C. African Republic president seeks foreign help

BANGUI, Central African Republic (AP) — The president of Central African Republic on Thursday urgently called on France and other foreign powers to help his government fend off rebels who are quickly seizing territory and approaching the capital, but French officials declined to offer any military assistance.

The developments suggest Central African Republic could be on the brink of another violent change in government, something not new in the history of this resource-rich, yet deeply impoverished country. The current president, Francois Bozize, himself came to power nearly a decade ago in the wake of a rebellion.

Speaking to crowds in Bangui, a city of some 600,000, Bozize pleaded with foreign powers to do what they could. He pointed in particular to France, Central African Republic’s former colonial ruler.

About 200 French soldiers are already in the country, providing technical support and helping to train the local army, according to the French defense ministry.

“France has the means to stop (the rebels) but unfortunately they have done nothing for us until now,” Bozize said.

French President Francois Hollande said Thursday that France wants to protect its interests in Central African Republic and not Bozize’s government. The comments came a day after dozens of protesters, angry about a lack of help against rebel forces, threw rocks at the French Embassy in Bangui and stole a French flag.

Paris is encouraging peace talks between the government and the rebels, with the French Foreign Ministry noting in a statement that negotiations are due to “begin shortly in Libreville (Gabon).” But it was not immediately clear what, if any, dates have been set for those talks.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, meanwhile, spoke via phone with Bozize, asking the president to take responsibility for the safety of French nationals and diplomatic missions in Central African Republic.

U.S. officials said Thursday the State Department would close its embassy in the country and ordered its diplomatic team to leave. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were unauthorized to discuss the evacuation publicly.

The United Nations Security Council issued a press statement late Thursday reiterating its concern about the situation in the country and condemned the attacks.

“The members of the Security Council reiterate their demand that the armed groups immediately cease hostilities, withdraw from captured cities and cease any further advance towards the city of Bangui,” the statement reads.

Bozize’s government earlier reached out to longtime ally Chad, which pledged to send 2,000 troops to bolster Central African Republic’s own forces. But it was unclear if the Chadian troops had all arrived, and even then, it is far from certain if the combined government forces could withstand rebel attacks.

At least four different rebel groups are involved, though their overall numbers could not immediately be confirmed.

Central African Republic, a landlocked nation of some 4.4 million people, is roughly the size of France. It has suffered decades of army revolts, coups and rebellions since gaining independence in 1960 and remains one of the poorest countries in the world.

The rebels behind the most recent instability signed a 2007 peace accord allowing them to join the regular army, but insurgent leaders say the deal wasn’t fully implemented.

Already, the rebel forces have seized at least 10 towns across the sparsely populated north of the country, and residents in the capital now fear the insurgents could attack at any time, despite assurances by rebel leaders that they are willing to engage in dialogue instead of attacking Bangui.

The rebels have claimed that their actions are justified in light of the “thirst for justice, for peace, for security and for economic development of the people of Central African Republic.”

Despite Central African Republic’s wealth of gold, diamonds, timber and uranium, the government remains perpetually cash-strapped. Filip Hilgert, a researcher with Belgium-based International Peace Information Service, said rebel groups are unhappy because they feel the government doesn’t invest in their areas.

“The main thing they say is that the north of the country, and especially in their case the northeast, has always been neglected by the central government in all ways,” he said.

But the rebels also are demanding that the government make payments to ex-combatants, suggesting that their motives may also be for personal financial gain.

Bozize, a former military commander, came to power in a 2003 rebel war that ousted his predecessor, Ange-Felix Patasse. In his address Thursday, Bozize said he remained open to dialogue with the rebels, but he also accused them and their allies of financial greed.

Those allies, he implied, are outside Central African Republic.

“For me, there are individuals who are being manipulated by an outside hand, dreaming of exploiting the rich Central African Republic soil,” he said. “They want only to stop us from benefiting from our oil, our diamonds, our uranium and our gold.”

___

Larson reported from Dakar, Senegal. Associated Press writer Sarah DiLorenzo in Paris contributed to this report.

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‘Frankenfish’ Nears FDA Approval as Debate Heats up

Genetically engineered salmon could make its way onto plates in the new year, but your body won’t notice anything fishy about the filet, experts say.

The Food and Drug Administration has determined genetically engineered salmon won’t threaten the environment, clearing it of all but one final hurdle before it shows up on shelves throughout the nation — and igniting a final 60-day debate on whether it poses health risks before it’s officially approved.

Although it’s been nicknamed “Frankenfish” by critics, health professionals say they aren’t worried the lab-engineered salmon will cause more allergies or other harmful effects than any other breed of fish.

“The hard science part is that we have been creating [animals] using genes and natural selection for years to genetically predict what kinds of food animals, and recreational animals and such we have on our planet,” said Dr. William Schaffner, chairman of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn.

He cited thoroughbred horses, show dogs and crops as examples of genetically engineered plants and animals dating back centuries.

“When Farmer Jones did it in his cornfield to try to get a better crop, it didn’t bother people,” Schaffner said. “When scientist Jones did the same thing in a much more sophisticated fashion in a lab, that does bother people.”

Superfish: DNA-Altered Salmon Coming to Your Dinner Plate? Watch Video

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A biotech company in Massachusetts called AquaBounty created the AquaAdvantage salmon, which is really an Atlantic salmon with an added Pacific salmon gene to make it grow faster and an added eel gene to make it grow year-round.

The end result is a fish that tastes like an Atlantic salmon but grows twice as fast, making it cheaper to produce and sell. Because the FDA likely won’t require a label that says the salmon was genetically modified, consumers won’t know the difference.

Click here to read about ABC News’ exclusive look at the AquaBounty facility.

Schaffner thinks genetically engineered food is one way to help solve world hunger and, as long as the FDA thoroughly reviews it, there shouldn’t be a problem.

But Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, said he’s been disappointed with FDA decisions on genetically modified food since 1992, when the FDA determined it is equivalent to any other food. He said there’s not enough science to allow AquaAdvantage onto our dinner plates, but the biotech industry has had so much influence in Congress that it’s been impossible to stop.

“Now this latest action by the FDA somehow determined that the salmon is safe — safe for who?” he asked. “Safe for the investors?”

Kucinich has introduced legislation related to genetically modified food and labeling in every Congress since 1997, but it has never passed. He said Monsanto, the $ 2 billion company that produces genetically modified seed and pesticides, is partially to blame because it has so much money and influence.

AquaBounty, the biotech firm that makes AquaAdvantage, contributed less than $ 150,000 toward lobbying Congress over the last three years, according to campaign finance records available on OpenSecrets.org. In contrast, Monsanto spent more than $ 19 million lobbying over the same time frame.

Kucinich said the AquaAdvantage issue is a complex one, and worries about whether the genetically altered fish will hurt naturally occurring wild fish populations by overfeeding because they grow twice as fast as their naturally occurring relatives. However, the most recent FDA finding showed that this is not a concern because the fish are mostly sterile and not expected to escape their man-made farms.

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Cuba has much to lose as ally Chavez fights cancer

HAVANA (AP) — Cubans who were tuned in to the nightly soap opera on a recent Saturday received a sudden burst of bad news, from the other side of the Caribbean.

State TV cut to the presidential palace in Caracas, Venezuela, where President Hugo Chavez revealed that his cancer had returned. Facing his fourth related surgery in 18 months, he grimly named Vice President Nicolas Maduro as his possible successor.

The news shocked not only Venezuelans but millions of Cubans who have come to depend on Chavez’s largesse for everything from subsidized oil to cheap loans. Venezuela supplies about half of Cuba‘s energy needs, meaning the island’s economy would be in for a huge shock and likely recession if a post-Chavez president forced the island to pay full price for oil.

Despite the drama, the news likely wasn’t a surprise to Cuba’s Communist government, and not only because Chavez has been receiving medical care on the island.

Havana learned important lessons about overdependence when the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union threw the country into a deep crisis. Trying to avoid the consequences of a similar cut, the Cuban government has been diversifying its portfolio of economic partners in recent years, looking to Asia, Europe and other Latin American nations, and is only about half as dependent on Caracas as it was on the former Soviet Union.

Cuba is also working to stimulate its economy back home by allowing more private-sector activity, giving a leg up to independent and cooperative farming, and decentralizing its sugar industry. A stronger Cuban economy would in theory have more hard currency to pay for energy and other imports.

Also getting off the ground is an experiment with independent nonfarm collectives that should be more efficient than state-run companies. And next year, another pilot program is planned for decentralized state enterprises that will enjoy near-autonomy and be allowed to control most of their income.

“This could have good results,” said a Cuban economist who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to talk to the foreign media. Cuba “is also thinking of boosting foreign investment in areas of the national economy, including in restricted areas like the sugar industry.”

One of the country’s top goals has been to make the island’s struggling economy less dependent on a single benefactor.

Under the leadership of Chavez, who regularly calls former Cuban President Fidel Castro his ideological father and has followed parts of the Communist leader’s governance playbook, Venezuela has sent billions of dollars a year to Cuba through trade and petro-aid.

Bilateral trade stood at a little over $ 8 billion last year, much of it in Cuban imports of oil and derivatives. In return, Havana primarily provides Venezuela with technical support from Cuban teachers, scientists and other professionals, plus brigades of health care workers. Analysts say those services are overvalued by outside standards, apparently costing as much as $ 200,000 per year per doctor. Experts peg the total Venezuelan subsidy to Cuba at around $ 2 billion to $ 4 billion a year.

While business with Venezuela makes up 40 percent of all Cuban trade, it’s still a far cry from the days when the Communist Eastern Bloc accounted for an estimated 80 percent.

“A (loss of) $ 2 billion to $ 4 billion would definitely pinch. But it is not the same relative weight as the sudden complete withdrawal of the Soviet subsidies in the early ’90s,” said Richard E. Feinberg, a professor of international political economy at the University of California, San Diego. “Cuba’s not going to go back to the days of bicycles. Could it throw the Cuban economy into recession? Yes.”

That kind of resilience would result largely from Cuba’s successes in courting foreign investors for joint ventures.

Last month, authorities announced a deal with a subsidiary of Brazil’s Odebrecht to manage a sugar refinery, a rare step in an industry that has long been largely off limits to foreign involvement.

China has invested in land-based oil projects, and along with Canada is a key player in Cuba’s important nickel industry. Spain has ventures in tourist hotels and tobacco, while French company Pernod Ricard helps export Cuban liquors. And since 2009, Brazil has been a partner in a massive project to modernize and expand the port at Mariel, west of the capital.

Trade with China alone was $ 1.9 billion and rising in 2010, and Raul Castro paid a visit to Chinese and Vietnamese leaders earlier this year to help cement Asian relationships.

But while Havana says it wants to boost foreign investment, obstacles remain. The approval process for investment projects can be long and cumbersome, and pilferage, disincentives to productivity and government intervention can cut into efficiencies. Foreign companies also pay a sky-high payroll tax.

Feinberg, who wrote a report on foreign investment in Cuba published this month by the U.S. think tank the Brookings Institution, said that while a number of foreign companies are successfully doing business with the island, others have run into problems, sending a chilly message to would-be investors. In particular he noted the recent cases of a government takeover of a food company run by a Chilean businessman accused of corruption, and contentious renegotiations of a contract with Dutch-British personal and home care products giant Unilever amid shifting government demands.

“The Cuban government has to decide that it wants foreign investment unambiguously. I think now there seem to be divisions among the leadership,” Feinberg said. “Some are afraid that foreign investment compromises sovereignty, creates centers of power independent of the leadership or is exploitative.”

He estimated Cuba has left on the table about $ 20 billion in missed investment over the past decade by not following practices typical of other developing nations. Instead, Cuba received $ 3.5 billion in foreign investment in that period.

Experts say a worst-case scenario for Chavez wouldn’t automatically translate into the oil spigot shutting off overnight.

If Chavez’s hand-picked successor, Vice President Maduro, were to take office, he would likely seek to continue the special relationship.

Opposition leader Henrique Capriles has said he wants to end the oil-for-services barter arrangements, but could find that easier said than done should he win. The two countries are intertwined in dozens of joint accords, and poor Venezuelans who benefit from free care by Cuban doctors would be loath to see that disappear.

“You can’t flip the switch on a relationship like this,” said Melissa Lockhart Fortner, a Cuba analyst at the Pacific Council on International Policy, a Los Angeles-based institute that focuses on global affairs. “It would be terrible politics for him. … Switching that off would really endanger his support far too much for that to be really a feasible option.”

For Cuba, Chavez’s latest health scare capped off a year of disappointments in the island’s attempt to wean itself from Venezuelan energy.

Three deep-water exploratory oil wells drilled off the west coast failed to yield a strike, and last month the only oil rig in the world capable of drilling there without violating U.S. sanctions sailed away with no return in sight.

Yet time and again Havana has shown that it’s nothing if not resilient, weathering everything from U.S.-backed invasion and assassination plots in the 1960s to the austere “Special Period” in the early 1990s, when the Soviet collapse sent Cuba’s GDP plummeting 33 percent over four years. When hurricanes damaged the country’s agriculture sector and the global financial crisis squeezed tourism four years ago, Cuba tightened its belt, slashed imports and survived.

“Some people are saying the demise of Chavez is also going to be the demise of Communism in Cuba because the regime’s going to collapse and the people are going to rise up,” Feinberg said. “That’s probably yet another delusion of the anti-Castro exile community.”

Still, many Cubans are nervously tuning into the near-daily updates about Chavez’s health, carried prominently in state media.

“I don’t know what would happen here,” said 52-year-old Havana resident Magaly Ruiz. “We might end up eating grass.”

___

Associated Press writers Andrea Rodriguez and Anne-Marie Garcia in Havana contributed to this report.

___

Peter Orsi on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Peter_Orsi

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British actress Kate Winslet marries for third time

LONDON (Reuters) – British Oscar-winning actress Kate Winslet has married for the third time, her publicist confirmed on Thursday.

The 37-year-old, best known for her starring role in the 1997 blockbuster “Titanic”, married Ned RocknRoll, a nephew of music and aviation tycoon Richard Branson.

The private ceremony was attended by Winslet’s two children from previous marriages and “a very few friends and family”, according to the publicist, and took place in New York earlier this month.

“The couple had been engaged since the summer,” Winslet’s spokeswoman said in a statement.

Winslet has been nominated for six Academy Awards and won once for her lead role in “The Reader”.

Her other notable performances include Iris Murdoch in “Iris”, Clementine Kruczynski in “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” and April in “Revolutionary Road“.

That film was directed by Sam Mendes, whom Winslet wed in 2003 and divorced seven years later. Her first marriage was to Jim Threapleton, which lasted from 1998 to 2001.

According to online reports, RocknRoll had his name changed by deed poll from Ned Abel Smith and is an executive for Branson’s space flight venture Virgin Galactic.

The Sun newspaper said the New York wedding was so secret that even the couple’s parents did not know about it.

Hollywood actor Leonardo DiCaprio, who co-starred with Winslet in Titanic and Revolutionary Road, gave her away, the newspaper said.

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White; editing by Steve Addison)

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Poor reading skills tied to risk of teen pregnancy

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Seventh grade girls who have trouble reading are more likely to get pregnant in high school than average or above-average readers, according to a new study from Philadelphia.

Researchers found that pattern stuck even after they took into account the girls’ race and poverty in their neighborhoods – both of which are tied to teen pregnancy rates.

“We certainly know that social disadvantages definitely play a part in teen pregnancy risk, and certainly poor educational achievement is one of those factors,” said Dr. Krishna Upadhya, a reproductive health and teen pregnancy researcher from Johns Hopkins Children’s Center in Baltimore.

Poor academic skills may play into how teens see their future economic opportunities and influence the risks they take – even if those aren’t conscious decisions, explained Upadhya, who wasn’t involved in the new research.

Dr. Ian Bennett from the University of Pennsylvania and his colleagues looked up standardized test reading scores for 12,339 seventh grade girls from 92 different Philadelphia public schools and tracked them over the next six years.

During that period, 1,616 of the teenagers had a baby, including 201 that gave birth two or three times.

Hispanic and African American girls were more likely than white girls to get pregnant. But education appeared to play a role, as well.

Among girls who scored below average on their reading tests, 21 percent went on to have a baby as a teenager. That compared to 12 percent who had average scores and five percent of girls who scored above average on the standardized tests.

Once race and poverty were taken into consideration, girls with below-average reading skills were two and a half times more likely to have a baby than average-scoring girls, according to findings published in the journal Contraception.

Birth rates among girls ages 15 through 19 were at a record low in the U.S. in 2011 at 31 births for every 1,000 girls, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But that rate is still much higher in minority and poorer girls than in white, well-off ones, researchers noted.

And in general, it’s significantly higher than teen birth rates in other wealthy nations.

Teen pregnancies are a concern because young moms and their babies have more health problems and pregnancy-related complications, and girls who get pregnant are at higher risk of dropping out of school.

Upadhya said the answer to preventing teen pregnancy in less-educated girls isn’t simply to add more sex ed to the curriculum.

“This is really about adolescent health and development more broadly, so it’s really important for us to make sure that kids are in schools and in quality educational programs and that they have opportunities to grow and develop academically and vocationally,” she told Reuters Health.

“That is just as important in preventing teen pregnancy as making sure they know where to get condoms.”

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/TcHB0s Contraception, online December 13, 2012.

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Senator Reid: U.S. is poised to go off 'fiscal cliff'

WASHINGTON, Dec 27 - Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Thursday warned that the United States looks to be headed over the "fiscal cliff" of tax hikes and spending cuts that will start next week if squabbling politicians do not reach a deal.

Reid, the top Democrat in Congress, criticized Republicans for refusing to go along with any tax increases as part of a budget remedy as he sketched out a pessimistic outlook.

"It looks like that is where we're headed," Reid said of the likelihood of the U.S. economy going over the "fiscal cliff" - with tax increases on most working Americans and automatic spending cuts kicking in next month.

Reid made his comments in a Senate floor speech at the opening of a post-Christmas session, adding that time was running out ahead of a December 31 deadline to act to avert the "fiscal cliff."

Reid urged House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner, the top Republican in Congress, to bring his chamber back into session and to avoid the biggest impact of the "fiscal cliff" by passing a Democratic-backed bill extending low income tax rates for all Americans except those with net household incomes above $250,000 a year.

House Republicans are expected to hold a telephone conference call on the fiscal cliff on Thursday afternoon, a House Republican aide said, adding that a schedule for returning to Washington would be discussed.

Should Congress fail to act by December 31, tax rates for all Americans would snap sharply higher, back to pre-2001 levels, and two days later, $109 billion in automatic spending cuts would start to take effect. Together, the higher taxes and lower spending would suck about $600 billion out of the U.S. economy, potentially causing a new recession in 2013.

On Wednesday, it was Boehner who urged the Democratic-controlled Senate to act first to avoid the fiscal cliff, offering to at least consider anything that the Senate produced.

Reid returned the volley on Thursday, saying that the Senate had already acted, and the Democrats' solution needs the consent of both Boehner and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell.

Reid said Boehner "has just a few days left to change his mind" on the Senate bill. "I don't know time-wise how it can happen now."

(Reporting by David Lawder and Richard Cowan; Editing by Alistair Bell and Will Dunham)

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Temple Run was downloaded more than 2.5 million times on Christmas Day

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Winter storm whips across Northeast

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — A powerful winter storm brought snow to inland parts of the Northeast and driving rain and wind to areas along the coast Thursday, a day after it swept through the nation's middle, dumping a record snowfall in Arkansas and wrecking post-holiday plans for thousands of travelers.

The storm, which was blamed for 12 deaths, pushed through the Upper Ohio Valley and made its way into the Northeast Wednesday night. By Thursday morning, there was anywhere from a few inches of snow to a foot in some locations.

National Weather Service spokesman David Roth said the Northeast's heaviest snowfall would be in northern Pennsylvania, upstate New York and inland sections of several New England states before the storm ended Friday morning and headed to Canada.

Dale Lamprey, who was clearing off the sidewalk outside the legislative office building in Concord, N.H., already had several hours of shoveling under his belt by 8:30 a.m. Thursday.

"I got here at quarter of five and it's been windy, it's been snowing and I think it changed over to sleet and freezing rain at one point," he said. "It's pretty bad."

He didn't expect it to get much better.

"I'm going to be shoveling all day, just trying to keep up with the snow," he said. "Which is impossible."

The East Coast's largest cities — New York, Philadelphia and Boston — were seeing mostly high winds and rain Thursday morning. Other areas were getting a messy mix of rain and snow or just rain — enough to slow down commuters and those still heading home from visits with family.

Thousands of travelers were trying to make it home Thursday after the fierce storm stranded them at airports or relatives' homes around the region. Some inbound flights were delayed in Philadelphia and New York's LaGuardia, but the wet and windy weather wasn't leading to delays at other major East Coast airports.

A flight that landed safely in Pittsburgh during the storm Wednesday night got stuck in snow for about two hours on the tarmac.

The American Airlines flight arrived between 8 and 9 p.m., but then ran over a snow patch and got stuck.

Airport spokeswoman JoAnn Jenny told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette workers tried for nearly two hours to tow the plane to the gate before deciding to bus passengers to the terminal.

Hundreds of flights were canceled or delayed on Wednesday and scores of motorists got stuck on icy roads or slid into drifts. Said John Kwiatkowski, an Indianapolis-based meteorologist with the weather service: "The way I've been describing it is as a low-end blizzard, but that's sort of like saying a small Tyrannosaurus rex."

The storm system spawned Gulf Coast region tornadoes on Christmas Day, startling people like Bob and Sherry Sims of Mobile, Alabama, who'd just finished dinner.

"We heard that very distinct sound, like a freight train," said Bob Sims. They headed for a center bathroom.

Power was still out at the Sims' home on Wednesday, but the house wasn't damaged and they used a generator to run heaters to stay warm. Some neighbors were less fortunate, their roofs peeled away and porches smashed by falling trees.

The storm also left freezing temperatures in its aftermath, and forecasters said parts of the Southeast from Virginia to Florida saw severe thunderstorms.

Schools on break and workers taking holiday vacations meant that many people could avoid messy commutes, but those who had to travel were urged to avoid it. Snow was blamed for scores of vehicle accidents as far east as Maryland, and about two dozen counties in Indiana and Ohio issued snow emergency travel alerts, urging people to go out on the roads only if necessary.

About 40 vehicles got bogged down trying to make it up a slick hill in central Indiana, and four state snowplows slid off roads as snow fell at the rate of 3 inches an hour in some places.

Officials in Ohio blamed the bad weather for a crash that killed an 18-year-old girl, who lost control of her car Wednesday afternoon and smashed into an oncoming snow plow on a highway northeast of Cincinnati.

A man and a woman in Evansville, Ind., were killed when the scooter they were riding went out of control on a snowy street Wednesday and they were hit by a pickup truck.

Two passengers in a car on a sleet-slickened Arkansas highway were killed Wednesday in a head-on collision, and two people, including a 76-year-old Milwaukee woman, were killed Tuesday on Oklahoma highways. Deaths from wind-toppled trees were reported in Texas and Louisiana. Other storm-related deaths include a man checking on a disabled vehicle near Allentown, Pa., who was struck and killed Wednesday night, and two people killed in separate crashes in Virginia.

The day after Christmas wasn't expected to be particularly busy for AAA, but its Cincinnati-area branch had its busiest Wednesday of the year. By mid-afternoon, nearly 400 members had been helped with tows, jump starts and other aid, with calls still coming in, spokesman Mike Mills said.

In Arkansas, some of the nearly 200,000 people who lost power could be without it for as long as a week because of snapped poles and wires after ice and 10 inches of snow coated power lines, said the state's largest utility, Entergy Arkansas.

Other states also had scattered outages.

As the storm moved east, New England state highway departments were treating roads and getting ready to mobilize with snowfall forecasts of a foot or more.

Few truckers were stopping into a TravelCenters of America truck stop in Willington, Conn., near the Massachusetts border early Thursday. Usually 20 to 30 an hour stop in overnight, but high winds and slushy roads had cut that to two to three people an hour.

"A lot of people are staying off the road," said Louis Zalewa, 31, who works there selling gasoline and staffing the store. "I think people are being smart."

As usual, winter-sports enthusiasts welcomed the snow. At Smiling Hill Farm in Maine, Warren Knight was hoping for enough snow to allow the opening of trails.

"We watch the weather more carefully for cross-country skiing than we do for farming. And we're pretty diligent about farming. We're glued to the weather radio," said Knight, who described the weather at the 500-acre farm in Westbrook as being akin to the prizes in "Cracker Jacks — we don't know what we're going to get."

Behind the storm, Mississippi's governor declared states of emergency in eight counties with more than 25 people reported injured and 70 homes left damaged.

Cindy Williams stood near a home in McNeill, Miss., where its front had collapsed into a pile of wood and brick, a balcony and the porch ripped apart. Large oak trees were uprooted and winds sheared off treetops in a nearby grove. But she focused instead on the fact that all her family members had escaped harm.

"We are so thankful," she said. "God took care of us."

___

Associated Press writers Rick Callahan and Charles Wilson in Indianapolis, Kelly P. Kissel in Little Rock, Ark.; Jim Van Anglen in Mobile, Ala.; Holbrook Mohr in Jackson, Miss.; Julie Carr Smyth and Mitch Stacy in Columbus, Ohio; Amanda Lee Myers in Cincinnati; David Dishneau in Hagerstown, Md.; and David Sharp in Portland, Maine, contributed to this report.

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Marvel’s Peter Parker in perilous predicament

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — After 50 years of spinning webs and catching a who’s who of criminals, Peter Parker is out of the hero game.

But Spider-Man is still slinging from building to building — reborn, refreshed and revived with a new sense of the old maxim that Ben Parker taught his then-fledgling nephew that “with great power, comes great responsibility.”

Writer Dan Slott, who’s been penning Spidey adventures for the better part of the last 100 issues for Marvel Entertainment, said the culmination of the story is a new, dramatically different direction for the Steve Ditko and Stan Lee-created hero.

“This is an epic turn,” Slott said. “I’ve been writing Spider-Man for 70-plus issues. Every now and then, you have to shake it up. … The reason Spider-Man is one of the longest running characters is they always find a way to keep it fresh. Something to shake up the mix.”

And in the pages of issue 700, out Wednesday, it’s not just shaken up, it’s turned head over heels, spun in circles, kicked sky high and cracked wide open.

Parker’s mind is trapped in the withered, decaying dying body of his nemesis, Doctor Octopus aka Otto Octavius. Where’s Doc Ock? Inside Parker’s super-powered shell, learning what life is like for the brilliant researcher who happens to count the Avengers and Fantastic Four as friends and family.

The two clash mightily in the pages of issue 700, illustrated by Humberto Ramos and Victor Olazaba. But it’s Octavius who wins out and Parker is, at least for now, gone for good, but not before one more act of heroism.

Slott said that it’s Parker, whose memories envelop Octavius, who shows the villain what it means to be a hero.

“Gone are his days of villainy, but since it’s Doc Ock and he has that ego, he’s not going to try and just be Spider-man, he’s going to try to be the best Spider-Man ever,” said Slott.

Editor Stephen Wacker said that while Parker is gone, his permanence remains and his life casts a long shadow.

“His life is still important to the book because it affects everything that Doctor Octopus does as Spider-Man. Seeing a supervillain go through this life is the point — trying to be better than the hero he opposed,” Wacker said.

“Doc has sort of inspired by Peter’s life. That’s what I mean when he talks about the shadow he casts,” he said.

The sentiment echoes what Uncle Ben said in the pages of “Amazing Fantasy” No. 15, Slott said.

Editor Stephen Wacker called it a fitting end to the old series, which sets the stage for a new one — “The Superior Spider-Man” early next year — because it brings Peter Parker full circle, from the start of his crime-fighting career to the end.

“In his very first story, his uncle died because of something he did so the book has always been aimed at making Peter’s life as difficult as possible,” Wacker said. “The book has always worked best when it’s about Peter Parker’s life, not Spider-Man’s.”

And with Octavius influenced by Parker’s life — from Aunt May to Gwen Stacy to Mary Jane — it will make him a better person, too.

“Because Doctor Octopus knows all of those things and will make decisions on what he saw Peter going through,” Wacker said. “In a way, he gets the ultimate victory as he becomes a better hero.”

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Follow Matt Moore at www.twitter.com/MattMooreAP

___

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Cuba has much to lose as ally Chavez fights cancer

HAVANA (AP) — Cubans who were tuned in to the nightly soap opera on a recent Saturday received a sudden burst of bad news, from the other side of the Caribbean.

State TV cut to the presidential palace in Caracas, Venezuela, where President Hugo Chavez revealed that his cancer had returned. Facing his fourth related surgery in 18 months, he grimly named Vice President Nicolas Maduro as his possible successor.

The news shocked not only Venezuelans but millions of Cubans who have come to depend on Chavez’s largesse for everything from subsidized oil to cheap loans. Venezuela supplies about half of Cuba‘s energy needs, meaning the island’s economy would be in for a huge shock and likely recession if a post-Chavez president forced the island to pay full price for oil.

Despite the drama, the news likely wasn’t a surprise to Cuba’s Communist government, and not only because Chavez has been receiving medical care on the island.

Havana learned important lessons about overdependence when the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union threw the country into a deep crisis. Trying to avoid the consequences of a similar cut, the Cuban government has been diversifying its portfolio of economic partners in recent years, looking to Asia, Europe and other Latin American nations, and is only about half as dependent on Caracas as it was on the former Soviet Union.

Cuba is also working to stimulate its economy back home by allowing more private-sector activity, giving a leg up to independent and cooperative farming, and decentralizing its sugar industry. A stronger Cuban economy would in theory have more hard currency to pay for energy and other imports.

Also getting off the ground is an experiment with independent nonfarm collectives that should be more efficient than state-run companies. And next year, another pilot program is planned for decentralized state enterprises that will enjoy near-autonomy and be allowed to control most of their income.

“This could have good results,” said a Cuban economist who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to talk to the foreign media. Cuba “is also thinking of boosting foreign investment in areas of the national economy, including in restricted areas like the sugar industry.”

One of the country’s top goals has been to make the island’s struggling economy less dependent on a single benefactor.

Under the leadership of Chavez, who regularly calls former Cuban President Fidel Castro his ideological father and has followed parts of the Communist leader’s governance playbook, Venezuela has sent billions of dollars a year to Cuba through trade and petro-aid.

Bilateral trade stood at a little over $ 8 billion last year, much of it in Cuban imports of oil and derivatives. In return, Havana primarily provides Venezuela with technical support from Cuban teachers, scientists and other professionals, plus brigades of health care workers. Analysts say those services are overvalued by outside standards, apparently costing as much as $ 200,000 per year per doctor. Experts peg the total Venezuelan subsidy to Cuba at around $ 2 billion to $ 4 billion a year.

While business with Venezuela makes up 40 percent of all Cuban trade, it’s still a far cry from the days when the Communist Eastern Bloc accounted for an estimated 80 percent.

“A (loss of) $ 2 billion to $ 4 billion would definitely pinch. But it is not the same relative weight as the sudden complete withdrawal of the Soviet subsidies in the early ’90s,” said Richard E. Feinberg, a professor of international political economy at the University of California, San Diego. “Cuba’s not going to go back to the days of bicycles. Could it throw the Cuban economy into recession? Yes.”

That kind of resilience would result largely from Cuba’s successes in courting foreign investors for joint ventures.

Last month, authorities announced a deal with a subsidiary of Brazil’s Odebrecht to manage a sugar refinery, a rare step in an industry that has long been largely off limits to foreign involvement.

China has invested in land-based oil projects, and along with Canada is a key player in Cuba’s important nickel industry. Spain has ventures in tourist hotels and tobacco, while French company Pernod Ricard helps export Cuban liquors. And since 2009, Brazil has been a partner in a massive project to modernize and expand the port at Mariel, west of the capital.

Trade with China alone was $ 1.9 billion and rising in 2010, and Raul Castro paid a visit to Chinese and Vietnamese leaders earlier this year to help cement Asian relationships.

But while Havana says it wants to boost foreign investment, obstacles remain. The approval process for investment projects can be long and cumbersome, and pilferage, disincentives to productivity and government intervention can cut into efficiencies. Foreign companies also pay a sky-high payroll tax.

Feinberg, who wrote a report on foreign investment in Cuba published this month by the U.S. think tank the Brookings Institution, said that while a number of foreign companies are successfully doing business with the island, others have run into problems, sending a chilly message to would-be investors. In particular he noted the recent cases of a government takeover of a food company run by a Chilean businessman accused of corruption, and contentious renegotiations of a contract with Dutch-British personal and home care products giant Unilever amid shifting government demands.

“The Cuban government has to decide that it wants foreign investment unambiguously. I think now there seem to be divisions among the leadership,” Feinberg said. “Some are afraid that foreign investment compromises sovereignty, creates centers of power independent of the leadership or is exploitative.”

He estimated Cuba has left on the table about $ 20 billion in missed investment over the past decade by not following practices typical of other developing nations. Instead, Cuba received $ 3.5 billion in foreign investment in that period.

Experts say a worst-case scenario for Chavez wouldn’t automatically translate into the oil spigot shutting off overnight.

If Chavez’s hand-picked successor, Vice President Maduro, were to take office, he would likely seek to continue the special relationship.

Opposition leader Henrique Capriles has said he wants to end the oil-for-services barter arrangements, but could find that easier said than done should he win. The two countries are intertwined in dozens of joint accords, and poor Venezuelans who benefit from free care by Cuban doctors would be loath to see that disappear.

“You can’t flip the switch on a relationship like this,” said Melissa Lockhart Fortner, a Cuba analyst at the Pacific Council on International Policy, a Los Angeles-based institute that focuses on global affairs. “It would be terrible politics for him. … Switching that off would really endanger his support far too much for that to be really a feasible option.”

For Cuba, Chavez’s latest health scare capped off a year of disappointments in the island’s attempt to wean itself from Venezuelan energy.

Three deep-water exploratory oil wells drilled off the west coast failed to yield a strike, and last month the only oil rig in the world capable of drilling there without violating U.S. sanctions sailed away with no return in sight.

Yet time and again Havana has shown that it’s nothing if not resilient, weathering everything from U.S.-backed invasion and assassination plots in the 1960s to the austere “Special Period” in the early 1990s, when the Soviet collapse sent Cuba’s GDP plummeting 33 percent over four years. When hurricanes damaged the country’s agriculture sector and the global financial crisis squeezed tourism four years ago, Cuba tightened its belt, slashed imports and survived.

“Some people are saying the demise of Chavez is also going to be the demise of Communism in Cuba because the regime’s going to collapse and the people are going to rise up,” Feinberg said. “That’s probably yet another delusion of the anti-Castro exile community.”

Still, many Cubans are nervously tuning into the near-daily updates about Chavez’s health, carried prominently in state media.

“I don’t know what would happen here,” said 52-year-old Havana resident Magaly Ruiz. “We might end up eating grass.”

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Associated Press writers Andrea Rodriguez and Anne-Marie Garcia in Havana contributed to this report.

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Peter Orsi on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Peter_Orsi

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