“Boardwalk Empire” creator on legalizing drugs and making Nucky likeable again












NEW YORK (TheWrap.com) – The prohibition drama “Boardwalk Empire” wrapped its spectacular third season Sunday night just weeks after the states of Colorado and Washington voted to legalize marijuana.


To “Boardwalk” creator Terence Winter, who has immersed himself in the history of prohibition to research his gangster epic, the votes feel like a move in the right direction.












“It’s great. I think they should legalize drugs in general,” Winter told TheWrap. “The war on drugs is clearly not working, and I think they should take the profit motive out of being a drug dealer. And maybe kids will go to college and do something else.”


Winter, who reassembled his writers a few weeks ago to begin work on the show’s fourth season, talked to us about whether they ever go out of their way to slow down the action, making Nucky Thompson (Steve Buscemi) likable again, and whether things are worse today than they were in the 1920s.


TheWrap: Is ‘Boardwalk’ making a case for drug legalization?


Winter: Well, I think history made it for us with prohibition. We’re just reflecting the reality of how it went down. I’m not trying to bend the reality or the truth of what happened. It clearly didn’t work. I don’t think people were more disposed to drink when alcohol was legal.


Actually, it had the opposite effect. Women didn’t start drinking until prohibition was enacted and college students didn’t start drinking until prohibition was enacted. Leaving the mystery aside might have had a better impact on the country – keeping it legal. In my personal opinion I don’t think making drugs legal would make anybody more likely to become a heroin addict, for example.


This is going to sound strange, but I mean it as a compliment. “Boardwalk” has a way of lulling you into looking at the costumes, and listening to the dialogue, and marveling at how pretty everything is. There are times when I almost want to nod off, it’s so comforting – and then suddenly someone gets set on fire. I feel you’re making a conscious effort to use boredom to really shock us at other times. Do you ever put in a scene that’s deliberately slow?


No, we don’t. I would disagree and say – slow or boring – there is dialogue that needs to be attended to and I think you need to pay attention to what’s going on. The pacing can sometimes be slower than certainly an action scene or a scene with incredible violence. Because we have such wide-ranging characters and such wide-ranging circumstances, some things might seem slower by comparison.


Obviously a scene involving a political figure or Margaret’s storyline, as opposed to something Al Capone is doing, is just by the very nature of it going to feel slow. But no, none of it is done by design.


I mean it in a good way. If you think things are slowing down, they’re not. It’s almost a trick.


The audience is so wide-ranging, too. We have people who can’t stand the violence and they’re much more entertained by the family stuff. One person’s slow is another person’s fascinating.


With the final episodes we got to see Nucky become really likable again. He’s always been generous, but at times he seemed a little too caught up in himself to care about the people around him. Was there an effort to make him a good guy again?


One of the points of this season is that he does get caught up in himself. That all comes home to visit in a big way in episode 11. He doesn’t know anything about Eddie Kessler the guy who works really closely with him. He doesn’t know if he has a family. He doesn’t know Chalky White’s phone number. It becomes apparent that he’s spent way too much time concerned with himself and his own affairs.


If you depict any character honestly, and show all of their colors, you’re going to find something relatable or likeable with anybody. And that’s certainly the truth with Al Capone or Luciano or Tony Soprano or any other famous character.


And certainly Steve Buscemi has an inherent likable quality to him. So when you add that to the mix you can’t help but like the guy.


Imagery is so important to the show, and I feel like at one point this season you did something just because it was gorgeous. When Billie changes her hair color to blonde, was there any reason to do that besides how incredible it looked in the explosion?


Well, she was sort of finally coming to terms with who she really was. That was the episode where she dropped the façade of Billie Kent and told Nucky her real name. She was going through a metamorphosis and that sort of illustrated that a little bit. They were sort of not pretending with each other any more.


Is Billie a natural blonde?


That color wasn’t natural. She wasn’t being Billie Kent that night. She was being the real person underneath. … But I agree it did look great in the explosion. Meg Chambers Steedle, who plays Billie Kent, is absolutely one of those people the camera just falls in love with. Unfortunately the context was terrible. But it was extremely cinematic.


Harrow kind of became the hero of the show this season. His scene of taking down the entire house full of gangsters: Wow. We’ve always been fascinated with the character and for me this season I was more interested in seeing who he is as a person and seeing him take that journey and fall in love and really explore that side of him. Given the way the story was, we knew it would end in violence.


But following the trajectory from the end of season 2, we knew this guy was very loyal to Jimmy and Angela and we knew he would stick around and take care of that kid. And of course Gillian being who she is, it wasn’t going to end well.


Is Gillian kaput at this point? The last time we saw her she was in a heroin daze, and she’s kind of lost everything.


She will be back on the show. She’s certainly still alive.


Is there anybody on the show you think you can’t kill?


Nope. Everybody’s up for grabs and that’s from the top on down. Anything can happen.


We hear so much about how much trouble our country is in. Do you think things are worse than they were in the 1920s?


No, and if anything, reading about how bad things were in the 1920s is strangely comforting in terms of how we think about things today. The level of corruption and the whole idea of going to hell in a hand basket is certainly nothing new. You look back and think, this pales in comparison. I think the more things change the more they stay the same.


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Soccer-Paraguayan player dies of viral infection in Indonesia












JAKARTA, Dec 4 (Reuters) – Paraguayan soccer player Diego Mendieta, who played for Indonesian club Persis Solo last year, has died of a viral infection, local media reported.


The 32-year-old striker died late on Monday in a hospital in Solo, Central Java, the Jakarta Globe reported.












The paper said Mendieta had wanted to return home but had been unable to do so as the club owed him four months’ wages which totalled 120 million rupiahs ($ 12,500).


“He always complained of being lonely,” Guntur Hernawan, the head of the internal medicine division at Moewardi Hospital in Solo, told reporters on Tuesday.


“He said he wanted to go home because all of his relatives were in Paraguay.”


Former Persis manager Totok Supriyanto was quoted by the paper as saying the outstanding debt would be paid to Mendieta’s family.


Solo mayor Hadi Rudyatmo said would he personally pay the player’s outstanding hospital bills and other expenses but called on others to help.


“To return him (to Paraguay), it should be handled by the Indonesian Football Association,” Hadi was quoted as saying by Detik.com. (Reporting by Patrick Johnston in Singapore; Editing by Clare Fallon)


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Does the GOP need a religious retreat?


(Photo by Brandon Thibodeaux/Getty Images)


It's no surprise that Florida Sen. Marco Rubio took heat for an interview he gave to GQ magazine this month: Departing from scientific consensus, the rising Republican star refused to state whether the Earth is billions of years old or a few thousand, as many fundamentalist Christians believe.


What no one expected was the rebuke from televangelist and longtime Christian conservative leader Pat Robertson, dismissing theories of a "young Earth."


"If you fight science, you are going to lose your children," Robertson said last week during an appearance on the Christian Broadcast Network, the television empire he founded three decades ago.


Robertson wasn't directly speaking to Rubio, but the senator and others in his party might heed the advice. Viewed by many voters as anti-science and too conservative on social issues such as gay marriage, the Republican Party is in danger of losing young and less religious voters for years to come.


In a post-election breakdown by the Public Religion Research Institute, the Obama religious coalition mirrors the demographics of 18-29 year olds, whereas Romney's mirrors those of voters aged 65 and up.


On Nov. 6, as President Barack Obama won a narrow but clear victory over Mitt Romney, voters in four states expressed support for gay marriage. Anti-abortion candidates lost in several states, including Senate contenders Todd Akin of Missouri and Richard Mourdock of Indiana, both of whom stirred outrage from their remarks on rape.


Many experts believe these developments point in part to a decisive shift in the religious makeup of the country, one that could make or break a GOP comeback.


"The way Republicans speak is turning off the youngest, fastest growing groups in the country—Latinos and significantly, the unchurched, those with no religious affiliation," said Mark Rozell, a public policy professor at George Mason University who studies religion and politics. "To them, the Republicans are proselytizing."


Since the 1980s, organizations like Focus on the Family, the Moral Majority and the Christian Coalition cemented religious conservatives as visible and potent force in the Republican coalition and enforced discipline on social issues such as abortion and gay rights. But now, the religious landscape is changing beneath their feet.


Studies suggest the number of unchurched has doubled in the past two decades and shot up by 25 percent in the last four years. The shift has taken place across the country and across economic classes, most notably among the young; one fifth of adults and one third of Americans under thirty now declare themselves religiously unaffiliated.


The new and expanding group of unchurched voters overwhelmingly support same sex-marriage and legal abortion, and so they gravitate toward the Democratic Party.


"It's clearly a concern—we have a lot of work to do," said Gary Marx, executive director of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, which worked to boost turnout among Catholics and evangelical voters.


The group, founded by conservative Christian activist Ralph Reed, helped deliver more religious voters to the polls this year than in 2008, but such efforts couldn't deliver a Romney victory.


In a press release following the election, Reed acknowledged that minorities and the young—and therefore, he might have added, the unchurched—made the difference for Obama.


Marx and his colleagues insist they aren't especially concerned about the growing secularization of young voters. They are primarily looking to diversify the GOP's religious coalition, Marx said.


To close the Latino gap, Marx says conservative activists are planning a major outreach effort to evangelical Hispanics and to Hispanic Catholics who attend Mass.


"We are casting a wider net—the politics of addition, not subtraction," Marx said, adding that Latinos and other minorities have been attracted to many conservative positions like education reform.


Marx pointed to Georgia, where Hispanic and black voters supported a state amendment allowing the state government to set up charter schools.


Marx also suggested the Democratic advantage with young minority voters was "candidate-centric" — a reflection of Obama's unique status as the first black president.


But the problem may run deeper, into the Republican base: There is growing evidence that young evangelicals are simply less interested in politicizing hot-button issues.


"Young evangelicals don't look at the country as a battlefield, but rather a mission field," says James Wilcox, a George Mason University political science professor. "They're are less scared than their forbearers: They see the 'War on Religion' narrative as nonsense; they see churches thriving, the outlets they have, and the extent of religious pluralism in this country."


The new generation sees community activism, rather than electoral politics, as the means for their faith to shape the world, Wilcox argues. They may disagree with liberals about same-sex marriage, but they also believe that states have the right to determine such policies.


Many younger evangelicals are also serious about addressing climate change, even as many high-profile conservatives have expressed doubt about whether climate change is real—with nominee Mitt Romney cracking jokes about it at this year's Republican National Convention.


None of this means the influence of religious conservatives on Republican politics is set to disappear. But it is most certainly about to change.


Between the rise of the unchurched and the moderation of young religious conservatives, experts say, a smaller movement may emerge — one that retains its current zeal but carries less sway over the selection of GOP nominees. Or the movement could retain its power by successfully diversifying and coming up with a new way to talk to voters.


"We plan to reach out with a softer, pro-family agenda—less emphasis on the sexual points, more talk about family," Marx of the Faith and Freedom Coalition said. He also said activists would develop a "forward-looking" policy agenda akin to President George W. Bush's "compassionate conservatism."


But at the same time, Marx believes that some of that message already has been lifted by social liberals: "It is true that gay rights activists have stolen that language of 'family' we've used successfully, and now use it for their purposes."


One way for religious conservatives to start again, Rozell said, would be to return the favor and take a tip from two much-heralded communicators: Presidents Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton.


"Successful politicians can speak two languages, even if it's hard to do," Rozell said. Reagan did it, addressing both the Christian right and a largely secular small-government audience. Often times it's a shift in rhetoric rather than policy."


Rozell cited Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell of Virginia, a strong social conservative, who has maintained his popularity by using language that appeals to both religious and secular audiences.


Another strategy would be to borrow from the vocabulary of the other team, as Bill Clinton did when he co-opted the rhetoric of religious conservatives to crack down on the culture of sex and violence on TV.


"Put aside this talk of wars," Rozell says, "Republicans could easily adopt the rhetoric of "rights" and "tolerance" that liberals currently own, to speak to secular types about the value of pluralism and religious conscience."



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Gunmen assassinate peasant leader in Paraguay












ASUNCION, Paraguay (AP) — Gunmen murdered one of the surviving leaders of a peasant movement whose land dispute with a powerful politician prompted the end of Fernando Lugo‘s presidency last June.


Vidal Vega, 48, was hit four times early Saturday by bullets from a 12-gauge shotgun and a .38-caliber revolver fired by two unidentified men who sped away on a motorcycle, according to an official report prepared at the police headquarters in the provincial capital of Curuguaty.












A friend, Mario Espinola, told The Associated Press that Vega was shot down when he stepped outside to feed his farm animals.


Vega was among the public faces of a commission of landless peasants from the settlement of Yby Pyta, which means Red Dirt in their native Guarani language.


He had lobbied the government for many years to redistribute some of the ranchland that Colorado Party Sen. Blas Riquelme began occupying in the 1960s.


By last May, the peasants finally lost patience and moved onto the land. A firefight during their eviction on June 15 killed 11 peasants and six police officers, prompting the Colorado Party and other leading parties to vote Lugo out of office for allegedly mismanaging the dispute.


Twelve suspects, nearly all of them peasants from Yby Pyta, have been jailed without formal charges since then on suspicion of murdering the officers, seizing property and resisting authority. The prosecutor had six months to develop the case and will present his findings Dec. 16.


Vega was expected to be a witness at the criminal trial, since he was among the few leaders who weren’t killed in the clash or jailed afterward.


He wasn’t charged because he was away getting supplies when the violence erupted at the settlement erected by the peasants inside Riquelme’s ranch, the Naranjaty Commission’s secretary, Martina Paredes, told the AP.


“We think he was assassinated by hit men who were sent, we don’t know by whom, perhaps to frighten us and frustrate our fight to recover the state lands that were illegally taken by Riquelme,” she said.


Riquelme, who died of natural causes about a month after the battle in June, occupied the land during the dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner, whose government gave away land for free to anyone willing to put it to productive use.


A local court in Curuguaty upheld Riquelme’s claim to the land years later. Lugo’s government later sought to overturn the decision, but the case remains tied up in court.


Latin America News Headlines – Yahoo! News


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Hands-On With the World-Changing $40 Tablet












Aakash2


The Aakash2 is available for $ 40.41 (2,263 rupees), but the government of India will subsidize half the cost for schoolchildren. The tablet is conceived as a tool to help end India‘s rampant illiteracy. Aakash2 will bring school-age children connectivity and unprecidented access to books.


Click here to view this gallery.












[More from Mashable: Zynga Holiday Campaign Turns Virtual Goods Into Real-World Donations]


The Aakash2, the second generation of the monumental, ultra-cheap tablet from Indian manufacturer DataWind, arrived in the U.S. Wednesday, with a welcome at the U.N. Headquarters in New York.


DataWind is hoping to prove to the tech and development communities that the $ 40 Aakash2 is faster than its predecessor, the original Aakash, which was much-criticized for its glacial processor.


[More from Mashable: The Top 5 Gadget Innovations of 2012]


You may be wondering what exactly you can put in a tablet that sells for just $ 40.41. The 7-inch Android-powered device has 512 MB of RAM, a 1 Ghz processor, 4 GB of flash memory, a multi-touch capacitative screen, front-facing camera, an internal microphone and speakers. The Aakash2 includes a USB hub, an adapter cable, a wall charger and a 12-month warranty.


Sunseet Singh Tuli, DataWind’s CEO and the visionary behind the tablet, points out that Aakash2 wasn’t conceived for the same demographic as the iPad. It’s developed out of the requisite “frugal innovation” that guides India and the developing world.


“Frugal innovation isn’t about creating an iPad killer, it’s about creating an iPad for him,” said Tuli, pointing to a presentation slide of a lower-class man who’s primary motivation is to receive an education. “This is not a straight commerce effort — it’s an educational effort.”


Even the tablet’s name — Aakash, which means sky in Hindi — references that it was created to awaken students’ potential. The government of India has committed to subsidize 50% of the cost of the device for students, making it available for roughly $ 20.


According to DataWind, the technological breakthrough of the Aakash2, which is why the device can be made so inexpensively, is twofold. First, much of its memory and processing power is transfered to backend servers. Second, the parallel processing environment speeds the user experience in remote areas and congested networks.


The Aakash2 also eliminates hardware features deemed unnecessary for the target audience, such as bluetooth and the HDMI interface. It uses open source software to cut costs, as well.


“This tablet seeks to empower the world’s neediest and bridges the digital divide within our society,” said Hardeep Singh Puri, India’s permanent representative to the U.N. at the launch event. “To us, Aakash2 is the epitome of such high end innovation and excellence.”


The Aakash to was designed and developed in Canada, though it was conceived, assembled and programmed in India. DataWind and the Indian government have received criticism because the process is not entirely domestic, though both said they are committed to moving more of the production process to India when cost allows.


The Indian government has committed to equipping all 220 million students in the country with low-cost computing devices and Internet access over the next five years. To put that number in perspective, just 250,000 tablets were sold in India in 2011. It will cost $ 1.6 billion per year at the rate of equipping 40 million students for each of the next five years. The national government has committed to covering half the cost — $ 800 million per year — and will count on state governments and institutions to cover the remaining 50% of costs. Though it sounds like a daunting figure, $ 800 million is only 5% of India’s annual education budget.


“More and more schools in some of the most impoverished areas are using technology, text messaging and mobile applications to enhance the quality of education and open new doors,” said U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday. “Our challenge is to leverage the power of technology and bridge the digital divide.”


During Wednesday’s event at the U.N., Tuli presented Ki-moon with an Aakash2 tablet for each of the U.N. ambassadors.


Not surprisingly, other countries throughout the developing world have noticed the Aakash tablet’s potential. Thailand, Turkey, Sri Lanka, Bolivia, Honduras, Nicaragua, Brazil and Panama have all expressed interest in bringing the low-cost tablet to their students.


“The next arms race is to equip our children with knowledge and information,” Tuli said.


If you’re wondering when you can get your hands on an Aakash2 in the U.S., DataWind plans to begin selling the device in the U.S. in early 2013.


Do you think this low-cost tablet has the power to bridge the digital divide and combat illiteracy? Let us know in the comments.


This story originally published on Mashable here.


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“Searching for Sugar Man” wins Producers Guild documentary nomination












LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – “Searching for Sugar Man” is the best-known of the five films whose producers have been nominated for documentary motion pictures by Producers Guild of America, which announced its nominations on Friday.


Malik Bendjelloul’s film about the rediscovery of ’70s recording artist Rodriguez joined a slate of nominees that also includes Jon Shenk’s doc about the ousted president of the Maldives, “The Island President”; Marius A. Merkevicius‘ story of the 1992 Lithuanian Olympic basketball team, “The Other Dream Team”; Dror Moreh’s chronicle of some members of the Israeli intelligence services, “The Gatekeepers”; and Aaron Yeger’s film about the Roma (gypsies) in Europe, “A People Uncounted.”












The PGA bypassed number of the year’s high-profile docs, including “Bully,” “The Queen of Versailles,” “The Imposter,” “Samsara,” “West of Memphis” and “The Invisible War.”


Of the guild’s choices, only “Sugar Man” was also nominated in the top category at the IDA Awards and the Cinema Eye Honors, the two major awards in the documentary field.


The PGA release:


LOS ANGELES, CA (November 30, 2012) – The Producers Guild of America (PGA) announced today the Documentary Motion Picture nominees that will advance in the voting process for the 24th Annual Producers Guild Awards.


The nominated films, listed below in alphabetical order, are:


A PEOPLE UNCOUNTED


THE GATEKEEPERS


THE ISLAND PRESIDENT


THE OTHER DREAM TEAM


SEARCHING FOR SUGAR MAN


All other nominations for the 2013 Producers Guild Award categories will be announced on January 3, 2013, along with the individual producers.


All 2013 Producers Guild Award winners will be announced on January 26, 2013 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. This year, the Producers Guild will also award special honors to Bob and Harvey Weinstein, J.J. Abrams, Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner and Russell Simmons, among others. The 2013 Producers Guild Awards Chair is Michael De Luca.


In 1990, the Producers Guild held the first-ever Golden Laurel Awards, which were renamed the Producers Guild Awards in 2002. Richard Zanuck and Lili Fini Zanuck took home the award for Best Produced Motion Picture for DRIVING MISS DAISY, establishing the Guild’s awards as a bellwether for the Oscars. Last year, the PGA awarded THE ARTIST with its Darryl F. Zanuck Producer of the Year Award in Theatrical Motion Pictures, marking the fifth consecutive year the Producers Guild has presaged the Academy of Motion Picture’s choice.


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Holiday fitness gifts trend from high-tech to basic












NEW YORK (Reuters) – Looking for the perfect holiday present for a fitness fan? Gift offerings this year range from apps that can store a run in the country to be viewed later to gadgets so sophisticated they measure quality of sleep as well as calories burned.


There is also the revival of the humble foam roller, which experts say, like old-time push-ups, squats and planks, has never been more popular.












Anita Golden, fitness manager at a Crunch gym in New York City, said she’ll be giving clients a foam roller called the GRID.


“We’ve always had foam rollers in the club but now more people are using them as a way to ease post-workout muscles, prevent injuries and exercise the core,” Golden said.


When it comes to big-ticket items, Colleen Logan of Icon Health and Fitness, which manufactures a number of fitness brands, said the treadmill remains the most popular gift.


“Treadmills continue to lead the industry in terms of home fitness purchases,” said Logan.


They account for about 57 percent of fitness purchases, while elliptical trainers and stationary bicycles are a distant second and third place at about 8 percent each.


The average home treadmill costs about $ 700, said Logan, but the technology revolution has transformed even this stalwart at the high end.


The ultimate splurge, at $ 4,000, she said, is the Boston Marathon Treadmill, which allows users to adjust speed in 1/10 of a mile per hour increments without touching the console. It also lets users run a virtual Boston Marathon.


For people on a smaller budget, there is the iFit app that lets the iPhone capture a favorite vacation run or bike ride in Hawaii, store it in data centers all over the world which collectively are referred to as the “cloud,” and download it to an iFit-enabled treadmill at home.


“You’ll view the exact route and experience the same terrain again,” Logan explained.


Devices, gadgets and apps proliferate as tech-savvy fitness becomes more accessible, according to Jessica Matthews of the American Council on Exercise (ACE).


“There’s a lot of interest in on-body monitoring devices as ways to motivate and track progress,” she said. “They run the gamut from basic devices to track hours, steps, and caloric expenditure to full-body tracking.”


Nike+ Sportsband has a series of small lights on the wrist band that change from red to green as the runner nears his goal, while the BodyMedia FIT Armband tracks everything from the number of calories burned to the quality and quantity of sleep.


ACE also studied fitness DVDs released for the holidays.


“We evaluated them for quality of instruction, safety, effectiveness and design of workout,” Matthews said.


Among the best were “Amy Dixon’s Breathless Body Vol.2: The Edge.” Matthews called it a challenging cardio workout best suited to those on your list with “an established base of fitness.”


“Jessica Smith’s 10 Pounds Down Better Body Blast” also got a thumbs up for its well-rounded routine and clarity of instruction.


For people seeking a mind-body approach, Matthews praised “STOTT Pilates Intense Body Blast: Pilates Interval Training: Level I,” which she said is accessible for someone new to fitness.


“They do a great job queuing movements and creating flow,” she said.


Richard Cotton of the American College of Sports Medicine suggests giving the fitness novice the gift of a personal trainer.


“The best is human assistance,” he said. “Another way is a beginner group exercise class.”


He also suggests a gift certificate for shoes at a running store equipped with a treadmill.


“You need shoes that fit your gait,” he said. “People should always get their gait analyzed.”


Golden likes to cite the law of reciprocity to the personal trainers she manages.


“I always tell them to get their clients something,” she said.


And what does the personal trainer want for Christmas?


“I like the roller, or a new jump rope,” she said. “Fitness people aren’t hard to please. Get me a new yoga mat and I’m happy.”


(Reporting by Dorene Internicola; editing by Patricia Reaney)


Health News Headlines – Yahoo! News


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Italy votes for center-left candidate for premier












ROME (AP) — Italians are choosing a center-left candidate for premier for elections early next year, an important primary runoff given the main party is ahead in the polls against a center-right camp in utter chaos over whether Silvio Berlusconi will run again.


Sunday’s runoff pits a veteran center-left leader, Pier Luigi Bersani, 61, against the 37-year-old mayor of Florence, Matteo Renzi, who has campaigned on an Obama-style “Let’s change Italy now” mantra.












Nearly all polls show Bersani winning the primary, after he won the first round of balloting Nov. 25 with 44.9 percent of the vote. Since he didn’t get an absolute majority, he was forced into a runoff with Renzi, who garnered 35.5 percent.


After battling all week to get more voters to the polling stations for round two, Renzi seemed almost resigned to a Bersani win by Sunday, saying he hoped that by Monday “we can all work together.”


Bersani, a former transport and industry minister, seemed confident of victory as well, joking about Berlusconi’s flip-flopping political ambitions by asking “What time did he say it?” when told that the media mogul had purportedly decided against running.


Next year’s general election will largely decide how and whether Italy continues on the path to financial health charted by Premier Mario Monti, appointed last year to save Italy from a Greek-style debt crisis.


The former European commissioner was named to head a technical government after international markets lost confidence in then-Premier Berlusconi’s ability to reign in Italy’s public debt and push through sorely needed structural reforms.


Berlusconi has largely stayed out of the public spotlight for the past year, but he returned with force in recent weeks, announcing he was thinking about running again, then changing his mind, then threatening to bring down Monti’s government, and most recently staying silent about his political plans.


His waffling has thrown his People of Freedom party into disarray and disrupted its own plans for a primary — all of which has only seemed to bolster the impression of order, stability and organization within the center-left camp.


A poll published Friday gave the Democratic Party 30 percent of the vote if the election were held now, compared with some 19.5 percent for the upstart populist movement of comic Beppe Grillo, and Berlusconi’s People of Freedom party in third with 14.3 percent. The poll, by the SWG firm for state-run RAI 3, surveyed 5,000 voting-age adults by telephone between Nov. 26 and 28. It had a margin of error of plus or minus 1.36 percentage points.


It’s quite a turnabout for Berlusconi’s once-dominant movement, and a similarly remarkable shift in fortunes for the Democratic Party, which had been in shambles for years, unable to capitalize on Berlusconi’s professional and personal failings while he was premier.


But Berlusconi’s 2011 downfall and a series of recent political party funding scandals that have targeted mostly center-right politicians have contributed to the party’s rise as Italy struggles through a grinding recession and near-record high unemployment.


Angelino Alfano, Berlusconi’s hand-picked political heir, seemed again exasperated Sunday after a long meeting with his patron over Berlusconi’s plans. News reports have suggested Berlusconi might split the party in two and re-launch the Forza Italia party that brought him to political power for the first time in 1994.


“We have to work to reconstruct the center-right, and reconstructing it means having a big center-right party,” not a divided one, Alfano said.


He added that Berlusconi didn’t say one way or another if he would run himself. “It’s his choice,” he said. “If there are any decisions in this regard, he’ll be the one to say so.”


___


Follow Nicole Winfield at www.twitter.com/nwinfield


Europe News Headlines – Yahoo! News


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Microsoft’s next-gen Xbox again said to launch ahead of 2013 holidays












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Lindsay Lohan risks return to jail after double trouble












NEW YORK/LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Lindsay Lohan on Thursday faced the possibility of being sent back to jail after a tumultuous 24 hours in which she was arrested in New York for assault, and charged in California with reckless driving and lying to police over a June car crash.


Lohan, 26, who has been to rehab, jail and court multiple times since a 2007 arrest for drunk driving and cocaine possession, is still on unsupervised probation in Los Angeles for a 2011 jewelry theft.












But prosecutors in Santa Monica, California, said in a statement on Thursday that the “Mean Girls” actress lied to police when she told them she was not at the wheel of her Porsche when it smashed into a truck on a busy highway in the summer.


They charged Lohan with three misdemeanor counts stemming from that collision, hours after the troubled starlet was arrested on suspicion of punching a woman in the face at a Manhattan nightclub.


Lohan’s New York attorney Mark Heller said the actress was “a victim of someone trying to capture their 15 minutes of fame.”


“From my initial investigation, I am completely confident that this case will be concluded favorably and that Lindsay will be completely exonerated,” Heller said in a statement on the nightclub incident.


Frank Mateljan of the Los Angeles City Attorney‘s office, which handled the 2011 jewelry case, said prosecutors were still awaiting paperwork from New York and Santa Monica to determine if they will pursue a probation violation case against Lohan.


A Los Angeles judge told Lohan in March that she must obey all rules until 2014, and advised her to stop night-clubbing and focus on her work.


The two incidents came during a rough week for the former “Parent Trap” child star, who was once considered one of the most promising young actresses in Hollywood.


Her comeback performance on Sunday as screen legend Elizabeth Taylor in the TV movie “Liz & Dick,” was panned by critics and watched by a disappointingly small U.S. TV audience of 3.5 million.


In New York, Lohan was briefly arrested shortly after 4 a.m. (0900 GMT) on Thursday on a third-degree misdemeanor assault charge against a 28-year-old woman, police said. The victim suffered minor injuries, New York Police Sergeant John Buthorn said.


Celebrity website TMZ.com said Lohan had been drinking heavily and lashed out in a stand-off over one of the members of British boy band The Wanted, who were also at the club after playing a concert in New York.


Lohan’s recent visits to New York have featured run-ins with police and public spats over the last three months.


In October, police were called to the Long Island home of Lohan’s mother, Dina, after a loud argument, though no arrests were made. In September, Lohan was arrested in Manhattan after a pedestrian told police her car had struck him in an alley, but charges were not filed.


(Reporting by Colleen Jenkins in New York and Jill Serjeant in Los Angeles; Editing by Xavier Briand and Eric Walsh)


Celebrity News Headlines – Yahoo! News


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