nirvikar Singh flashed on his PowerPoint showed the faces of six Sikh worshipers gunned down the previous month in Oak Creek, Wis., by a man with white supremacist ties.

As after other attacks since 9/11, the UC Santa Cruz professor explained to students in this fall introductory course, the Wisconsin shooting revealed an abiding ignorance over who Sikhs are — and aren't.

"Despite being in this country for more than 100 years, I think Sikhs are not well understood," said Singh, a 58-year-old economist, dressed in jeans and a midnight blue turban.

Singh holds the university's nascent chair in Sikh and Punjabi studies — the fourth of its kind in California and part of a broader movement to spread the word about the world's fifth-largest religion while promoting scholarship.

For students like David Villalobos, the course offered a chance "to get to know a culture I know nothing about." Guneet Kaur, who along with about a third of Singh's three dozen students is of Sikh heritage, craved the perspective of non-Sikhs and a "sounding board" on the Oak Creek temple massacre.

Like those at UC Santa Barbara, UC Riverside and Cal State East Bay, the program was launched with an endowment from a Sikh family honoring a relative. It comes at a time of promising developments in the community's struggle for exposure.

Efforts to include basics on Sikh history, religion and political struggle in California's K-12 curriculum are moving forward after years of delay. Embracing a legislative declaration of November as "California Sikh Awareness and Appreciation Month," Supt. of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson has recommended instructional materials and attended outreach events.

Meanwhile, California is enacting the nation's strongest workplace religious freedom law, barring employers from rejecting religious accommodation unless they can prove doing so would impose "significant difficulty or expense." Sponsored by the nonprofit Sikh Coalition, it is expected to loosen prohibitions on such Sikh articles of faith as unshorn hair and carrying a kirpan — a small sword that represents self-reliance and readiness to defend the oppressed.

The changes come as Stockton's gurdwara — the oldest and for decades only Sikh temple in the United States — celebrates its centennial and as statewide conferences on Sikh history, religion, art and music proliferate.

"The tide is turning," said Bruce La Brack, a professor emeritus in cultural anthropology at Stockton's University of the Pacific, who began studying California Sikhs in Yuba City nearly 40 years ago.

::

Rooted in the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent, Sikhism was founded by the 15th century Guru Nanak on tenets of monotheism, egalitarianism and community service.

The tenth and final guru, Gobind Singh, deemed the Sikh sacred scripture to be his eternal successor, and the voluminous text known as the Guru Granth Sahib became the focus of religious life.

In the late 19th century, Sikhs first migrated to British Columbia and then California, where men worked the railroads before turning to peach and almond farming. Discrimination and misconception were ever present.

Today there are an estimated 600,000 Sikhs in the United States, about 250,000 in California, said La Brack. The largest community is in the Bay Area, where Sikhs have thrived in Silicon Valley and built six gurdwaras — among them a $20-million facility in San Jose that accommodates 10,000 worshipers.

Although most Sikhs focused on faith and family, an entrepreneur known as the father of fiber optics launched the philanthropic Sikh Foundation in Palo Alto in 1967 to broadly promote Sikh culture. By 1999, Narinder Singh Kapany had dedicated a gallery of Sikh works at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco and endowed the first university chair, at UC Santa Barbara.

"I felt that the Sikh culture needed to be understood in the U.S., and also by the Sikh youth," he said in a recent interview.

Kapany, 85, matched donors with three more California universities. The endowment for the Santa Cruz chair, launched last year, came from a San Antonio family in honor of their son, Sarabjit Singh Aurora, an engineer who had died of cancer.

"He was always very keen to educate kids in the schools about Sikhism," said his sister, Arvinder Kaur Aurora, 42.

The need for mainstream education, she and others note, became more pronounced after 9/11. Mistaken for Muslims because of their turbans, Sikhs were targeted. Among them was an Arizona gas station attendant killed by a self-proclaimed "patriot" who had vowed to shoot some "towel heads."

Read More..

Israel Warns of ‘Expansion’ as Attack Widens to Media Sites

Mohammed Saber/European Pressphoto Agency

Two children look through the rubble of their house after an airstrike in Beit Lahiya, Gaza, on Sunday.

GAZA CITY — Israel pressed its assault on the Gaza Strip for a fifth day on Sunday, deploying warplanes and naval vessels to pummel the coastal enclave and striking at two media offices here as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned of a possible “significant” expansion in the onslaught and President Obama defended Israel’s right to protect itself.

Speaking in Bangkok, Mr. Obama said Israel was within its rights to respond to an attack on its territory.

“There’s no country on earth that would tolerate missiles raining down on its citizens from outside its borders,” Mr. Obama said in his first public comments since the violence broke out. “We are fully supportive of Israel’s right to defend itself.”

The president also said that efforts were under way to address Israel’s security concerns and end the violence. “We’re going to have to see what kind of progress we can make in the next 24, 36, 48 hours,” Mr. Obama said.

Even as the diplomacy intensified on Sunday, the attacks continued in Gaza and Israel.

Mr. Netanyahu’s warning came as militants in Gaza aimed at least one rocket at the Israeli heartland in Tel Aviv, one day after Israeli forces broadened the attack beyond military targets, bombing centers of government infrastructure including the four-story headquarters of the Hamas prime minister.

“We are exacting a heavy price from Hamas and the terrorist organizations and the Israel Defense Forces are prepared for a significant expansion of the operation,” Mr. Netanyahu told his cabinet at its routine Sunday meeting, referring directly to the call-up of thousands of reservists that, coupled with a massing of armor on the Gaza border, many analysts have interpreted as preparations for a possible invasion.

“I appreciate the rapid and impressive mobilization of the reservists who have come from all over the country and turned out for the mission at hand,” Mr. Netanyahu said. “Reservist and conscript soldiers are ready for any order they might receive.”

His remarks were reported shortly after a battery of Israel’s “Iron Dome” defense shield, hastily deployed near Tel Aviv on Saturday in response to the threat of longer-range rockets, intercepted at least one projectile aimed at the city on Sunday, Israeli officials said. The episode was the latest of several salvos that have illustrated Hamas’s ability to extend the reach of its rocket attacks.

Since Wednesday, when the latest escalation of the conflict began, Iron Dome has knocked 245 rockets out of the sky, the military said on Saturday, while 500 have struck Israel.

The American-financed system is designed to intercept only rockets streaking toward towns and cities and to ignore those likely to strike open ground. But on Sunday a rocket fired from Gaza plowed through the roof of an apartment building in the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon. There were no immediate reports of casualties there.

In Gaza City, the crash of explosions pierced the quiet several times throughout the early morning.

Hamas health officials said the Palestinian death toll rose to 53 by early Sunday afternoon, the latest victim a 52-year-old woman whose house in the eastern part of Gaza City was bombed around lunchtime.

A few hours earlier, a Hamas militant was killed and seven people were wounded in an attack on the Beach Refugee Camp, where Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas prime minister, has a home. Those killed on Sunday included 3 children aged between one and 5, the health officials said.

In Israel, 3 civilians have died and 63 have been injured. Four soldiers were also wounded on Saturday.

The onslaught continued despite talks in Cairo that Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi said Saturday night he thought could soon result in a cease-fire. Prime Minister Netanyahu said he would consider a comprehensive cease-fire if the launches from Gaza stop.

Saturday’s attack on Mr. Haniyeh’s office, one of several on government installations, came a day after he hosted his Egyptian counterpart in the same building, a sign of Hamas’s new legitimacy in a radically redrawn Arab world.

That stature was underscored Saturday by a visit to Gaza from the Tunisian foreign minister and the rapid convergence in Cairo of two Hamas allies, the prime minister of Turkey and the crown prince of Qatar, for talks with the Egyptian president and the chairman of Hamas on a possible cease-fire.

A delegation of Arab ministers plans to visit Gaza on Tuesday, Reuters reported, while Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations Secretary General, is expected in Cairo on Monday.

But Mark Regev, a spokesman for Mr. Netanyahu, denied reports on Saturday that a truce was imminent.

President Obama said Sunday that he had spoken several times with Mr. Netanyahu in Israel, Mr. Morsi in Egypt and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey in hopes of finding a way to address Israel’s security concerns without ramping up military operations further.

“We are actively working with all the parties in the region to see if we can end those missiles being fired without further escalation of violence in the region,” he said.

Jodi Rudoren reported from Gaza City, Isabel Kershner from Jerusalem and Alan Cowell from London. Reporting was contributed by Fares Akram and Tyler Hicks from the Gaza Strip, Carol Sutherland and Iritz Pazner Garshowitz from Jerusalem, Peter Baker in Bangkok, and David D. Kirkpatrick and Mayy El Sheikh from Cairo.

Read More..

So, Here’s That ‘Big Bang Theory’ Flashmob You Wanted

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

RELATED: Beating Novak Djokovic: Never Forget Three-Fingered Steve

Psychologist Richard Wiseman has an interactive game for you to let you know you’re just predictable. To be fair, a couple of us tried it out and were not as predictable as Wiseman thought we were going to be. But without further ado, here it is (have some screen cleaner ready):

RELATED: A ‘Mad Men’ Rickroll and the Man That Destroys Carnival Games

RELATED: It’s Sort of Fun Watching Pippa Middleton Squirm

We too are very excited for the Disney installments of Star Wars. New movies, Ewoks, whatever count us in. We’re just not this excited: 

RELATED: A Video to Restore Our Faith in Humanity and a Glacier Tsunami

RELATED: Myspace Hopes Its Sexy New Video will Bring You Back

If you don’t know, The Big Bang Theory is basically a show about a bunch of really smart, really nerdy dorks. Now when it comes to the actual cast of The Big Bang Theory, we’re only pretty sure (and happy to be proven wrong) only one of those things apply:

And finally, do you have $ 37? If so, would you mind donating it to The Atlantic Wire robot fish aquarium fund? We promise, it’s totally a great cause. Thanks in advance!

Wireless News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Taylor Swift and One Direction's Harry Styles: Are They Dating?

By Patrick Gomez

11/17/2012 at 10:40 PM EST

Taylor Swift and Harry Styles

Janet Mayer/Splash News Online; Don Arnold/Wireimage

Taylor Swift appears to be taking her love life in a new direction.

The "Never Ever Getting Back Together" singer is seemingly taking her lyrics to heart as she moves on from recent ex, Conor Kennedy, and enjoys the company of One Direction hottie Harry Styles.

"I had to literally do a double-take," an onlooker tells PEOPLE of finding Styles, 18, with Swift, 22, on the set of The X Factor Thursday morning.

Styles was on hand to watch Swift rehearse the debut of "State of Grace," which she performed later that night on the Fox reality show.

"He was smiling at her while she rehearsed. When she was done he jumped up on stage, picked her up, put her over his shoulder and carried her off stage," the onlooker says. "The whole crew was really surprised."

The young singers were also spotted by X Factor host Mario Lopez, who says he was slapped on the back by Styles during Swift's rehearsal.

"I said, 'What are you doing here,' " Lopez said on his 104.3 MY FM radio show Friday. "And he sort of [pointed] toward Taylor."

Lopez went on to say he later saw the two "hand-in-hand."

A telling sign of the budding relationship may have been a look Styles shared with his bandmate Niall Horan a week earlier after Horan told PEOPLE his favorite song of 2012 was Swift's "Never Ever Getting Back Together."

When asked if he would ever date Swift, Horan gave a small laugh, looked at Styles and answered with a succinct, "no."

Read More..

EU drug regulator OKs Novartis' meningitis B shot

LONDON (AP) — Europe's top drug regulator has recommended approval for the first vaccine against meningitis B, made by Novartis AG.

There are five types of bacterial meningitis. While vaccines exist to protect against the other four, none has previously been licensed for type B meningitis. In Europe, type B is the most common, causing 3,000 to 5,000 cases every year.

Meningitis mainly affects infants and children. It kills about 8 percent of patients and leaves others with lifelong consequences such as brain damage.

In a statement on Friday, Andrin Oswald of Novartis said he is "proud of the major advance" the company has made in developing its vaccine Bexsero. It is aimed at children over two months of age, and Novartis is hoping countries will include the shot among the routine ones for childhood diseases such as measles.

Novartis said the immunization has had side effects such as fever and redness at the injection site.

Recommendations from the European Medicines Agency are usually adopted by the European Commission. Novartis also is seeking to test the vaccine in the U.S.

Read More..

Californians feel a bit more upbeat about the state's direction

SACRAMENTO — Californians are growing more optimistic about the direction of the state and its finances even as they continue to struggle with a sour economy, a new USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll shows.

The recent passage of Gov. Jerry Brown's tax increases on the ballot, averting a fresh round of bruising cuts to public education, appears to account for some of the shift in attitude.

Fifty-four percent of registered state voters said California is moving in the right direction on its budget, and Brown's approval rating has ticked up a few points to 49% — the highest since his 2010 election.

The number of respondents saying the state is on the right track has more than doubled since they were asked in August 2011. Still, amid persistent double-digit unemployment and other underlying economic problems, that remains the view of a minority, only 38%.

Similarly, the number who say the state economy is finally beginning to improve has almost doubled since July 2011, but those voters are also in the minority, just 43%.

Job losses, salary cuts and other financial troubles continue to affect Californians and their families at roughly the same levels as a year ago, the poll found.

"We started in an unbelievable hole. It's been a tough road back to where we are now," said Stan Greenberg, of the Democratic polling firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research. The company conducted the poll with American Viewpoint, a Republican firm.

The USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences/Los Angeles Times poll canvassed 1,520 registered voters by telephone from Nov. 7-12. The margin of error is 2.9 percentage points.

The polling ended two days before the Legislature's top financial advisor delivered upbeat news on the state budget, saying California could see surpluses in a few years even though it still has long-term fiscal problems to resolve.

The increase in voter optimism comes after a wave of Democratic victories on election day. In addition to President Obama's reelection and the governor's win on tax hikes, Democrats are poised for supermajorities in both houses of the California Legislature. A two-thirds vote in each chamber is needed to raise taxes.

Noam Meppen, 37, a San Diego sales manager, praised Brown for taking a "pragmatic and balanced approach" to the budget.

A Democrat, he voted for the taxes because "it's important to have a strong education system." If the tax increases had been rejected, nearly $6 billion would have been cut from the budget, mostly from public schools.

Among voters who cast ballots in favor of Proposition 30, the desire to protect schools from more spending cuts was the primary motivation, the poll showed.

Others remain steadfastly opposed to higher taxes. Eric Willis, a 35-year-old investor who lives in Los Angeles, said California is headed in a direction that makes him "sick."

"I can't remember a time the state was doing anything right," said Willis, a Republican. "Our taxes never go down, they only go up."

David Kanevsky of American Viewpoint noted that pervasive dissatisfaction could help Republicans, who suffered steep losses on election day, make a comeback if things don't go well in Sacramento. Since Democrats are expected to control the Capitol unilaterally, they'll shoulder all of the blame if the state's finances don't continue to improve.

"Republicans need to hold Democrats accountable," he said. "That's the start of a path to relevancy."

He noted that voters still want Brown to toe a tough line on spending.

Unemployment in California has remained among the highest in the country, even though it dropped to 10.1% last month. Thirty-four percent of poll respondents said the loss of a job had affected them or their families in the past year.

Forty percent said they or someone in their family had been hit with salary cuts or a reduction in work hours.

Mike Cashara, 52, of Calaveras County goes door-to-door helping mortgage companies keep tabs on foreclosed houses.

"I've seen a lot of people struggling," said Cashara, a Republican. "I've had friends who lost houses."

Overall, he has little faith in his political leaders.

"I love the state, and I love the weather," he said. "It just seems like the taxation is pushing people out."

On the other hand, Marilyn Ponseggi, 56, of San Diego County said things are getting back to normal. A Democrat, she works as a city planner in Chula Vista.

"Our office is a lot busier and has a lot more activity," she said. "When we get busier, it's a good sign."

chris.megerian@latimes.com

Read More..