Trump wants say in GOP race, mulls independent bid

Republican presidential candidate, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Donald Trump shake hands after they met and spoke to the media in New York, Monday, Dec. 5, 2011. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

Republican presidential candidate, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Donald Trump shake hands after they met and spoke to the media in New York, Monday, Dec. 5, 2011. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

Republican presidential candidate, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich talks to the media after meeting with Donald Trump in New York, Monday, Dec. 5, 2011. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

Republican presidential candidate, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich speaks at a news conference in New York, Monday, Dec. 5, 2011. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Sure, he's out of the GOP presidential race, but The Donald isn't content to sit on the sidelines. Donald Trump wants a say in who gets the nomination, so he's hosting a presidential debate, holding out the prospect of his endorsement and threatening an independent run.

All that has some conservatives grousing that Trump's involvement is tarnishing the GOP's image and diminishing the Republican presidential field as it tries to field a candidate to beat President Barack Obama next year.

"GOP candidates would be foolish to show up at Trump's clown circus/ debate. Walk away," Republican strategist Mike Murphy advised on Twitter.

Republican strategist Karl Rove, President George W. Bush's longtime adviser, added on Fox News: "What the heck are the Republican candidates doing showing up at a debate with a guy who says, 'I may run for president next year as an independent'?"

Trump, predictably, is undeterred.

On Monday, the TV celebrity met with Newt Gingrich, the latest presidential contender to visit Trump's New York offices in search of his support, and he released a campaign-style book to offer his views on the economy and the media in his typically bombastic style.

In a round of TV interviews, he blistered many of the GOP candidates, saying that former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney "doesn't get the traction" he needs to nail down the nomination and calling Rep. Ron Paul and former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman "joke candidates."

And given the field, Trump added, "I would certainly think about running as an independent."

During one interview, Trump was asked if he agreed with Gingrich's assertion that there are no role models in the inner-cities. Trump backed up Gingrich; civil rights leader Al Sharpton called the statement offensive and threatened protests if he didn't retract the statement.

Given Trump's affinity for publicity, it would be welcome.

Earlier this year, Trump suggested he might seek the GOP nomination but ultimately decided against it ? as he has during past elections.

It was around that time that Trump was somewhat marginalized when Obama himself sought to put to rest questions that the Republican had stoked about whether the president was eligible to serve in the White House. Obama released his "long form" birth certificate showing that he was, in fact, born in Hawaii in 1961.

Obama also suggested that Trump could be lumped in with "side shows and carnival barkers," and he used his appearance at the White House Correspondents Dinner to mock Trump, who was sitting in the audience glowering.

Despite that, Trump tried to stoke the "birther" issue anew Monday, saying on MSNBC: "Whether or not he was born here, you know, to me it means something. I guess it doesn't mean a lot to a lot of people. To me it happens to mean something."

So far, only Gingrich, a former House speaker, has committed to attend the Dec. 27 debate.

Huntsman said he wouldn't be there. "I'm not going to kiss his ring and I'm not going to kiss any other part of his anatomy," he said.

"This is exactly what is wrong with politics. It's show business over substance," Huntsman said on Fox News.

Paul also planned to skip it, telling CNN that he didn't understand why candidates were seeking Trump's support.

"I didn't know he had the ability to lay on hands and anoint people," Paul said.

Romney, Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota have met with Trump. Businessman Herman Cain, who ended his campaign on Saturday, and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin also visited with him.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2011-12-05-Trump-Republicans/id-76b7e92452da4a0aacbf40437272b538

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India wants websites to screen derogatory content (AP)

NEW DELHI ? India's top telecommunications official said Tuesday that Internet giants such as Facebook and Google have ignored his demands to screen derogatory material from their sites, so the government would have to act on its own.

The dispute highlights India's continuing difficulty in balancing the Internet culture of freewheeling discourse with its homegrown religious and political sensitivities. Government officials are upset about Web pages that are insulting to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, ruling Congress party leader Sonia Gandhi and major religious figures.

Kapil Sibal, India's telecommunications minister, said he spoke repeatedly with officials from major Internet companies over the past three months and asked them to come up with a voluntary framework to keep offensive material off the Internet.

"This is a matter of great concern to us. We have to take care of the sensibility of our people," he said.

In a meeting Monday, the Internet companies told him there was nothing they could do, he said, so the government would formulate a policy on its own. He declined to specify what that policy would be.

"We are seeking their cooperation, and if somebody is not willing to cooperate on incendiary material like this, it is the duty of government to think of steps that we need to take," he said. "We don't want to interfere in freedom of the press, but this kind of material should not be allowed."

Indian media reports said that during the meeting Monday, Sibal specifically told officials from Google, Facebook, Yahoo and Microsoft about posts that were insulting to Singh, Gandhi and religious leaders.

Facebook said in a statement Tuesday it would remove content that "is hateful, threatening, incites violence or contains nudity."

"We recognize the government's interest in minimizing the amount of abusive content that is available online and will continue to engage with the Indian authorities as they debate this important issue," the company said.

Google said it removes content that violates local law and its own standards.

"But when content is legal and doesn't violate our policies, we won't remove it just because it's controversial, as we believe that people's differing views, so long as they're legal, should be respected and protected," Google said in a statement.

Yahoo declined to comment and Microsoft had no immediate comment.

One person with knowledge of the meeting Monday told The Associated Press that the demand was sparked by a Facebook page about Sonia Gandhi. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the talks.

Facebook has three pages titled "I hate Sonia Gandhi," two titled "We hate Sonia Gandhi," and one titled "Manmohan Singh is a puppet of Sonia Gandhi." India has more than 25 million Facebook users.

Before his news conference Tuesday, Sibal showed reporters Web illustrations showing Singh and Gandhi in compromising positions as well as a site showing pigs running through Islam's holy city of Mecca, a clear insult to Muslims.

"I believe that no reasonable person aware of these sensibilities of large sections of communities in this country and aware of community standards as they are applicable in India would wish to see this content in the public domain," he said.

Sibal said the Internet companies had told him that they were applying U.S. standards to their sites, and he objected, saying that they needed to be sensitive to Indian sensibilities.

Rajesh Chharia, president of the Internet Service Providers Association of India, said Internet companies need to be mindful of concerns over national security and national sensitivities.

"I am not favoring censorship ? self-regulation is the best censorship available to our system," he said. "We should not do anything which should harm the peace of the country."

India has had conflicts with technology companies in the past over information access, and Sibal said Tuesday that many of the companies have been reluctant to hand over data the government has asked for related to terrorists.

Last year, India threatened to ban the popular corporate email and messenger services on Blackberry devices amid security concerns over access to encrypted information. The government later backed down.

The Indian government has made 68 requests to Google this year to remove content, according to Google. The government has also expressed concerns that Google Earth could be used by terrorists to examine targets in preparation for an attack.

___

Ravi Nessman can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/ravinessman

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/asia/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111206/ap_on_hi_te/as_india_internet

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California's budget process has devolved into a legal labyrinth | Dan ...

California budgets used to be fairly simple documents, fundamentally allocating whatever financial resources the state might have at the moment among its various well-delineated responsibilities.

No more.

Proposition 13, enacted in 1978, had the indirect effect of centralizing major financial decision-making affecting local governments and schools in the Capitol.

Those decisions were affected by subsequent ballot measures, and volatile revenue swings put the budget in a more or less permanent deficit condition.

Today?s budgets are complex packages not only of appropriations but of legislation to legalize, or so it?s assumed, the political decisions. And that inevitably means that after budgets are passed, budget stakeholders often adjourn to the courts to continue their jousting for many more months.

Tellingly, when the Legislature?s budget analyst, Mac Taylor, weighed in on the state?s budget problems last month, his numbers assumed the state would win all of the current lawsuits.

One of those suits illustrates the financial and legal complexity of contemporary budgets and the legal morass that they spawn.

For several years, Capitol politicians have been trying to tap into the $5 billion that city redevelopment agencies skim off the top of the property tax pool each year to repay their bond debts and otherwise support their operations.

Why? Because under the state constitution, the state must make up nearly 40 percent of that diversion, about $1.7 billion, to schools ? a subsidy from all California taxpayers to local redevelopment projects.

Cities jealously guard that money and persuaded voters to pass a 2010 ballot measure (Proposition 22) aimed at protecting it and other local government funds from state raids.

However, Gov. Jerry Brown and legislators decided that Prop. 22 didn?t prohibit them from abolishing redevelopment altogether, and they passed a law to that effect. And then they softened it to say that cities could continue redevelopment if they coughed up $1.7 billion for schools.

The subsequent lawsuit reached the state Supreme Court a few weeks ago, with a decision likely in January, just in time for the next round of budget follies. And it could have a very ironic result.

The comments of justices during oral arguments indicated that they may uphold redevelopment?s abolition as a legitimate exercise of state authority, but invalidate the law allowing cities to pay the continuation fees because that would violate Prop. 22, thus ensnaring them in their own political trap.

Another twist: County governments, which have also complained about state raids, seem to be hoping for that outcome because abolition of city redevelopment agencies would shift more property taxes to counties.

Dan Walters? Sacramento Bee columns on state politics are syndicated by the Scripps Howard News Service.

Source: http://www.sfexaminer.com/sports/columnists/2011/12/california-s-budget-process-has-devolved-legal-labyrinth

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Box Office: Breaking Dawn Takes Top Spot for Third Straight Week (omg!)

With no competition from new releases, Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 1 ruled the box office for the third straight week, Box Office Mojo reports.

The fourth Twilight film grossed an estimated $16.9 million in its third week of release, bringing its total to $247.3 million. The Muppets took second place again with $11.2 million.

The Muppets come back big but can't catch Breaking Dawn

Hugo rose from fifth to third place in its second week, grabbing $7.6 million. Arthur Christmas drew $7.3 million to hold onto the No. 4 spot. Happy Feet Two followed at No. 5 with $6 million.

Jack and Jill stayed in sixth place for a second week, laughing up $5.5 million. The Descendants took in $5.2 million and moved up from ninth place to seventh place.

Rounding out the top 10: Immortals (No. 8, $4.3 million), Tower Heist (No. 9, $4.1 million) and Puss in Boots (No. 10, $3 million, for a total of $139.5 million).

Related Articles on TVGuide.com

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/entertainment/*http%3A//us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/external/omg_rss/rss_omg_en/news_box_office_breaking_dawn_takes_top_spot_third234200692/43804022/*http%3A//omg.yahoo.com/news/box-office-breaking-dawn-takes-top-spot-third-234200692.html

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Medical marijuana jeopardizes liver transplant

Norman Smith, who has liver cancer, was placed on the transplant list at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center last year.

But early this year, doctors removed him because he was using medical marijuana and failed to show up for a drug test.

To get back on the list, Smith, 63, has to spend six months avoiding medical marijuana, submitting to random drug tests and receiving counseling. He is still undergoing chemotherapy and radiation for the cancer, which recently returned after being in remission. Smith has asked Cedars-Sinai to reconsider and reinstate him.

"It's frustrating," he said from his home in Playa del Rey. "I have inoperable cancer. If I don't get a transplant, the candle's lit and it's a short fuse."

Smith's case highlights a new twist on a long-running debate within the transplant community?should people whose use of drugs or alcohol may have contributed to liver problems be candidates for transplants? And if so, how long should they be clean before becoming eligible for a new organ?

With the ubiquitous presence of medical marijuana, doctors say patients like Smith who have prescriptions increasingly are showing up at transplant centers seeking new livers. Statistics on such requests aren't available, but experts agree the prescription medical marijuana cases are forcing doctors to revisit medical and ethical questions surrounding drug use and transplantation.

There is no standard on transplants and the use of medical marijuana or other drugs, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing, which manages organ transplantation for the U.S. Instead, transplant centers make their own decisions on which patients are the best candidates for new organs, meaning policies vary from center to center.

Livers are highly sought-after organs. More than 16,000 people are in line for livers nationwide and the average wait is about 300 days, according to the network.

"We have to do a prioritization, like you literally do on a battlefield ? who can die and who can survive, because we don't have enough livers," said Dr. Goran Klintmalm, chief of the Baylor Regional Transplant Institute and an expert in liver transplantation. "As long as we have patients who die on the list waiting for organs ? is it right to give [to] patients who have a history of drug use? You can discuss until the cows come home if it is social marijuana or medical marijuana."

Transplant doctors said one of the main concerns is compliance with a complicated regimen of post-transplant medications.

"If you are drunk or high or stoned, you are not going to take your medicine," said Dr. Jeffrey Crippin, former president of the American Society of Transplantation and medical director at Washington University in St. Louis.

Cedars-Sinai spokeswoman Sally Stewart said federal law prevented her from talking about Smith's case. But she said marijuana users can be exposed to a species of mold that can cause fatal disease among patients with compromised immune systems. They also run a risk of a fatal lung infection after transplantation, she said.

"We do not make a moral or ethical judgment about people who are smoking medical marijuana," she said. "Our concern is strictly for the health and safety of our patients."

At Cedars-Sinai, if patients who need a transplant initially test positive for marijuana, they can still be listed but must sign a statement agreeing not to use the drug. Then, if they fail a random drug test or don't show up for one, they are bumped from the list. "There have to be guidelines in order to give people the best chance at surviving a transplant," Stewart said.

UCLA Transplantation Services has an even stricter policy, requiring six months of sobriety before a patient can be listed. Dr. Douglas Farmer, a transplant surgeon and surgery professor at UCLA, said that drug and alcohol use is a "huge issue" and that patients on medical marijuana have also come to UCLA seeking transplants.

Farmer said, however, that many patients with medical marijuana prescriptions are not "legitimate" and transplant surgeons can't risk wasting a precious organ on someone who is going to continue abusing alcohol or drugs. "There are a significant number of people who come in for liver transplants who have a substance abuse history," he said.

Any delay in getting Smith a new liver could mean the "difference between life and death," said Joe Elford, an attorney with the medical marijuana advocacy group Americans for Safe Access, which is representing Smith and considering a lawsuit against the hospital.

Smith's oncologist, Dr. Steven A. Miles, an attending physician at Cedars, refilled the prescription for medical marijuana to manage his patient's pain. Miles, who is in private practice, agreed that by missing his drug test Smith raised concern about his patient's post-transplant compliance with medical instructions.

Nevertheless, Miles said his patient will die without a new liver. "Without a transplant, it is basically 100% fatal," he said. "It's just a matter of time."

Smith, a former precious metal trader, acknowledged that he didn't follow the rules. He said he used medical marijuana after having unrelated back surgery and weaning himself from the prescription pain pills. "I was in extreme pain and physical anguish," he said.

In April, he wrote a letter to the head of the liver transplant program at Cedars, Steven Colquhoun, asking to be relisted. In his response, Colquhoun wrote, "More than other organ programs, liver transplant centers must consider issues of substance abuse seriously since it does often play a role in the evolution of diseases that may require transplantation, and may adversely impact a new organ after transplant."

Smith, a recovered alcoholic, said he used marijuana recreationally in the past before getting a prescription for medical marijuana. He also has cirrhosis of the liver and previously had Hepatitis C. Smith said he stopped using marijuana in August and is attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings to satisfy his counseling requirement.

Smith is hopeful that he will get a transplant in time and that his fight will raise awareness for others with medical marijuana prescriptions. "That's why I am going through this challenge, at the very least to make it easier for the next guy," he said.

anna.gorman@latimes.com

Source: http://feeds.latimes.com/~r/latimes/news/science/~3/w0vkezUq3WE/la-me-transplant-20111126,0,2727230.story

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South African debuts AIDS film on World AIDS Day (AP)

JOHANNESBURG ? A film opening on World AIDS Day Thursday that mixes live action and animation is taking viewers inside a soccer player's body, showing how he becomes infected with HIV and spreads the virus.

The cast and characters are Kenyan, Nigerian and South African ? which producers hope will help the movie travel across the continent hardest hit by the disease. The pull of soccer, which has a unique power to unite Africans, also should help.

Harriet Gavshon, a producer who worked on "Inside Story: The Science of HIV/AIDS," said the "toxic combination" of death and sex still makes it difficult for people to discuss AIDS.

"You have to constantly find new ways of trying to talk about it," she said.

The 90-minute film, aimed at viewers from their mid-teens and up, is a co-production of Johannesburg's Curious Pictures and an international development program sponsored by the U.S. reality and educational TV company Discovery.

Thursday's premiere at a Johannesburg multiplex will be followed by a U.S. debut in January in Washington and one in Nigeria later next year.

Aric Noboa, president of Discovery Channel Global Education Partnership, said they hope to broadcast the film and distribute DVDS, along with booklets to help guide community leaders in conducting post-film discussions.

Films, TV and radio shows, newspaper ads and billboards can get conversations started. But experts at loveLife, a group that has pioneered a range of programs to teach young South Africans about AIDS, say changing behavior requires keeping the dialogue going long enough for lifesaving messages to sink in.

It appears, though, that messages are getting across in South Africa, at least to young people targeted by projects like "Inside Story." Results released this week from a South African health ministry survey found that infections among 15- to 24-year-olds had dropped from 23.1 percent in 2001 to 21.8 percent in 2010.

But across all age groups, infections are creeping up, and this country of 50 million that has more people ? at least 5.5 million ? living with HIV than in any other country.

The focus on prevention may be becoming even more important. The cost of treatment is increasing as more people test and go on drugs, and efforts to find a cure or vaccine are advancing slowly and fitfully.

According to a U.N. report released on the eve of World AIDS Day, funding for HIV programs dropped from $15.9 billion in 2009 to $15 billion in 2010, well below the estimated $22 billion to $24 billion the U.N. says is needed in 2015 for a comprehensive global response. The report cited the global economic crisis and concerns about the sustainability of the AIDS response, given the increasing costs of treatment and prevention.

Last week, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria declared it had run out of money to pay for new health programs in the next two years. The fund currently pays for AIDS drugs for about half of the world's HIV patients in developing countries.

It took five years and $2 million ? raised from the U.S. and South African governments, the U.N. AIDS agency and other donors ? to put together "Inside Story."

Since 1997, Discovery Channel Global Education Partnership has been getting educational TV to impoverished communities. Noboa said "Inside Story" grew out of requests from teachers in Africa and elsewhere for more information about AIDS.

The problem is confounded in South Africa by years of misinformation from a president, Thabo Mbeki, who questioned the link between HIV and AIDS, and a health minister, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, who promoted a "treatment" of beets and garlic.

"I think the issues that were part and parcel of the Mbeki era are still there, they still linger on," said Dr. Dave Spencer, a program director at Right to Care, which provides treatment for thousands of HIV-positive South Africans.

A doctor can prescribe AIDS medication and see a patient grow stronger and healthier. Campaigners trying to change the behavior that leads to infection can never be sure their message is getting across.

"It's so hard to know where exactly we are in the fight," said the director of "Inside Story," Rolie Nikiwe. "It's a frustrating fight, but it's one that needs to be fought."

___

AP Medical Writer Maria Cheng contributed to this report from London.

____

Donna Bryson can be reached on http://twitter.com/dbrysonAP

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/entertainment/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111201/ap_en_ot/af_south_africa_aids_movie

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In or out? Cain to say whether he'll stay in race (tbo)

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