Sanofi considered moving headquarters abroad: report

PARIS (Reuters) – Sanofi‘s management considered moving its headquarters abroad in the last few months but the plan was nixed by the drugmaker’s chairman, French weekly Le Journal du Dimanche reported on Sunday, citing sources close to the board.

First mooted in July, when the Socialist government was preparing to introduce a 75 percent tax on top earnings, the plan envisaged moving the headquarters to London or the United States, or at least relocating Chief Executive Chris Viehbacher and his closest associates abroad.

However, Chairman Serge Weinberg vetoed the project, the newspaper said, saying that Viehbacher had not raised the issue with him.

A Sanofi spokesman denied such plans were discussed and said the company’s recent move to new corporate headquarters in Paris showed its commitment to its base in the city.

Several of the company’s top executives are foreign and spend most of their time travelling abroad.

In addition to German-Canadian Viehbacher, they include Elias Zerhouni, an Algerian-born American in charge of research and development, and Hanspeter Spek, the German-born president of global operations.

Italian Roberto Pucci, senior vice president of human resources, and Karen Linehan, Sanofi’s American-born general counsel, are also part of the executive committee.

Sanofi, which is reshuffling its French research operations at a cost of around 900 jobs, would not be the first French firm to consider moving top executives overseas.

French industrial conglomerate Schneider Electric has kept its headquarters near Paris, but its top managers, including Chief Executive Jean-Pascal Tricoire, relocated to Hong Kong last year in a move to be closer to fast-growing markets in Asia.

Industry Minister Arnaud Montebourg, who has opposed the reorganization of Sanofi’s research activities in France, was cited by the newspaper as saying he hoped the plan was just a rumor.

(Reporting by Elena Berton; Editing by Hugh Lawson)

Health News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Forget war on women: Men’s vote could decide who wins the White House

A man ponders his vote in Las Vegas. (David Becker/Getty)

A barrage of attention from the presidential candidates and the news media has been paid to "waitress moms," "Walmart women" and other exhibits of the female species this election, with pundits wondering whether the female gender gap, which works in the president's favor, will carry him over the top on Election Day.

But the focus might be better spent on men.

"The issue is not the women's vote, but the men's vote," Frank Newport, Gallup's editor-in-chief, told Yahoo News. The reason: polls show male voters look much more likely to break from their 2008 voting patterns. If that happens, the men's vote could decide whether Barack Obama or Mitt Romney becomes the next president.

Four years ago, Obama won 49 percent of the male vote, buoyed by historic gains with white men, who chose the Democratic candidate in the highest proportions seen since Jimmy Carter. Even so, most white men—57 percent of them—still voted for John McCain, and a majority of such voters have not backed a Democratic candidate since 1964, when men began abandoning the Democratic party.

This year, Obama's inroads with white men have eroded. Worse, the candidate tracks in the low 40s among all men, not just white ones, in the latest ABC/Washington Post polls. It's possible the president will have lost up to 9 points of ground among male voters compared to 2008. No Democratic candidate has been elected in the past 50 years without gaining close to half of the male vote.

Why are some men abandoning Obama? It's open to interpretation, but one fairly straightforward theory from Newport is that male voters rate Romney higher on the issues that they say are most important:  jobs, the economy and the deficit.

Another theory, laid out in a study by Texas A&M political science professor Paul Kellstedt, is that over the past 30 years men have been more likely to shift rightward during economic downturns, supporting conservative candidates who vow to cut back on government spending. Women also shift rightward in response to a faltering economy, but they are more likely than men to support social safety net programs, and thus much less likely to support a candidate who wants government cuts.

On average, men and women think about the role of government in a fundamentally different way, notes the Democratic pollster Celinda Lake. That difference accounts for one of the biggest shifts in party identification in the past 50 years.

Beginning in 1964, but intensifying with Ronald Reagan's first presidential election, men began leaving the Democratic party and voting Republican. The major causes of the shift were attitudes on both government spending and war, according to the Rutgers political scientist Susan Carroll. For the most part women, who in surveys are not only consistently much more wary of government cutbacks than men, but also much less likely to support foreign military interventions and wars, stayed with the Democrats.

It was men, not women, who changed the political landscape by changing their votes, and women who have been the political stalwarts.

It still makes sense, however, for Romney and Obama to make overt appeals to women. (And to give them fervent shout-outs during debates and party conventions.) According to Lake, women make up about 60 percent of undecided voters this election, which is higher than their projected share of the electorate, 52 percent. And in past elections' exit polls, more women than men said they made up their minds about whom to vote for in the last week before an election.

Still, according to the ABC News/Washington Post pollster Gary Langer and other experts, female voters are not expected to change their votes, on average, significantly from 2008, when they were seven percentage points more likely than men to vote for Obama. This is despite a few recent polls suggesting Romney may be closing in on Obama's support with women. (The Obama campaign has been quick to dismiss these polls.)

"I think it's going to end up in that ballpark. I don't expect it will look vastly different," Carroll said of the gender gap.

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Syria army quits base on strategic Aleppo road

BEIRUT (Reuters) – The Syrian army abandoned its last base near the northern town of Saraqeb after a fierce assault by rebels, further isolating the strategically important second city Aleppo from the capital.

But in a political setback to forces battling to topple President Bashar al-Assad, the United Nations said the rebels appeared to have committed a war crime after seizing the base.

The opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Friday government troops had retreated from a post northwest of Saraqeb, leaving the town and surrounding areas “completely outside the control of regime forces”.

It was not immediately possible to verify the reported army withdrawal. Authorities restrict journalists’ access in Syria and state media made no reference to Saraqeb.

The pullout followed coordinated rebel attacks on Thursday against three military posts around Saraqeb, 50 km (30 miles) southwest of Aleppo, in which 28 soldiers were killed.

Several were shown in video footage being shot after they had surrendered.

“The allegations are that these were soldiers who were no longer combatants. And therefore, at this point it looks very likely that this is a war crime, another one,” U.N. human rights spokesman Rupert Colville said in Geneva.

“Unfortunately this could be just the latest in a string of documented summary executions by opposition factions as well as by government forces and groups affiliated with them, such as the shabbiha (pro-government militia),” he said.

Video footage of the killings showed rebels berating the captured men, calling them “Assad’s dogs”, before firing round after round into their bodies as they lay on the ground.

Rights groups and the United Nations say rebels and forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad have committed war crimes during the 19-month-old conflict. It began with protests against Assad and has spiraled into a civil war which has killed 32,000 people and threatens to drag in regional powers.

The mainly Sunni Muslim rebels are supported by Sunni states including Saudi Arabia, Qatar and neighboring Turkey. Shi’ite Iran remains the strongest regional supporter of Assad, who is from the Alawite faith which is an offshoot of Shi’ite Islam.

STRATEGIC BLOW

Saraqeb lies at the meeting point of Syria’s main north-south highway, linking Aleppo with Damascus, and another road connecting Aleppo to the Mediterranean port of Latakia.

With areas of rural Aleppo and border crossings to Turkey already under rebel control, the loss of Saraqeb would leave Aleppo city further cut off from Assad’s Damascus powerbase.

Any convoys using the highways from Damascus or the Mediterranean city of Latakia would be vulnerable to rebel attack. This would force the army to use smaller rural roads or send supplies on a dangerous route from Al-Raqqa in the east, according to the Observatory’s director, Rami Abdelrahman.

In response to the rebels’ territorial gains, Assad has stepped up air strikes against opposition strongholds, launching some of the heaviest raids so far against working class suburbs east of Damascus over the last week.

The bloodshed has continued unabated despite an attempted ceasefire, proposed by join U.N.-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi to mark last month’s Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha.

In the latest in a string of fruitless international initiatives, China called on Thursday for a phased, region-by-region ceasefire and the setting up of a transitional governing body – an idea which opposition leaders hope to flesh out at a meeting in Qatar next week.

Veteran opposition leader Riad Seif has proposed a structure bringing together the rebel Free Syrian Army, regional military councils and other rebel forces alongside local civilian bodies and prominent opposition figures.

His plan, called the Syrian National Initiative, calls for four bodies to be established: the Initiative Body, including political groups, local councils, national figures and rebel forces; a Supreme Military Council; a Judicial Committee and a transitional government made up of technocrats.

The initiative has the support of Washington. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called on Wednesday for an overhaul of the opposition, saying it was time to move beyond the troubled Syrian National Council.

The SNC has failed to win recognition as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people and Clinton said it was time to bring in “those on the front lines fighting and dying”.

(Additional reporting by Oliver Holmes in Beirut and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; Editing by Jon Boyle)

World News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Google's Android software in 3 out of 4 smartphones

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AP PHOTOS: Stars come out for Sandy victims’ show

NEW YORK (AP) — For the victims of Superstorm Sandy, it was a sorely needed message delivered.

From “Livin’ on a Prayer” to “The Living Proof,” every song Friday at NBC’s benefit concert became a message song.

New Jersey‘s Jon Bon Jovi gave extra meaning to “Who Says You Can’t Go Home.” Billy Joel worked in a reference to Staten Island, the decimated New York City borough.

The hourlong event, hosted by Matt Lauer, was heavy on stars and lyrics identified with New Jersey and the New York metropolitan area, which took the brunt of this week’s deadly storm. The telethon was a mix of music, storm footage and calls for donations from Jon Stewart, Tina Fey, Whoopi Goldberg and others.

The show ended, as it only could, with Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, tearing into “Land Of Hope and Dreams.”

“God bless New York,” Springsteen, New Jersey‘s ageless native son, said in conclusion. “God bless the Jersey shore.”

Here, in pictures, are some of the performers on this somber but hopeful night:

Entertainment News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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How Computational Models Are Improving Medicine [Video]

Click here to view the video

High-resolution electromechanical model of a heart; courtesy of N. Trayanova

The more we learn about cancer, heart disease and Alzheimer’s, the more vexingly complex they seem–and the more elusive their cures. Even with cutting-edge imaging technology, biomarker tests and genetic data, we are still far from understanding the multifaceted causes and varied developmental stages of these illnesses. With the advent of powerful computing, better modeling programs and a flood of raw biomedical data, researchers have been anticipating a leap forward in their abilities to decipher the intricate dynamics involved human disease. Now, these computational capabilities are starting to arrive, according to a new analysis published online this week in Science Translational Medicine. In fact, “the field has exploded,” Raymond Winslow, director of the Johns Hopkins Institute for Computational Medicine, and co-author of the review, said in a prepared statement. Medicine and medical research largely have been focused on small specialties and narrow studies. But the body is a whole system–not isolated organ groups–and it is in constant interaction with the wider environment, including pollutants, toxins and other stressors. The resulting interactions do not only work in a single direction; instead, we have learned that there are feed-forward and feedback loops and crosstalk on cellular, molecular and genetic levels. This nexus is where advances in computational medicine are poised to make a large contribution. “Computational medicine can help you see how the pieces of the puzzle fit together to give a more holistic picture,” Winslow said. “We may never have all of the missing pieces, but will wind up with a much clearer view of what causes disease and how to treat it.” Models comparing gene expression in different patients have already successfully helped to determine different grades of prostate cancer, predict how different patients will respond to breast cancer treatment and find different types of stomach cancer. Scientists are also taking advantage of more advanced anatomical data to model whole organs and their function–and dysfunction. Using, for example, diffusion tensor magnetic resonance imaging, researchers can collect detailed information about heart anatomy, fiber and structure. This macro structure can be combined with more cellular-based models for “unprecedented structural and biophysical detail, including cardiac electromechanics,” the researchers noted in their paper. With this information, scientists are learning more about blood-flow dynamics, arrhythmia and heart attacks. These new models are now starting to be translated back to individual patients, to help find better treatments. Computational-medicine algorithms from detailed brain maps have already been used to develop an iPad app that is being used clinically to help doctors decide on deep brain stimulation locations and strengths. These models, however, also need to be checked frequently against real-world data and adjusted accordingly. But researchers who are armed to deal with this once unusual cross-discipline endeavor are growing more common. “There is a whole new community of people being trained in mathematics, computer science and engineering, and they are being cross-trained in biology,” Winslow said. “This allows them to bring a whole new perspective to medical diagnosis and treatment.” The myriad applications for computational medicine approaches are only beginning to be explored, the researchers noted. “As we gain confidence in the ability of computational models to predict human biological processes, they will help guide us through the complex landscape of disease, ultimately leading to more effective and reliable methods for disease diagnosis, risk stratification and therapy,” the researchers wrote. “We are poised at an exciting moment in medicine.”

Video of electromechanical heart model courtesy of N. Trayanova

Follow Scientific American on Twitter @SciAm and @SciamBlogs. Visit ScientificAmerican.com for the latest in science, health and technology news.
© 2012 ScientificAmerican.com. All rights reserved.

Health News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Power sputters back in New York following Sandy

NEW YORK (AP) — More New Yorkers awoke Saturday morning to power being restored for the first time since Superstorm Sandy pummeled the region, and those whose lights were back on celebrated it, but patience was wearing thin among those in the region who had been without power for most of the week.

From storm-scarred New Jersey to parts of Connecticut, a widespread lack of gasoline frustrated people who were just trying to get to work or pick up a load of groceries. Gas was to be rationed starting at noon Saturday in northern New Jersey, where drivers will be allowed to buy it only every other day, the governor declared.

The ongoing recovery also forced the cancellation of Sunday's New York City Marathon. Mayor Michael Bloomberg reversed himself Friday and yielded to mounting criticism that this was no time to run the race, which starts on hard-hit Staten Island and wends through all five of the city's boroughs.

Bloomberg, who as late as Friday afternoon insisted the world's largest marathon should go on as scheduled Sunday, changed course shortly afterward amid intensifying opposition from the city comptroller, the Manhattan borough president and sanitation workers unhappy they had volunteered to help storm victims but were assigned to the race instead. The mayor said he would not want "a cloud to hang over the race or its participants."

Many runners understood the rationale behind the decision. The death toll in the city stood at 41 and thousands of people were shivering without electricity, making many New Yorkers recoil at the idea of police officers protecting a foot race and evicting storm victims from hotels to make way for runners.

But the suddenness of it all forced runners to deal with an unexpected twist: what to do with no race.

Well over half of the 40,000 athletes were from out of town. Their entry fees were paid. Their airline tickets were purchased. Their friends and family had hotel rooms. And all week the race was a go, even after Sandy came ashore Monday.

"I understand why it cannot be held under the current circumstances," Meb Keflezighi, the 2009 men's champion and 2004 Olympic silver medalist, said in a statement. "Any inconveniences the cancellation causes me or the thousands of runners who trained and traveled for this race pales in comparison to the challenges faced by people in NYC and its vicinity."

ING, the financial company that is the title sponsor of the marathon, said it supported the decision to cancel. The firm's charitable giving arm has made a $500,000 contribution to help with relief and recovery efforts and is matching employee donations. Sponsor Poland Spring said it would donate the bottled water earmarked for the marathon to relief agencies, more than 200,000 bottles.

"When you have a significant amount of people voicing real pain and unhappiness over its running, you have to hear that. You have to take that into consideration," said Howard Wolfson, deputy mayor for government affairs and communications.

"Something that is such a celebration of the best of New York can't become divisive," he said. "That is not good for the city now as we try to complete our recovery effort, and it is not good for the marathon in the long run."

Each day has brought signs of recovery in the region. Fewer than 1 million customers in New York were without power Saturday, the lowest the number has been since the storm hit.

Aida Padilla, 75, was thrilled that the power at her large housing authority complex in New York City's Chelsea section had returned late Friday.

"Thank God," said Padilla, 75. "I screamed and I put the lights on. Everybody was screaming. It was better than New Year's."

Asked about whether she had heat, she replied, "hot and cold water and heat! Thank God, Jesus!"

NYU Langone Medical Center, one of two New York hospitals that had to evacuate patients at the height of the storm, said it would reopen Monday, though some doctors would see patients at alternate sites.

Seven backup generators at the hospital failed during the storm surge on Monday night, forcing the evacuation of 300 patients.

At Bellevue Hospital Center, some 700 patients had to be evacuated after the power failed. An official there said Thursday the hospital could be out of commission at least two more weeks.

In New Jersey, Gov. Chris Christie announced that he would make public a list of when utility companies intend to restore power to each community. Even if they end up working faster or slower, he said, residents will have a sense of when they will have power restored so they can plan their lives a bit better.

Commuter rail operator NJ Transit said it would have more service restored in time for the workweek to start Monday, most of Atlantic City's casinos reopened, and many school districts decided to hold classes next Thursday and Friday, days previously reserved for the New Jersey Education Association's annual conference, which has been canceled because of the storm.

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Suicide Silence singer Lucker dies in California motorcycle accident

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Mitch Lucker, the lead singer of extreme heavy metal band Suicide Silence, died on Thursday of injuries suffered in a motorcycle accident in Huntington Beach, California, police said.

The band from Southern California was given the Golden Gods award for best new talent by Revolver magazine in 2009.

Lucker, 28, was on a new Harley Davidson motorcycle driving in the Orange County city of Huntington Beach on Halloween night when he lost control and crashed into a light pole, according to a statement from the local police department.

He was taken to the University of California, Irvine Medical Center where he later died, police said. Investigators said they were looking into the cause of the collision and whether alcohol was a factor.

“There’s no easy way to say this,” the band said in a post on Facebook. “Mitch passed away earlier this morning from injuries sustained during a motorcycle accident.”

Suicide Silence in 2007 came out with the album “The Cleansing” and followed that up with the 2009 “No Time to Bleed” and last year’s “The Black Crown,” which made its way to No. 9 on the Billboard hard rock chart.

The band, whose musical style is referred to as “deathcore,” is originally from Riverside, California, a working-class community 50 miles east of Los Angeles.

(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis; Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Will Dunham)

Music News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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U.S. FDA finds bacteria in New England Compounding drugs

(Reuters) – U.S. health officials have found bacteria in lots of an injected steroid and a heart drug made by New England Compounding Center, the pharmacy linked to contaminated steroids that have claimed the lives of at least 28 people.

The Food and Drug Administration said it identified different types of bacteria in three separate recalled batches of NECC‘s preservative-free betamethasone and in a single batch of NECC-supplied cardioplegia solution.

Betamethasone is an injectable steroid, while cardioplegia is used during heart surgery.

The FDA had previously confirmed the presence of a deadly fungus in two different NECC batches of a different injectable steroid tied to the national fungal meningitis outbreak. That drug, preservative-free methylprednisolone acetate, was used to treat back and joint pain.

The agency said it did not know how significant the bacterial contamination was in terms of the risk for human disease and said it had not received reports of confirmed cases of infection related to the organisms found in the two products.

However, the findings “reinforce the FDA’s concern about the lack of sterility in products produced at NECC’s compounding facility,” the agency said in a statement.

Federal health officials previously said they were investigating whether two other NECC products could be linked to fungal infections in three patients, including two who had undergone heart surgery.

NECC, located in Framingham, Massachusetts, shut down in early October and recalled all of its products.

The FDA said tests for fungus in the lots of betamethasone and cardioplegia are still underway.

The latest tally from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lists 386 cases of fungal meningitis and 28 deaths linked to injections of NECC steroids.

(Reporting by Deena Beasley; Editing by Andre Grenon and Lisa Shumaker)

Medications/Drugs News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Will final jobs report affect the election?

President Barack Obama and Republican rival Mitt Romney on Friday seized on the last jobs report before Election Day to reinforce their political arguments about the economy. Neither side, however, expected that the better-than-expected news would change many minds.

In a statement, Romney said that come Tuesday the choice would be "between stagnation and prosperity."

Obama, meanwhile, in front of a rowdy crowd of cheering supporters at the Franklin County Fairgrounds in Hilliard, Ohio, said, "This morning we learned that companies hired more workers in October than at any time in the last eight months.

"We've made real progress--but we are here today because we know we've got more work to do," Obama continued. "As long as there's a single American who wants a job and can't find one, as long as there are families working harder but falling behind, as long as there's a child anywhere in this country who's languishing in poverty and barred from opportunity, our fight goes on, we've got more work to do."

Neither campaign expected the new figure to do much to change the dynamic of the race. Aides on both sides have said in recent weeks that Americans' views of the economy are essentially fixed by now, barring a dramatic change.

The Labor Department's monthly jobs report did not provide such a tectonic shift. It showed that the economy added more jobs than experts had predicted and bolstered Obama's argument that he has overseen a slow but steady recovery from the 2007-2008 global economic meltdown.

At the same time, Republicans led by Romney seized on the news to charge that the incumbent has failed to bring about sturdier growth. At the current rate, it would take years to return to pre-recession levels. And no incumbent has faced the voters with unemployment this high since Franklin D. Roosevelt.

"On Tuesday, America will make a choice between stagnation and prosperity," Romney also said. "For four years, President Obama has told us that things are getting better and that we're making progress. For too many American families, those words ring hollow. We can do better."

Non-farm payrolls added 171,000 jobs last month, beating forecasts of about 125,000. The Labor Department also revised its previous estimates of employment growth in August and September upward by 84,000 jobs.

The unemployment rate ticked up from 7.8 percent to 7.9 percent, but chiefly as a result of more Americans getting off the sidelines and looking for work (those not looking are not counted in the jobless rate). Democrats emphasized that Obama had inherited a disastrous economy from George W. Bush and reversed what had been accelerating jobs losses. Republicans noted that the unemployment rate when Obama took office was 7.8 percent.

"Today's increase in the unemployment rate is a sad reminder that the economy is at a virtual standstill," Romney added. "The jobless rate is higher than it was when President Obama took office, and there are still 23 million Americans struggling for work."

One of the political challenges for Romney was that unemployment was lower than the national average in some critical battleground states. In September, it was 7 percent in Ohio, and 5.9 percent in Virginia.

An ABC News/Washington Post poll released on Thursday painted a mixed picture of voters' views about the economy. Fifty-four percent of likely voters expressed confidence that the economy would improve under Romney, against 47 percent for Obama. But 51 percent of those surveyed still blamed George W. Bush for the current conditions, against 36 percent for Obama. The Democrat has made tying Romney to Bush a centerpiece of his closing argument.

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