Kate's Severe Morning Sickness Could Be Hereditary

By Michelle Tauber

12/08/2012 at 11:15 AM EST

Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge

Ben Pruchnie/Getty

Even duchesses can get the monster of all morning sicknesses.

Known as hyperemesis gravidarum (HG), the condition – for which Kate was hospitalized for four days – is characterized by debilitating nausea and vomiting that severely inhibits a woman's ability to eat or drink and results in significant weight loss. Affecting up to 2 percent of all pregnant women, it can start as early as five weeks into pregnancy and endure for weeks or even months.

The condition typically comes on suddenly. During a visit to her prep school, St. Andrew's, on Nov. 30, a seemingly upbeat Kate dined on Scottish beef and played field hockey in 3-inch heels. Just two days later, she was rushed to the hospital and her pregnancy announced.

"It's the body reaction to the pregnancy hormone," Dr. Dagni Rajasingam, spokesperson for the Royal College of Obstetricians, tells PEOPLE. "Some women who are very sensitive to it can start feeling nauseated early on in pregnancy and it will provoke them to take the test."

Treatment options include IVs for fluids and, in at least 20 percent of cases, feeding tubes for nutrition. Anti-nausea medications commonly used for chemotherapy patients are often prescribed off-label for women suffering with HG, but "it's certainly not a cure," says Dr. Marlena Fejzo, a UCLA professor of research and leading expert on HG. Nor is there extensive research examining the potential effects of such medications on women and their babies.

Although the cause is unknown, a family history of HG raises a woman's risk. Women carrying multiples are also more likely to develop HG, as are women carrying girls. "The leading theory is that the cause is hormonal," says Dr. Fejzo. "Obviously when you're carrying twins those hormones are higher, so if you have a problem processing those hormones then you're more likely to feel worse."

Among the complications of HG for the mother: post-traumatic stress resulting "from the severe, prolonged nausea at a time when you know you're supposed to give your baby nutrients and you just can't," says Dr. Fejzo, who lost a baby to HG in 1999. "It's hell for these women – like going through a war." For the baby, complications can include fetal death, an increase in pre-term birth and low-birth weight.

Dr. Fejzo and others hope that the princess's struggle will a light on the disease to help boost research and funding for better treatment options. "It's a horrible condition," says Sarah Rosen, a Chicago-area mom who suffered from HG during her first pregnancy, "but at least maybe this will draw some attention to it."

For more information on HG, visit helpher.org.

• Reporting by SIMON PERRY

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Smokers celebrate as Wash. legalizes marijuana

SEATTLE (AP) — The crowds of happy people lighting joints under Seattle's Space Needle early Thursday morning with nary a police officer in sight bespoke the new reality: Marijuana is legal under Washington state law.

Hundreds gathered at Seattle Center for a New Year's Eve-style countdown to 12 a.m., when the legalization measure passed by voters last month took effect. When the clock struck, they cheered and sparked up in unison.

A few dozen people gathered on a sidewalk outside the north Seattle headquarters of the annual Hempfest celebration and did the same, offering joints to reporters and blowing smoke into television news cameras.

"I feel like a kid in a candy store!" shouted Hempfest volunteer Darby Hageman. "It's all becoming real now!"

Washington and Colorado became the first states to vote to decriminalize and regulate the possession of an ounce or less of marijuana by adults over 21. Both measures call for setting up state licensing schemes for pot growers, processors and retail stores. Colorado's law is set to take effect by Jan. 5.

Technically, Washington's new marijuana law still forbids smoking pot in public, which remains punishable by a fine, like drinking in public. But pot fans wanted a party, and Seattle police weren't about to write them any tickets.

In another sweeping change for Washington, Gov. Chris Gregoire on Wednesday signed into law a measure that legalizes same-sex marriage. The state joins several others that allow gay and lesbian couples to wed.

The mood was festive in Seattle as dozens of gay and lesbian couples got in line to pick up marriage licenses at the King County auditor's office early Thursday.

King County and Thurston County announced they would open their auditors' offices shortly after midnight Wednesday to accommodate those who wanted to be among the first to get their licenses.

Kelly Middleton and her partner Amanda Dollente got in line at 4 p.m. Wednesday.

Hours later, as the line grew, volunteers distributed roses and a group of men and women serenaded the waiting line to the tune of "Chapel of Love."

Because the state has a three-day waiting period, the earliest that weddings can take place is Sunday.

In dealing with marijuana, the Seattle Police Department told its 1,300 officers on Wednesday, just before legalization took hold, that until further notice they shall not issue citations for public marijuana use.

Officers will be advising people not to smoke in public, police spokesman Jonah Spangenthal-Lee wrote on the SPD Blotter. "The police department believes that, under state law, you may responsibly get baked, order some pizzas and enjoy a 'Lord of the Rings' marathon in the privacy of your own home, if you want to."

He offered a catchy new directive referring to the film "The Big Lebowski," popular with many marijuana fans: "The Dude abides, and says 'take it inside!'"

"This is a big day because all our lives we've been living under the iron curtain of prohibition," said Hempfest director Vivian McPeak. "The whole world sees that prohibition just took a body blow."

Washington's new law decriminalizes possession of up to an ounce for those over 21, but for now selling marijuana remains illegal. I-502 gives the state a year to come up with a system of state-licensed growers, processors and retail stores, with the marijuana taxed 25 percent at each stage. Analysts have estimated that a legal pot market could bring Washington hundreds of millions of dollars a year in new tax revenue for schools, health care and basic government functions.

But marijuana remains illegal under federal law. That means federal agents can still arrest people for it, and it's banned from federal properties, including military bases and national parks.

The Justice Department has not said whether it will sue to try to block the regulatory schemes in Washington and Colorado from taking effect.

"The department's responsibility to enforce the Controlled Substances Act remains unchanged," said a statement issued Wednesday by the Seattle U.S. attorney's office. "Neither states nor the executive branch can nullify a statute passed by Congress."

The legal question is whether the establishment of a regulated marijuana market would "frustrate the purpose" of the federal pot prohibition, and many constitutional law scholars say it very likely would.

That leaves the political question of whether the administration wants to try to block the regulatory system, even though it would remain legal to possess up to an ounce of marijuana.

Alison Holcomb is the drug policy director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington and served as the campaign manager for New Approach Washington, which led the legalization drive. She said the voters clearly showed they're done with marijuana prohibition.

"New Approach Washington sponsors and the ACLU look forward to working with state and federal officials and to ensure the law is fully and fairly implemented," she said.

___

Johnson can be reached at https://twitter.com/GeneAPseattle

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Wall Street flat in wake of weak consumer sentiment data

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks were little changed on Friday after a weak consumer confidence survey for December overshadowed earlier gains triggered by a better-than-expected employment report.

Wall Street had opened higher after Labor Department data showed nonfarm employment increased more than expected by 146,000 jobs in November.

But major U.S. stock indexes gave up their gains, with the Nasdaq turning negative, after a separate report showed U.S. consumer confidence plunged in early December to its lowest since August, amid investor anxiety over the outcome of ongoing fiscal discussions in Washington.

Additionally, a drop in the jobless rate to a near-four year low, as people gave up the search for work, suggested the labor market was still tepid.

"While it (consumer confidence data) is just one measure of consumer sentiment, maybe the constant barrage of back and forth in DC with no resolution yet is having an impact," said Peter Boockvar, managing director at Miller Tabak & Co in New York.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was up 32.25 points, or 0.25 percent, at 13,106.29. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was up 0.80 points, or 0.06 percent, at 1,414.74. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was down 7.11 points, or 0.24 percent, at 2,982.15.

Amarin Corp shares slumped 19 percent to $9.66 after the bio-pharmaceutical company raised $100 million in financing to help it launch its heart drug, Vascepa, but disappointed investors, who had hoped for a sale or partnership.

Shares of Netflix Inc rose 2.3 percent to $88.19 on news the Securities and Exchange Commission was considering taking action against the company and its Chief Executive Reed Hastings for violating public disclosure rules with a Facebook post.

After falling nearly 10 percent so far this week, Apple Inc shares were down 0.4 percent at $544.60 on Friday.

(Editing by Bernadette Baum)

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Afghan Spy Chief Hurt in Attack, Officials Say

KABUL, Afghanistan — A Taliban suicide bomber tried to assassinate the influential new chief of Afghanistan’s intelligence service at an agency guesthouse in Kabul on Thursday, officials said, in a brazen attack that left him seriously wounded and underscored the insurgency’s ability to go after those at the highest levels of the government.

The attack against Asadullah Khalid, who had just taken over the National Directorate of Security in September, has sidelined a man who had emerged as one of the insurgency’s fiercest opponents, as well as an implacable critic of Pakistan.

In his short time at the reins, Mr. Khalid has stepped up clandestine operations against the Taliban’s middle- and upper-level leadership, according to Afghan and coalition officials. He has also put his agency at the forefront of Afghan and Western efforts to clamp down on the killings of coalition troops by Afghan soldiers and the police, some of which have been attributed to Taliban infiltration.

The National Directorate of Security said in a statement that Mr. Khalid had survived a “cowardly terrorist attack.” It offered no details, but his wounds appeared substantial: Afghan and Western officials with knowledge of his condition said that he had sustained injuries to his chest and abdomen. One Afghan official said that he arrived bleeding and unconscious at a hospital run by the intelligence service.

President Hamid Karzai, who is close to Mr. Khalid, visited him soon after the attack and said in a statement that his condition was improving.

Mr. Khalid was later flown to Bagram Air Base, north of Kabul, said Jamie Graybeal, a spokesman for the coalition. The move was made to take advantage of the better medical facilities available at Bagram, one of the largest coalition bases in Afghanistan.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack in an e-mail sent to the news media. Some Afghan officials, aware of Mr. Khalid’s public criticism of Pakistan’s ambitions and influence in Afghanistan, voiced suspicions that Pakistani interests may have approved of the attack — a frequent, though mostly unprovable, pattern of blame after high-profile attacks here in recent years.

The attack took place in the Kabul neighborhood of Taimani, an upscale district that is home to many foreigners, inside one of the guesthouses that Mr. Khalid and the intelligence directorate use, according to two Western officials.

Mr. Khalid, an ethnic Pashtun from Ghazni Province who has long been close to the Karzai family, became a favorite of Western intelligence officials because of his anti-Taliban record, first as governor of Ghazni and then Kandahar Province and then as the minister of border and tribal affairs.

Neighbors on the street where the bombing happened on Thursday, between 2:15 p.m. and 3 p.m., said that it was not a large explosion, but somewhat muffled, and that it appeared to have taken place inside the guesthouse.

Western and Afghan officials said that Mr. Khalid had been meeting there with the head of Department 24, which deals with borders and extraterritorial activities.

That the attack occurred inside the house suggested to some officials that whoever carried it out was trusted enough to enter without being thoroughly searched. Such a tactic would be similar to the one used in the September 2011 assassination of Burhanuddin Rabbani, a former president and the head of the High Peace Council, whose assassin was said to be a courier bringing an important message from the Taliban leadership and thus gained entrance to the house. The bomb, hidden in his turban, detonated within a few feet of Mr. Rabbani.

One neighbor who lives a few houses from the guesthouse said that Mr. Khalid frequently visited there, arriving alone with his driver in an armored vehicle. The man, who refused to give his name, said that Mr. Khalid always greeted his neighbors if they were on the street, shaking their hands.

It was not clear whether anyone was killed in the attack or whether other people were wounded.

Mr. Khalid has many enemies as well as admirers, and he was accused of human rights abuses during his time as governor of Kandahar, leading some Afghans and diplomats to raise objections about his elevation to intelligence chief. However, the potential for an intensified Taliban threat in many areas of the south and east as the Western combat mission deadline nears led many in the Afghan Parliament to eventually agree to his appointment.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: December 7, 2012

An earlier version of this article misidentified the home province of Asadullah Khalid. He is originally from Ghazni Province, not Kandahar Province.

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Firm says first BlackBerry 10 phone to debut in March, QWERTY phone won’t launch until June

Research In Motion (RIMM) is gearing up for a series of make-or-break releases that could be considered the most important device launches in the company’s history. Everything is riding on the success of the RIM’s BlackBerry 10 platform, which will be unveiled in its finished state on January 30th next year. RIM CEO Thorsten Heins is on record confirming that BlackBerry 10 will launch in the first quarter and company COO Kristian Tear previously stated new BlackBerry devices will be available “not too long after” the platform is unveiled late next month, but exact timing is still a mystery. According to Boston-based brokerage firm Detwiler Fenton, however, RIM’s first two BlackBerry 10 handsets won’t launch until March and June, respectively.

“RIM’s stock has been on a tear recently thanks to a number of upgrades and optimism surrounding its upcoming BB10 platform,” Detwiler analysts wrote in a note to clients picked up by Forbes. “However, as we dig a little deeper, there appears to be a few issues that could set up for some disappointing numbers in the 2013 first half.”

The firm goes on state that AT&T (T) and T-Mobile will launch the first BlackBerry 10 smartphone some time in March, while Verizon Wireless (VZ) and Sprint (S) are targeting May launches. Detwiler also states that the second BlackBerry 10 smartphone, which will feature a touchscreen and a full QWERTY keyboard, might not launch until June.

“Therefore, it is possible RIMM’s February quarter may only see a very small number of BB10 sales with the May quarter also coming in light due to limited QWERTY keyboard shipments and limited shipments to Sprint and Verizon,” the firm continued. “It’s our opinion RIM will ship approximately 400,000 BB10 units in the February quarter and 2.2 million to 2.5 million units in the May quarter. While this is clearly a North American / developed market view, we think this is the right way to look at the 2013 first half because the initial BB10 handsets are higher end and not targeted for emerging markets.”

When asked to comment on the Detwiler note, RIM spokesman Nick Manning reiterated the company’s earlier position. ”Details of the commercial availability for BlackBerry 10 will be announced at the global launch events on January 30,” Manning said in a comment provided to BGR via email. “Our executives have made it clear that the touch screen device will be available shortly after launch with the physical keyboard version to follow shortly after that.”

BGR’s own sources were not able to provide details regarding the exact timing of RIM’s upcoming launches, however we are hearing from reliable sources that RIM’s QWERTY-equipped BlackBerry 10 smartphone will launch well ahead of the June timeframe mentioned by Detwiler.

Get more from BGR.com: Follow us on Twitter, Facebook

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Eddie Redmayne: 5 Things You Should Know

By Mary Green and Julie Jordan

12/07/2012 at 10:15 AM EST

Eddie Redmayne, breakout star of Les Miserables, is receiving awards buzz as the student French revolutionary Marius, who falls in love with Cosette, played by Amanda Seyfried. Redmayne, who also played Michelle Williams's love interest in My Week with Marilyn, is enjoying a booming career. But you'd never know that the 30-year-old Brit has Kim Cattrall to thank for his success, or that he was destined for a role in Les Mis as a child. P.S.: Redmayne's also won a Tony and an Olivier Award for the play Red.

Here are five things you should know about Redmayne:

• Kim Cattrall's approval was pivotal: "I did a play in London called The Goat," he recalls. "I won a prize, and I couldn't go be there, but my parents went, and Kim Cattrall gave the prize. When my dad saw that Samantha from Sex and the City was giving me a prize, then it affirmed in my parents' mind that they were allowed to let their son continue to be an actor."

In fact, the two stars didn't meet til years later, but Cattrall is anxious to see his latest turn: "In 2005 I had the honor of presenting him the Ian Charlston Award as 'the most promising new comer' at the Evening Standard Awards in the U.K.," she told PEOPLE Thursday. "Unfortunately he was away working, but I did meet him a few years later and he told me his father was impressed he won the award but over the moon I was presenting. I have followed his career ever since and cannot wait to see him in Les Miserables."

• His first Les Mis experience: "I saw it when I was 7 and wanted to be Gavroche, [the young street urchin who helps the rebels]."

• His 'oh s--t' moment on set: "We were lying in the sewers half dead, swimming in s--t, and you're actually lying there for 12 hours. We're doing a close-up, and [director Tom Hooper] is saying, ‘Hugh, Eddie, you need to be still. Or it doesn't look like you're dead.' We're like, ‘Dude! We can't control our bodily functions.'"

•Be careful going to karaoke with him: "My karaoke song of choice is "Bat Out of Hell". About three minutes in to the 12-minute song, I keep getting ‘shut up!'"

•He's pals with Spider-Man: "Andrew Garfield is is one of my best friends," he says. "I get great inspiration from he and Tom Sturridge, friends of mine who are my age who are doing great work."

Redmayne in Les Miserables

Universal Pictures

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Smokers celebrate as Wash. legalizes marijuana

SEATTLE (AP) — The crowds of happy people lighting joints under Seattle's Space Needle early Thursday morning with nary a police officer in sight bespoke the new reality: Marijuana is legal under Washington state law.

Hundreds gathered at Seattle Center for a New Year's Eve-style countdown to 12 a.m., when the legalization measure passed by voters last month took effect. When the clock struck, they cheered and sparked up in unison.

A few dozen people gathered on a sidewalk outside the north Seattle headquarters of the annual Hempfest celebration and did the same, offering joints to reporters and blowing smoke into television news cameras.

"I feel like a kid in a candy store!" shouted Hempfest volunteer Darby Hageman. "It's all becoming real now!"

Washington and Colorado became the first states to vote to decriminalize and regulate the possession of an ounce or less of marijuana by adults over 21. Both measures call for setting up state licensing schemes for pot growers, processors and retail stores. Colorado's law is set to take effect by Jan. 5.

Technically, Washington's new marijuana law still forbids smoking pot in public, which remains punishable by a fine, like drinking in public. But pot fans wanted a party, and Seattle police weren't about to write them any tickets.

In another sweeping change for Washington, Gov. Chris Gregoire on Wednesday signed into law a measure that legalizes same-sex marriage. The state joins several others that allow gay and lesbian couples to wed.

The mood was festive in Seattle as dozens of gay and lesbian couples got in line to pick up marriage licenses at the King County auditor's office early Thursday.

King County and Thurston County announced they would open their auditors' offices shortly after midnight Wednesday to accommodate those who wanted to be among the first to get their licenses.

Kelly Middleton and her partner Amanda Dollente got in line at 4 p.m. Wednesday.

Hours later, as the line grew, volunteers distributed roses and a group of men and women serenaded the waiting line to the tune of "Chapel of Love."

Because the state has a three-day waiting period, the earliest that weddings can take place is Sunday.

In dealing with marijuana, the Seattle Police Department told its 1,300 officers on Wednesday, just before legalization took hold, that until further notice they shall not issue citations for public marijuana use.

Officers will be advising people not to smoke in public, police spokesman Jonah Spangenthal-Lee wrote on the SPD Blotter. "The police department believes that, under state law, you may responsibly get baked, order some pizzas and enjoy a 'Lord of the Rings' marathon in the privacy of your own home, if you want to."

He offered a catchy new directive referring to the film "The Big Lebowski," popular with many marijuana fans: "The Dude abides, and says 'take it inside!'"

"This is a big day because all our lives we've been living under the iron curtain of prohibition," said Hempfest director Vivian McPeak. "The whole world sees that prohibition just took a body blow."

Washington's new law decriminalizes possession of up to an ounce for those over 21, but for now selling marijuana remains illegal. I-502 gives the state a year to come up with a system of state-licensed growers, processors and retail stores, with the marijuana taxed 25 percent at each stage. Analysts have estimated that a legal pot market could bring Washington hundreds of millions of dollars a year in new tax revenue for schools, health care and basic government functions.

But marijuana remains illegal under federal law. That means federal agents can still arrest people for it, and it's banned from federal properties, including military bases and national parks.

The Justice Department has not said whether it will sue to try to block the regulatory schemes in Washington and Colorado from taking effect.

"The department's responsibility to enforce the Controlled Substances Act remains unchanged," said a statement issued Wednesday by the Seattle U.S. attorney's office. "Neither states nor the executive branch can nullify a statute passed by Congress."

The legal question is whether the establishment of a regulated marijuana market would "frustrate the purpose" of the federal pot prohibition, and many constitutional law scholars say it very likely would.

That leaves the political question of whether the administration wants to try to block the regulatory system, even though it would remain legal to possess up to an ounce of marijuana.

Alison Holcomb is the drug policy director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington and served as the campaign manager for New Approach Washington, which led the legalization drive. She said the voters clearly showed they're done with marijuana prohibition.

"New Approach Washington sponsors and the ACLU look forward to working with state and federal officials and to ensure the law is fully and fairly implemented," she said.

___

Johnson can be reached at https://twitter.com/GeneAPseattle

Read More..

Wall Street flat, volatile; fiscal talks, Apple in focus

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks were little changed in choppy morning trading on Thursday as upbeat guidance from Broadcom partially offset weakness in Apple shares, while traders kept an eye on fiscal negotiations in Washington.

Extending Wednesday's 6.4 percent decline, Apple was trading down 0.7 percent at $535 early on Thursday, after falling as much as 3.7 percent at the open, which brought the market capitalization of the world's largest publicly traded company down to below $500 billion briefly. In September, it was capitalized at a record $663 billion.

Broadcom shares led the advance in chip makers with a 2.1 percent gain, one day after it forecast for fourth-quarter revenue at the high end of its target range, citing slightly better-than-expected sales in its mobile business.

The PHLX semiconductor index <.sox> rose 0.4 percent.

Budget discussions continued to be a key focus for investors. President Barack Obama said there could be a quick deal to avert the "fiscal cliff" - tax hikes and spending cuts set to begin next year, possibly driving the U.S. economy back into recession - if Republican leaders agree to raise tax rates for those making more than $250,000 a year.

While Republican leaders in the House of Representatives insist that raising tax rates on the rich is a no-go, some GOP lawmakers now see it as inevitable to avoid the fiscal cliff.

"There are no real triggers here. It is just positioning going on for year-end, and this big decision" on the fiscal cliff, said Rick Meckler, president of hedge fund LibertyView Capital Management LLC in Jersey City, New Jersey.

He said Apple's weakness was taking a toll on the market and expects equities to continue trading choppily through the day.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> fell 17.89 points, or 0.14 percent, to 13,016.60. The S&P 500 <.spx> dropped 1.78 points, or 0.13 percent, to 1,407.50. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> gained 2.89 points, or 0.10 percent, to 2,976.59.

Apple Inc's rank in China's smartphone market fell to No.6 in the third quarter as it faces tougher competition from Chinese brands, research firm IDC said Thursday. Apple's 6.4 percent drop on Wednesday was its worst daily performance since December 2008 and dragged down the Nasdaq Composite.

Shares of Apple were down 0.7 percent at $535, after earlier falling more than 3 percent.

Sirius XM Radio shares rose 2.2 percent to $2.83 after its board approved a $2 billion stock repurchase and issued a special dividend, giving a big payout to its largest shareholder, Liberty Media .

Without action from Congress in coming weeks, tax cuts on capital gains and dividends will expire at the end of 2012.

Garmin shares rose 5 percent to $41.71 after Standard & Poor's said it would add the navigation device maker to its S&P 500 index. Garmin will replace R.R. Donnelley & Sons after the close of trading on December 11.

Several European equity benchmark indexes hit 2012 highs, boosted by hopes a U.S. budget deal will be reached before the year-end, and that the worst of Europe's debt crisis might be over. <.eu/>

(Additional reporting by Herbert Lash; Editing by Bernadette Baum)

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Resignations Continue in Egypt as Tanks Deploy Around Presidential Palace

Tara Todras-Whitehill for The New York Times

Egyptian soldiers put up barbed-wire fences near the presidential palace on Thursday in Cairo. More Photos »

CAIRO — Resignations rocked the government of President Mohamed Morsi on Thursday as tanks from the special presidential guard took up positions around his palace and the state television headquarters after a night of street fighting between his Islamist supporters and their secular opponents that left at least 6 dead and 450 wounded.

The director of state broadcasting resigned Thursday, as did Rafik Habib, a Christian who was the vice president of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party and the party’s favorite example of its commitment to tolerance and pluralism. Their departures followed an announcement by Zaghoul el-Balshi, the new general secretary of the commission overseeing a planned constitutional referendum, that he was quitting. “I will not participate in a referendum that spilled Egyptian blood,” he said in a television interview during the clashes late Wednesday night.

With the resignations on Thursday, nine Morsi administration officials have quit in protest in recent days. In a day of tension and uncertainty unlike any other since the revolt that overthrew Hosni Mubarak nearly two years ago, state media reported that Mr. Morsi, of the Muslim Brotherhood’s political arm, was meeting with his top advisers and would deliver a public address in response to the clashes. The top scholar of Al Azhar, the center of Sunni Muslim learning that is considered Egypt’s chief moral authority, urged both sides to pull back from violence and seek “rational dialogue.”

The scale of the violence around the palace has raised the first doubts about Mr. Morsi’s effort to hold a public referendum on Dec. 15 to vote on a draft constitution approved by his Islamist allies over the objections of his secular opposition and the Coptic Christian Church.

About 1 p.m. Thursday, hundreds of his supporters who had camped outside his palace to defend it — many waking up with bandaged heads from wounds sustained from volleys of rocks and the blows of makeshift clubs the previous night — abruptly began to pull out of their encampment in unison, a development that suggested that their organizers in the Muslim Brotherhood had ordered a withdrawal. It took place just moments after several Brotherhood members camped there had vowed to stay put until the referendum, set for Dec. 15.

The Egyptian military, which seized power from Mr. Mubarak in February 2011, saying it was stepping in to protect the legitimate demands of the public, stayed silent after a statement Wednesday that it would not intervene in a dispute between political factions. The presidential guard that deployed Thursday is a separate unit that reports directly to the president.

Wednesday night’s battle was the worst clash between political factions here since the days of President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s military coup six decades ago, and Egyptians across the political spectrum responded with shock and dismay.

Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, a popular former leader of the Muslim Brotherhood who ran for president as a liberal Islamist and has stayed on the sidelines of the escalating conflict between Mr. Morsi and his secular opponents, slammed the president and the Brotherhood for calling on their civilian supporters to defend the palace with force rather than relying the institutions of law enforcement.

“The palace is not a private property to the Muslim Brotherhood or Dr. Morsi; it belongs to us, all Egyptians,” Mr. Aboul Fotouh said in a televised news conference. He was flanked by a Morsi adviser who had just resigned and by a well-known revolutionary poet who is the son of Sheik Yusuf al-Qaradawi, perhaps the most influential religious scholar in the Sunni Muslim world and a spiritual guru to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Wednesday night’s clashes followed two weeks of sporadic violence around the country that erupted after Mr. Morsi, a former leader of the Muslim Brotherhood movement, seized temporary powers beyond the review of any court, removing the last check on his authority until ratification of the new constitution.

Mr. Morsi has said he needed the expanded powers to block a conspiracy by corrupt businessmen, Mubarak-appointed judges and opposition leaders to thwart Egypt’s transition to a constitutional democracy. Some opponents, Mr. Morsi’s advisers say, would sacrifice democracy to stop the Islamists from winning elections.

Mr. Morsi’s secular critics have accused Mr. Morsi and the Islamists of seeking to establish a new dictatorship, in part by ramming through a rushed constitution that they say could ultimately give new power over society to Muslim scholars and Islamists groups. And each side’s actions have confirmed the other’s fears.

Mai Ayyad contributed reporting.

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Apple to return some Mac production to U.S. in 2013: report

(Reuters) – Apple Inc is planning to bring back some of its production of Mac computers to the United States from China next year, Chief Executive Tim Cook said, according to a report published Thursday.

The company will spend more than $ 100 million to build the computers in the United States, Cook was cited as saying in an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek.

“This doesn’t mean that Apple will do it ourselves, but we’ll be working with people and we’ll be investing our money,” Cook said.

He told NBC in an interview to be aired late Thursday that only one of the existing Mac lines would be manufactured exclusively in the United States.

Higher-tech products are largely made overseas, often in subcontracted factories not owned by the brands whose products they are making.

Cheaper labor costs have been key in encouraging U.S. manufacturers to have move production to China, but with Chinese wage and transport costs increasing, the advantage against the U.S. has narrowed in recent years.

(Reporting by Nicola Leske; Editing by Bernadette Baum)

Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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