Kristen Bell's Birth Plan Involves Whiskey and a Baseball Bat




Celebrity Baby Blog





01/24/2013 at 11:00 AM ET



Kristen Bell is very much looking forward to childbirth — and all the drugs, alcohol and violence that go with it.


“I’ve got nothing to prove,” the House of Lies actress, 32, jokes about her birth plan — and whether she’ll go natural — in an interview airing Thursday on The Ellen DeGeneres Show.


“I feel like when I arrive at the hospital, I want a glass of whiskey, I want the epidural in my back. And I want to get hit in the face with a baseball bat and wake me up when it’s over, because I’ve seen the videos and it looks terrifying.”


When the child does finally emerge, he or she will already have a favorite hobby: off-roading with dad Dax Shepard.


“He is [excited],” Bell says of her Parenthood actor fiancĂ©. “In different ways than I am. He’s just thinking about all the off-roading he’ll have in this tiny partner.”


Samantha Brown Welcomes Twins Ellis James and Elizabeth Mae
Michael Rozman



DeGeneres said that sounds like she’s having a boy but Bell wouldn’t confirm that, although she does know the sex of the baby, due in late spring.


“Do you have to be a boy off-road? Absolutely not,” she says. “I think he’s going to force [the baby], even if it’s a sloth, to off-road.”


As she mentioned a year ago on Ellen, Bell is actually quite obsessed with sloths. So this time, DeGeneres surprised her with a real sloth — named Lola.



– Tim Nudd


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CDC: New version of stomach bug causing US illness


NEW YORK (AP) — Health officials say a new strain of stomach bug that's sweeping the globe is taking over in the U.S.


In the last four months, more than 140 outbreaks in the U.S. have been caused by the new Sydney strain of norovirus. These kinds of contagious bugs cause bouts of diarrhea and vomiting.


The new strain may not be unusually dangerous; some scientists don't think it is. But it is different, and many people might not be able to fight off its gut-wrenching effects.


It often spreads in places like schools, cruise ships and nursing homes. The new strain was blamed for a recent outbreak on the Queen Mary 2.


The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on the new strain Thursday.


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Online:


CDC report: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr


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'California did the impossible,' Brown says in State of the State









SACRAMENTO -- In a strident and sweeping State of the State address, Gov. Jerry Brown declared Thursday morning that "California did the impossible," bouncing back from the precipice of fiscal collapse to emerge as an economic leader.


With references to the Bible, the history of the California republic and Irish poet William Butler Yeats, Brown mapped out a vision for the state that includes big investment in its water and rail systems and schools free of regulations that he says inhibit flexibility and creativity.


Brown also called a special session of the Legislature for implementation of President Obama's healthcare law, "to deal with those issues that must be decided quickly if California is to get the Affordable Care Act started by next January."








But he stressed that his top priority is keeping the state from falling back into financial chaos.


"We have promises to keep," Brown said, alluding to his successful campaign last fall to persuade voters to raise taxes by billions of dollars. "And the most important one we made to the people if Proposition 30 passed: that we would guard jealously the money…. Fiscal discipline is not the enemy of our good intentions but the basis for realizing them."


He praised lawmakers for helping the state dig out of its fiscal morass but also called on them to show restraint. "What we need to do for our future will require more than producing hundreds of new laws each year," Brown said.


He warned of the dangers of "constantly expanding the coercive power of government by adding each year so many minute prescriptions to our already detailed and turgid legal system."


The governor cited schools as an area where the deluge of laws has undermined good policy. Returning to one of his favorite themes, he urged lawmakers to consider the "principle of subsidiarity … the idea that a central authority should only perform those tasks which cannot be performed at a more immediate or local level."


Brown repeated the call he made earlier this month to free local districts from dozens of state mandates for school spending and to shift more state money to districts with poorer students and non-native English speakers.


He said the steady tuition hikes at the state's institutions of higher education need to stop.


"I will not let the students become the default financiers of our colleges and universities," Brown said, to standing applause in the packed Assembly chamber that held the entire Legislature.


In calling a special session on healthcare, Brown said the state will next year begin providing insurance to nearly 1 million Californians under the federal law and in the coming years will steadily reduce the number of uninsured.


But he warned of attendant risks: "The ultimate costs of expanding our healthcare system under the Affordable Care Act are unknown."


The governor also used his address to tout his ambitious plans for refurbishing the state's water systems. He acknowledged that it will be costly. But inaction, he said, would likely prove more expensive, leaving California exposed to an economic disaster on the scale of that wrought elsewhere by Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy.


The governor also made a plug for his other costly infrastructure initiative, high-speed rail. He said the United States is lagging far behind other countries in this sector, saying that even Morocco is building a high-speed train system.


He called the state's bullet-train plan, which would eventually link San Francisco and Los Angeles, bold, like "everything about California."


The governor also announced will lead a trade mission to China to strengthen California's economic ties with that country and officially open the state's new trade and investment office in Shanghai.


evan.halper@latimes.com





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The Lede Blog: Clinton Testifies on Benghazi Attacks

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The Lede is following Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s testimony Wednesday before the House Foreign Affairs Committee about the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks on the American Consulate in the eastern city of Benghazi, Libya, that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans. Earlier today, she testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee .

At a House Committee hearing last October investigating the attack, as reported on The Lede, State Department officials and security experts who served on the ground offered conflicting assessments about what resources were requested and made available to deal with growing security concerns in Tripoli and Benghazi.

Mrs. Clinton had been scheduled to testify before Congress last month, but an illness, a concussion and a blood clot near her brain forced her to postpone her appearance.

As our colleagues Michael R. Gordon and Eric Schmitt reported, four State Department officials were removed from their posts on last month after an independent panel criticized the “grossly inadequate” security at a diplomatic compound in Benghazi.

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Prince Harry Returns to Britain from Fighting in Afghanistan















01/23/2013 at 01:50 PM EST







Prince Harry arrives at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire


REX USA


Prince Harry is back in Britain.

The army captain and Apache helicopter co-pilot gunner touched down at RAF Brize Norton, in snowy Oxfordshire, shortly after 4:30 p.m. local time on Wednesday.

And, like his colleagues, he had a family reunion on his mind, telling reporters that he is "longing to see my brother and sister-in-law."

"Behind closed doors," he added with a smile. "You guys aren't invited."

It will be the first time he has seen brother Prince William and his pregnant wife Kate since they announced they were expecting a baby in December.

Now that he's home and away from the war in Afghanistan, he plans to focus "on more royal stuff" and hopes to "pay more attention to the charities" he supports in the coming 12 months.

The fun-loving prince arrived in the U.K. via a military base in Cyrpus, where he was debriefed and enjoyed some downtime (and likely a few beers) and, he said, "some comedy" with his squadron colleagues.

Harry, 28, is expected to take about a month off (servicemen get a day off for every seven they are on tour) but royal watchers will be eager to see him back at the family business of making appearances and doing good. While nothing is planned for the short term, once he has reported back for duty at the Army Air Corps at RAF Wattisham, in Suffolk, he will then be able to put his mind to carrying out royal engagements, palace sources say.

One thing on his mind, he revealed in one of his interviews given while he was based at Camp Bastion, is a daring trip to the South Pole.

He is patron of the mission by Walking With The Wounded to Antarctica, which takes place in November. (He pulled out of the group's North Pole expedition to attend William and Kate's wedding.)

"Medically, if I can do that, that's perfect because I'd love to do it," he told reporters in Afghanistan. "Because missing out on the whole North Pole thing was a real dig in the ribs, but that was another experience I had with a bunch of military guys who are really sound."

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Sickening fog settles over Salt Lake City area


SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A group of Utah doctors is declaring a health emergency over the Salt Lake City area's lingering air pollution problem.


Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment planned to deliver a petition Wednesday demanding immediate action by elected officials.


The group wants Gov. Gary Herbert and mayors of northern Utah cities to cut the pollution.


The doctors suggest lowering highway speed limits, making mass transit free for the winter and curbing industrial activities. They want a permanent ban on wood-burning. And they want large employees to let people work from home.


The doctors are advising people to avoid the outdoors. They say people can help their bodies fight toxic exposure by introducing anti-oxidants in their diet, like fish oil or chocolate.


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Male nurse has sex with female corpse; autopsy planned




Authorities are investigating a nurse who allegedly had sex with a corpse at a Sherman Oaks hospital, police said.



Alejandro Razo, 61, of Reseda, was arrested Sunday on a state Health and Safety Code violation, police said.


Razo, whose last name was initially released by authorities as Lazo, is free on $20,000 bail, according to Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department jail records.


The L.A. County coroner will perform an autopsy on the body, said Sgt. Ammon Williams of the Los Angeles Police Department. He said police are working in conjunction with the coroner’s office.


The findings could determine whether more charges would be filed, Williams said. 



The coroner's office declined to comment on the case, citing a security hold.


Razo is due in court Feb. 11, according to online records.


ALSO:


Nurse arrested after allegedly having sex with corpse


Gay rights supporters praise Obama's inaugural speech


L.A. church molestation records spark call for criminal inquiry


-- Nicole Santa Cruz



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Greek Prosecutors Seek Inquiry Over Deficit Claims





ATHENS — Greek prosecutors called on Tuesday for a criminal inquiry into the actions of the head of Elstat, the country’s statistical authority, and two of his subordinates, over claims that they manipulated budget figures to justify the country’s appeal for an international financial bailout.




The agency head, Andreas Georgiou, a veteran of nearly two decades at the International Monetary Fund, first came under scrutiny in the fall of 2011, when a former Elstat employee, Zoe Georganta, claimed that Mr. Georgiou had inflated the agency’s official figure for Greece’s 2009 budget deficit, saying it amounted to more than 15 percent of the country’s gross domestic product.


In an interview with The New York Times last spring, the statistics chief said that some members of Elstat’s board represented vested interests that did not want the full extent of Greece’s dire finances to come to light. “We were faced with significant pressures through the board not to revise the deficit upwards on account of fully applying European Union rules, but to minimize it,” he said.


Greece’s governing coalition, headed by the conservative New Democracy party, has lately undertaken a campaign to stamp out lawlessness and corruption, in part to impress its European creditors that it is serious about dealing with the country’s deep-seated problems. However, critics charge that it is doing so by attacking a series of straw men while ignoring criminality and tax evasion among the business, professional and political elites that have run the country for decades.


This month, for example, the police raided a squatter house in Athens that had been occupied by leftists and a few anarchists for more than 20 years, even though the violence that had plagued the city for years had subsided in recent months. The opposition said that, far from a crackdown on lawlessness, the raid incited a new wave of violence and was, at base, intended to distract attention from a scandal that threatens to disclose rampant tax evasion by the wealthy and well connected.


The Greek financial crisis erupted in 2009, when an incoming Socialist government announced that the budget deficit was 12.4 percent of gross domestic product, more than twice the previous estimate of the former government, also headed by New Democracy. To date, neither the Socialists nor New Democracy have prosecuted any officials responsible for the understatement of the deficit.


It was about a year ago that prosecutors first summoned Mr. Georgiou, following the claims by Ms. Georganta that Elstat inflated the deficit beyond the 12.4 percent figure. They further called upon Parliament to consider whether the former Socialist prime minister, George Papandreou, and the former finance minister, George Papaconstantinou, should be investigated for their roles in the 12.4 percent deficit estimate. A parliamentary committee last year found no wrongdoing by the politicians, vaguely highlighting instead “a lack of institutional knowledge of the euro zone.”


Since then Mr. Papaconstantinou, who appointed Mr. Georgiou as chief of the statistics service in June 2010, has been ensnarled in the tax evasion scandal, accused of removing names of family members from a list of more than 2,000 Greeks with Swiss bank accounts that may have been used to avoid taxes.


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Is Facebook envy making you miserable?






LONDON (Reuters) – Witnessing friends’ vacations, love lives and work successes on Facebook can cause envy and trigger feelings of misery and loneliness, according to German researchers.


A study conducted jointly by two German universities found rampant envy on Facebook, the world’s largest social network that now has over one billion users and has produced an unprecedented platform for social comparison.






The researchers found that one in three people felt worse after visiting the site and more dissatisfied with their lives, while people who browsed without contributing were affected the most.


“We were surprised by how many people have a negative experience from Facebook with envy leaving them feeling lonely, frustrated or angry,” researcher Hanna Krasnova from the Institute of Information Systems at Berlin’s Humboldt University told Reuters.


“From our observations some of these people will then leave Facebook or at least reduce their use of the site,” said Krasnova, adding to speculation that Facebook could be reaching saturation point in some markets.


Researchers from Humboldt University and from Darmstadt’s Technical University found vacation photos were the biggest cause of resentment with more than half of envy incidents triggered by holiday snaps on Facebook.


Social interaction was the second most common cause of envy as users could compare how many birthday greetings they received to those of their Facebook friends and how many “likes” or comments were made on photos and postings.


“Passive following triggers invidious emotions, with users mainly envying happiness of others, the way others spend their vacations and socialize,” the researchers said in the report “Envy on Facebook: A Hidden Threat to Users’ Life Satisfaction?” released on Tuesday.


“The spread and ubiquitous presence of envy on Social Networking Sites is shown to undermine users’ life satisfaction.”


They found people aged in their mid-30s were most likely to envy family happiness while women were more likely to envy physical attractiveness.


These feelings of envy were found to prompt some users to boast more about their achievements on the site run by Facebook Inc. to portray themselves in a better light.


Men were shown to post more self-promotional content on Facebook to let people know about their accomplishments while women stressed their good looks and social lives.


The researchers based their findings on two studies involving 600 people with the results to be presented at a conference on information systems in Germany in February.


The first study looked at the scale, scope and nature of envy incidents triggered by Facebook and the second at how envy was linked to passive use of Facebook and life satisfaction.


The researchers said the respondents in both studies were German but they expected the findings to hold internationally as envy is a universal feeling and possibly impact Facebook usage.


“From a provider’s perspective, our findings signal that users frequently perceive Facebook as a stressful environment, which may, in the long-run, endanger platform sustainability,” the researchers concluded.


(Reporting by Belinda Goldsmith, editing by Paul Casciato)


Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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Chris Pratt Enjoying 'Firsts' All Over Again with Son Jack




Celebrity Baby Blog





01/22/2013 at 11:00 AM ET



Chris Pratt is feeling practically reborn himself since welcoming son Jack last August.


“There’s not that much left that really excites you … where you’re like, ‘Wow. I can’t believe that,’ ” the Zero Dark Thirty star explains says of being a sometimes jaded public figure in an interview airing Tuesday on The Ellen DeGeneres Show.


Jack changed all that. “To see a baby get that excited by everything because everything is a first … I’m reliving all the firsts all over again. The first time he recognizes the first laugh or me. Or the first taste of something sweet,” says Pratt.


“Everything is a brand-new experience. The first time they realize that the sound they’re hearing is the thing that they’re seeing.”


Chris Pratt Enjoying 'Firsts' All Over Again with Son Jack
Michael Rozman/Warner Bros.



Pratt, 33, and wife Anna Faris aren’t above having a little fun with Jack’s innocence, however. They recently fed him a lemon, just to see how he would react — a video of which the Parks and Recreation star shows to Ellen during the interview.


“He doesn’t know if he likes it or not,” DeGeneres notes.



– Tim Nudd


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