“Large number” sign UM medical school petition

A “large number” of faculty at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine have signed a petition complaining about the school’s leadership, the head of the faculty senate said in an email Monday.

Richard Williamson, a law professor who is chair of the senate, sent the email to faculty assuring them anonymity if they signed and saying that the deadline for submitting copies of the petition is Friday, “in order to make a final report in a timely manner.”

Williamson’s email was the first official confirmation about the size of the protest. The medical school did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A copy of the petition obtained by The Herald stated that faculty decried the “failed leadership” of Dean Pascal Goldschmidt and Chief Operating Officer Jack Lord. “We want to make clear that the faculty has lost confidence in the ability of these men to lead the school.”

Earlier this month, Goldschmidt announced that Lord was “stepping down” as COO but gave no indication what he would be doing next. Last week, spokeswoman Lisa Worley said, “We are working on a transition with Dr. Lord, and it will be resolved in the near future.”

Several anonymous sources have said that the number of signatures has climbed to 700. Total faculty at the medical school is about 1,200. On Monday, a faculty senate spokeswoman said her office “nothing more to add” to the Williamson email. Williamson did not respond to a request for comment.

Williamson’s memo said faculty signing the petition “must include identifying information” but “we have gone to very considerable lengths to protect the anonymity of the petitioners. People who claim to have seen or received the ‘official list’ of those who signed are either misinformed or are being disingenuous, as no such list exists. Once the final report is complete, all petitions will be destroyed.”

Williamson told The Herald last month that only a small number of people had seen the signed petitions and none of them would talk about it.

“Please note that the fact that we serve as a conduit for a petition does not make the petition a Senate document,” Williamson wrote Monday. “Having said that, the Senate is very interested in the well-being of the Miller School of Medicine and its faculty. Indeed, our ad hoc Medical Committee has spent considerable time looking into problems at the School, has already provided one report that the Senate endorsed, and will present a follow-on report to the Senate’s General Welfare Committee shortly.”

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Study Shows Gender Bias in Wikipedia, Linux

Today in the age of the “brogrammer,” whose frat boy tendencies are glorified and sought after by cutting-edge online startups, women in tech often find themselves objectified and excluded — especially in communities like Wikipedia and open-source software, where women make up even less of the population (around 13 percent and 1 percent, respectively) than in more mainstream technical fields.

That was one of the facts Joseph Reagle, an assistant professor at Northeastern University, drew on for his study about “Free culture and the gender gap.” He discovered that just because a community (like Wikipedia) says that it’s open doesn’t mean that it isn’t hostile to women.

Free for all?

The “Free Encyclopedia” Wikipedia’s claim to fame is that anyone can edit and contribute to it. To keep errors from cropping up, it has policies that let anyone flag part of an article for review, and allow trusted editors to decide how to present something.

The process by which those editors decide, however, is often highly combative and alienating to women, who “are socialized to not be competitive and avoid conflict” according to Reagle. Sue Gardner, the Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation (the project behind Wikipedia), wrote a list of “Nine Reasons Women Don’t Edit Wikipedia,” in which she noted Wikipedia’s “fighty” and “contentious” culture, where loud and assertive people drive others out regardless of their competence.

“Otherwise commendable features”

Reagle found that Wikipedia’s values of radical freedom and openness actually led to a culture that is more closed off to women. He noted that “implicit” power structures existed, even in the absence of formal ones; and that imposing few restrictions on how people treat each other can lead to “a chaotic culture of undisciplined vandals,” which disenfranchises women from participation just as surely as if there were rules against women participating.

Similar dynamics exist in popular open-source software projects like the Linux kernel. Open-source luminaries like Eric Raymond are legendarily combative and hostile to “idiots,” even while they they tolerate abusive personalities who drive female contributors away. Reagle’s study quoted numerous female writers with experience working in Linux and open-source software, who called its community “cliquish and exclusionary” as well as “more competitive and fierce than most areas of programming.”

How to achieve equality

Wikipedia’s new Teahouse page is “a friendly place to help new editors,” which is designed especially to encourage women to participate. Meanwhile, women like Denise Paolucci are creating their own startups like Dreamwidth, which are based on existing open-source programming code. Unlike most “proprietary” code, it’s still free for women to do what they want with it — if they can overcome the obstacles in their way.

Jared Spurbeck is an open-source software enthusiast, who uses an Android phone and an Ubuntu laptop PC. He has been writing about technology and electronics since 2008.

Linux/Open Source News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Josh Duhamel Safe Haven Interview NCM Fathom Event

Josh Duhamel has a lot to live up to now that he's bringing a Nicholas Sparks leading man to life. But how will Duhamel's in Safe Haven compare to Ryan Gosling's work in The Notebook, Channing Tatum's performance in Dear John or Liam Hemsworth's star-making role in The Last Song?

That was just one of the questions I asked when Duhamel rang up ETonine in support of A Night With Nicholas Sparks' Safe Haven: Filmmakers, Author and Stars Bring the Book to Life, the NCM Fathom event taking place in cinemas nationwide on January 17.

ETonline: This is a very cool partnership you're doing with NCM Fathom. What appealed to you about this opportunity?

Josh Duhamel: I thought it was an interesting new way to get people interested and involved with the movie. The way Hollywood involves fans now is much different than it was when I first started, 12 years ago. Especially with a genre like this.

ETonline: Twitter has become a major way stars connect with their fans. Are you a fan of the platform?

Duhamel: It's interesting. There's something to be said about keeping your anonymity in some ways; maintaining some mystery. Some people say that familiarity breeds contempt, while sometimes it's the other way around. Nobody wants to know what I'm doing 24 hours a day, they'd be painfully bored, trust me [laughs]. At the same time, if I'm doing something interesting or funny, I like being able to share that with my fans. I'm not a completely closed book; I'm a social person and if I see something worth sharing, I'm happy to do that.

VIDEO - Exclusive Behind the Scenes of Safe Haven

ETonline: One of the things you'll talk about during the NCM Fathom event is the film's production. Did you have a good time making this movie?

Duhamel: It was one of the best experiences I've ever had. I'll be honest; you have to be a pretty miserable person to not enjoy making movies. It's something I always dreamed about. I do not take it for granted. We were in Southport, North Carolina -- this beachtown in the middle of summer. Julianne is so much fun to work with. She's so real, and Lasse [Hallstrom, director] is about the most collaborative director you could have. You can do no wrong with him, and when you're in a situation like that, you can't help but make a movie you're proud of. All the elements were there to make the kind of movie we set out to. I'm so grateful I got the opportunity to work with him, Lasse is one of the greats.

VIDEO - Julianne Hough's Shocking Admission

ETonline: When you first read the script, what appealed to you about this role?

Duhamel: To be honest, and I talked to Nicholas at length about this, if I was going to do this character, I wanted the freedom to make him three dimensional. I ran the risk of playing a boring suburban dad. The interesting parts in the script were Julianne's character, and David Lyons' character. Mine was a guy who could have easily been boring. But Lasse was open to all these ideas, and it was so much about finding moments in improv, that we ended up with something amazing. I mean, this is a single guy in the prime of his life trying to raise two kids and run a store, there's a lot of complexity there, and sometimes those are the hardest characters to play. They're not obvious, you have to do a lot of searching to find what these characters are made of.

ETonline: Now that you've created a character you're proud of, do you think he stands up against previous Sparks' men, like Noah in The Notebook or John in Dear John?

Duhamel: You can only hope. There have been so many successful stories and movies that Nicholas has told over the years, it's scary to compare yourself to those. We wanted sentiment without being sentimental here, and I talked at length with Nicholas about this. He said to me that if you look at a character like Noah, he's a guy who spends a whole movie pining for a girl. It was what Ryan brought to it that made the movie so interesting -- and that's what we focused on here. Forgetting what the expectations of a movie like this are and just focusing on getting to the core of what these two people are going through. By doing that, I think we found a lot of real moments between these two broken people who weren't searching for love, but happened to find it.

ETonline: Nicholas Sparks' movies are notorious for making people cry -- what was the last thing that made you cry?

Duhamel: Just yesterday, I was shown this love story that's told in 22 pictures. You can go online and look at it -- it's 22 photos about the genesis of this couple's relationship. It tells the whole story of their love in 22 photos and that had me crying. I'm a bit of a sap in that way. It doesn't take much to make me cry if I'm being honest.

NCM Fathom's A Night With Nicholas Sparks' Safe Haven in theater Q&A is on January 17, click here to buy tickets!

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Brookfield Office Properties starts long-awaited Manhattan West deck

Steve Cuozzo

After six years of promises, Brookfield Office Properties has finally started to build a deck over the exposed Amtrak rail yard for its planned Manhattan West development project.

The platform is a long-awaited breakthrough in Mayor Bloomberg’s dream to create a vast new Hudson Yards District in the once-forlorn far West 30s that will be home to major companies, residents and a wealth of public amenities.

It’s also crucial to publicly traded Brookfield’s plan for a $4.5 billion, five million-square-foot project on five acres anchored by two tall office towers and an apartment building.

The Manhattan West project, between Ninth and Dyers avenues and W. 31st and 33rd streets, will include a public plaza designed by High Line Park creator James Corner Field Operations.

The deck was first announced in 2006 but held up by caution over the real-estate market, changes to the original mix of towers and delays in negotiating agreements with Amtrak over use of the rail lines through the yard.

Manhattan West spans the irregular rectangle bounded by Ninth and Dyer avenues and West 31st and 33rd streets. Most but not all of it consists of the exposed train yard 65 feet below street level.

Brookfield CEO Dennis Friedrich told The Post, “Excavation started a while ago. This is the formal launch of the next phase.”

Giant machines will soon appear on-site to erect a street-level surface comprised of 16 “bridges.” The deck will occupy 50 percent of the entire site.

Friedrich said the platform will be finished in late 2014 and the site will be ready to receive tenants by 2016.

He estimated Brookfield’s land and platform costs at a total $700 million. The deck is to be financed with a five-year, $340 million construction loan from a bank consortium including HSBC, Bank of New York Mellon and four others.

Brookfield will invest more than $300 million of its own capital with no public subsidies.

The details are to be announced tomorrow at a photo-op. Bloomberg, Friedrich, Brookfield co-Chairman John Zuccotti, Port Authority Executive Director Pat Foye and Hudson Yards Development Corp. President Ann Weisbrod are expected to attend.

“Our initial plan was for all offices,” Friedrich said. “But we got excited about residential because the market was so heated. So in our current plan, we replaced what was the third office building with apartments.”

Manhattan West lies just east of Related Cos.’ much larger Hudson Yards project. Each giant enterprise can now claim its own bragging rights.

While Related is raising its first tower for Coach Inc. without first building a deck over its own rail yard site, Brookfield is plunging ahead with a deck before it puts up a building — which it won’t do until it lands a tenant. Cushman & Wakefield has been tapped to find one or more.

Manhattan West was originally to have three office buildings. Now, it will have two of them at the yards’ Ninth Avenue corners of West 31st and 33rd Streets, and a high-rise apartment tower between them and Dyer Avenue.

Brookfield also owns 450 W. 33rd St., the massive, million-square-foot office address on 10th Avenue, which stands between the Brookfield- and Related-controlled portions of the sunken rail yard.

While Brookfield has long owned development rights above the tracks, Amtrak still controls the right of way through the yard.

So the two parties — as well as the MTA, Long Island Rail Road and the Port Authority, which also hold easements through the site — had to work out arrangements that will allow the deck and the towers to be built without interfering with the train routes, which terminate at Penn Station.

Despite a popular myth that the deck will support the towers, they will actually rise from bedrock at the sites’ corners and in effect be thrust through the platform. But the deck is needed to create a welcoming location for commercial and residential users.

Brookfield has committed to creating a 100 foot-wide park running east-west through the site, effectively forming an extension of 32nd Street. The public space will be designed by James Corner Field Operations, which designed the High Line Park.

“The platform is needed to create the land to create the plaza,” Friedrich said.

The High Line, which now ends at 30th Street, is to be extended along the old trestle’s loop westward to curl around Hudson Yards, and eastward along a spur toward Ninth Avenue.

Meanwhile, Related has begun work on the first office tower at its own Hudson Yards site — which is not to be confused with Extell’s One Hudson Yards, a 1 million square-foot tower to be developed by Gary Barnett’s company just north of Related’s land.

Brookfield’s portfolio includes 77 million square feet in New York, Washington, Houston and other US cities, as well as in Canada, Australia and London. It owns the World Financial Center downtown as well as trophy properties such as One New York Plaza.

“The new district is going to be successful for everybody here,” Friedrich predicted.

He said Related’s coup in signing Coach as an anchor tenant is “also great news for us. It creates a perfect bookend” for Manhattan West.

scuozzo@nypost.com

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.CO sets sights on changing ‘the fabric of the Internet’

For the millions of people who equate the Web with .com, . CO Internet is out to change that mindset.

The Miami company that manages and markets the .co domain is already making impressive gains — more than 1.4 million in 200 countries have hung their businesses, blogs, personal projects or dreams on a .co virtual shingle. Still, that’s just a tiny fraction of industry titan VeriSign’s 105 million .com registrants.

“We want to change the fabric of the Internet,” Juan Diego Calle, founder and CEO of .CO Internet, said during an interview in .CO’s Brickell office. “We can only make that happen not by changing what happened in the last 25 years of the Web, which is owned by .com. We want to change the next 25.”

About 2½ years after the launch of .CO Internet, .co — the country code of Colombia — continues to be one of the fastest-growing Internet domains in the world and grew by 24 percent in 2012. .CO Internet is profitable and is projecting to bring in more than $25 million in revenues this year, the company said. The early success of .CO Internet, with operations in Miami and Colombia, is powered by passion and perseverance.

Calle moved to Miami from Colombia at age 15 with his family. He started several businesses, including one he sold in 2005 providing seed capital for what would come next. “I can’t say I ever sat still.” When he learned Colombia would be commercializing the country's .co domain extension in late 2006, he said it hit him like a lightning bolt.

With the right strategy and by “marketing the hell out of it,” the entrepreneur believed .co could solve a huge problem in the market — vanishing Internet domain names. If you’ve tried to nab a new .com address lately, you can relate — it’s difficult to find one that hasn’t been snatched up.

Calle thought that by appealing to the hearts and minds of the entrepreneur, .co could go where .info, .biz, .net or .me had never gone before. But first he needed the right team.

One of this first stops: The Big Apple, to visit Nicolai Bezsonoff, who had been an advisor and shareholder in Calle’s TeRespondo.com, a sort of Ask Jeeves for the Latin American market that was sold to Yahoo in 2005. At the time, Bezsonoff was the director of technology and operations at Citigroup.

“We went out for coffee, he started pitching me on a napkin. I said ‘really dude you want me to leave a big job at Citigroup for this?’ ” said Bezsonoff. “But he kept showing me the numbers … Later, that napkin was on my desk and it was one of those boring days and I kept looking at it and thought maybe I should.” He would become .CO’s chief operating officer.

Lori Anne Wardi, a lawyer and serial entrepreneur who was working at a venture capital firm at the time, became vice president in charge of brand strategy, business development and global communications. “She’s the heart and soul of the company,” said Calle. Eduardo Santoyo, based in Bogota, would become corporate vice president over policy and be the liaison with the Colombian government. “Some would say it was overkill talent but I needed the best. ... When you have a big dream, you have to think big and hire the right people,” Calle said.

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Woman dies after boat crashes in Biscayne Bay

A woman died after the boat her husband was piloting crashed into a concrete piling underneath the McArthur Causeway bridge late Saturday, officials said.

The woman, who has not been identified, tried to push the red and white 18-foot boat in another direction when they began to veer toward a piling underneath the bridge, said Jorge Pino, spokesman for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

Her body somehow became lodged between the boat and the piling, Pino said.

Investigators did not know exactly how fast the boat was moving during the crash.

“We believe the vessel was going slow at the time of the impact,” Pino said. “Nothing at this point would indicate speeding.”

The woman was taken to Ryder Trauma Center where she later died.

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4 gadgets that defined Vegas electronics show

LAS VEGAS (AP) — The world’s largest gadget show wrapped up on Friday, and the organizers said it was the biggest ever, beating last year’s record in terms of the floor space companies purchased to display their wares.

What was it that drew more than 3,500 companies and 150,000 people to Las Vegas for this mega-event? Here are four gadgets that exemplified the top trends at this year’s International CES.

— Sony‘s 55-inch ultra-high-definition TV

The introduction of high-definition and flat-panel TVs sent U.S. shoppers on a half-decade buying spree as they tossed out old tube sets. Now that the old sets are mostly gone, sales of new TVs are falling. To lure buyers back, Asian TV makers are trying to pull the same trick again. They’re making the sets sharper. This fall, Sony and LG introduced 84-inch sets with four times the resolution of regular high-definition sets. They provide stunning sharpness, but they’re too big for most homes, and at more than $ 20,000, too expensive. At the show, the companies unveiled smaller “ultra-high-definition” sets, measuring 55 inches and 65 inches on the diagonal. They will go on sale this spring. Prices were not announced, but will presumably be a lot lower than for the 84-inch sets, perhaps under $ 10,000.

Both the size and price of these smaller ultra-HD TVs should make them easier buys, but the higher resolution will be a lot less noticeable on a smaller screen, unless viewers sit very close. Analysts expect ultra-HD to remain an exclusive niche product for some years. There’s no easy way to get ultra-HD video content to the sets, so they will mostly be showing regular HD movies. However, the sets can “upscale” the video to make it look better than it does on a regular HD set.

Analyst James McQuivey of Forrester Research believes the TV makers are focusing on the wrong thing. He doesn’t think consumers really care that much about picture quality.

“What matters most is not the number of pixels or the quality of the pixels themselves … but the increasing convenience of the content’s discovery and delivery. This is why TV makers should be investing in a better experience rather than a bigger one,” McQuivey wrote in a blog post.

— LG’s 55-inch OLED TV

Organic light-emitting diodes, or OLEDs, make for thin, extremely colorful screens. They’re already established in smartphone screens, and they have a lot of promise for other applications as well. For years, a promise is all they’ve represented. OLED screens are very hard to make in larger sizes. Now, LG is shipping a 55-inch OLED TV set in Korea, and is expected to bring it to the U.S. this spring for about $ 12,000.

Beyond being thin, power-thrifty and capable of extremely high color saturation, OLEDs are interesting for another reason: they can bend. LCDs have to be laid down on flat glass substrates, but OLEDs can be laid down on flexible glass or plastic. The major obstacle here is that flexible substrates tend to let through air, which destroys OLEDs, but manufacturers seem to have tackled the problem. Samsung showed off a phone that can bend into a tube. It consisted of a rigid plastic box with electronics and an attached display that is as thin as a piece of paper. The company suggested that in the future, it could make displays that fold up like maps — big screens that fit in a pocket.

We’re likely to see the benefits of bendy OLEDs sooner in a less eyebrow-raising but more practical implementation. It may never have occurred to you, but all electronic screens, except for cathode-ray tubes, are flat. With OLEDs, they don’t have to be. LG and Sony showed TV sets with concave screens at the show — not very useful, but an interesting demonstration. In the future, you could have a phone with a screen that laps over onto the edges, providing you with “smart” buttons with labels that change depending on whether you’re in camera mode or music mode. You could have a coffee mug with a wrap-around news and weather ticker. A revolution in design awaits.

By the way, you won’t have to choose between ultra-HD and OLED screens — Sony, Panasonic and LG showed prototype TVs that combine the technologies.

— The Pebble Watch

The Pebble is a “smart” timepiece that can be programmed to do various things, including showing text messages sent to your phone. The high-resolution display is all digital, so it can be programmed with various cool “watch faces.” But what’s really interesting about the Pebble is how it came to be —and that it exists at all.

Young Canadian inventor Eric Migicovsky couldn’t find conventional funding to make the watch, so he asked for money on Kickstarter, the biggest “crowdfunding” website. In essence, he asked people to buy watches before he actually had any to sell. The fundraising was a blowout success. Migicovsky raised $ 10.3 million by pre-selling 85,000 Pebbles. At CES, he announced that the watches were ready to ship.

Kickstarter’s goal is to bring things and events into fruition that otherwise wouldn’t happen, by creating a shortcut between the people who want to create something and the people willing to pay for it. The effect is starting to become apparent at CES. At least two other “smart” watches funded through Kickstarter were on display. Some startups were at the show to drum up interest in ongoing Kickstarter campaigns, including a Swedish company that wants to make a speaker with a transparent body, and a California outfit that wants to produce a swiveling, remote-controlled platform for cameras.

— Creative Technology Ltd.’s Interactive Gesture Camera

This $ 150 camera, promoted by Intel, attaches to a computer much like a Webcam. From a single lens, it shoots the world in 3-D, using technology similar to radar. The idea is that you can perform hand gestures in the air in front of the camera, and it lets the computer interpret them. Why would you want this? That’s not really clear yet, but a lot of effort is going into finding an answer. CES was boiling with gadgets attempting to break new ground when it comes to how we interact with computers and appliances like TV sets. The Nintendo Wii game console, with its innovative motion-sensing controllers, and the Microsoft Kinect add-on for the Xbox 360 console, which has its own 3-D-sensing camera, have inspired engineers to pursue ways to ditch —or at least complement— the keyboard, mouse, remote control and even the touchscreen.

Samsung’s high-end TVs already let viewers use hand gestures to control volume, and it expanded the range of recognized gestures with this year’s models. Startup Leap Motion was at the show with another depth-sensing camera kit, this one designed to mount next to a laptop’s touch pad, looking upward.

So far, though, the “new interaction” field hasn’t had a real hit since the Kinect. Consumers may be eager to lose the TV remote, but there’s a holdup caused by the nature of the setup: to effectively control the TV, you need to take command not just of the TV, but of the cable or satellite set-top box. TV makers and the cable companies don’t really talk to each other, and there’s no sign of them uniting on a common approach. Only when both devices can be controlled by hand-waving can we permanently let the remote get lost between the couch cushions.

Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Miss New York Mallory Hytes Hagan Wins Miss America

Brooklyn, New York native Mallory Hytes Hagan, 23, was crowned this year's Miss America -- beating out Miss South Carolina Ali Rogers and Miss Oklahoma Alicia Clifton, who placed second and third respectively.

Hagan tap danced to James Brown's Get Up Off That Thing and answered a timely question about armed guards in schools – stating that violence is not the proper way to end violence – to clinch the win Saturday night in Las Vegas.

Related: Miss America Contestant to Have Double Mastectomy

Hagan, whose platform issue is child sexual abuse prevention, attended the Fashion Institute of Technology, and plans to obtain a degree in Cosmetics and Fragrance Marketing.

Clearly, her newly won $50,000 scholarship will be put to good use!

Related: Miss America Host Gary Collins Dead

Miss Wyoming Lexie Madden and Miss Iowa Mariah Cary also made the top five, before falling short to Hagan, who was considered an underdog heading into the competition.

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NRA says Congress will not pass assault weapons ban

WASHINGTON — The powerful gun lobby is gauging enough support in Congress to block a law that would ban assault weapons, despite promises from the White House and senior lawmakers to make such a measure a reality.

Senators plan to introduce a bill that would ban assault weapons and limit the size of ammunition magazines, like the one used in the December shooting massacre that killed 27 people, most of them children, in Newtown, Conn. Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California has promised to push for a renewal of expired legislation.

The National Rifle Association has so far prevented passage of another assault weapons ban like the one that expired in 2004. But some lawmakers say the Newtown tragedy has transformed the country, and Americans are ready for stricter gun laws. President Barack Obama has made gun control a top priority. And on Tuesday Vice President Joe Biden is expected to give Obama a comprehensive package of recommendations for curbing gun violence.

Bloomberg

The NRA is confident Congress won't ban semi-automatic assault rifles, like these made by Bushmaster, in the wake of the Newtown school shooting.

Still, the NRA has faith that Congress would prevent a new weapons ban.

"When a president takes all the power of his office, if he's willing to expend political capital, you don't want to make predictions. You don't want to bet your house on the outcome. But I would say that the likelihood is that they are not going to be able to get an assault weapons ban through this Congress," NRA president David Keene told CNN's "State of the Union."

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., responded with a flat out "no" when asked on CBS' "Face the Nation" whether Congress would pass a ban on assault weapons.

Democratic West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, a lifelong member of the NRA has said everything should be on the table to prevent another tragedy like Newtown. But he assured gun owners he would fight for gun rights at the same time. "I would tell all of my friends in NRA, I will work extremely hard and I will guarantee you there will not be an encroachment on your Second Amendment rights," Manchin said on ABC's "This Week."

The NRA's deep pockets help bolster allies and punish lawmakers who buck them. The group spent at least $24 million in the 2012 elections — $16.8 million through its political action committee and nearly $7.5 million through its affiliated Institute for Legislative Action. Separately, the NRA spent some $4.4 million through July 1 to lobby Congress. Keene insists the group represents its members and not just the gun manufacturers, though he said the NRA would like industry to contribute more money to the association.

"We know what works and what doesn't work. And we're not willing to compromise on people's rights when there is no evidence that doing so is going to accomplish the purpose," Keene said.

The NRA, instead, is pushing for measures that would keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill, until a person gets better. "If they are cured, there ought to be a way out of it," Keene said.

Currently, a person is banned from buying a gun from a licensed dealer if the person is a fugitive, a felon, convicted of substance abuse, convicted of domestic violence, living in the U.S. illegally or someone who "has been adjudicated as a mental defective or has been committed to any mental institution."

States, however, are inconsistent in providing information about mentally ill residents to the federal government for background checks. And, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence said some 40 percent of gun sales happen with no background checks, such as at gun shows and by private sellers over the Internet or through classified ads.

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After rough year, Carnival hopes for calmer waters

After boarding the latest addition to the Carnival Cruise Lines family, Josh Beaver sampled lasagna at the new onboard Italian restaurant, downed some drinks with his traveling companions and hit the water slides while the afternoon was still young.

“So far, from what I’ve seen, there’s lots to do,” said Beaver, 33, of Holden Beach, N.C.

The Carnival Breeze hadn’t even left PortMiami yet on a recent Saturday, and already it buzzed with vacationers exploring all there was to do: nosh on a Pig Patty from the new Guy’s Burger Bar, make friends with bartenders at the new RedFrog Pub or check out a novel and a glass of the grape at the new Library Bar.

Here aboard one of the largest ships in the biggest brand of the Number One cruise ship company in the world, there was little hint that the last year was one of the toughest in the 41-year history of parent company Carnival Corp. & plc.

Last year got off to a catastrophic start when Costa Concordia, owned by Carnival unit Costa Cruises, struck rocks in Italian waters as the captain steered the ship on an unauthorized route. The massive liner listed to one side, and 32 people died in the chaos that followed.

“When you lose lives, it’s heartbreaking,” said Carnival Corp. Vice Chairman and COO Howard Frank, who devoted much of his time last winter handling the aftermath with Costa leaders. “And so I think in terms of our emotional reaction to it, it’s been the toughest year we’ve had.”

Carnival Corp. Chairman and CEO Micky Arison took criticism for not going to Italy following the wreck, but said he believes the company did the right thing and doesn’t second-guess his actions.

Financially, the company took a hit as well, starting with discounts that were necessary to drum up business after the accident. Costa’s future bookings plunged, but picked up after the operator slashed prices. As of mid-December, prices at Costa remained lower than they were a year earlier, though the company expects that to change once the anniversary of the accident passes.

“I think we’ve been consistent in saying the recovery at Costa is not a one-year issue,” Arison said during the December earnings call with analysts. “It’s going to be multiple years, and we are forecasting a recovery of about half the yield deterioration.”

The ship remains on its side off the island of Giglio; it’s expected to be removed by the end of summer.

A flurry of civil lawsuits have been filed, but none have reached trial yet; the company has reached compensation agreements with 70 percent of the more than 3,000 passengers who were not physically injured and 60 percent of injured passengers and families of those who died.

As the company and broader industry focused anew on safety, the summer months presented a fresh set of problems when the European economy weakened just as cruise lines were stationing more ships in the Mediterranean. While North America was immune to those concerns, the run-up to the Presidential election and the fiscal cliff debates prompted Carnival to worry about a slowdown in business at home.

Last month, Carnival forecast 2013 earnings that were lower than expectations and said advance bookings for the year were behind what they were a year earlier at lower prices. Many analysts believe the projections were conservative, though, and executives said they were hopeful that January would bring more robust business.

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