Plane Carrying Vittorio Missoni Lost Near Venezuela

A small plane carrying four Italian tourists, including the head of the Missoni fashion business, disappeared off the coast of Venezuela on Friday morning, prompting a sea and air search that continued Saturday.

Vittorio Missoni, 58, an owner of the family-run label famed for its zigzag knitwear, and his wife, Maurizia Castiglioni, were aboard the plane, which was missing after takeoff from the island resort of Los Roques, the company confirmed Saturday. The plane was bound for the international airport near the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, normally a half-hour trip.

Venezuelan officials said that four passengers and two crew members were aboard.

The interior minister, Néstor Reverol, said Friday night on Venezuelan television that the plane, a BN2 Islander, took off from Los Roques at 11:29 a.m. and that its last known position was 10 nautical miles south of Los Roques, an archipelago that is a popular destination among wealthy Europeans, particularly Italians.

The Missoni family is widely revered in the Italian fashion industry for its kaleidoscopic patterns applied over the years to sweaters, home furnishings, beach towels and even water bottles. A wildly popular collaboration with Target in 2011, which revitalized international interest in the label, included a Missoni-print bicycle.

The company was founded in the 1950s by Ottavio and Rosita Missoni, who by the 1970s were among the most prominent designers in Italian fashion. Their three children — Vittorio, Angela and Luca — took over the company in the 1990s, when the family business had lost some of its appeal, and they are credited with turning it around.

Missoni’s sales have been reported as modest, around $100 million annually, but the label has the prominence of a far bigger business as a result of the family’s dashing personalities. Mr. Missoni spearheaded the brand’s global expansion, first as general director of marketing and then as the company’s top executive in Italy and the United States.

A spokeswoman for Missoni said that the family had been informed by the Venezuelan Consulate that the plane had disappeared, but that they had not given up hope as the search continued. Italian news media staked out the company headquarters in Sumirago, Italy, in the foothills of the Alps, where the management met on Saturday. The news agency Ansa reported that family members were congregating in their nearby villa, while Luca Missoni had flown to Venezuela.

The company’s offices in Milan were closed on Saturday, but an employee, who declined to give her name, was answering the phones “because a lot of employees are calling to get information,” she said. “But we have very little news to tell them.”

Several Italian news broadcasts led with the disappearance of Mr. Missoni, noting that small planes have repeatedly taken Italian tourists to their deaths off Los Roques. One plane, carrying 14 people, 8 of them Italian, disappeared five years ago, on Jan. 4, 2008.

Mr. Missoni, an avid sport fisherman, and his wife were on vacation with friends, according to the company. The other passengers have been identified in Italian news reports as Elda Scalvenzi and Guido Foresti.

The Missoni siblings jointly own the company. Vittorio has managed the company’s commercial and manufacturing operations; Angela is the designer; and Luca the creative director.

Part of Mr. Missoni’s strategy has been to focus on the Missoni lifestyle, opening about 40 stores around the world and creating advertising campaigns featuring many of the family’s glamorous members. In one image, Margherita Missoni, a daughter of Angela, appears with Ottavio and Vittorio, who are relaxing on a zigzag weave couch. The family’s compound in Sardinia has been featured in countless articles.

In 2005, the company created a successful fragrance business with Estée Lauder and, under Mr. Missoni’s direction, expanded into the hotel business with the Rezidor Hotel Group. The first Hotel Missoni opened in Edinburgh in 2009.

William Neuman contributed reporting from Caracas, Venezuela, and Elisabetta Povoledo from Rome.

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Congress approves storm relief for Sandy victims

WASHINGTON — Responding to the political furor over delays in disaster aid to the Northeast, Congress on Friday approved a $9.7-billion flood insurance measure, the first installment of potentially $60 billion in Superstorm Sandy relief.

The action comes after New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Rep. Peter T. King of New York, among others, blasted House Speaker John A. Boehner, a fellow Republican, for putting off a vote on a relief measure in the closing hours of the 112th Congress.

The House approved the bill, 354 to 67, with all the no votes coming from Republicans. It then passed the Senate on a voice vote. President Obama is expected to sign the measure.

Christie and New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo called the action a "necessary and critical first step" but "just a down payment" on aid for their states.

"It is now time to go even further and pass the final and more complete, clean disaster aid bill," they said in a joint statement.

Some $51 billion in additional aid is due to come before the House on Jan. 15. The funding is expected to go for such things as repairing the transportation system and other infrastructure and shoring up defenses against future storms. It also would pay for repairs to the docks and walkway at Liberty Island, where the Statue of Liberty remains closed. But the larger bill could run into resistance from conservative lawmakers.

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) was among those who voted Friday against increasing the borrowing authority for the national flood insurance program, saying, "Yet again, it raised borrowing limits for a program that is currently insolvent without making cuts elsewhere so our grandchildren won't have to pay the bill."

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), also a no vote, called it "irresponsible to raise an insolvent program's debt ceiling without making the necessary reforms."

But Rep. Frank A. LoBiondo (R-N.J.) welcomed the vote and warned that "any additional delays in providing federal aid will be met with fierce resistance" from Christie and his state's congressional delegation.

Democrats were still fuming because it took 68 days after the storm made landfall for the House to act, and because a broader relief bill still must be approved.

"Talk about fiddling while New York City burns," said Rep. Nydia M. Velazquez (D-N.Y.).

"How dare you come to this floor and make people think everything is OK?" added Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr. (D-N.J.), addressing Republicans.

Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-N.Y.), a freshman who was sworn into office Thursday, told colleagues, "I don't know all the rules of Washington, but it sure seems like the rule here is to put off until tomorrow what should be done today."

The conservative Club for Growth urged a no vote on the flood insurance measure, saying, "Congress should not allow the federal government to be involved in the flood insurance industry in the first place, let alone expand the national flood insurance program's authority."

The Federal Emergency Management Agency warned that without congressional action, funds available to pay claims would be exhausted next week.

In New Jersey alone, Sandy damaged or destroyed 346,000 housing units; of that, 72,397 were covered by the national flood insurance program, according to Rep. Christopher H. Smith (R-N.J.).

Sandy, a hurricane before the center of the storm made landfall Oct. 29 in New Jersey, caused more than 125 deaths in the United States.

richard.simon@latimes.com

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Clearwire investor seeks to block sale to Sprint

(Reuters) – A large Clearwire Corp shareholder on Friday stepped up its campaign against the planned sale of the wireless service provider to its majority owner, Sprint Nextel Corp, saying it plans to ask the U.S. telecoms regulator to block the deal.

Crest Financial’s general counsel also said on a call with reporters that it will ask the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to block Sprint’s plan to sell 70 percent of itself to Softbank Corp of Japan for $ 20 billion.

Going to the FCC is a new line of attack on the Sprint deal by Crest, which has also filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of Clearwire investors. Dave Schumacher, Crest’s general counsel, said the fund said other minority investors told Crest they did not support the Sprint deal, but he did not provide details.

The investment fund, which owns around 8 percent of Clearwire, has said Sprint’s offer of $ 2.97 share for the roughly 50 percent of Clearwire it does not currently own, “grossly undervalues Clearwire.” Sprint’s offer is worth about $ 2.2 billion, but Schumacher said Crest had not done its own valuation and was basing its criticism of the price on estimates by analysts.

In going to the FCC, Crest will argue that the Clearwire deal artificially undervalues the company’s spectrum holdings, Schumacher said. That in turn potentially devalues future revenue for the U.S. government when it auctions off spectrum licenses.

“The merger is therefore a bad deal all around for Clearwire shareholders and also for the public at large,” said Schumacher.

Sprint spokesman Scott Sloat said the deal with Clearwire was the right one for Sprint, Clearwire and American consumers. He said the class action lawsuit was baseless.

A spokesman for Clearwire, Mike DiGioia, declined to comment on Crest’s intention to go to the FCC. He said a special committee of the board conducted a rigorous evaluation of the company’s options before agreeing to the Sprint deal.

Clearwire’s chief executive, Erik Prusch, has said the company does not have attractive alternatives as it seeks funding to continue to upgrade its own network and could risk bankruptcy if the Sprint deal does not succeed.

Crest has sued Clearwire in the Court of Chancery in Delaware, where the company is incorporated, to permanently block the deal.

The Delaware court will hear arguments next week on Crest’s request to expedite the case and Schumacher said Crest hopes to move to a trial in April.

The deal needs approval by a majority of Clearwire’s minority shareholders and Sprint has said it has the support of three large Clearwire investors – Comcast Corp, Intel Corp and Bright House Networks LLC – which hold 13 percent of Clearwire stock. Schumacher said the fund would try to prevent the three from voting because of their affiliation with Sprint.

As Clearwire’s fight with its shareholders heats up, Sprint has its own shareholders to contend with.

A Kansas court on Friday declined Sprint’s request for an early dismissal of a lawsuit by a union pension fund that holds Sprint stock.

The lawsuit alleged that Sprint’s chief executive, Daniel Hesse, rushed merger talks with Softbank and did not get a fair price.

The ruling by Thomas Sutherland, the judge for the District Court of Johnson County, Kansas, will allow the pension fund to begin to demand documents and witnesses as it tries to prove its case.

Sloat, the Sprint spokesman, said the ruling only addressed the technical adequacy of the pension fund’s pleading and did not address the merits of the case. He said Sprint continued to believe the case was without merit.

(Reporting By Tom Hals in Wilmington, Delaware and Sinead Carew in New York; Editing by Bernard Orr and David Gregorio)

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’56 UP’ Review: The Kids Are All Right – If Wrinkled, Heavier and Hurt by the Economy

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – It’s like catching up with old friends. They’re a little heavier than when we last saw them and have a few more wrinkles, but they’re still very much who they always were.

We know that because, even as we’re looking at their 56-year old selves up on the screen, it is intercut with footage of them at 7, 14, 21, 28, 35, 42 or 49 years old, answering the same question or explaining how they were feeling then.

“56 UP” is the latest installment in director Michael Apted‘s extraordinary documentary series that began in 1964 as “Seven UP,” a television documentary in Great Britain. That first film, on which a then young Apted (he’s now 71) served as a researcher, attempted to examine the British class system by profiling 14 kids, each one a 7-year old, who came from various strata in society.

The film, which opens Friday in New York and January 18 in L.A., took as its inspiration the Jesuit maxim, “Give me the child until he is seven and I will give you the man.”

Every seven years since then, even as he became a major Hollywood director (“The World Is Not Enough”), Apted has served as director of the series. Backed by a camera crew, he visits individually with members of the original group of interviewees to see how their lives are turning out.

In “56 UP,” 13 of the original 14 allowed Apted to interview and film them. (The only one missing is Charles Furneaux, one of three upper-class boys who sat together on a couch as 7 year olds and talked dismissively of “poor children.” He became a television documentarian himself – he produced “Touching the Void” – and has not participated since “21 UP.”)

The series would seem to indicate that England’s class system is still firmly in place. A few of subjects have moved up the social ladder; Sue Davis, a working class girl from London’s East End, has ended up a college administrator and Nick Hitchon, a Yorkshire farm lad, is now a university professor in the U.S.

One of the middle-class kids, Neil Hughes, who dreamed of being an astronaut at 7, had an apparent breakdown as young adult and has led a lonely and emotionally troubled life. He seems, though, at 56, to have found a small measure of contentment living in a small town, where he ekes out a minimal living as a local council representative.

In the “56 UP” installment, it’s clear that the recent worldwide recession and subsequent government austerity measures in the U.K. have affected several of the film’s subjects, costing them jobs, social benefits or putting a serious crimp in their retirement plans.

Many of the participants are now grandparents, some with a first spouse, some with a second. But Bruce Balden, a math teacher who didn’t wed until he was in his 40s, is at 56 the involved father to two young sons, who watch with amusement as their portly pop tries to erect a tent and play cricket.

One has the usual quibbles with the “UP” series: only four of the original 14 subjects were girls, which means the film has been limited in its ability to portray the feminist revolution. Only one participant, Symon Basterfield, was a person of color, which means the movie missed out on examining another major shift in the British population in the last half-century. And none of the kids turned out to be gay (or if they are, they’re not telling Apted), so that too is a missing element.

But overall, the “UP” series remains an amazing achievement. What’s most fascinating about the film is how everyone here, now well into middle age, is still completely engaged in life, is generally upbeat (despite some real struggles for several of them) and intends to carry on.

During the course of the film’s 144-minutes, as Apted skillfully cuts back and forth between his subjects now and then, it’s apparent that the more people change the more they stay the same. But, and this is where the series shines, it’s equally clear that people have an amazing capacity to change, grow and show enormous resilience when faced with daunting challenges.

TV News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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U.S. Settles Accusations That Doctors Overtreated

A group of doctors who performed unusually high rates of heart procedures on patients at a community hospital in Ohio settled with the Justice Department over accusations that some of the procedures were medically unnecessary, federal regulators announced on Friday.

The settlement covered accusations that the doctors and the hospital, then known as the EMH Regional Medical Center, had billed Medicare for unnecessary medical care from 2001 to 2006. The hospital agreed to pay $3.9 million to settle the accusations, and the physician group, the North Ohio Heart Center, agreed to pay $541,870, according to a Justice Department statement.

Federal regulators had accused the doctors and the hospital of performing unnecessary procedures known as angioplasties, in which a clogged blood vessel is opened. The procedure often requires insertion of a device called a stent to keep the blood vessel from closing again.

Besides the cost to Medicare, “performing medically unnecessary cardiac procedures puts patients’ lives at risk,” said Steven M. Dettelbach, the United States attorney for the Northern District of Ohio, which was involved in the investigation. “Patient health and taxpayer dollars have to come before greed,” he said.

The high rate of heart procedures at the hospital was the subject of a front-page article in The New York Times in August 2006. Medicare patients in Elyria, Ohio, where the hospital is located, were receiving angioplasties at a rate nearly four times the national average, a figure that prompted questions from insurers and raised concerns about overtreatment.

The concerns included whether many patients in Ohio and elsewhere were receiving expensive and inappropriate medical treatments because of the high fees the procedures generated.

The settlement represents the latest in a series of actions brought against cardiologists and hospitals for performing questionable cardiac procedures. Patients typically have a choice of treatments, and many doctors say some individuals should be treated more conservatively with medicines rather than through costly procedures.

At the time, the Elyria cardiologists defended their high rates as a result of an aggressive style of medicine, and the doctors continued to defend the medical care they provided. They said the procedures they performed were medically warranted but might not have met the government’s guidelines for reimbursement.

“We choose to settle rather than go to court,” said Dr. John Schaeffer, the chairman of North Ohio Heart, which is now part of the hospital system, EMH Healthcare. The government did not single out any individual physicians, and neither the hospital nor the medical group said it disciplined any of the doctors.

“As the physicians on the ground when these decisions were made and the procedures were performed, we felt confident we were making the correct choices for our patients,” he said in a statement on the group’s Web site. “We still do.”

The former manager of the hospital’s catheterization lab, Kenny Loughner, filed a whistle-blower complaint in October 2006. Mr. Loughner, who will receive $660,859 from the settlement for alerting the government, described how doctors urged nurses and others to falsify complaints of chest pain to justify the unnecessary angioplasties. He also described the doctors’ technique of treating patients in stages, forcing patients to come back for multiple procedures.

The government did not include the accusations in its findings, the hospital said, and they are without merit.

In a separate statement issued by EMH Healthcare, the system’s chief executive, Dr. Donald Sheldon, said “no patients, to our knowledge, were ever at risk, and there is no question that the patients treated had heart disease and some degree of blockage.” The hospital also said it was conducting an external peer review of its cardiac care.

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Your Money: An Invitation to High School Seniors to Write About Finances

At the University of Michigan, one application essay talked about how local education cutbacks forced high school students to pay money to play team sports. As a result, the writer could no longer afford to play.

At Pitzer College, a student used the example of the Ponzi schemer Bernard L. Madoff to take a philosophical look at how much money people truly need to be happy.

As the economy has suffered in recent years and college costs have risen, high school seniors have grappled with the fallout in their own families and channeled their feelings into an increasing number of memorable college application essays about sacrifice, social policy and affluence or its opposite.

“Students never used to write about this stuff,” said Angel Pérez, vice president and dean of admission and financial aid at Pitzer, which is in Claremont, Calif. “I think there is this new consciousness. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen.”

Given the Your Money team’s long-standing endorsement of raising the financial consciousness of the younger set, we wanted to see these writings for ourselves. So we’re asking high school seniors who are applying for college this year to send us application essays that have anything at all to do with money, working, class, the economy and affluence (or lack thereof).

We’ll read them all and publish the best on our Bucks personal finance blog.

There is more on our editorial criteria and the logistics down below, but if you’re trying to figure out what counts as a money essay, think broadly, as many applicants have in recent years. “An essay ought to try to fill in the gaps, to tell us things that we don’t know about you,” said Erica Sanders, managing director of the office of undergraduate admissions at the University of Michigan.

Your guidance counselor and teachers who are writing letters of support for your application may not know about or think to write about your family’s financial status, good or bad. “Maybe a parent had to move out of town for work, and the student writes about taking on more responsibility, that it allowed them to take on more leadership and to contribute to their family in a way that they didn’t even know was possible,” she added, echoing essays she’s read in recent years.

Even if your family has not struggled or become fabulously wealthy, an essay about your part-time job certainly qualifies. “Many of our engineering students will talk about building something and the costs of putting it together,” Ms. Sanders said.

Aside from the Madoff essay, Mr. Perez has read other Pitzer applicant essays and had other conversations with applicants about money and the economy in recent years that have stuck with him.

“One student last year was very affected by the whole conversation about the 1 percent,” he said. “He sent us his proposal for the tax code. The committee thought that this is someone who is clearly thinking about this in a critical way, is informed about what is going on the world and has done some dissecting of the information, and that’s the kind of student we’re looking for.”

The college essay is always a bit of a high-wire act. Harry Bauld, the author of “On Writing the College Application Essay,” which I credit with helping me get into college, paints a visceral, frightening picture of haggard admissions officers reading dozens of essays each day. Then, he asks readers to imagine that their application is 38th in the pile. How are you going to excite that person?

Writing about money can offer a bit of voyeuristic thrill in this regard, but it also poses its own particular challenges. “Most of my students are absolutely brilliant,” said Mr. Bauld, a high school English teacher at Horace Mann School in New York City and a former admissions officer at Columbia and Brown. “But they cannot see their own relationship to economic culture. It’s not comprehensible.”

The more affluent ones, if they do understand it, struggle further when trying to put it into words. “When it becomes visible, it comes accompanied with a U-Haul full of guilt that they’re towing behind them,” he said. “Then, it forces them into various clichés.”

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Bieber urges crackdown on paparazzi after photographer's death

Justin Bieber and his collection of exotic cars have been tantalizing targets for celebrity photographers ever since the young singer got his driver's license.

A video captured the paparazzi chasing Bieber through Westside traffic in November. When Bieber's white Ferrari stops at an intersection, the video shows the singer turning to one of the photographers and asking: "How do your parents feel about what you do?"

A few months earlier, he was at the wheel of his Fisker sports car when a California Highway Patrol officer pulled him over for driving at high speeds while trying to outrun a paparazzo.

This pursuit for the perfect shot took a fatal turn Tuesday when a photographer was hit by an SUV on Sepulveda Boulevard after taking photos of Bieber's Ferrari. And the singer now finds himself at the center of the familiar debate about free speech and the aggressive tactics of the paparazzi.

Since Princess Diana's fatal accident in Paris in 1997 while being pursued by photographers, California politicians have tried crafting laws that curb paparazzi behavior. But some of those laws are rarely used, and attorneys have challenged the constitutionality of others.

On Wednesday, Bieber went on the offensive, calling on lawmakers to crack down.

"Hopefully this tragedy will finally inspire meaningful legislation and whatever other necessary steps to protect the lives and safety of celebrities, police officers, innocent public bystanders and the photographers themselves," he said in a statement.

It remained unclear if any legislators would take up his call. But Bieber did get some support from another paparazzi target, singer Miley Cyrus.

She wrote on Twitter that she hoped the accident "brings on some changes in '13 Paparazzi are dangerous!"

Last year, a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge threw out charges related to a first-of-its-kind anti-paparazzi law in a case involving Bieber being chased on the 101 Freeway by photographer Paul Raef. Passed in 2010, the law created punishments for paparazzi who drove dangerously to obtain images.

But the judge said the law violated 1st Amendment protections by overreaching and potentially affecting such people as wedding photographers or photographers speeding to a location where a celebrity was present.

The L.A. city attorney's office is now appealing that decision.

Raef's attorney, Dmitry Gorin, said new anti-paparazzi laws are unnecessary.

"There are plenty of other laws on the books to deal with these issues. There is always a rush to create a new paparazzi law every time something happens," he said. "Any new law on the paparazzi is going to run smack into the 1st Amendment. Truth is, most conduct is covered by existing laws. A lot of this is done for publicity."

Coroner's officials have not identified the photographer because they have not reached the next of kin. However, his girlfriend, Frances Merto, and another photographer identified him as Chris Guerra.

The incident took place on Sepulveda Boulevard near Getty Center Drive shortly before 6 p.m. Tuesday. A friend of Bieber was driving the sports car when it was pulled over on the 405 Freeway by the California Highway Patrol. The photographer arrived near the scene on Sepulveda, left his car and crossed the street to take photos. Sources familiar with the investigation said the CHP told him to leave the area. As he was returning to his vehicle, he was hit by the SUV.

Law enforcement sources said Wednesday that it was unlikely charges would be filed against the driver of the SUV that hit the photographer.

Veteran paparazzo Frank Griffin took issue with the criticism being directed at the photographer as well as other paparazzi.

"What's the difference between our guy who got killed under those circumstances and the war photographer who steps on a land mine in Afghanistan and blows himself to pieces because he wanted the photograph on the other side of road?" said Griffin, who co-owns the photo agency Griffin-Bauer.

"The only difference is the subject matter. One is a celebrity and the other is a battle. Both young men have left behind mothers and fathers grieving and there's no greater sadness in this world than parents who have to bury their children."

Others, however, said the death focuses attention on the safety issues involving paparazzi

"The paparazzi are increasingly reckless and dangerous. The greater the demand, the greater the incentive to do whatever it takes to get the image," said Blair Berk, a Los Angeles attorney who has represented numerous celebrities. "The issue here isn't vanity and nuisance, it's safety."

richard.winton@latimes.com

andrew.blankstein@latimes.com

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6 takeaways from Google’s antitrust settlement with US regulators

Google Inc. has settled an U.S. antitrust probe that largely leaves its search practices alone. In a major win for Google, the Federal Trade Commission unanimously concluded that there is not enough evidence to support complaints from rivals that the company shows unfair bias in its search results toward its own products.

Below are six of the biggest takeaways from the decision announced Thursday:

— Google promised to license hundreds of important mobile device patents to rivals that make gadgets such as smartphones, tablets and gaming devices, on “fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms,” the FTC said. Google got the patents as part of its $ 12.4 billion purchase of Motorola Mobility last year. The patents cover wireless connectivity and other Internet technologies.

— Upon receiving a request to do so, the online search leader pledged to stop using snippets of content from other websites, such as the reviews site Yelp Inc., in its search results. It had already scaled back this practice before the FTC settlement after a complaint from Yelp that triggered the FTC probe. Under the agreement, specialty websites such as those on shopping and travel can request that Google stop including such snippets in the search results, while still providing links to those websites.

— Google pledged to adjust its online advertising system so marketing campaigns can be more easily managed on rival networks. Some FTC officials had worried that Google’s existing service terms with advertisers make that difficult.

— The FTC’s unanimous conclusion that Google does not practice unfair “search bias” to promote its own properties against competitors is a major victory for the online search leader. It means it won’t have to change its search formula, considered to be the company’s crown jewel.

— Not everyone was happy with the results. FairSearch, a group whose members include rival Microsoft Corp., said the FTC’s “inaction on the core question of search bias will only embolden Google to act more aggressively to misuse its monopoly power to harm other innovators.”

— Next up, European regulators are expected to wrap up a similar investigation of Google’s business practices in the coming weeks.

Wireless News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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”Lincoln,” ”Zero Dark Thirty,” among Producers Guild nods

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Steven Spielberg‘s presidential drama “Lincoln,” musical “Les Miserables” and Kathyrn Bigelow‘s Osama bin Laden thriller “Zero Dark Thirty” were among 10 films earning Producers Guild Award nominations on Wednesday, as the Hollywood awards season gathered momentum.

Ben Affleck and George Clooney, two of the producers behind Affleck’s Iran hostage drama “Argo,” and the team that brought Quentin Tarantino‘s darkly humorous slavery Western “Django Unchained” to the screen also won nods for the awards handed out by the Producers Guild of America.

The critically acclaimed James Bond blockbuster “Skyfall,” which last weekend surpassed $ 1 billion at the worldwide box office, got a big boost to its Oscar hopes when producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson were included.

They joined an eclectic list that featured Ang Lee’s shipwreck tale “Life of Pi,” and quirky comedy “Silver Linings Playbook.”

Wes Anderson’s “Moonrise Kingdom,” and mythical indie film “Beasts of the Southern Wild” rounded out the feature film nominations, the PGA said in a statement.

The Producers Guild Awards will be handed out at a ceremony in Los Angeles on January 26 and will be a key indication of Hollywood sentiment ahead of the Oscars on February 24.

Many of the PGA-nominated movies are expected to feature strongly on the list of Oscar nominations when those are announced on January 10. Eight of the movies are also in the running for best picture Golden Globe trophies on January 13.

But the PGA had nothing for “The Hobbit” from director Peter Jackson. It also left early awards hopeful “The Master” out of the running in a sign that the cult tale starring Philip Seymour Hoffman may be losing steam in Hollywood.

Batman movie “The Dark Knight Rises” also failed to make the list.

The PGA nominated the producers of five films for its animated movie honors – Tim Burton’s “Frankenweenie,” Disney family films “Wreck-it-Ralph” and “Brave,” and “ParaNorman” and “Rise of the Guardians.”

The PGA also named its picks for producers of television movies and miniseries. Ryan Murphy’s “American Horror Story,” the team behind HBO film “Game Change” about Sarah Palin’s 2008 vice presidential bid, and Britain’s modern twist on detective Sherlock Holmes “Sherlock” were among the five making the cut.

They were joined by “Hatfields & McCoys,” about a legendary family feud starring Kevin Costner who was also one of the producers, and the PBS chronicle of the 1930s drought “The Dust Bowl.”

(Reporting By Jill Serjeant; Editing by Mohammad Zargham)

Movies News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Scant Proof Is Found to Back Up Claims by Energy Drinks

Energy drinks are the fastest-growing part of the beverage industry, with sales in the United States reaching more than $10 billion in 2012 — more than Americans spent on iced tea or sports beverages like Gatorade.

Their rising popularity represents a generational shift in what people drink, and reflects a successful campaign to convince consumers, particularly teenagers, that the drinks provide a mental and physical edge.

The drinks are now under scrutiny by the Food and Drug Administration after reports of deaths and serious injuries that may be linked to their high caffeine levels. But however that review ends, one thing is clear, interviews with researchers and a review of scientific studies show: the energy drink industry is based on a brew of ingredients that, apart from caffeine, have little, if any benefit for consumers.

“If you had a cup of coffee you are going to affect metabolism in the same way,” said Dr. Robert W. Pettitt, an associate professor at Minnesota State University in Mankato, who has studied the drinks.

Energy drink companies have promoted their products not as caffeine-fueled concoctions but as specially engineered blends that provide something more. For example, producers claim that “Red Bull gives you wings,” that Rockstar Energy is “scientifically formulated” and Monster Energy is a “killer energy brew.” Representative Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts, a Democrat, has asked the government to investigate the industry’s marketing claims.

Promoting a message beyond caffeine has enabled the beverage makers to charge premium prices. A 16-ounce energy drink that sells for $2.99 a can contains about the same amount of caffeine as a tablet of NoDoz that costs 30 cents. Even Starbucks coffee is cheap by comparison; a 12-ounce cup that costs $1.85 has even more caffeine.

As with earlier elixirs, a dearth of evidence underlies such claims. Only a few human studies of energy drinks or the ingredients in them have been performed and they point to a similar conclusion, researchers say — that the beverages are mainly about caffeine.

Caffeine is called the world’s most widely used drug. A stimulant, it increases alertness, awareness and, if taken at the right time, improves athletic performance, studies show. Energy drink users feel its kick faster because the beverages are typically swallowed quickly or are sold as concentrates.

“These are caffeine delivery systems,” said Dr. Roland Griffiths, a researcher at Johns Hopkins University who has studied energy drinks. “They don’t want to say this is equivalent to a NoDoz because that is not a very sexy sales message.”

A scientist at the University of Wisconsin became puzzled as he researched an ingredient used in energy drinks like Red Bull, 5-Hour Energy and Monster Energy. The researcher, Dr. Craig A. Goodman, could not find any trials in humans of the additive, a substance with the tongue-twisting name of glucuronolactone that is related to glucose, a sugar. But Dr. Goodman, who had studied other energy drink ingredients, eventually found two 40-year-old studies from Japan that had examined it.

In the experiments, scientists injected large doses of the substance into laboratory rats. Afterward, the rats swam better. “I have no idea what it does in energy drinks,” Dr. Goodman said.

Energy drink manufacturers say it is their proprietary formulas, rather than specific ingredients, that provide users with physical and mental benefits. But that has not prevented them from implying otherwise.

Consider the case of taurine, an additive used in most energy products.

On its Web site, the producer of Red Bull, for example, states that “more than 2,500 reports have been published about taurine and its physiological effects,” including acting as a “detoxifying agent.” In addition, that company, Red Bull of Austria, points to a 2009 safety study by a European regulatory group that gave it a clean bill of health.

But Red Bull’s Web site does not mention reports by that same group, the European Food Safety Authority, which concluded that claims about the benefits in energy drinks lacked scientific support. Based on those findings, the European Commission has refused to approve claims that taurine helps maintain mental function and heart health and reduces muscle fatigue.

Taurine, an amino acidlike substance that got its name because it was first found in the bile of bulls, does play a role in bodily functions, and recent research suggests it might help prevent heart attacks in women with high cholesterol. However, most people get more than adequate amounts from foods like meat, experts said. And researchers added that those with heart problems who may need supplements would find far better sources than energy drinks.

Hiroko Tabuchi contributed reporting from Tokyo and Poypiti Amatatham from Bangkok.

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