Tower-Climbing, Frisbee-Tossing Robots Kick Off 2013 START Competition

Representatives from more than 50 high schools gathered at San Jose State University Saturday for the kickoff to the 2013 season of the FIRST Robotics Competition, inventor Dean Kamen’s attempt to turn robotics and engineering education into a high school sports-like event. This year’s competition: build a robot that can throw Frisbees and climb a 90-inch-tall metal pyramid tower.

The 22nd annual kickoff brought the Silicon Valley Region together for a video broadcast announcing the particulars of the season, which will incorporate six weeks of building, followed by regional competitions and eventually an international championship. Each year, teams of high school students receive a kit of parts and detailed descriptions of a game their robots must play. Typically, the goals involve some sort of projectile and alliances of three robots, each backed by their builders/operators. But each year the game is different; in the past, robots have fired basketballs at hoops, placed inflatables on racks and knocked soccer balls through goals.

Though the game changes, the goal is the same — to grow the status of STEM (Science Technology Engineering Mathematics) education. Even the name FIRST, while sometimes confusing, is a reference to that object: For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology.

“People tend to really enjoy engineering and math and science if they get to build robots,” says Anand Atreya, a FIRST alum from 10 years ago, who has since received degrees from Princeton and MIT, and is currently a Ph.D. student in electrical engineering at Stanford. Volunteering on FIRST’s Silicon Valley Regional Planning Committee, he says the competition has changed in two primary ways: the number of teams has grown, as has the quality of equipment in the kits that each team receives as part of the kickoff. While still not as popular as high school football, funding has grown too — sponsors donate parts for the kits, and universities and professional associations offer more than $16 million in scholarships to FIRST graduates.

Teams in the 2013 competition, titled “Ultimate Ascent,” will compete to throw Frisbees through goals on either end of the playing court. Points are awarded for successful tosses, based on the difficulty of each goal. Then, as the competition ends, the robots can ascend a pyramid made of metal pipes on their side of the field — if they remain suspended, they get extra points.

But it gets more complicated. Because robots are allied in groups of three, not every robot does the same thing. Each gets points for climbing, but some will play defense, and some will scoop up Frisbees to deliver to robots that specialize in throwing. It’s a collaborative, competitive effort.

For Presentation High School in San Jose, 2013 will be the team’s 7th year competing. The school is all-girls, so the team is too.

“The girls are every bit as smart as the guys, but they don’t have confidence,” says David Simpson, the team’s coach, adding that part of why he’s involved is to help more girls to participate in engineering. “What we’ve found is that having FIRST on the application is a big help getting into school,” he says.

Led by senior co-captains Gabi Pastera, Jen Earley, and Emily Mullins, the team is already brainstorming as they go to pick up their kits.

“We gotta make it really light,” says Earley.

“We can use 16th-inch wall, if we’re not worried about people pushing us around,” Mullins suggests. They haven’t decided whether to build a defensive or offensive robot.

The team of about 30 students will spend nights and weekends for the next six weeks at Presentation’s machine shop, a dedicated space for the robotics club in a house across the street from the school. The shop has been outfitted with three computers running SolidWorks, and a Syil CNC milling machine. Scattered about the workshop are other tools, motors, wires, and parts of robots from previous years. Mullins will design parts on SolidWorks, Pastera and Earley will mill them on the machine.

But first, they convene with the rest of the team. It’s still early on a Saturday morning — the kickoff started early, and teams had grabbed their kits, taken a look at a sample pyramid, and split by 8:30am — but the girls buzz with energy (and donuts) as they go over the rules. Then Earley, Pastera, and junior Kiki Sham open the kit, comparing the cables, motors, sensors, and hundreds of other parts to the kit checklist. Most teams will have additional parts — Presentation has been stockpiling aluminum — from sponsors or from previous years. They have six weeks to work on the robot, after which they must seal it in a bag, to be opened only at competitions.

In April, Presentation High will compete at the Silicon Valley Regional Competition, one of 57 around the country that will send a total of about 400 teams to the 2013 championships, held April 24-27 in St. Louis. (FIRST encourages spectators to attend the competitions; a full list of dates and locations can be found on their website.)

Next year, Gabi will be moving on to engineering school. Though she hasn’t decided which one, her passion for the subject arose from her involvement in FIRST, which she joined as a freshman.

“I actually didn’t know anything about robotics before I joined,” she says. “It kind of becomes an addiction after a while.”

Photos: Nathan Hurst

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Mariah Carey increased security in feud with fellow “Idol” judge

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Pop diva Mariah Carey said she hired increased security following what she described as threats reportedly made against her by fellow ‘American Idol‘ judge Nicki Minaj, according to an interview on ABC News.

Carey, 42, one of three new judges to join the “American Idol” panel for the hit talent show’s new season on January 16, told Barbara Walters in an interview airing on Monday, “it felt like an unsafe work environment.”

“Anytime anybody’s reeling threats at somebody, you know, it’s not appropriate,” Carey said.

“I’m a professional. I’m not used to that type of environment,” she said, adding that she hired extra security.

The diva was alluding to widely reported tension between her and Minaj, who were seen arguing with one another in a video from the show’s audition phase.

Walters has reported that, according to Carey, others on the “Idol” set heard Minaj go further and say, off-camera, “If I had a gun, I would shoot that bitch.”

Minaj, a Trinidadian-born singer and songwriter, previously denied making any remarks about firearms, but Carey told Walters that beefing up her security “was the appropriate thing to do.”

“Sitting there on the road with two babies, I’m not going to take any chances,” she said, referring to her 20-month old twins with husband Nick Cannon.

But in a sign of media savvy, she noted that “for all the drama, I hope it helps the show.”

Walters also asked Carey about reports she is being paid $ 18 million for each “Idol” season.

“I think we’re in the ballpark, (but) I can’t even talk about those things,” the singer replied.

(Reporting by Chris Michaud; Editing by Piya Sinha-Roy and Paul Simao)

Music News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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The New Old Age Blog: Who Should Receive Organ Transplants?

Joe Gammalo had been contending with pulmonary fibrosis, a scarring of the lungs, for more than a decade when he came to the Cleveland Clinic in 2008 seeking a lung transplant.

“It had gotten to the point where I was on oxygen all the time and in a wheelchair,” he told me in an interview. “I didn’t expect to live.”

Lung transplants are a dicey proposition, involving a huge surgical procedure, arduous follow-up, the lifelong use of potent immunosuppressive drugs and high rates of serious side effects. “It’s not like taking out an appendix,” said Dr. Marie Budev, the medical director of the clinic’s lung transplant program.

Only 50 to 57 percent of all recipients live for five years, she noted, and they will still die of their disease. But there’s no other treatment for pulmonary fibrosis.

Some medical centers would have turned Mr. Gammalo away. Because survival rates are even lower for older patients, guidelines from the International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation caution against lung transplants for those over 65, though they set no age limit.

But “we are known as an aggressive, high-risk center,” said Dr. Budev. So Mr. Gammalo was 66 when he received a lung; his newly found buddy, Clyde Conn, who received the other lung from the same donor, was 69.

You can’t mistake the trend: A graying population and revised policies determining who gets priority for donated organs, have led to a rising proportion of older adults receiving transplants.

My colleague Judith Graham has reported on the increase in heart transplants, but the pattern extends to other organs, too.

The number of kidney transplants performed annually on adults over 65 tripled between 1998 and last year, according to data from the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients. In 2001, 7.4 percent of liver transplant recipients were over 65; last year, that rose to 13 percent.

The rise in elderly lung transplant candidates is particularly dramatic because, since 2005, a “lung allocation score” puts those at the highest mortality risk, rather than those who’ve waited longest, at the top of the list.

In 2001, about 3 percent of those on the wait list and of those transplanted were over 65; last year, older patients represented almost 18 percent of wait-listed candidates and more than a quarter of transplant recipients. (Medicare pays for the surgery, though patients face co-pays and considerable out-of-pocket costs, including for drugs and travel.)

The debate has grown, too: When the number of adults awaiting transplants keeps growing, but organ donations stay flat, is it desirable or even ethical that an increasing proportion of recipients are elderly?

Dr. Budev, who estimated that a third of her program’s patients are over 65, votes yes. As long as a program selects candidates carefully, “how can you deny them a therapy?” she asked. So the Cleveland Clinic has no age limit. “We feel that everyone should have a chance.”

At the University of Michigan, by contrast, the age limit remains 65, though Dr. Kevin Chan, the transplant program’s medical director, acknowledged that some fit older patients get transplanted.

“You can talk about this all day — it’s a tough one,” Dr. Chan said. Younger recipients have greater physiologic reserve to aid in the arduous recovery; older ones face higher risk of subsequent kidney failure, stroke, diabetes and other diseases, and, of course, their lifespans are shorter to begin with.

Donated lungs, fragile and prone to injury, are a particularly scarce commodity. Last year, surgeons performed 16,055 kidney transplants, 5,805 liver transplants and 1,949 heart transplants. Only1,830 patients received lung transplants.

“What if there’s a 35-year-old on a ventilator who needs the lung just as much?” Dr. Chan said. “Why should a 72-year-old possibly take away a lung from a 35-year-old?” Yet, he acknowledged, “it’s easy to look at the statistics and say, ‘Give the lungs to younger patients.’ At the bedside, when you meet this patient and family, it’s a lot different.”

These questions about who deserves scarce resources — those most likely to die without them? or those most likely to live longer with them? — will persist as the population ages. They’re also likely to arise when the International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation begins working towards revised guidelines this spring. (I’d also like to hear your take, below.)

Lots of 65- and 75-year-olds are very healthy. Yet transplants themselves can cause harm and there’s no backup, like dialysis. Without the transplant, they die. But when the transplant goes wrong, they also die.

More than four years post-transplant, the Cleveland Clinic’s “lung brothers” are success stories. Mr. Conn, who lives near Dayton, Ohio, can’t walk very far or lift more than 10 pounds, but he works part time as a real-estate appraiser and enjoys cruises with his wife.

Mr. Gammalo, a onetime musician, has developed diabetes, like nearly half of all lung recipients. But he went onstage a few weeks back to sing “Don’t Be Cruel” with his son’s rock band, “a highlight of both our lives,” he said.

Yet when I asked Mr. Conn, now 73, how he felt about having priority over a younger but healthier person, he paused. “It’s a good question,” he said, to which he had no answer.

---

Paula Span is the author of “When the Time Comes: Families With Aging Parents Share Their Struggles and Solutions.”

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Wall Street Trades Lower as Earnings Reports Begin

Stocks trading on Wall Street ticked lower at the opening on Tuesday as an earnings season that is expected to show sluggish corporate growth got under way.

The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index fell 0.2 percent in morning trading, the Dow Jones industrial average also lost 0.2 percent and the Nasdaq composite index was flat.

Over the next couple of weeks, quarterly reports on fourth-quarter profits are expected to come in above the previous quarter’s lackluster results, but analysts’ current estimates are down sharply from where they were in October. Quarterly earnings are expected to grow by 2.8 percent, according to Thomson Reuters data.

German data showed industrial orders fell more than forecast in November because of a sharp drop in demand from abroad, reinforcing concerns that Europe’s largest economy may have contracted in the fourth quarter of 2012.

“I’m surprised futures are holding up, given the relative disappointment that German data showed, but I think all eyes are on the beginning of earnings season,” said Kim Forrest, senior equity research analyst at Fort Pitt Capital Group in Pittsburgh.

European shares were mixed after the German report, with the DAX index in Frankfurt down 0.1 percent and the CAC 40 in Paris up 0.5 percent in afternoon trading.

Monsanto shares rose 3.5 percent after the world’s largest seed company raised its earnings outlook for fiscal 2013 and posted strong first-quarter results.

Shares of the restaurant-chain operator Yum Brands fell 4.6 percent. On Monday the company, which owns KFC, warned that sales in China, its largest market, shrank more than expected in the fourth quarter.

Vodafone shares rose almost 3 percent in London after its American partner in the joint venture Verizon Wireless said it would be “feasible” to buy out the British group.

Sears Holdings shares were 1.9 percent lower a day after the company said its chief executive would step down for family health reasons.

GameStop shares fell 6.8 percent after it reported sales for the holiday season and cut its guidance.

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From gang member to team player

SAN FRANCISCO — Luis Aroche learned about violence at Leonard R. Flynn Elementary School, across from the projects where his friend Carl lived.

He remembers sitting down at his desk and seeing his teacher, Mrs. Foster, in tears. His class had just finished the Pledge of Allegiance.

"Carl was playing on the swings and got shot," Aroche said. "And died. Kindergarten. He got found laying in a pool of blood in the park," Aroche paused. Swallowed. Started up again. "He was my desk buddy. He would go with me to the bathroom. And now, Carl wasn't there.

"That was my first experience of loss. And I didn't understand it. To this day, I don't understand it."

Aroche since has become something of an expert on violence — as victim, perpetrator and now as part of a hoped-for solution. Last year, San Francisco Dist. Atty. George Gascon hired the former gang member to be his office's first "alternative sentencing planner," part of an effort to keep offenders from ending up back behind bars.

The position, criminal justice experts say, has no equivalent in any prosecutor's office in the country.

And Aroche is as singular as his job. An Aztec skull tattoo stretches down his right forearm to his hand, its grimace partly wiped away by laser removal. The day his juvenile record was sealed, he says, was the happiest of his life.

Today, he helps prosecutors figure out who among San Francisco's low-level offenders deserves a jail cell and who deserves a second chance.

He knows a lot about both.

::

If you were Aroche, 12 years old and living in the Mission District in 1990 — when gangs and crack cocaine meant funerals were as commonplace as quinceañeras — you got a tattoo, cut school and drank beer. You thought a stint in Pelican Bay State Prison was like going off to "Stanford or Yale." You practiced how to sit and talk and smoke like the toughest prisoners.

"We would learn how to iron our clothes using a comb, 'cause that's how you iron your pants in prison," Aroche said. "You iron it with the teeth of the comb … and then you put it underneath the mattress."

Aroche's first tattoo was a small cross on his left hand, in the soft web between thumb and forefinger. He got it in an alleyway not far from the studio apartment where he slept on the floor with his five brothers, three sisters, the occasional niece or nephew. His parents got the bed in the corner.

His Salvadoran mother was a chambermaid at a Fisherman's Wharf motel, his Puerto Rican father a security guard in the Navy shipyards.

And his older brothers? They would disappear for years. Aroche didn't know why until his father took him to visit San Quentin State Prison. They were "main men" in a notorious Northern California prison gang. When they were out, they were "the mayors of the Mission."

By the time Aroche was 15, he was drinking so much and incarcerated so often that he gave himself a test every night before he went to sleep. If he put out his hand and felt warm, smooth drywall, he knew he was home. If he felt cold, slick concrete, he was in custody.

One night he ended up in the hospital. He'd been drunk, hanging out in Lucky Alley, when a car drove up and the doors flew open. Aroche saw his friend get sliced with a machete. Gunshots rang out.

"And I remember some guy grabbing me and hitting me with a crowbar and stabbing me in my stomach," he said. "And I could feel the pierce of my stomach, just ripping me open.... And I thought, this is it. This is it. This is my life."

::

At the computer in his spartan office at the Hall of Justice, Aroche is poring over the official tale of another life in the balance: a 28-year-old woman on a downward spiral.

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IPO Lottery 2013: 10 Companies to Watch

The Chinese calendar might have it pegged as the year of the black snake, but investors are already calling 2013 the year of the enterprise IPO. Not nearly as catchy as something reptilian, but hopefully a lot more profitable than the newly public consumer companies, Facebook chief among them, that took a beating in the public markets in 2012.

Consistent with the enterprise theme, we already know that data-center networking company Gigamon and solid-state storage business Violin Memory have filed their S-1 forms. Other enterprise plays will follow. And just because the smart money is betting on companies that get paid selling to other companies, doesn’t mean some well-known consumer outfits, including Twitter, Square, and Evernote couldn’t try their luck with an IPO in 2013.

We picked nine private companies with public market potential to watch in 2013. For each we weigh the odds of whether, market conditions permitting, of course, they have a shot or not.

Above:

Odds of an IPO: Looking good, but only if it can close its next round

This startup is the darling of the collaborative consumption movement, allowing anyone to put up their house or apartment for travelers to rent. While it’s been close to 18 months since its taken venture capital, Airbnb is already up to $230 million. Rumor has it that the company is vying for a $100 million third round of funding at a $2 billion valuation, and has plans to go public once it closes a new round.

Above: Airbnb co-founder Nate Blecharczyk. Photo:
JD Lasica/Flickr

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”Texas Chainsaw” movie kills rivals at North America box office

(Reuters) – The return of the bloody “Texas Chainsaw” franchise sliced up movie box office rivals with a surprise win over the weekend, grabbing an estimated $ 23 million in U.S. and Canadian ticket sales.

The new “Texas Chainsaw 3D” pulled past Quentin Tarantino Western “Django Unchained,” the second place film from Friday through Sunday with $ 20 million. No. 3 movie “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” grabbed $ 17.5 million.

Going into the weekend, box office forecasters did not think the revival of the 40-year-old “Texas Chainsaw” franchise had enough buzz to top the holiday releases that are adding to their tallies during the month of January, a typically slow time for moviegoing.

Marketing efforts for “Texas Chainsaw” paid off for distributor Lions Gate Entertainment, the studio behind the horror franchise.

Lions Gate ran a social media campaign aimed at its core horror fan base – mostly young men and women – and ran promotions during AMC Networks’ TV zombie hit “The Walking Dead.” The studio aimed for a broader audience with promotions during college football bowl games and other sports programs after Christmas.

“The numbers were a little bit more than expected,” said Richie Fay, the president of domestic distribution for Lions Gate Entertainment.

“It is great to be No. 1. I think we held our own,” he added.

Lions Gate spent about $ 20 million to promote the movie, which was produced by Millennium Films.

The movie revives a franchise that started four decades ago with the 1974 film about a serial killer named Leatherface. Since then, the seven “Texas Chainsaw” movies have pulled in $ 175 million at North American (U.S. and Canadian) theaters, according to website Box Office Mojo. The films have generated $ 416 million domestically.

The new movie follows a woman who inherits a family home in the town of Newt, Texas, showing all of the blood and gore in 3D. The story picked up where the original left off and included cameos from original cast members.

“Texas Chainsaw” was the only new nationwide release in North America (United States and Canada) over the weekend. “The Hobbit,” the first of three movies based on the fantasy novel by J.R.R. Tolkien, brought its total domestic sales to $ 263.8 million since its December 14 debut. “Django Unchained,” released on Christmas Day, reached $ 106.3 million.

In fourth place for the weekend, musical “Les Miserables” earned $ 16.1 million, bringing its domestic sales to $ 103.6 million since its Christmas Day release. The No. 5 slot belonged to family comedy “Parental Guidance,” which grossed $ 10.1 million.

“The Hobbit” was distributed by Time Warner Inc’s Warner Bros. studio. The Weinstein Co. released “Django Unchained.” Universal Studios, a unit of Comcast Corp distributed “Les Miserables.” “Parental Guidance” was released by 20th Century Fox, a unit of News Corp.

(Reporting By Lisa Richwine; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

Movies News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Tehran Is Choked by Annual Buildup of Air Pollution

TEHRAN — Already battered by international threats against their nation’s nuclear program, sanctions and a broken economy, Iranians living here in the capital are now trying to cope with what has become an annual pollution peril: a yellowish haze that engulfs Tehran this time of year.

For nearly a week, officials here and in other large cities have been calling on residents to remain indoors or avoid downtown areas, saying that with air pollution at such high levels, venturing outside could be tantamount to “suicide,” state radio reported Saturday.

On Sunday, government offices, schools, universities and banks reopened after the government had ordered them to shut down for five days to help ease the chronic pollution. Tehran’s normally bustling streets were largely deserted.

Residents who dare to go outside cover their mouths and noses with scarves or surgical masks, but their eyes tear up and their throats sting from the mist of pollutants, which a report by the municipality of Tehran says is made up of a mixture of particles containing lead, sulfur dioxins and benzene.

“It feels as if even God has turned against us,” Azadeh, a 32-year-old artist, said on a recent day as she looked out a window in her apartment that often offers a clear view of Tehran, a sprawling city that is home to millions. But on this day, Azadeh, who did not want her full name used, saw only the blurred outlines of high-rise buildings and the Milad communications tower in the distance. The setting sun was reduced to a yellowish coin by the thick blanket of smog.

The haze of pollution occurs every year when cold air and windless days trap fumes belched out by millions of cars and hundreds of old factories between the peaks of the majestic Alborz mountain range, which embraces Tehran like a crescent moon.

Iran is prominently represented in the World Health Organization’s 2011 report on air quality and health, with three of its provincial towns among the organization’s list of the world’s 10 most-polluted cities. According to the report, Tehran has roughly four times as many polluting particles per cubic meter as Los Angeles. Many cities known for their poor air quality, like Mexico City, Shanghai and Bangkok, are cleaner than Tehran.

But since 2010, when American sanctions on Iranian imports of refined gasoline began to bite, the situation has grown worse, according to the report by the municipality of Tehran.

Faced with possible fuel shortages, Iran surprised outsiders by quickly making up for the loss of imports by producing its own brew of gasoline. While the emergency fuel kept vehicles running, local experts warned that it was creating much more pollution.

A recently released report by Tehran’s department of air quality control contained blank spaces where there should have been information about levels of benzene and lead — components of gasoline — in the capital’s air. But the report did state that while Tehran experienced more than 300 “healthy days” in 2009, in 2011 there were fewer than 150.

Iran’s Health Ministry has reported a rise in respiratory and heart diseases, as well as an increase in a variety of cancers that it says are related to pollution.

The state newspaper Resalat on Saturday called the pollution a continuing crisis, and it urged the authorities to act. “Why is it that when the winds pick up, this problem is again quickly forgotten?” an editorial asked. Another newspaper, Donya-e-Eqtesad, which is critical of the government, pressed for an improvement in gasoline standards.

The pollution caused by the use of the emergency fuel concoction has been a taboo subject here, as officials try to portray each measure to counter the economic sanctions as a success that should not to be criticized by the local news media.

On state television, several officials have denied that the yellow haze has anything to do with the locally produced gasoline.

In an interview on Saturday, Ali Mohammad Sha’eri, the deputy director of Iran’s Environmental Protection Organization, strongly denied that the pollution was linked to gasoline. However, he said that only 20 percent of the emergency fuel was up to modern standards. “Hopefully in three months that level will be 50 percent,” he said.

Meanwhile, the government has imposed strict traffic regulations in Tehran, Isfahan and other major population centers. An odd-even traffic-control plan based on the last digit of vehicle license plates keeps about half of the approximately three and a half million cars in Tehran off the streets on a daily basis.

Other plans to combat the pollution have been less realistic, analysts say. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has long advocated a plan to move civil servants from Tehran to reduce overpopulation in the capital. In 2010, the governor of Tehran Province ordered crop-dusters to dump water on the smog in an effort to dissipate it. There have also been plans for placing air purifiers in the city, but experts say they will not work in open spaces.

For those living in Tehran and unable to leave town for a vacation home on the Caspian Sea, waiting for the winds to pick up seems to be the only option.

“My head hurts, and I’m constantly dead tired,” said Niloufar Mohammadi, a university student. “I try not to go out, but I can smell the pollution in my room as I am trying to study.”

Azadeh, the artist, said the pollution forced her to stay indoors, adding to her sense of isolation. Step by step her world was being curtailed, she said. The Western sanctions imposed on Iran make her feel like a pariah, she explained. The government’s mismanagement of the economy and the resulting inflation have left her with little purchasing power, she said; she has stopped shopping for everything but essential items. And last week, security officers removed her illegal satellite dish from her roof.

“The pollution is the last straw for me,” she said. “We should wait helpless for winds to pick up and clean the air before we can safely leave our houses. It shows we have lost all power to control our lives.”

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Markets Tighten After 5-Year High

Stocks on Wall Street fell at the opening on Monday after the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index closed out last week at a five-year high.

The S.&P. 500 lost 0.5 percent in early trading, the Dow Jones industrial average fell 0.5 percent and the Nasdaq composite index slipped 0.5 percent. European market indexes were down in afternoon trading.

Last week was the best for stocks traded in New York in more than a year as a budget deal and economic data bolstered investor confidence.

Investors are likely to turn their attention to the fourth-quarter earnings season that kicks off this week. Earnings were expected to be only slightly better than the third quarter’s lackluster results, and analysts’ estimates were down sharply from what they were in October.

“We have a cautious market entering fourth-quarter earnings season,” said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Rockwell Global Capital in New York. “I think it’s going to be a disappointing one this time around.”

Financial shares will also be in focus on Monday, a day after a panel of global regulators known as the Basel Committee gave banks four more years and greater flexibility to build up cash buffers, scaling back moves that aimed to help prevent another financial crisis.

By spurring credit, the easing of the bank rules may help support growth, potentially raising investments in equities and other relatively risky assets. “Basel giving banks four more years to get their act together will be good” for stocks, Mr. Cardillo said.

Bank of America shares added 0.5 percent after it reached a settlement with Fannie Mae to resolve mortgage repurchase claims.

The video-streaming service Netflix said it would carry previous seasons of some popular shows produced by Time Warner’s Warner Brothers Television. Its shares rose 3.9 percent.

Amazon.com shares rose 3.1 percent after Morgan Stanley raised its rating on the stock to “overweight” from “equal weight.”

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Reality shows may put crews too close to cutting edge

Monica Martino had filmed tornadoes in the Midwest, ship collisions in the Antarctic and crab fishermen in Alaska's Bering Sea. But those experiences didn't prepare her for a terrifying nighttime boat ride in the Amazon jungle.

In February, the 41-year-old co-executive producer was thrown into a murky river after getting footage for "Bamazon," a series for the History cable channel about out-of-work Alabama construction workers mining for gold in the rain forest of Guyana.

Martino says the captain was blind in one eye and sailing too fast without a proper light. He lost control of the boat while making a hard turn, sending the crew into the river, where Martino was knocked out by the impact of hitting the water at high speed.

Pulled back into the boat, Martino regained consciousness. But on the journey back to base camp, the vessel struck a tree, slamming Martino into the deck. Although she sustained a concussion, bruised ribs and a badly torn shoulder, Martino said, she had to wait 19 hours to receive medical care at a clinic in Venezuela because the production company had no viable medical evacuation plan for the crew.

History and the production company, Red Line Films, declined to comment.

"It was a whole cascade of negligence," said Martino, who lives in Santa Monica. "We were put in a situation far beyond what any production crew should be expected to handle."

As reality TV has boomed over the last decade, action-adventure shows have become a lucrative niche in a medium hungry for high ratings. But the growth has also stirred concerns that some reality TV programs are cutting corners on safety, exposing cast and crew members to hazardous conditions.

A combination of tight budgets, lack of trained safety personnel and pressure to capture dramatic footage has caused serious and in some cases fatal incidents, according to interviews with television producers, safety consultants and labor advocates.

Even the companies that provide insurance to Hollywood films and TV shows are reluctant to write policies for some of the edgier programs.

"These reality shows are getting riskier to get more ratings,'' said Wendy Diaz, senior underwriting director for the entertainment division of Fireman's Fund Insurance, one of the leading insurance carriers that serve the entertainment industry.

Records from OSHA and the state Division of Occupational Safety and Health show fewer than a dozen citations and accidents involving reality TV sets in the last five years, including a fatality that occurred this summer in Colorado during production of a proposed Discovery Channel series. But union officials, safety consultants and producers say those numbers don't begin to reveal the true extent of the problem.

PHOTOS: Where the last seasons left off

Many incidents go unreported because crew members sign non-disclosure agreements and fear being blacklisted if they file lawsuits. Record-keeping is further muddled by the fact that many of the shows are nonunion, and workers are often classified as independent contractors. OSHA typically tracks only serious accidents involving employees and has no jurisdiction if the incident occurs in a foreign country such as Guyana.

"Reality has a lot of near-misses and things that happen that you never hear about," said Vanessa Holtgrewe, an industry veteran and former camera operator on "The Biggest Loser" and "The X Factor" who now works as an organizer for the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees. "On a lot of these shows, you're completely on your own. There is no one you can call if … you feel you're in a dangerous situation."

State and federal OSHA officials declined to comment specifically on incidents involving the reality TV sector.

Fireman's Fund estimated that it would underwrite 160 action-adventure reality shows in 2012, a 25% increase over the previous year. But it passed on about 50 other reality TV programs because they were deemed too risky, Diaz said.

"We had people who wanted to go to Mexico to follow the drug cartels around," Diaz said. "We had one show where they were going to blow up a mine. We told them we wouldn't insure the show."

Reality series — which cover everything from "Survivor" to "Keeping Up With the Kardashians" — have provided a huge revenue stream for cable and broadcast networks. The shows have lower production costs than scripted entertainment and tend to attract the younger viewers favored by advertisers.

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