The Civil Wars cancel tour using divorce language

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Grammy-winning duo The Civil Wars have canceled their upcoming tour dates, citing irreconcilable differences.

The folk-pop duo Joy Williams and John Paul White released a statement Tuesday announcing that because of “internal discord and irreconcilable differences of ambition” they were unable to “continue as a touring entity at this time.”

Although they used the language of divorce, the duo added, “Our sincere hope is to have new music for you in 2013.”

Williams and White are both married, but to other people. Williams had a baby this summer with husband Nate Yetton, the duo’s manager.

Earlier this year the pair canceled part of their European tour.

The duo found unexpected success with their 2011 debut album, “Barton Hollow.” With backgrounds in gospel and rock, they met when they were both asked to contribute to a country project and found chemistry.

Back then, the pair framed their partnership in terms of courting. White told The Associated Press that after two songwriting sessions, “I finally got up the nerve to ask her out, as it were.”

“In a musical way,” Williams said.

Entertainment News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Four more years for Obama

President Barack Obama handily defeated Gov. Mitt Romney and won himself a second term Tuesday after a bitter and historically expensive race that was primarily fought in just a handful of battleground states. Obama beat Romney after nabbing almost every one of the crucial battleground states.

Romney conceded in Boston in a heartfelt speech early Wednesday morning, at 1:00 AM ET. "Like so many of you, Paul [Ryan] and I have left everything on the field. We have given our all to this campaign," he said. "I so wish that I had been able to fulfill your hopes to lead your ocuntry in another direction." Romney congratulated the president and his campaign on their victory.

The Romney campaign's last-ditch attempt to put blue-leaning Midwestern swing states in play failed as Obama's Midwestern firewall sent the president back to the White House for four more years. Obama picked up the swing states of New Hampshire, Michigan, New Mexico, Iowa, Virginia, Wisconsin, Colorado, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, and Ohio. Of the swing states, Romney only picked up North Carolina. Florida is still too close to call, but even if Romney won the state, Obama still handily beats him in the Electoral College vote. The popular vote will most likely be much narrower than the president's decisive Electoral College victory.

The Obama victory marks an end to a years-long campaign that saw historic advertisement spending levels, countless rallies and speeches, and three much-watched debates.

The Romney campaign cast the election as a referendum on Obama's economic policies, frequently comparing him to former President Jimmy Carter and asking voters the Reagan-esque question of whether they are better off than they were four years ago. But the Obama campaign pushed back on the referendum framing, blanketing key states such as Ohio early on with ads painting him as a multimillionaire more concerned with profits than people. The Obama campaign also aggressively attacked Romney on reproductive rights issues, tying Romney to a handful of Republican candidates who made controversial comments about rape and abortion.

These ads were one reason Romney faced a steep likeability problem for most of the race, until his expert performance at the first presidential debate in Denver in October. After that debate, and a near universal panning of Obama's performance, Romney caught up with Obama in national polls, and almost closed his favoribility gap with the president. In polls, voters consistently gave him an edge over Obama on who would handle the economy better and create more jobs, even as they rated Obama higher on caring about the middle class.

But the president's Midwestern firewall--and the campaign's impressive grassroots operation--carried him through. Ohio tends to vote a bit more Republican than the nation as a whole, but Obama was able to stave off that trend and hold an edge there over Romney, perhaps due to the president's support of the auto bailout three years ago. Romney and his running mate Paul Ryan all but moved to Ohio in the last weeks of the campaign, trying and ultimately failing to erase Obama's lead there.

A shrinking electoral battleground this year meant that only 14 states were really seen as in play, and both candidates spent most of their time and money there. Though national polls showed the two candidates in a dead heat, Obama consistently held a lead in the states that mattered. That, and his campaign's much-touted get out the vote efforts and overall ground game, may be what pushed Obama over the finish line.

Now, Obama heads back to office facing what will most likely be bitterly partisan negotiations over whether the Bush tax cuts should expire. The House will still be majority Republican, with Democrats maintaining their majority in the Senate.

The loss may provoke some soul searching in the Republican Party. This election was seen as a prime opportunity to unseat Obama, as polls showed Americans were unhappy with a sluggish economy, sky-high unemployment, and a health care reform bill that remained widely unpopular. Romney took hardline positions on immigration, federal spending, and taxes during the long Republican primary when he faced multiple challenges from the right. He later shifted to the center in tone on many of those issues, but it's possible the primary painted him into a too-conservative corner to appeal to moderates during the general election. The candidate also at times seemed unable to effectively counter Democratic attacks on his business experience and personal wealth.

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Officials: New mass graves found in Ivory Coast

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast (AP) — Up to 10 new mass graves have been discovered near the site of a July attack on a camp for displaced people, officials said Tuesday, amid allegations that initial casualty totals were downplayed to mask killings carried out by the national army.

Rights groups claim summary executions were carried out by the Republican Forces of Ivory Coast, known by its French acronym of FRCI. Last month, officials found six bodies in a well close to the former campsite in the western town of Duekoue.

Government, army and U.N. officials toured 10 more graves in the same area on Saturday, said Paul Mondouho, vice-mayor of Duekoue. He said the graves had first been identified by civilians, and that officials did not know the number of bodies they contained because they had not yet been properly exhumed.

“People were suspecting the presence of bodies in these graves because of the smell coming out of them and because of the shoes we saw nearby,” Mondouho said.

Prosecutor Noel Dje Enrike Yahau, who is based in the commercial capital of Abidjan, confirmed that multiple new graves had been discovered but could not provide details. U.N. officials and the local prosecutor in charge of investigating the suspected killings could not be reached Tuesday.

U.N. spokeswoman Sylvie van den Wildenberg confirmed that U.N. forces helped Ivorian authorities secure a perimeter around 10 wells “similar to the one in which six bodies were found,” and that “some of those wells are suspected mass graves.”

She stressed that Ivorian authorities were leading the investigation but that the U.N. was able to provide assistance.

Army spokesmen could not be reached Tuesday. The Justice Ministry has previously vowed to investigate the discovery of the initial grave.

On the morning of July 20, a mob descended on the U.N.-guarded Nahibly camp, which housed 4,500 people displaced by violence in Ivory Coast, burning most of the camp to the ground. Officials said at the time that six people were killed.

The attack was prompted by the shooting deaths of four men and one woman on the night of July 19, according to local officials and residents. In response a mob of some 300 people overran the camp on the morning of July 20 after the perpetrators of the shootings reportedly fled there.

The victims in the July 19 attack lived in a district dominated by the Malinke ethnic group, which largely supported President Alassane Ouattara in the disputed November 2010 election. The camp primarily housed members of the Guere ethnic group, which largely supported former President Laurent Gbagbo.

Gbagbo’s refusal to cede office despite losing the election to Ouattara sparked months of violence that claimed at least 3,000 lives.

Albert Koenders, the top U.N. envoy to Ivory Coast, said one week after the attack that U.N. security forces had been inside and outside the camp at the time but that no Ivorian security forces were present. He said the U.N. forces decided not to fire at a large group of people that were attacking the camp in order to avoid “a massacre.”

Several witnesses have said soldiers and traditional hunters, known as dozos, participated in the attack on the camp. Both military and dozo leaders have denied the claims, saying they had tried to protect the camp.

In a statement released Friday, the International Federation for Human Rights, known by its French acronym of FIDH, said it had information — including the preliminary results of autopsies — confirming that the six bodies found in October were men who had been summarily executed by the army.

“The disappearance of dozens of displaced persons after the attack, as well as confirmation of cases of summary and extra-judicial executions, suggest a much higher victim rate than the official figures report,” said the organization, which counts Ivorian civil society groups among its members.

Duekoue was one of the hardest-hit towns during the post-election violence. The U.N. has established that at least 505 people were killed in and around the town, including during a notorious March 2011 massacre that claimed hundreds of lives and was allegedly carried out by fighters loyal to Ouattara.

Duekoue residents belonging to ethnic groups that supported Gbagbo have long complained about abuses carried out by the FRCI, with some pointing to the direct involvement of the local commander, Kone Daouda. FIDH said in its statement that Daouda had been transferred following the discovery of the grave in October, and called for him to be interrogated over the matter.

The group also said two FRCI members were being “actively sought” after failing to return to their barracks on Oct. 16, noting that they are believed to have fled to neighboring Burkina Faso.

Africa News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Pfizer says FDA approves arthritis drug Xeljanz

NEW YORK (AP) — Pfizer says the Food and Drug Administration approved its rheumatoid arthritis pill Xeljanz (ZEL’jans), seen as potential big seller for the world’s largest pharmaceutical company.

Pfizer Inc. says the FDA approved Xeljanz as a treatment for moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis in patients who can’t take methotrexate or haven’t been helped by it. Xeljanz is intended to slow the progression of the disease. The approval comes about two weeks sooner than expected.

Xeljanz, or tofacitinib, is the first rheumatoid arthritis treatment from a new class of pain medications called JAK inhibitors. The drugs interfere with enzymes that contribute to tissue inflammation.

Rheumatoid arthritis is a major area of research for drug companies because it is a chronic condition, meaning patients will likely take the drugs regularly for a long time.

Diseases/Conditions News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Exclusive - Amazon to win EU e-book pricing tussle with Apple

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Composer, Pulitzer winner Carter dies in NY at 103

NEW YORK (AP) — Classical composer Elliott Carter, whose challenging, rhythmically complex works earned him widespread admiration and two Pulitzer Prizes, died Monday at age 103.

His music publishing company, Boosey & Hawkes, called him an “iconic American composer.” It didn’t give the cause of his death.

In a 1992 Associated Press interview, Carter described his works as “music that asks to be listened to in a concentrated way and listened to with a great deal of attention.”

“It’s not music that makes an overt theatrical effect,” he said then, “but it assumes the listener is listening to sounds and making some sense out of them.”

The complex way the instruments interact in his compositions created drama for listeners who made the effort to understand them, but it made them difficult for orchestras to learn. He said he tried to give each of the musicians individuality within the context of a comprehensible whole.

“This seems to me a very dramatic thing in a democratic society,” he said.

While little known to the general public, he was long respected by an inner circle of critics and musicians. In 2002, The New York Times said his string quartets were among “the most difficult music ever conceived,” and it hailed their “volatile emotions, delicacy and even, in places, plucky humor.”

Carter had remained astonishingly active, taking new commissions even as he celebrated his 100th birthday in December 2008 with a gala at Carnegie Hall.

“I’m always proud of the ones I’ve just written,” he said at the time.

In 2005, his “Dialogues,” which had premiered the previous year, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in music. And in 2006, his “Boston Concerto” was nominated for a Grammy Award as best classical contemporary composition.

Carter won his first Pulitzer Prize in 1960 for his Second String Quartet; his second award was in 1973 for his Third String Quartet. The Juilliard String Quartet chose to mark its 45th anniversary in 1991 with a concert of all four Carter string quartets. A fifth quartet came out in 1995.

When the first National Medal of Arts awards were given in 1985, Carter was one of 10 people honored, along with such legends as Martha Graham, Ralph Ellison and Georgia O’Keeffe. The awards were established by Congress in 1984.

The New Grove Dictionary of American Music said that at its best, Carter’s music “sustains an energy of invention that is unrivaled in contemporary composition.”

Carter said he found Europeans more receptive to his works than his fellow Americans because music in Europe is not purely entertainment but part of the culture, “something that people make an effort to understand.”

The lack of widespread attention didn’t seem to bother him.

“I don’t think it means anything to be popular,” he said. “When we see the popular tastes and the popular opinion constantly being manipulated by all sorts of different ways, it seems to me popularity is a meaningless matter.”

In 1992, Carter said his favorite piece of music was his Concerto for Orchestra, written in 1969. It was commissioned by the New York Philharmonic for its 125th anniversary season.

“It particularly expresses a picture of the United States as an evolving world of not only people but of nature,” he said.

Among his early works were two ballets, “The Minotaur” and “Pocahontas,” and his First Symphony. His First String Quartet in 1951 started him on the road to greater critical attention.

Besides composing, Carter wrote extensively about 20th-century music. A collection of articles, “The Writings of Elliott Carter: An American Composer Looks at Modern Music,” was published in 1977.

Carter as born in New York in 1908. As a young man he became acquainted with composer Charles Ives, who encouraged his ambitions. He studied literature at Harvard and then studied music in Paris under famed teacher Nadia Boulanger, who also guided Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland and Virgil Thompson.

As Carter turned 100, he recalled a visit to the hall in 1924 to see the New York premiere of Igor Stravinsky’s revolutionary work “The Rite of Spring.”

“I thought it was the greatest thing I ever heard, and I wanted to do like that, too,” Carter recalled. “Of course, half the audience walked out, which was even more pleasant to me. It seemed much more exciting than Beethoven and Brahms and the rest of them.”

In 1939, he married sculptor Helen H. Frost Jones. They had one son. He is survived by his son and a grandson.

Entertainment News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Small margin splits dramatically different candidates

WASHINGTON (AP) — Suspense over the too-close-to-call presidential race has partly obscured the fact that Americans on Tuesday will choose between two dramatically different visions of government's proper role in our lives. The philosophical gulf between the two nominees is wide, even if the vote totals may be razor-thin.

With record numbers of people on food stamps and other assistance, President Barack Obama emphasizes "we're all in this together" — code for sweeping government involvement. His campaign theme song is "We Take Care of Our Own." Romney wants smaller government, including fewer regulations — rejecting Obama's contention that they're needed after the meltdowns in financial and mortgage markets and a major oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. His theme song is the individualist anthem, "(I Was) Born Free."

For all their philosophical differences, neither man has hit Americans between the eyes with the painful truth of what it will take to tame deficit spending, driven by the public's demand for low taxes and high services.

This year's voters are unlikely to make big changes in Congress. After dramatic swings in the past three congressional elections, and ongoing assessments of the tea party's influence, power may not end up shifting on Capitol Hill for a while. The fiercely divided Congress may continue to block major presidential initiatives, regardless of who's in the White House, unless there's the type of bipartisan breakthrough that has proven elusive.

An Obama win presumably would keep the government roughly on its current course. Congressional Republicans would be unable to rescind his biggest domestic achievement, "Obamacare," which eventually will require everyone to have health insurance.

Writ large, Obama's approach to governing is a new generation of the New Deal and the Great Society. The federal government tries to balance interests such as energy exploration and the environment, private enterprise and consumer protection.

Romney's approach echoes Ronald Reagan's declaration that government is the problem, not the solution.

In a January GOP debate, Romney said: "Government has become too large. We're headed in a very dangerous direction. I believe to get America back on track, we're going to have to have dramatic, fundamental, extraordinary change in Washington to be able to allow our private sector to once again re-emerge competitively, to scale back the size of government."

Romney later said, "I was a severely conservative governor" of Massachusetts (a label at odds with his actual record there).

It's unlikely that a Romney presidency would reshape the federal government to the extent such rhetoric suggests. Like many politicians, Romney is more expansive with his promises than with details for achieving them.

He vows to slash spending and put the nation on a path to balanced budgets, for instance. Pressed for details, Romney offers few beyond ending the tiny federal subsidy to public television and "Big Bird."

Obama has gone a bit further in specifying how he would reduce the deficit. Unlike Romney, he would raise taxes on the wealthiest.

In a 50-50 nation, however, no politician wants to be the first to forcefully tell voters why it's impossible to achieve their three-pronged desire of keeping taxes low, keeping government services level and balancing the budget.

No matter who is president, the huge domestic challenge of 2013 will be to persuade Congress to compromise on tax and spending issues.

Many GOP lawmakers are adamant about keeping tax rates lower for everyone — including the richest households — than they were in Bill Clinton's presidency, which produced the last balanced budget. Congressional Democrats insist that any deficit-reduction plan include increased revenues, from the wealthiest taxpayers if no one else, along with spending cuts.

The package of major tax hikes and spending cuts scheduled to hit on Jan. 1 — the "fiscal cliff," which could start a new recession -- will pose a huge challenge to whoever wins Tuesday.

Because of congressional gridlock, a Romney presidency might produce more dramatic changes through the other branches of government. Romney repeatedly has said he'd like to see a reversal of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, which legalized abortion. He might be able to appoint conservative justices to the Supreme Court to fulfill that wish.

It's hard to know how U.S. society, so accustomed to the abortion status quo of four decades, would react to states suddenly outlawing the procedure.

Hurricane Sandy is a reminder of how different political philosophies can affect people at more mundane, day-to-day levels. Romney has suggested shifting much of the responsibility for emergency management from the federal government to the states. That approach might have severely tested New Jersey this fall. But conservatives grow weary of looking to Washington to solve problem after problem.

In unguarded moments, politicians sometimes show their clearest philosophical leanings. Romney's much discussed remarks at a private fundraiser — criticizing the 47 percent of Americans who don't pay income taxes — suggested he sees a world of givers and takers. Such societies, he says, are in danger of having the government-dependent takers overwhelm the job-creating givers.

Republicans, on the other hand, pounced on Obama's non-scripted "you didn't build that" comment, his contention that people who built businesses had help, from teachers, family and other supporters — and sometimes the government. Obama said he was noting that successful businesses rely on government roads, schools, water, police protection and other tax-paid amenities.

The "you didn't build that" controversy underscored philosophical differences that voters will choose between Tuesday. Obama and Romney look at the same set of facts — in this case, successful businesses — and seize on different aspects.

The election winner may have a hard time pushing his agenda through a divided Congress. But voters have a vivid choice about what that agenda should look like.

___

EDITOR'S NOTE — Charles Babington covers national politics for The Associated Press.

An AP News Analysis

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Methane warnings ignored before NZ mine disaster

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — A New Zealand coal mining company ignored 21 warnings that methane gas had accumulated to explosive levels before an underground explosion killed 29 workers two years ago, an investigation concluded.

The official report released Monday after 11 weeks of hearings on the disaster found broad safety problems in New Zealand workplaces and said the Pike River Coal company was exposing miners to unacceptable risks as it strove to meet financial targets.

“The company completely and utterly failed to protect its workers,” New Zealand Prime Minister John Key said Monday.

The country’s labor minister, Kate Wilkinson, resigned from her labor portfolio after the report’s release, saying she felt it was the honorable thing to do after the tragedy occurred on her watch. She plans to retain her remaining government responsibilities.

The Royal Commission report said New Zealand has a poor workplace safety record and its regulators failed to provide adequate oversight before the explosion.

At the time of the disaster, New Zealand had just two mine inspectors who were unable to keep up with their workload, the report said. Pike River was able to obtain a permit with no scrutiny of its initial health and safety plans and little ongoing scrutiny.

Key said he agrees with the report’s conclusion that there needs to be a philosophical shift in New Zealand from believing that companies are acting in the best interests of workers to a more proscriptive set of regulations that forces companies to do the right thing.

The commission’s report recommended a new agency be formed to focus solely on workplace health and safety problems. It also recommended a raft of measures to strengthen mine oversight.

Key said his government would consider the recommendations and hoped to implement most of them. He would not commit on forming a new agency. Workplace safety issues are currently one of the responsibilities of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment.

In the seven weeks before the explosion, the Pike River company received 21 warnings from mine workers that methane gas had built up to explosive levels below ground and another 27 warnings of dangerous levels, the report said. The warnings continued right up until the morning of the deadly explosion.

The company used unconventional methods to get rid of methane, the report said. Some workers even rigged their machines to bypass the methane sensors after the machines kept automatically shutting down — something they were designed to do when methane levels got too high.

The company made a “major error” by placing a ventilation fan underground instead of on the surface, the report found. The fan failed after the first of several explosions, effectively shutting down the entire ventilation system. The company was also using water jets to cut the coal face, a highly specialized technique than can release large amounts of methane.

The report did not definitively conclude what sparked the explosion itself, although it noted that a pump was switched on immediately before the explosion, raising the possibility it was triggered by an electrical arc.

The now-bankrupt Pike River Coal company is not defending itself against charges it committed nine labor violations related to the disaster. Former chief executive Peter Whittall has pleaded not guilty to 12 violations and his lawyers say he is being scapegoated.

An Australian contractor was fined last month for three safety violations after its methane detector was found to be faulty at the time of the explosion.

Australia / Antarctica News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Factbox: U.S. President Barack Obama

(Reuters) – As the 44th president of the United States, Barack Obama, 51, signed into law a revamp of the national healthcare system and authorized the raid that killed Osama bin Laden but struggled to revive the economy and create jobs.

As the United States holds its presidential election on Tuesday, here are key facts about Obama, the nation’s first black president.

- Barack Obama has a personal background like no other president in U.S. history. His mother, Ann Dunham, was a white woman from Kansas and his father, Barack Obama Sr., was a black Kenyan who saw little of his son after a divorce when the boy was a toddler. Obama spent much of his childhood in Indonesia and then Hawaii, where he lived with his maternal grandparents.

- Obama struggled with his mixed racial background while growing up, writing in a memoir that he wondered “if something was wrong with me.” He also was troubled by the absence of his father, whom he considered a “myth,” and said that may have contributed to his use of marijuana and cocaine in his youth.

- Obama graduated from New York’s Columbia University in 1983 and worked in the business sector in New York and for a Chicago community group. In 1988 he went to Harvard Law School, where he became the first black president of the prestigious Harvard Law Review.

- Obama’s relationship with Congress has been problematic. Even when Democrats controlled the House of Representatives and the Senate, Republicans often stymied his initiatives. The situation became more difficult when tax-averse Republicans took over the majority in the House in 2010.

- In the early 1990s Obama worked in a voter registration campaign in Chicago, taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago and joined a law firm that specialized in civil rights and neighborhood development. He married Michelle Robinson, whom he met at a law firm when he was an intern and she was assigned to be his adviser.

- In his rare spare moments, the lanky Obama pursues his lifelong love of basketball with semi-regular games at an FBI gym. He also makes time for school functions and sports events of his daughters Sasha and Malia and tries to get out for an occasional “date night” with his wife.

- Obama’s political career began with his election to the Illinois State Senate in 1996 and soared in 2004 when he gave a rousing keynote address at the Democratic National Convention. In November of that year he was elected to the U.S. Senate.

- Obama won the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination by defeating Hilary Clinton, the former first lady and New York senator, and then took the presidency by beating Republican Senator John McCain. His energetic campaign was built on a theme of “hope and change” fueled by powerful oratory.

- A mood of national optimism prevailed at Obama’s inauguration on January 20, 2009, which drew an estimated 1.8 million people to the National Mall in Washington despite bitter cold. He began his presidency with a 68 percent approval rating.

- Obama simultaneously oversaw wars in Iraq, which he ended in 2011, and Afghanistan, as well as the U.S. military involvement in Libya that helped oust Muammar Gaddafi. In May 2011 he authorized the raid in which U.S. Navy SEALS killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Pakistan – a triumph he points to as indicative of a strong national security policy.

- Obama inherited an economic crisis so persistent that it remains a threat to his re-election. Almost 800,000 jobs were lost the month he took over. In the early days of his administration, he pushed through an $ 831 billion economic stimulus package and renewed loans to automakers, even making the government a temporary part-owner of General Motors.

- The centerpiece of his domestic agenda was the Affordable Care Act, the healthcare reform law better known as Obamacare. Its purpose is to give all Americans affordable insurance and more protections but critics say it is expensive federal interference. A key aspect of the reform – requiring most Americans to get insurance or pay a penalty – survived a 2012 U.S. Supreme Court challenge.

- Obama has a reputation as a charming communicator but he also is criticized for being aloof and not building better relationships with congressional leaders. Some have questioned his preparation skills, especially after a poor performance in a presidential debate with Republican opponent Mitt Romney.

(Writing by Bill Trott; editing by Christopher Wilson)

Seniors/Aging News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Apple sells three million iPads over first weekend

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