Claire Danes and Hugh Dancy welcome a baby boy

NEW YORK (AP) — Claire Danes and Hugh Dancy's "Homeland" just got bigger.

Danes' rep confirms the couple welcomed a baby boy named Cyrus Michael Christopher.

People.com first reported Monday's birth.

It's the first child for 33-year old Danes and 37-year-old Dancy. They were married in 2009.

There's no word yet whether the new mom will attend the Golden Globe Awards on Jan. 13. She's nominated for Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series for her work on Showtime's "Homeland."

Up next, Dancy stars in NBC's "Hannibal," an adaptation of Thomas Harris' novel "Red Dragon."

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F.D.A. and States Meet About Regulation of Drug Compounders

Mary Calvert/Reuters

Margaret Hamburg, the F.D.A. commissioner, testified on the meningitis outbreak before Congress in November. She addressed the need for greater federal oversight of large compounding pharmacies, which mix batches of drugs on their own, often for much lower prices than major manufacturers charge.

SILVER SPRING, Md. – The Food and Drug Administration conferred with public health officials from 50 states on Wednesday about how best to strengthen rules governing compounding pharmacies in the wake of a national meningitis outbreak caused by a tainted pain medication produced by a Massachusetts pharmacy.

It was the first public discussion of what should be done about the practice of compounding, or tailor-making medicine for individual patients, since the F.D.A. commissioner, Dr. Margaret Hamburg, testified in Congress last month about the need for greater federal oversight of large compounding pharmacies. So far, 620 people in 19 states have been sickened in the outbreak, and 39 of them have died.

Pharmacies fall primarily under state law, and the F.D.A. convened the meeting to get specifics from states on gaps in the regulatory net and how the states see the federal role. Some states said they would prefer to see the F.D.A. handle large-scale compounders like the New England Compounding Center, or N.E.C.C., the Massachusetts pharmacy that was the source of the outbreak.

“The consensus in our group was that there is a role for the F.D.A. to be involved in facilities like N.E.C.C.,” said Cody Wiberg, the executive director of the Minnesota Board of Pharmacy. “If you’re talking about compounding, most states have the authority and resources to handle that. If you’re talking about nontraditional compounding,” he said, referring to large-scale enterprises like N.E.C.C., “fewer states may have the resources to do that.”

Large-scale compounding has expanded drastically since the early 1990s, driven by changes in the health care system, including the rise of hospital outsourcing.

“It is very clear that the health care system has evolved and the role of the compounding pharmacies has really shifted,” Dr. Hamburg said in a telephone interview on Tuesday. She said the laws had not kept pace.

“We need legislation that reflects the current environment and the known gaps in our state and federal oversight systems,” Dr. Hamburg said.

Under current law, compounders are not required to give the F.D.A. access to their books, and about half of all the court orders the agency obtained over the past decade were for pharmacy compounders, although compounders are only a small part of the agency’s regulatory responsibilities.

The F.D.A.'s critics argue that the agency already has all the legal authority it needs to police compounders. They say that many compounders have been operating as major manufacturers, shipping to states across the country, and that the F.D.A. should be using its jurisdiction over manufacturers to regulate those companies’ activities.

“There should be one uniform federal standard that is enforced by one agency – the F.D.A.,” said Michael Carome, deputy director of Public Citizen’s Health Research Group, a nonprofit consumer organization, who has been a critic of the agency’s approach. “They have been lax in enforcing that standard.”

But Dr. Hamburg contends that the distinction is not so simple. Lumping large compounders in with manufacturers would mean they would have to file new drug applications for every product they make, a costly and time-consuming process that is not always necessary for the products they make, like IV feeding tube bags, for example. Dr. Hamburg has proposed creating a new federal oversight category for large-scale compounders, separate from manufacturers.

“What concerns me is the idea that we could assert full authority over some of these facilities as though they were manufacturers, as though there were an on-off, black-white option,” Dr. Hamburg said. “That is a heavy-handed way to regulate a set of activities that can make a huge positive difference in providing necessary health care to people.”

The central problem, state representatives said, is how to define large-scale compounding. Should companies be measured by how much they produce, whether they ship across state lines, the types of products they produce, or some combination of those factors?

“It’s easy to stand at a distance and ask why can’t there be a bright line?” said Jay Campbell, executive director of the North Carolina Board of Pharmacy. “Let’s not let the perfect get in the way of the good. We won’t be able to make a distinction that is razor sharp.”

Large-scale compounders play an important role in the health care supply chain when they produce high-quality products, F.D.A. officials say. They fill gaps during shortages and supply hospitals with products that can be made more safely and cost-effectively in bulk than in individual hospitals.

Officials said they wanted to make sure the products made by such suppliers were safe, but were also concerned about disrupting that supply.

Carmen Catizone, head of the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy, said that states were not equipped to regulate the large-scale compounders and that the F.D.A. needed to find a middle path for regulating them.

“Either hospitals are not going to like the solution, or the manufacturers aren’t going to like the fact that these guys get a shorter path,” he said. “But something’s got to give.”

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Federal regulators take steps to strengthen kids' online privacy [Google+ Hangout]

Columnist David Lazarus talks with Mark Blafkin, spokesman for an organization of app developers, and Alan Simpson of Common Sense Media, an advocacy group for parents.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Federal regulators have taken the first major step in nearly 15 years to strengthen the protection of kids’ online privacy.

The Federal Trade Commission said Wednesday that it has given parents greater control over the information that online services collect from kids 12 and under.

The changes don't go as far as originally proposed after heavy lobbying from the technology and media industry that said the changes would hamper economic growth, stifle innovation and limit the scope and number of online games and educational programs for kids.

Live video chat at 3 p.m.

The FTC began a review of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act in 2010. It said the law needed to catch up with the advances in technology and the explosion of mobile devices.

“The Commission takes seriously its mandate to protect children’s online privacy in this ever-changing technological landscape,” FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz said in a statement. “I am confident that the amendments to the COPPA Rule strike the right balance between protecting innovation that will provide rich and engaging content for children, and ensuring that parents are informed and involved in their children’s online activities.”

Among the steps it has taken, the FTC has made it clear that a child’s location, photographs and videos cannot be collected without a parent’s permission. It also closed a loophole that allowed mobile apps and websites to permit third parties to collect personal information from kids without notifying or obtaining the consent of parents.

It also extended kids’ privacy rules to cover IP addresses, mobile device IDs and other means of identifying a user, requiring services to take “reasonable steps” to release kids’ information only to companies that can keep it “secure and confidential.”

Privacy watchdogs issued statements of support for the rule changes.

 “We are at a critical moment in the growth of the children’s digital marketplace as social networks, mobile phones and gaming platforms become an increasingly powerful presence in the lives of young people,” said Kathryn Montgomery, professor of communications  at American University. “The new rules should help ensure that companies targeting children throughout the rapidly expanding digital media landscape will be required to engage in fair marketing and data collection practices.”

Join us for a live video chat at 3 p.m. on the issue with consumer columnist David Lazarus and Mark Blafkin, a spokesman for ACT, an organization representing app developers, and Alan Simpson, vice president of policy at Common Sense Media, an advocacy group representing families.

ALSO:

FTC investigates mobile apps makers on children's privacy

Giant social network Facebook may give access to children under 13

Parents want more online privacy protections for kids, privacy groups say

Follow me on Twitter @jguynn

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Two more funerals in Newtown; NRA responds to school massacre

NEWTOWN, Conn. -- Two more of the children killed by a gunman who invaded a Connecticut elementary school were buried on Tuesday as officials released new details of the deadly spree that has reshaped the debate over gun control.

The National Rifle Assn., which has been under pressure to comment on the Newtown shootings, broke its silence and issued a statement saying it was ready to offer its plans at a Friday news conference.

“We were shocked, saddened and heartbroken by the news of the horrific and senseless murders in Newtown,” said the pro-gun rights lobbying group, which has repeatedly fought gun-control legislation on the national, state and local levels. “The NRA is prepared to offer meaningful contributions to help make sure this never happens again.”

PHOTOS: Mourning after the massacre

Both funerals were held at St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church, which has been one of the centers for consoling the bereaved and for memorial services that began Friday evening, hours after Adam Lanza opened fire inside Sandy Hook Elementary School.

Primarily using a Bushmaster AR-15-style rifle, Lanza killed 20 children and six adults in the school before turning a handgun on himself, authorities said. The rampage began Friday morning when Lanza killed his mother, Nancy, in the home they shared.

Dr. H. Wayne Carver, the state’s chief medical examiner, told reporters on Tuesday that Nancy Lanza was shot four times in the head with a .22-caliber rifle. She was most likely asleep when she was killed, Carver said, according to the Hartford Courant.

After shooting his mother, Adam Lanza took her car and several of her guns and went to the school, where he forcibly entered and opened fire. The Bushmaster and two handguns were later recovered from the building and a shotgun was found in the car, officials said.

Sandy Hook Elementary remains closed, most likely for months, as investigators continue their work seeking to understand why Lanza did what he did. The hundreds of students at the school are being relocated to a school in nearby Monroe, Conn.

In the rain and cold Tuesday, other Newtown students returned to their schools where teachers were prepared to help them cope with the massacre. Campuses also had a sizable police presence to reassure parents.

One Newtown school, Head O'Meadow Elementary, was locked down Tuesday due to an unspecified threat. The principal told parents to keep their children home, according to a letter from the principal published by WFSB-TV. Police have said they will deal harshly with hoaxes and threats, including two directed over the weekend at St. Rose.

The first funeral Tuesday morning was for James Mattioli, 6. In what has become an ongoing sight, mourners kept their heads down and walked quickly into the building, and refused to comment. The families have repeatedly asked for privacy for their grief, a position backed by local police.

James' funeral was the first of eight to be held at the church. By noon, flowers for the second service, for Jessica Rekos, also 6, had begun to arrive.

James has been described by family members as a budding “numbers guy.” Jessica was a horse enthusiast who wanted cowgirl boots for Christmas, relatives told reporters.

A wake was scheduled Tuesday night for slain teacher Victoria Soto. Police were to be part of an honor guard for Soto, who died trying to protect her students by getting them into a closet and putting her body between the gunman and her charges.

The shootings have reopened the debate on gun-control laws, specifically whether to renew the expired national ban on assault weapons. President Obama has asked his staff to come up with proposals, though no time frame for action has been given. Even staunch pro-gun rights lawmakers have also called for reopening discussion on some bans.

ALSO:

'Puppies for Rent' business in Utah sparks criticism

L.A. girls pay tribute in visit, but Newtown is a day of hearses

'No, no, no': Harrowing 911 call, then 4 dead near Longmont, Colo.

Susman reported from Newtown, Conn., and Muskal from Los Angeles.

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Google Music adds free iTunes-like song-matching feature

Title Post: Google Music adds free iTunes-like song-matching feature
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NY appeals court takes up Cameron Douglas case

NEW YORK (AP) — A lawyer for the son of actor Michael Douglas hopes to convince a New York appeals court that he shouldn't have to spend a decade in prison for drug crimes.

Attorney Paul Shechtman says a 4½-year sentence given to Cameron Douglas that was added to a 5-year prison term he was already serving is "shockingly long." The sentence was added after a drug infraction in prison. But prosecutors say the sentence is reasonable, given the many times Douglas has broken his word to feed a drug and alcohol abuse addiction that stretches to when he was 13.

Shechtman says Cameron Douglas began selling drugs after his father sharply limited his access to family money because he wouldn't enter a drug rehabilitation program.

Arguments on the case are set for Wednesday.

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Samsung set to overtake Nokia as No. 1 cellphone brand worldwide

For the first time in 14 years, Nokia will not be the No. 1 cellphone brand in the world.

Samsung is set to claim the top spot in the mobile handset market, accounting for 29% of worldwide cellphone shipments this year, according to market research firm IHS. That's up from 24% last year.

Nokia, meanwhile, will see its market share this year drop to 24% from 30% in 2011.

This year will mark the first time Samsung will occupy the top position on a yearly basis. The South Korean's rise was helped by strong sales of its smartphones, IHS said.

Global smartphone shipments are projected to rise 35.5% this year, while overall cellphone shipments will increase by about 1%. This rapid growth will propel 2012 smartphone penetration among consumers to 47%, up from 35% last year.

“The competitive reality of the cellphone market in 2012 was ‘live by the smartphone, die by the smartphone,’” said Wayne Lam, senior analyst for wireless communications at IHS. “Smartphones represent the fastest-growing segment of the cellphone market and will account for nearly half of all wireless handset shipments for all of 2012. Samsung’s successes and Nokia’s struggles in the cellphone market this year were determined entirely by the two companies’ divergent fortunes in the smartphone sector.”

Samsung's success has been built on its “fast follower” strategy for design and manufacturing, IHS said. The electronics giant produces dozens of new smartphone models every year that address all segments of the market, from the high end to the low end.

Meanwhile, Finnish-based Nokia is "mired in transitioning its smartphone line to the Windows operating system," resulting in declining shipments for the company, IHS said. Sales of the company’s older phones have plunged, while its new Microsoft Windows 7-based handsets haven’t been able to make up for the loss so far.

Samsung is also pulling ahead of rival Apple in the smartphone market: Samsung and Apple ended 2011 in a neck-and-neck battle for leadership in the smartphone market, with only 1 percentage point of market share separating them. However, entering 2012, Samsung "moved ahead decisively" of Apple with a wide range of Android smartphone offerings at multiple price points, IHS said.

Together, Samsung and Apple smartphones accounted for nearly half of shipments in 2012, up from 39% last year.

IHS said it expects that the smartphone penetration rate in 2013 will elevate smartphones into the majority among all phone segments, at 56%. The change will mark a significant tipping point in the mobile handset market.

ALSO:

Amazon readying smartphone for mid-2013 launch?

Samsung unveils Galaxy Grand smartphone with a 5-inch screen

Instagram says it will respond to terms-of-service uproar 'very soon'

Read More..

Hawaii's nine-term senator, Daniel Inouye, dies at 88

WASHINGTON – Sen. Daniel Inouye of Hawaii, the second-longest-serving senator in U.S. history and winner of the Medal of Honor for combat heroics in World War II, has died, his office announced in a statement. He was 88.

"His last words were, 'Aloha,'" his office said.

Inouye died at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, with his wife, Irene, and his son, Ken, at his side. Last rites were performed by Senate Chaplain Dr. Barry Black, his office said.

A senator since 1963, Inouye in 2009 became chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, where he continued a long record of helping fund projects in his home state. From 1998 to 2003, he steered $1.4 billion to military projects in Hawaii, according to The Almanac of American Politics.

The son of Japanese immigrants, Inouye grew up in Honolulu, where he was teaching a first aid course at age 17 when Pearl Harbor was attacked.  He enlisted in the Army in 1943, when it dropped its ban on Japanese Americans.

PHOTOS: Notable deaths of 2012

Promoted to sergeant, he fought in Italy and France. On April 21, 1945, while leading an assault in Italy against the Germans, Inouye was shot in the stomach. He nonetheless attacked and destroyed two machine gun nests before being even more severely wounded, losing his right arm.

“By his gallant, aggressive tactics and by his indomitable leadership, Second Lieutenant Inouye enabled his platoon to advance through formidable resistance, and was instrumental in the capture of the ridge,” says his citation for the Medal of Honor, the military’s highest award. “Second Lieutenant Inouye's extraordinary heroism and devotion to duty are in keeping with the highest traditions of military service and reflect great credit on him, his unit, and the United States Army.”

When asked in recent days how he wanted to be remembered, Inouye said, according to his office, "I represented the people of Hawaii and this nation honestly and to the best of my ability. I think I did OK."

Follow Politics Now on Twitter and Facebook

ken.dilanian@latimes.com

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'The Hobbit' tops box office with record $84.6M

NEW YORK (AP) — Peter Jackson's "The Hobbit" led the box office over the weekend with $84.6 million, a record-setting opening better than the three previous "Lord of the Rings" films.

The 3-D Middle Earth epic, the first of three planned films adapted from J.R.R. Tolkien's novel, was the biggest December opening ever, surpassing Will Smith's "I Am Legend," which opened with $77.2 million in 2007.

The top 20 movies at U.S. and Canadian theaters Friday through Sunday, followed by distribution studio, gross, number of theater locations, average receipts per location, total gross and number of weeks in release, as compiled Monday by Hollywood.com are:

1. "The Hobbit: an Unexpected Journey," Warner Bros., $84,617,303, 4,045 locations, $20,919 average, $84,617,303, one week.

2. "Rise of the Guardians," Paramount, $7,143,445, 3,387 locations, $2,109 average, $71,085,268, four weeks.

3. "Lincoln," Disney, $7,033,132, 2,285 locations, $3,078 average, $107,687,319, six weeks.

4. "Skyfall," Sony, $6,555,732, 2,924 locations, $2,242 average, $271,921,795, six weeks.

5. "Life of Pi," Fox, $5,413,066, 2,548 locations, $2,124 average, $69,572,472, four weeks.

6. "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 2," Summit, $5,136,074, 3,042 locations, $1,688 average, $276,826,143, five weeks.

7. "Wreck-It Ralph," Disney, $3,216,043, 2,249 locations, $1,430 average, $168,721,592, seven weeks.

8. "Playing For Keeps," FilmDistrict, $3,146,443, 2,840 locations, $1,108 average, $10,737,535, two weeks.

9. "Red Dawn," FilmDistrict, $2,408,882, 2,250 locations, $1,071 average, $40,904,305, four weeks.

10. "Silver Linings Playbook," Weinstein Co., $2,109,274, 371 locations, $5,685 average, $16,979,323, five weeks.

11. "Flight," Paramount, $1,910,666, 1,823 locations, $1,048 average, $89,418,704, seven weeks.

12. "Argo," Warner Bros., $1,170,175, 667 locations, $1,754 average, $104,955,079, 10 weeks.

13. "Hitchcock," Fox Searchlight, $1,107,659, 561 locations, $1,974 average, $3,071,871, four weeks.

14. "Anna Karenina," Focus, $1,022,214, 409 locations, $2,499 average, $8,380,517, five weeks.

15. "Killing Them Softly," Weinstein Co., $1,008,127, 1,427 locations, $706 average, $14,140,432, three weeks.

16. "The Collection," LD Entertainment, $529,158, 621 locations, $852 average, $6,520,794, three weeks.

17. "Hyde Park On Hudson," Focus, $292,796, 36 locations, $8,133 average, $404,816, two weeks.

18. "Taken 2," Fox, $288,772, 339 locations, $852 average, $138,132,493, 11 weeks.

19. "Pitch Perfect," Universal, $245,680, 332 locations, $740 average, $63,869,423, 12 weeks.

20. "Talaash," Reliance Big Pictures, $168,828, 113 locations, $1,494 average, $2,706,375, three weeks.

___

Universal and Focus are owned by NBC Universal, a unit of Comcast Corp.; Sony, Columbia, Sony Screen Gems and Sony Pictures Classics are units of Sony Corp.; Paramount is owned by Viacom Inc.; Disney, Pixar and Marvel are owned by The Walt Disney Co.; Miramax is owned by Filmyard Holdings LLC; 20th Century Fox and Fox Searchlight are owned by News Corp.; Warner Bros. and New Line are units of Time Warner Inc.; MGM is owned by a group of former creditors including Highland Capital, Anchorage Advisors and Carl Icahn; Lionsgate is owned by Lions Gate Entertainment Corp.; IFC is owned by AMC Networks Inc.; Rogue is owned by Relativity Media LLC.

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A Conversation With S. Matthew Liao: Studying Ethical Questions as We Unlock the Black Box of the Brain

Béatrice de Géa for The New York Times

CAUTION S. Matthew Liao urges advance thinking about new technologies.

In a world of proliferating professions, S. Matthew Liao has a singular title: neuroethicist. Dr. Liao, 40, the director of the bioethics program at New York University, deploys the tools of philosophy, history, psychology, religion and ethics to understand the impact of neuroscientific breakthroughs.

We spoke over four hours in two sessions. A condensed and edited version of the conversations follows.

You’re a philosopher by training. How did philosophy lead to neuroethics?

Mine’s the typical immigrant’s story. My family moved to Cincinnati from Taiwan in the early 1980s. Once here, my siblings gravitated towards the sciences. I was the black sheep. I was in love with the humanities. So I didn’t go to M.I.T. — I went to Princeton, where I got a degree in philosophy. This, of course, worried my parents. They’d never met a philosopher with a job.

Do you have any insight on why scientific careers are so attractive to new Americans?

You don’t need to speak perfect English to do science. And there are job opportunities.

Define neuroethics.

It’s a kind of subspecialty of bioethics. Until very recently, the human mind was a black box. But here we are in the 21st century, and now we have all these new technologies with opportunities to look inside that black box — a little.

With functional magnetic imaging, f.M.R.I., you can get pictures of what the brain is doing during cognition. You see which parts light up during brain activity. Scientists are trying to match those lights with specific behaviors.

At the same time this is moving forward, there are all kinds of drugs being developed and tested to modify behavior and the mind. So the question is: Are these new technologies ethical?

A neuroethicist can look at the downstream implications of these new possibilities. We help map the conflicting arguments, which will, hopefully, lead to more informed decisions. What we want is for citizens and policy makers to be thinking in advance about how new technologies will affect them. As a society, we don’t do enough of that.

Give us an example of a technology that entered our lives without forethought.

The Internet. It has made us more connected to the world’s knowledge. But it’s also reduced our actual human contacts with one another.

So what would be an issue you might look at through a neuroethics lens?

New drugs to alter memory. Right now, the government is quite interested in propranolol. They are testing it on soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder. The good part is that the drug helps traumatized veterans by removing the bad memories causing them such distress. A neuroethicist must ask, “Is this good for society, to have warriors have their memories wiped out chemically? Will we start getting conscienceless soldiers?”

What do you think?

It is a serious business removing memories, because memories can affect your personal identity. They can impact who you think you are. I’d differentiate between offering such a drug to every distressed soldier and giving it only to certain individuals with a specific need.

Let’s say you have a situation like that in “Sophie’s Choice,” where the memories are so bad that the person is suicidal. Even if the drug causes them to live in falsehood, that would have been preferable to suicide.

But should we give it to every soldier who goes into battle? No! You need memory for a conscience. Doing this routinely might create super-immoral soldiers. As humans we have natural moral reactions to the beings around us — sympathy for other people and animals. When you start to tinker with those neurosystems, we’re not going to react to our fellow humans in the right way anymore. One wonders about the wrong people giving propranolol routinely to genocidal gangs in places like Rwanda or Syria.

Some researchers claim to be near to using f.M.R.I.’s to read thoughts. Is this really happening?

The technology, though still crude, appears to be getting closer. For instance, there’s one research group that asks subjects to watch movies. When they look at the subject’s visual cortex while the subject is watching, they can sort of recreate what they are seeing — or a semblance of it.

Similarly, there’s another experiment where they can tell in advance whether you’re going to push the right or the left button. On the basis of these experiments some people claim they’ll soon be able to read minds. Before we go further with this, I’d like to think more about what it could mean. The technology has the potential to destroy any concept of inner privacy.

What about using f.M.R.I. to replace lie detectors?

The fact is we don’t really know if f.M.R.I.’s will be any more reliable or predictive. Nonetheless, in India, a woman was convicted of poisoning her boyfriend on the basis of f.M.R.I. evidence. The authorities said that based on the pictures of blood flow in her brain, she was lying to them.

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