Family in bedside vigil as Schumacher fights for life

Grenoble (France) (AFP) - Formula One legend Michael Schumacher was Tuesday still in coma and fighting for his life with his family at his bedside after a skiing accident in the French Alps.

Doctors have warned it is touch-and-go for the German, the greatest champion in the history of Formula One, as they wait for the full extent of his injuries to become clear after he fell and slammed his head on a rock while skiing off-piste on Sunday.

Schumacher's wife Corinne and children Gina Maria and Mick were by his side and a small crowd held a night vigil outside the hospital in the southeastern city of Grenoble, an AFP reporter said.

A source close to the investigation into the off-piste accident at the posh ski resort of Meribel told AFP that Schumacher's helmet was smashed "in two" by the impact.

The German newspaper Bild also quoted a rescuer as saying the split helmet was "full of blood".

Schumacher's family in a statement expressed their thanks to the doctors who they said were doing "everything possible to help Michael" and to well-wishers around the world.

View galleryGraphic factfile on Formula One legend Michael Sch …

Graphic factfile on Formula One legend Michael Schumacher (AFP Photo/Adrian Leung/Gal Roma)

The family also asked the press to "respect their privacy," in the statement put out by Schumacher's spokeswoman Sabine Kehm.

News of the accident stunned the world and racing stars joined German Chancellor Angela Merkel and legions of fans in expressing their hopes for his recovery.

The hospital said it would put out a medical bulletin Tuesday. Neurosurgeon Stephan Chabardes, who operated on Schumacher, had earlier said medical updates would be provided as and when necessary.

Doctors said a second operation was on the cards for Schumacher, who is due to turn 45 on January 3, and stressed it was too early to say if he would pull through.

"It usually takes 48 hours, or even longer, to be able to formulate an opinion" on injuries of this severity, said neurologist Jean-Luc Truelle.

View galleryA fan displays Ferrari flags on December 30, 2013 in …

A fan displays Ferrari flags on December 30, 2013 in front of the Grenoble University Hospital Centr …

The coma reduces the patient's temperature to around 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit) to reduce swelling. By being unconscious, the brain is also switched off to sounds, light and other triggers that cause the organ to use up oxygen as it processes the stimuli.

'We are working hour by hour'

"He is in critical condition, his condition can be described as life threatening," Jean-Francois Payen, head of the intensive care unit, told reporters.

"We are working hour by hour," he said.

News of the accident made waves, stunning fans, racing stars and leaders across the world.

View galleryA picture taken on December 30, 2013, shows the entrance …

A picture taken on December 30, 2013, shows the entrance of the emergency department at the Centre H …

Damon Hill, who fought several memorable on-track battles with Schumacher, said he was praying for his former rival.

Merkel was "extremely shocked" by the incident, her spokesman Steffen Seibert told reporters.

Formula One quadruple world champion Sebastian Vettel, 26, who has said Schumacher was his childhood idol, said: "I am shocked and I hope that he'll be feeling better as soon as possible.

Schumacher, who won the last of his world titles in 2004, towered over the sport since his debut in 1991, winning more Formula One world titles and races than any other. He had a record 91 wins and is one of only two men to reach 300 grands prix.

His duels in his heyday with Hill and Jacques Villeneuve, fired by an unquenchable competitive spirit, have gone down in Formula One lore.

Schumacher was born in January 1969 near Cologne, Germany, the son of a bricklayer who also ran the local go-kart track, where his mother worked in the canteen.

By 1987, Schumacher was the German and European go-kart champion and was soon racing professionally. In 1991 he burst into Formula One by qualifying seventh in his debut race in Belgium and a year later, he won his first Formula One grand prix.

He joined Ferrari in 1996 and went from strength to strength over the next decade, dominating the podium, before retiring aged 37.

But the father of two could not resist the lure of the track and in 2010 he came out of retirement, signing a deal with Mercedes before quitting for good in 2012.

The ocean is broken

The following article was reprinted with permission from The Newcastle Herald. You can read the original here.

IT was the silence that made this voyage different from all of those before it.

Not the absence of sound, exactly.

The wind still whipped the sails and whistled in the rigging. The waves still sloshed against the fibreglass hull.

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And there were plenty of other noises: muffled thuds and bumps and scrapes as the boat knocked against pieces of debris.

What was missing was the cries of the seabirds which, on all previous similar voyages, had surrounded the boat.

The birds were missing because the fish were missing.

Exactly 10 years before, when Newcastle yachtsman Ivan Macfadyen had sailed exactly the same course from Melbourne to Osaka, all he'd had to do to catch a fish from the ocean between Brisbane and Japan was throw out a baited line.

"There was not one of the 28 days on that portion of the trip when we didn't catch a good-sized fish to cook up and eat with some rice," Macfadyen recalled.

But this time, on that whole long leg of sea journey, the total catch was two.

No fish. No birds. Hardly a sign of life at all.

"In years gone by I'd gotten used to all the birds and their noises," he said.

"They'd be following the boat, sometimes resting on the mast before taking off again. You'd see flocks of them wheeling over the surface of the sea in the distance, feeding on pilchards."

But in March and April this year, only silence and desolation surrounded his boat, Funnel Web, as it sped across the surface of a haunted ocean.

North of the equator, up above New Guinea, the ocean-racers saw a big fishing boat working a reef in the distance.

"All day it was there, trawling back and forth. It was a big ship, like a mother-ship," he said.

And all night it worked too, under bright floodlights. And in the morning Macfadyen was awoken by his crewman calling out, urgently, that the ship had launched a speedboat.

"Obviously I was worried. We were unarmed and pirates are a real worry in those waters. I thought, if these guys had weapons then we were in deep trouble."

But they weren't pirates, not in the conventional sense, at least. The speedboat came alongside and the Melanesian men aboard offered gifts of fruit and jars of jam and preserves.

"And they gave us five big sugar-bags full of fish," he said.

"They were good, big fish, of all kinds. Some were fresh, but others had obviously been in the sun for a while.

"We told them there was no way we could possibly use all those fish. There were just two of us, with no real place to store or keep them. They just shrugged and told us to tip them overboard. That's what they would have done with them anyway, they said.

"They told us that his was just a small fraction of one day's by-catch. That they were only interested in tuna and to them, everything else was rubbish. It was all killed, all dumped. They just trawled that reef day and night and stripped it of every living thing."

Macfadyen felt sick to his heart. That was one fishing boat among countless more working unseen beyond the horizon, many of them doing exactly the same thing.

No wonder the sea was dead. No wonder his baited lines caught nothing. There was nothing to catch.

If that sounds depressing, it only got worse.

The next leg of the long voyage was from Osaka to San Francisco and for most of that trip the desolation was tinged with nauseous horror and a degree of fear.

"After we left Japan, it felt as if the ocean itself was dead," Macfadyen said.

"We hardly saw any living things. We saw one whale, sort of rolling helplessly on the surface with what looked like a big tumour on its head. It was pretty sickening.

"I've done a lot of miles on the ocean in my life and I'm used to seeing turtles, dolphins, sharks and big flurries of feeding birds. But this time, for 3000 nautical miles there was nothing alive to be seen."

In place of the missing life was garbage in astounding volumes.

"Part of it was the aftermath of the tsunami that hit Japan a couple of years ago. The wave came in over the land, picked up an unbelievable load of stuff and carried it out to sea. And it's still out there, everywhere you look."

Ivan's brother, Glenn, who boarded at Hawaii for the run into the United States, marvelled at the "thousands on thousands" of yellow plastic buoys. The huge tangles of synthetic rope, fishing lines and nets. Pieces of polystyrene foam by the million. And slicks of oil and petrol, everywhere.

Countless hundreds of wooden power poles are out there, snapped off by the killer wave and still trailing their wires in the middle of the sea.

"In years gone by, when you were becalmed by lack of wind, you'd just start your engine and motor on," Ivan said.

Not this time.

"In a lot of places we couldn't start our motor for fear of entangling the propeller in the mass of pieces of rope and cable. That's an unheard of situation, out in the ocean.

"If we did decide to motor we couldn't do it at night, only in the daytime with a lookout on the bow, watching for rubbish.

"On the bow, in the waters above Hawaii, you could see right down into the depths. I could see that the debris isn't just on the surface, it's all the way down. And it's all sizes, from a soft-drink bottle to pieces the size of a big car or truck.

"We saw a factory chimney sticking out of the water, with some kind of boiler thing still attached below the surface. We saw a big container-type thing, just rolling over and over on the waves.

"We were weaving around these pieces of debris. It was like sailing through a garbage tip.

"Below decks you were constantly hearing things hitting against the hull, and you were constantly afraid of hitting something really big. As it was, the hull was scratched and dented all over the place from bits and pieces we never saw."

Plastic was ubiquitous. Bottles, bags and every kind of throwaway domestic item you can imagine, from broken chairs to dustpans, toys and utensils.

And something else. The boat's vivid yellow paint job, never faded by sun or sea in years gone past, reacted with something in the water off Japan, losing its sheen in a strange and unprecedented way.

BACK in Newcastle, Ivan Macfadyen is still coming to terms with the shock and horror of the voyage.

"The ocean is broken," he said, shaking his head in stunned disbelief.

Recognising the problem is vast, and that no organisations or governments appear to have a particular interest in doing anything about it, Macfadyen is looking for ideas.

He plans to lobby government ministers, hoping they might help.

More immediately, he will approach the organisers of Australia's major ocean races, trying to enlist yachties into an international scheme that uses volunteer yachtsmen to monitor debris and marine life.

Macfadyen signed up to this scheme while he was in the US, responding to an approach by US academics who asked yachties to fill in daily survey forms and collect samples for radiation testing - a significant concern in the wake of the tsunami and consequent nuclear power station failure in Japan.

"I asked them why don't we push for a fleet to go and clean up the mess," he said.

"But they said they'd calculated that the environmental damage from burning the fuel to do that job would be worse than just leaving the debris there."

Serena and Victoria do it differently in Istanbul

Istanbul (AFP) - Serena Williams and her nearest rival Victoria Azarenka differed in opinion and quality of performance in taking first steps towards a much hoped-for meeting in Sunday's final at the WTA Championships on Tuesday.

Williams crushed one of the few women to have beaten her in the last 15 months as she began her defence of the title with a speedily impressive win.

The world number one took little more than an hour to win 6-3, 6-1 against Angelique Kerber, the German who beat her in Cincinnati last year but who was now outplayed from the moment she dropped serve in her opening service game.

By contrast Azarenka, appeared uncertain and care-worn, was far from consistent, and might easily have lost the first set during her 7-6 (7/4), 6-2 survival against Sara Errani, the sixth seeded Italian.

The Belarussian found it hard to force the pace and confirmed the impression of poor health given during her disappointing performances in Beijing and Tokyo. Improvement only came after squeezing through the first set tie-break.

Azarenka was also ambivalent about the surface. "You know I think the court is pretty rough, I would have to say," she said frankly. "It's a little bit slow.

"But that's what we have. I think you know I can't really find excuses or something," she then rapidly qualified the remark. "If the surface can be a little bit better because it's tough on the body, maybe yeah - but I think it's the last year," she said, referring to the WTA Championships moving to Singapore next year.

Williams could hardly have thought more differently. "Well you know me - you cannot ask me these questions. I will say it's fast when everyone else says it's slow," she said with nice irony.

For the court to be of optimum speed it should "maybe to be faster than what it is," Williams half-agreed with Azarenka. "But I like slow surfaces, so you know, I like grass, so it doesn't matter for me," she added, appearing to offer further contradiction by suggesting grass was slow.

Azarenka's difficulties also derived, she suggested, from having taken a break after a disappointing Asian swing and then returning to action in a tournament where you meet top players from the first match.

It was hard to make these adaptations during a match, Azarenka admitted, but she was helped a little by Errani, who appeared to suffer a calf injury in the second set, and gradually lost rhythm and confidence.

However the world number two may need to improve if she is to win a group which includes Li Na, the Chinese player whom Azarenka only narrowly beat in the final of the Australian Open at the start of the year.

Whatever the merits of the court Williams served superbly and generated a withering power off the ground, suggesting she is as far ahead of the field as she has ever been.

Neither did Petra Kvitova appear to be too bothered by the court's slowness. The 2011 champion from the Czech republic flat-hit her way to a 6-4, 6-4 win over Agnieszka Radwanska, the third-seeded former Wimbledon finalist from Poland, and now looks well placed to qualify for the semi-finals from the red group along with Williams.

Later the star player came out with a star quote. Williams was asked if she could ever imagine a female champion coming from Turkey during her lifetime.

"Yeah well there is a girl that....there is a champion from Compton," she said with an offbeat reference to her working class origins in Los Angeles. "So anything is possible, especially from Turkey."

Australian wildfire

Firefighters in Australia battled hot, dry winds and soaring temperatures Wednesday as new blazes were whipped up in a week-long bushfire emergency, but fears of a catastrophe eased. 

With the crisis in its seventh day, some 71 fires were raging across an area with a perimeter of 1,600 kilometres (992 miles) in New South Wales state and 29 of them were uncontained. (AFP)

India says Pakistani troops attacked border posts

SRINAGAR, India (AP) — India on Wednesday accused Pakistani troops of firing guns and mortars on at least 50 Indian border posts overnight in disputed Kashmir, calling it the most serious cease-fire violation between the nuclear-armed neighbors in a decade.

The attacks began Tuesday night in southern Kashmir after India's home minister visited the region to review security, Border Security Force spokesman Vinod Yadav said. Indian troops returned fire, but one guard was killed and six were injured by a shell fired at the Arnia post in the Jammu region, he said.

At least 100 civilians were being moved from the villages of Arnia and Ramgarh near the frontier, local Indian police officer Rajesh Kumar said. Hundreds more were sheltering overnight in government camps away from any gunfire, which had injured 12 civilians in recent days, officials said.

"These people usually go back to their homes in the day as the firing incidents mainly occur during the night," said civil administrator Shantmanu, who uses one name.

While nearly 200 smaller violations of the 2003 cease-fire agreement have been reported this year, Yadav called the latest skirmishes the most serious in a decade. In most cases, India or Pakistan accuses the other of initiating the fighting.

View gallery."An Indian Border Security Force soldier is carried …
An Indian Border Security Force soldier is carried on a stretcher after being injured in an alleged  …
India also regularly accuses Pakistan of supporting Kashmiri rebels who have been fighting on the Indian side since 1989 for independence or a merger with Pakistan. An estimated 68,000 people have been killed in the conflict, though most resistance is now shown through street protests. Pakistan denies giving any backing to the rebels beyond moral support.

Both India and Pakistan, however, have reported an increase in the number of cross-border attacks since the current Pakistani and Indian prime ministers held their first face-to-face meeting last month in New York and agreed on the need to reduce tensions.

Pakistani military officials have said that in the last week, "unprovoked firing" by Indian forces killed a Pakistani soldier and a civilian. Ten other civilians were wounded, the Pakistani officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity, in line with military policy.

Most recently, the Pakistani officials said, Indian forces shelled Dhamala village near Sialkot on Tuesday. Pakistani soldiers returned fire, and no casualties were reported.

Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said he would ask President Barack Obama during a meeting Wednesday in Washington for U.S. intervention and help in resolving the Kashmir dispute. Speaking to reporters in London, Sharif noted that "India and Pakistan both were nuclear powers and the region was a nuclear flash point."

View gallery."An Indian man displays a mortar shell allegedly fired …
An Indian man displays a mortar shell allegedly fired on a residential area from the Pakistan side a …
Indian Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid in New Delhi rejected the idea of U.S. involvement, saying Kashmir was a "bilateral issue between India and Pakistan."

India and Pakistan fought wars in 1947 and 1965 over their rival claims to the Himalayan territory, and have regularly sparred over the heavily militarized Line of Control that divides the territory between them. Serious fighting also erupted in 1999, when the Pakistani army and Pakistan-backed rebels occupied mountaintops on the Indian side in the eastern Kargil region of Kashmir.

On Monday, the top elected official on the Indian side, Omar Abdullah, said New Delhi should "look at other options" if Pakistan continues to violate the cease-fire.

He did not elaborate, but local politicians who want to separate from India's administration said Abdullah's comment's amounted to "war mongering" against Pakistan.

India's Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde was in the Jammu region of Indian Kashmir on Tuesday to meet with troops and security officials after reported skirmishes last week.

Kim Kardashian, Kanye West are engaged

NEW YORK (AP) — Marriage is coming after the baby carriage for Kim Kardashian and Kanye West.

Kardashian's publicist, Ina Treciokas, confirmed Tuesday that the couple are engaged.

E! News first reported that West proposed to Kardashian Monday — her 33rd birthday — in front of family and friends at the AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants.

Kardashian gave birth to the couple's first child, daughter North West, in June.

A photo posted on Instagram shows a screen at the stadium that reads "PLEEEASE MARRY MEEE!!!" — in typical West font — above a black-clad orchestra. Another shows Kardashian showing off a diamond ring with a smiling West behind her.

View gallery."FILE - In this Oct. 22, 2012 file photo Singer Kanye …
FILE - In this Oct. 22, 2012 file photo Singer Kanye West and girlfriend Kim Kardashian attend Gabri …
The Kardashian clan has a series of reality shows on E!, and, after initially saying it didn't have cameras at the stadium, the network said late Tuesday it did have cameras there to capture the moment.

Khloe Kardashian seemed to celebrate on Twitter when she wrote: "Tears of JOY!!!!!!! Wow!!!!!!" She also tweeted: "Wow!!!!! Am I dreaming??!?!" Kimye were quiet on Twitter.

Kardashian was previously married to NBA player Kris Humphries. Their divorce was finalized in June after they were married for 72 days in 2011. Her first marriage was to music producer Damon Thomas in 2000.

West is currently on a tour with Kendrick Lamar. "The Yeezus Tour" will visit the SAP Center in San Jose on Tuesday night. Earlier Monday, he attended the Hollywood Film Awards in Beverly Hills, presenting Steve McQueen with the Hollywood Breakout Director Award.

Pope expels German 'luxury bishop' from diocese

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis temporarily expelled a German bishop from his diocese on Wednesday because of a scandal over a 31-million-euro project to build a new residence complex, but refused calls to remove him permanently.

The Vatican didn't say how long Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst would spend away from the diocese of Limburg and gave no information on where he would go or what he would do. It said he was leaving pending the outcome of a church commission investigation into the expenditures and his role in the affair.

Limburg's vicar general, the Rev. Wolfgang Roesch, who had been due to take up his duties on Jan. 1, will instead start work immediately and will run the diocese during Tebartz-van Elst's absence, the Vatican said.

At the center of the controversy is the 31-million-euro ($42 million) price tag for the construction of a new bishop's residence complex and related renovations. Tebartz-van Elst has defended the expenditures, saying the bill was actually for 10 projects and that there were additional costs because of regulations on buildings under historical protection.

But in a country where Martin Luther launched the Reformation five centuries ago in response to what he said were excesses and abuses within the church, the outcry has been enormous. The perceived lack of financial transparency has also struck a chord since a church tax in Germany brings in billions of euros a year to the German church.

The head of the German bishops' conference, Archbishop Robert Zollitsch, has been particularly blunt in his criticism of the expenditures and the credibility problem it was causing the church.

Zollitsch has said the church commission will investigate the costs of the renovation, the financing and how decisions about the restoration evolved. Canon lawyers are to determine if Tebartz-van Elst violated church law regarding the use of church money, Zollitsch said in Rome after meeting with Francis last week.

View gallery."FILE - In this Oct. 17, 2013 file picture people walk …
FILE - In this Oct. 17, 2013 file picture people walk in front of the residence of Franz-Peter Tebar …
In a statement Wednesday, Zollitsch didn't elaborate on Tebartz-van Elst's future or the length of his time-out but pledged that the commission would do its work "quickly and carefully."

Francis' decision opens "a space to return to inner calm and create a new basis for talks," he said.

The Vatican stressed that Francis took the decision based on "objective" information, suggesting that the Vatican wasn't being swayed by the popular outcry over the scandal. At the same time, though, Francis has made clear he expects his bishops to live simply, setting as an example his own humble lifestyle.

He has said he wants his church "poor and for the poor" and has urged his priests to shun fancy cars for modest ones.

Tebartz-van Elst met with Francis on Monday.

Germany's main lay Catholic group, the Central Committee of German Catholics, praised the decision as creating "the necessary space to clear up completely and firmly the events in Limburg," said the group's head Alois Glueck.

"Pope Francis' decision offers the chance of a first step toward a new beginning in the Limburg diocese, because the situation had become an increasing burden for the faithful there and in all of Germany over recent weeks," Glueck said.

View gallery."FILE - In this Aug. 29, 2013 file picture the Bishop …
FILE - In this Aug. 29, 2013 file picture the Bishop of Limburg Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst talks d …
The German government, which last week called the situation "very difficult" and said it hoped for a solution that would give confidence to the faithful, refused to comment Wednesday on the Vatican's decision, saying it was a church matter.

Franz-Josef Bode, bishop of Osnabrueck, said the pope had made a "smart" decision which gives all concerned time to review the situation calmly. But in comments to the German newspaper Die Welt, he cast doubt on Tebartz-van Elst returning to Limburg in the future.

"I continue to think that the bishop returning to the Limburg diocese and a new beginning there with Tebartz-van Elst are very difficult," Bode was quoted as saying. "There is a fundamental crisis of confidence in Limburg. The situation there is a mess."

For jobless over 50, a challenging search for work

ROCKFORD, Ill. (AP) — When Charlie Worboys lost his job, he feared searching for a new one at his age might be tough. Six years later, at 65, he's still looking.

Luanne Lynch, 57, was laid off three times in the past decade and previous layoffs brought jobs with a lower salary; this time she can't even get that.

They're not alone. A new Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll finds many people over 50 reporting great difficulty finding work and feeling that their age is a factor.

After Worboys was laid off and his hunt for another teaching job was fruitless, he sought counseling positions. When those leads dried up, he applied for jobs in juvenile detention centers, in sales and elsewhere. He finally settled for part-time work, all the while still scouring online listings and sending out applications each week.

"They're looking for the younger person," he said. "They look at the number 65 and they don't bother to look behind it."

The AP-NORC Center poll found 55 percent of those 50 and older who have sought a job in the past five years characterized their search as difficult, and 43 percent thought employers were concerned about their age. Further, most in the poll reported finding few available jobs (69 percent), few that paid well (63 percent) or that offered adequate benefits (53 percent). About a third were told they were overqualified.

Still, some companies are welcoming older workers, and 43 percent of job seekers surveyed found a high demand for their skills and 31 percent said there was a high demand for their experience. Once on the job, older workers were far more likely to report benefits related to their age — 60 percent said colleagues had come to them for advice more often and 42 percent said they felt as if they were receiving more respect in the company.

People of all ages have been frustrated by the job market and the unemployment rate for those 55 and older was 5.3 percent in September, lower than the 7.2 percent rate among all ages. By comparison, unemployment among those 20-24 was 12.9 percent, and among those 25-54, 6.2 percent.

But long-term unemployment has been rampant among the oldest job seekers. Unemployed people aged 45 to 54 were out of work 45 weeks on average, those 55 to 64 were jobless for 57 weeks and those 65 and older average 51 weeks.

Younger workers were unemployed for shorter periods of time.

Sixty-three percent of those who searched for a job cited financial need and 19 percent said it was because they were laid off. Far smaller numbers searched because they wanted to change careers, find a better salary or benefits, escape unhappiness at a prior job or simply get out of the house.

View gallery."This photo taken Friday, Oct. 18, 2013, shows Luanne …
This photo taken Friday, Oct. 18, 2013, shows Luanne Lynch, 57, in San Gabriel, Calif. Lynch was lai …
Lynch, of San Gabriel, Calif., hated taking a step down after the earlier layoffs, but this time only one interview has come from 70-some applications.

"It's starting at the bottom," she said. "And frankly, I'm getting too old to be starting at the bottom."

Bob Gershberg, a corporate recruiter in St. Petersburg, Fla., said unemployed people, regardless of age, have had trouble getting rehired. But he said older workers have faced an added layer of skepticism from employers.

"They'll say, 'Give me the young guy. Give me the up-and-comer. Someone with fire in the belly," he said. "But there's always been a bias against the unemployed. They say, 'If she was so good, why'd she get cut?'"

Sharon Hulce, who runs a recruitment firm in Appleton, Wis., said she's found some employers are concerned that applicants in their late 50s or 60s may not stick around for the long haul.

And Kerry Hannon, who authored "Great Jobs for Everyone 50-plus," said managers may be leery of a lengthy resume from someone they can't afford, salary-wise.

"They'll look at your background and just figure you'll be insulted," she said.

About 4 in 10 who have been on the job market said they felt they lacked the right skills or felt too old for the available jobs. Many reported trying to improve their skillset (20 percent) or present themselves with a fresher resume or interview approach (15 percent) to make themselves more marketable.

Bret Lane, 53, of San Diego, was out of work for 22 months until finding a job over the summer through Platform to Employment, a training program. He lost count of how many jobs he had applied for — it was easily in the hundreds. Once, after seeing applications would be taken for a janitorial job paying $14 hourly, he got up at 3 a.m. to get an early start. There were already 400 others in line.

"I wasn't getting any interviews. I wasn't getting in front of any decision makers," he said. "People in our age group are very discriminated against."

One in five respondents in the AP-NORC Center poll said they personally experienced prejudice or discrimination in the job market or at work because of their age. That doubles to 40 percent among those who have sought a job in the last five years.

View gallery."This photo taken Friday, Oct. 18, 2013, shows Luanne …
This photo taken Friday, Oct. 18, 2013, shows Luanne Lynch, 57, in San Gabriel, Calif. Lynch was lai …
Faye Smith, 69, of Dallas, Ga., said she needed to find work after losing much of her savings in the downturn but felt the hesitance of employers when they saw the dates on her resume.

"You could tell when they found out the age," she said. "There's a change in the face and the demeanor of the person."

The AP-NORC Center survey was conducted Aug. 8 through Sept. 10 by NORC at the University of Chicago, with funding from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. It involved landline and cellphone interviews in English and Spanish with 1,024 people aged 50 and older nationwide. Results from the full survey have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4.1 percentage points.

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Associated Press Director of Polling Jennifer Agiesta and News Survey Specialist Dennis Junius contributed to this report.

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Online:

AP-NORC Center: http://ww.apnorc.org

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Matt Sedensky, an AP reporter on leave, is studying aging and workforce issues as part of a one-year fellowship at the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, which joins NORC's independent research and AP journalism. The fellowship is funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and supported by APME, an association of AP member newspapers and broadcast stations.

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Follow Matt Sedensky on Twitter at http://twitter.com/sedensky

EDITOR'S NOTE _ Aging America is a joint AP-APME project examing the aging of the baby boomers and the effect this so-called silver tsunami is having on society.

Apple unveils revamped iPads to beat back rivals

San Francisco (AFP) - Apple has unveiled the "iPad Air", a slimmer version of its top-selling full-size tablet, and a revamped iPad Mini, bidding to fend off rivals who have eroded its market dominance.

The new products will likely fuel the trend of mobile devices vanquishing old-school personal computers, but the launch failed to catch fire with investors, as Apple shares dipped following Tuesday's highly-awaited event.

Some analysts, however, were upbeat after the US tech giant unveiled upgrades to its tablet devices, notebooks and desktop computers along with free software to sweeten the deal.

"It is going to be a really strong holiday for Apple," Gartner analyst Van Baker said of the California company's prospects of sales during America's important holiday shopping season.

"The highlight of the day is the breadth of Apple's announcement; this is apps, tablets, MacBooks, Mac Pro, software... It is very wide ranging," he said, after spending some hands-on time with the latest devices.

The new iPads will be sold alongside existing versions starting November 1 in more than 40 markets around the world. For the first time, China will be among the countries getting the latest iPad models on launch day.

The new iPad Air is thinner than the version it replaces, weighs just one pound (450 grams), and is "screaming fast," Apple vice president Phil Schiller said at the unveiling in San Francisco.

View gallery."Graphic on Apple's iPad Air, a new tablet launched …
Graphic on Apple's iPad Air, a new tablet launched by the tech giant on Tuesday as a slimmer and fas …
And the upgraded iPad Mini has a vividly rich retina display along with faster computing power and graphics.

Both new iPads feature the Apple-designed A7 chip with 64-bit "desktop-class architecture," the company said.

Apple chief executive Tim Cook said he was not troubled by competition in the tablet space, despite the iPad losing share in the sector in recent times.

"Everybody seems to be making a tablet," he told the audience. "Even some of the doubters are making them."

But he said that notwithstanding sales figures, "iPad is used more than any of the rest, and not just a little more, a lot more."

The iPad "is used over four times more than all of those other tablets put together, and this is what is important to us. People use it, and what is even more important to us, is people love it," he said.

The iPad Air will start at $499 and the new Mini version at $399 for US customers. Apple will trim prices of current iPad models.

View gallery."Apple chief executive Tim Cook shows off new iPad Air …
Apple chief executive Tim Cook shows off new iPad Air and iPad mini tablets on October 22, 2013 in S …
Apple announced upgrades for its MacBook line of notebooks and Mac Pro desktop computer, and its new operating system called Mavericks would be available as a free upgrade for those with existing Apple computers.

In a strategic shift, Apple also said that iWork and iLife software suites -- for tasks from video editing to mixing music and making business presentations -- would be free with all its devices.

"These are really incredibly rich apps, and we have only just scratched the surface of what you can do with them," Cook said.

"We are turning the industry on its ear; because we want our customers to have our latest software and access to the greatest new features."

Baker said this was a smart move which can drive sales of hardware along with posing a threat to Microsoft's empire, which is built on selling operating systems, productivity applications and other software.

Like Google does with its online array of Docs applications, Apple will be making available for free the productivity software that Microsoft sells to users of Windows-powered computers.

"That is Apple's business model to a T, make software and services free and let them drive sales of the hardware," Baker said.

View gallery."An Apple employee shows off the new iPad Air at a satellite …
An Apple employee shows off the new iPad Air at a satellite launch event in central London on Octobe …
"The iWork suite will be a bit of a Trojan horse, like Google Docs is, against Microsoft."

The new iPads were unveiled on the same day Microsoft began selling an upgraded version of its Surface tablet, and as Nokia unveiled its own tablet computer.

Industry tracker Gartner on Monday forecast that global tablet shipments will reach 184 million units this year -- a 53.4 percent rise from last year.

The iPad remains the largest-selling tablet, according to surveys, but its market share is being weakened by rivals using the Google Android operating system.

Apple is also under pressure to adapt to the popularity of premium tablets with high-quality screens in the seven- to eight-inch (18- to 20-centimeter) range where the Mini competes.

Jan Dawson, analyst at the research firm Ovum, said Apple's latest innovations should "trigger good upgrade sales and get iPad shipments growing again."

But Apple is also raising the price for the new Mini, unlike competitors, which Dawson said means Apple's share in tablets will continue to fall as Android's share rises over the coming years.

Apple shares fell 1.5 percent to end at $519.87 but were regaining lost ground in after-market trades.

Underwood will star on live TV in 'Sound of Music'

NEW YORK (AP) — The end of the year looks busy for Carrie Underwood, and she couldn't be happier.

The six-time Grammy-winning singer will host the Country Music Association Awards for the sixth time. You can see her singing the opening on NBC's "Sunday Night Football." And for one night in December, she'll star in a live television version of "The Sound of Music."

The 30-year-old star told the Associated Press on the red carpet Tuesday night at the TJ Martell Foundation gala, where she was one of the night's honorees, that she nervous doing something she's never done before. But then she realized, "None of us have. This is a live show on TV. So this is definitely a challenge for all of us."

She said the live singing and acting was like "going to a Broadway show, but you're in your living room."

"The Sound of Music" airs Dec. 5 on NBC with Underwood playing Maria alongside "True Blood" vampire Stephen Moyer. He portrays Captain von Trapp. Broadway veterans — and Tony winners — Audra McDonald, Laura Benanti and Christian Borle round out the cast as Mother Abbess, Elsa and Max.

View gallery."From left, Tony Martell, Carrie Underwood and John …
From left, Tony Martell, Carrie Underwood and John Sykes attend the T.J. Martell Foundation 38th Hon …
While the Nashville, Tenn.-based Underwood is no stranger to performing before millions of people on live television — she won the fourth season of "American Idol" — she felt she needed more preparation, so she showed up in New York three weeks early.

"I wanted to be here and have all my lines memorized and everything and be ready for it. It's been really wonderful," Underwood said. "Audra and Laura are incredible. Stephen's great. It's nice to be surrounded by that much talent."

Before doing that show, the multiplatinum-selling artist returns to her hosting duties on the CMAs. She's nominated for three awards, including album of the year and song of the year. While she and co-host Brad Paisley have it down to a science, she doesn't see the experience as old hat.

"You never know what's going to happen with us hosting," Underwood joked.

She added: "I think being nominated — especially when hosting the CMAs — you just never know."

View gallery."Carrie Underwood attends the T.J. Martell Foundation …
Carrie Underwood attends the T.J. Martell Foundation 38th Honors Gala, on Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2013, in …
The CMAs take place Nov. 6 in Nashville.

Underwood also spoke about recording the opening number this season for "Sunday Night Football." She claims doing it was a no-brainer.

"It's a lot of fun. I grew up watching football. I'm from Oklahoma, it's what we do," she said with a big smile.

The conversation then turned to hockey and her husband Mike Fisher's team, the Nashville Predators.

"They got off to a little bit of rocky start, but definitely getting some momentum. I feel like my husband right now. I know what he feels like now. I feel there's some really great, new young talent," Underwood said.

And what about the team's star center?

"My hubby, he's been out for the past couple of games with a foot fracture thing. But he'll be back on the ice, ASAP. I hope he does, because that's the only way I get to see him, other than iChat."

Iran 'spares life of hanging survivor'

Tehran (AFP) - Iran has decided to spare the life of a convicted drug trafficker who survived a hanging, media reports on Wednesday quoted Justice Minister Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi as saying.

The reports follow calls from within Iran and appeals from international rights groups against the man found alive in a morgue facing execution for a second time.

"The convict who survived (the death penalty) will not be executed again," Pour-Mohammadi said late Tuesday in remarks reported by the official IRNA news agency.

"After putting much effort to prevent the second execution of this convict, we have received a positive response," he said without elaborating.

All judicial affairs and decisions in the Islamic republic rest with the judiciary, which constitutionally operates independently from the government.

The convict, identified only as Alireza M., 37, was pronounced dead earlier this month by the attending doctor after hanging for 12 minutes from a noose suspended from a crane at a jail in northeast Iran.

But the next day, staff at the mortuary in the city of Bojnourd where his shrouded body was taken discovered he was still breathing.

Media later reported that he had fallen into a coma.

Pour-Mohammadi implied that a second execution would be damaging for Iran’s image. "If he survives, it is not expedient to hang him again," said the minister.

The incident led to a heated debate between jurists, with some arguing against a repeat hanging and others for.

According to the media, a petition signed by jurists and attorneys was sent to judiciary chief Ayatollah Sadeq Larijani, appealing for a stay in the exceptional case.

Amnesty International also called for an immediate stay of execution for Alireza M.

Iran has one of the highest rates of execution in the world, with more than 500 cases last year and some 508 executions so far this year, according to Human Rights Watch.

Tehran says the death penalty is essential to maintain law and order, and that it is applied only after exhaustive judicial proceedings.

Murder, rape, armed robbery, drug trafficking and adultery are among the crimes punishable by death in Iran, based on its interpretation of sharia law in force since its 1979 Islamic revolution.

How the shutdown gave Democrats a foolproof strategy for 2014

Congressional Republicans backed themselves into a corner during the government shutdown, playing into their stereotype as the "party of no" so thoroughly that they obliterated their approval rating.

In doing so, the party may have inadvertently presented Democrats with a game plan for enacting a wish list of progressive priorities in the coming year — or possibly once a new Democratic-controlled Congress takes over in 2015.

SEE ALSO: The revealing, occasionally hateful, formerly anonymous tweets of a White House insider

By aggressively needling their opponents, Democrats could place Republicans in a bind: Either grudgingly give ground, or further cement the "party of no" moniker. If played right, Democrats could roll up win-win situations all the way to November 2014, either gaining policy victories on issues like immigration and budget reform, or notching political victories that can be used as weapons in the midterms.

The Democratic National Committee is already re-upping that message for a fundraising push. The organization's site promoted this week to the top of its homepage an old post titled, "Republicans admit they want obstruction."

SEE ALSO: The last word: He said he was leaving. She ignored him.

The shutdown, the clearest proof of such obstruction, sent the GOP's approval rating crashing to an all-time low, resulting in polls suggesting Democrats had a decent chance to reclaim the House in next year's elections. Though such divination is dubious one year out from Election Day, Democrats at the least have a huge early edge.

Republicans' best hope to winnow that gap going forward is to move away from the sorts of tactics that plunged them into their polling abyss, and to convince Americans they can effectively govern when given the reins. This presents a huge opportunity for Democrats.

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"We will be weaker when we negotiate with Democrats next time, and we proved that President Obama doesn’t need to negotiate with us,” an anonymous GOP consultant told election handicapper Stuart Rothenberg.

Larry Kudlow picked up on the same problem facing Republicans, writing in National Review that "the president likely will be inflexible" in the coming budget fight, insisting on huge concessions from Republicans while "permitting only the most inconsequential entitlement reforms."

SEE ALSO: 10 things disappearing from elementary schools

If Republicans balk at their demands, Democrats would have all the campaign ad ammunition they would need to hammer the GOP next year, particularly on issues that enjoy overwhelming popular support (universal background checks for gun purchases) or bipartisan institutional support (an immigration overhaul that passed the Senate). Indeed, in sizing up the coming elections, House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) remarked this week that "you think historically it's hard for us to win, but my observation is it's pretty easy for them to lose."

Obama has reportedly been eyeing his post-2014 presidency ever since he won re-election. A detailed Washington Post story in March said Obama, following his defeat of Mitt Romney, "began almost at once executing plans to win back the House in 2014, which he and his advisers believe will be crucial to the outcome of his second term and to his legacy as president." His strategy, the paper wrote, hinged on him trying to "articulate for the American electorate his own feelings — an exasperation with an opposition party that blocks even the most politically popular elements of his agenda."

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In sum, the plan meant convincing voters the GOP was working against their best interests. By furloughing 800,000 workers and sabotaging the shaky economic recovery, the GOP did more to convey that impression in two weeks than Obama could have done in a year's worth of campaigning.

Forcing the GOP to keep throwing wrenches in the works would only further ingrain that impression. If House Republicans, say, spike immigration reform, Democrats would have a strong argument to bring back home: "Marco Rubio and John McCain support immigration reform — but not the Tea Party-controlled House."

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Republicans may well regroup and emerge with a unified voice of their own, particularly if the ObamaCare rollout continues to plague the administration. Yet that seems unlikely at this point, as establishment types and Tea Party-aligned fire-breathers remain locked in a civil war. Tea Party figureheads like Sarah Palin have floated the idea of forming a new party; well-funded conservative groups are threatening to bankroll primaries against moderate GOPers; and Ted Cruz is still throwing bombs at his Republican Senate colleagues.

Democrats could easily overplay their hand by pushing too hard, themselves becoming the unreasonable party in the eyes of the public. For now, though, they have both time and public opinion on their side. An effective use of those weapons could help them secure major concessions over the next year — or, failing that, put them in prime position to take back Congress and circumvent the GOP entirely.

SEE ALSO: The disturbing rise of Sandy Hook conspiracy theories

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FDA seeks pet owner help on dangerous jerky treats

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Food and Drug Administration is appealing to dog and cat owners for information as it struggles to solve a mysterious outbreak of illness and deaths among pets that ate jerky treats.

In a notice to consumers and veterinarians published Tuesday, the agency said it has linked illnesses from jerky pet treats to 3,600 dogs and 10 cats since 2007. About 580 of those pets have died.

The FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine has run more than 1,200 tests, visited pet treat manufacturing plants in China and worked with researchers, state labs and foreign governments but hasn't determined the exact cause of the illness, the FDA statement said.

"This is one of the most elusive and mysterious outbreaks we've encountered," Bernadette Dunham, a veterinarian and head of the FDA vet medicine center, said in the statement.

Pets can suffer from a decreased appetite, decreased activity, vomiting and diarrhea among other symptoms within hours of eating treats sold as jerky tenders or strips made of chicken, duck, sweet potatoes or dried fruit.

Severe cases have involved kidney failure, gastrointestinal bleeding, and a rare kidney disorder, the FDA said.

Most of the jerky treats implicated have been made in China, the FDA said.

The FDA has issued previous warnings. A number of jerky pet treat products were removed from the market in January after a New York state lab reported finding evidence of up to six drugs in certain jerky pet treats made in China, the FDA said. The agency said that while the levels of the drugs were very low and it was unlikely that they caused the illnesses, there was a decrease in reports of jerky-suspected illnesses after the products were removed from the market. FDA believes that the number of reports may have declined simply because fewer jerky treats were available.

Vatican suspends Germany's 'bling bishop'

Vatican City (AFP) - The Vatican on Wednesday suspended indefinitely a German Catholic cleric dubbed the "bling bishop" for his luxury lifestyle, despite multiple calls in Germany for the prelate to be dismissed.

"The Holy See deems it appropriate to authorise a period of leave from the diocese for Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst," the Vatican said in a statement.

"The Holy Father has been continuously and objectively informed of the situation," it said.

"A situation has been created in which the bishop can no longer exercise his episcopal duties."

It did not specify how long the bishop would have to stay away but added that this would depend on an analysis of the finances of his Limburg diocese and the responsibilities for its high costs.

View gallery."Police stand in front of the bishop's house near Limburg …
Police stand in front of the bishop's house near Limburg Cathedral on October 13, 2013 in Limburg an …
The bishop flew to Rome last week with low-cost airline Ryanair to explain himself to Francis -- following accusations he took a business-class ticket on a trip to India and squandered money.

His private quarters in a new diocesan building are reported to have cost some 2.9 million euros ($3.9 million) and included a 63-square-metre dining room and a 15,000 euro bathtub -- using the revenue from a religious tax in Germany.

The reports have caused a scandal in Germany and sparked calls for greater transparency in Catholic Church finances -- a reform aim of the new pope who has called for a "poor Church for the poor".

Asked for a reaction after Wednesday's news, government spokesman Georg Streiter said: "There is no comment from the German government. This is an internal matter for the Church."

The 53-year-old bishop is under fire over the ostentatious building project in the ancient town of Limburg, which includes a museum, conference halls, a chapel and private apartments.

View gallery."People demonstrate against their bishop in front of …
People demonstrate against their bishop in front of Limburg Cathedral on October 13, 2013 in Limburg …
The project was approved by his predecessor and was initially valued at 5.5 million euros but the final bill ballooned to 31 million euros, including a 783,000-euro garden.

Tebartz-van Elst is also accused of giving false statements in court about an expensive flight he took to India to visit poor communities.

Prosecutors say the bishop gave false statements under oath in a Hamburg court battle against news weekly Der Spiegel when he denied having told the magazine's journalist that he flew business class.

Anger that taxes paid to the Church by ordinary Germans are apparently being squandered has led to demonstrations outside his residence.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, daughter of a Protestant pastor, said earlier via her spokesman Steffen Seibert that "I can express the hope that there will be an answer for believers, for people's confidence in their Church."

View gallery."Picture taken on December 3, 2012 shows Bishop of Limburg …
Picture taken on December 3, 2012 shows Bishop of Limburg Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst in the chapel …
Bishop Stephan Ackermann of Treves, in West Germany, last week told Germany's public television chain ARD that the situation has "escalated to the extent that bishop Franz-Peter can no longer on principle work in Limburg."

The embattled Tebartz-van Elst has defended the project, saying the centuries-old cathedral complex adjacent to the modernist new structure is heritage protected, complicating the development.

Critics within and outside the church have contrasted the premium architectural project with the more humble style of Pope Francis and asked how much good the money could do if used as aid in poverty-stricken African countries.

Pope Francis has made several key gestures of a more humble style since coming to office in March and has condemned big-spending clerics.

The pontiff has refused to move into the lavish papal palace in the Vatican, staying instead in the Casa Santa Marta, a residence for visitors.

He has repeatedly called for the Catholic Church and its faithful to rid themselves of earthly concerns like his name-sake, St Francis of Assisi, warning that "worldliness is a murderer because it kills souls, kills people, kills the Church."

Crisis in Syria

Syrian authorities have released 10 women jailed for helping the opposition, the first batch of 126 women expected to be freed in the final stages of a three-way hostage swap, activists said on Wednesday, 

The women's release was the main demand of kidnappers in northern Syria who had held nine Lebanese men hostage for 17 months. Those hostages and two Turkish pilots abducted in Lebanon were freed last week under a deal negotiated by Qatar. (Reuters)

The second coming of Reagan isn't going to save the GOP

This weekend's New York Times included an interesting take on what has become a well-trod and almost perfunctory topic: The GOP's so-called Civil War.
It was a wide-ranging article, but let's focus on the notion that what Republicans are going through right now is exactly like the reordering Republicans went through 50 years ago. Here's an excerpt:
The moment draws comparisons to some of the biggest fights of recent Republican Party history — the 1976 clash between the insurgent faction of activists who supported Ronald Reagan for president that year and the moderate party leaders who stuck by President Gerald R. Ford, and the split between the conservative Goldwater and moderate Rockefeller factions in 1964.
Some optimistic Republicans note that both of those campaigns planted the seeds for the conservative movement’s greatest success: Reagan's 1980 election and two terms as president.
"The business community thought the supply-siders were nuts, and the country club Republicans thought the social conservatives scary," William Kristol, the editor of The Weekly Standard, said of those squabbles. "That all worked out O.K." [The New York Times]
Is this an appropriate analogy for what's going on today, or just wishful thinking?
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Here's what I like about it: This theory recognizes that politics is often cyclical. You're rarely as good as you look when you're winning — and never as bad as you look when you're losing. It wasn't that long ago that some Republicans boasted that they were on the cusp of achieving a permanent governing majority.
Consider a non-political example. The Kansas City Chiefs — who were a dismal 2-14 last year — are now the only undefeated team left in the National Football League at 7-0. No one would have predicted this at the end of last season.
SEE ALSO: The last word: He said he was leaving. She ignored him.
Of course, it required new leadership — coach Andy Reid and quarterback Alex Smith were huge acquisitions. And while such a worst-to-first story might be difficult to replicate in politics, it's certainly not impossible. That's why it's so easy to understand why disciples of Ronald Reagan — who wrote "I know that for America there will always be a bright dawn ahead" — would gravitate to such an optimistic theory.
Unfortunately, it might not work out that way.
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The temptation is to lionize the 1964 Barry Goldwater campaign, but it's important to remember he received just 38 percent of the vote. He was trounced. It would be 16 years before Ronald Reagan was elected, and during that time, America would undergo all sorts of turmoil, including Vietnam, Civil Rights protests, the Great Society, Watergate, gas lines, the Iranian hostage crisis — you name it. Conservatives who subscribe to this analogy had better hope we are closer to 1976 than to 1964. They would probably be the first to argue America cannot sustain 16 years of liberal rule. (And yes, Nixon and Ford were Republicans — but they were not Reagan conservatives, and they presided over an era in which liberalism dominated U.S. politics.)
To be sure, Reagan's victory in 1980 was predicated on this turmoil. They took a chance on him when nothing else seemed to work, and it certainly paid huge dividends. At the risk of embracing the "great man" theory of history, let's also not forget the fact that Reagan was sui generis. Try finding a two-term governor of California with movie star looks and inspirational ideas and rhetoric. These guys certainly don't grow on trees.
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The danger is that, instead of doing the spade work, conservatives waste their summers praying in vain for a savior to rise from these streets. Between 1964 and 1980, conservatives invested a lot of time and energy into building public policy think tanks and training conservative activists how to win. In fairness to Goldwater, Reagan was greatly aided by this infrastructure (which was created by a lot of veterans of the Goldwater campaign) when he rain in 1980.
Today's conservatives ought to embrace a similar "work as if it all depends on you/pray as if it all depends on God" mentality. But they should also accept the fact that today's challenges are different than they were 50 years ago.
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Technology is vastly different — and so are the nation's demographics. Don't forget, Mitt Romney won white voters by the same margins that Reagan did in 1980.
There's another problem with this analogy. The "Civil War" taking place during the Goldwater era pitted conservatives against moderate Rockefeller Republicans. Today's battle is different. The moderates are almost all gone. You'd be hard pressed to find a Republican who supported abortion rights, much less one who supports ObamaCare. And so the recent internecine fight over the government shutdown was mostly about strategy and tactics. How much more ideological cleansing is possible for a movement that wants to be a governing majority?
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So what should we make of the Goldwater-Reagan analogy? Conservatives ought to extract as many lessons as they can from history, but also understand the danger in assuming the world is static. It isn't.
It's tempting to try and fight the last war, especially if you won it. But it's treacherous, too.
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Another sports analogy: In what became a famous rant, then-Boston Celtics Coach Rick Petino challenged fans to look to the future. "Larry Bird is not walking through that door, fans," he said. "Kevin McHale is not walking through that door, and Robert Parish is not walking through that door. And if you expect them to walk through that door, they're going to be gray and old. ... And as soon as they realize that those three guys are not coming through the door, the better this town will be for all of us..."
Similarly, it might be good for conservatives to realize this: Barry Goldwater is not walking through that door. Ronald Reagan is not walking through that door...
SEE ALSO: 14 wonderful words with no English equivalent
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Apple unveils iPad Air, new Macs for holidays

By Poornima Gupta and Edwin Chan
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Apple Inc on Tuesday offered free upgrades for life on its operating system and business software, and unveiled thinner iPads and faster Mac computers ahead of a competitive holiday shopping season.
The debut of the one-pound iPad Air and MacBook Pro with sharper 'retina' display repeats a pattern of recent launches with improvements in existing lines rather than totally new products, and Apple shares fell 0.3 percent for the day.
Apple said upgrades to its Mac operating system and iWork software suite, which compete with Microsoft Corp's Excel, Word and other applications, will now be offered for all MacBooks and Mac computers.
That brings Apple's model of free system software upgrades on phones and tablets to the computer market, where Apple is still the underdog to Microsoft's Windows.
Apple may be trying to safeguard its grip on mobile software as Microsoft revs up its Windows-powered Surface Pro, which runs applications, such as Word or Excel, that are the standard for business customers, analysts said.
"We are turning the industry on its ear, but this is not why we're doing it," Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook told media and technology executives at San Francisco's Yerba Buena Center.
"We want our customers to have our latest software."
The market is awash in inexpensive tablets running Google Inc's Android software, but the company may be focused on fending off a threat from the high end.
"In the tablet PC market, they do think Microsoft is a bigger threat than Android," said Gartner analyst Carolina Milanesi. "The iPad Air will compete with Surface Pro, not some rinky-dink Android tablet."
Gartner estimates that Apple's share of the global tablet market will slip to 47.2 percent in 2014, with Android-based tablets just overtaking Apple's this year. The IT research outfit expects Microsoft tablets to grab 3.4 percent of the market this year, double the 1.7 percent forecast for 2013.
PRESSURE
Microsoft gets 65 percent of its Windows revenue, which totaled $19.2 billion last fiscal year, from PC manufacturers which put the system on its machines, and 35 percent from other sources, chiefly people and businesses buying its software separately to install themselves.
The latest version of Windows, when bought separately to install on an old computer, starts at $120 for a home version and goes up to $200 for the full 'Pro' version. The latest Windows 8.1 upgrade was free for customers running Windows 8.
Apple's product launches on Tuesday were evolutionary, with the new iPads equipped with faster processors and better screens. Cook, at an industry conference in May, had hinted at "several more game changers" from Apple which could include wearable computers, but had not given a time frame.
"As always with Apple, expectations on systematic breakthrough hardware innovations are irrational," said Forrester analyst Thomas Husson said. "Apple is good at inventing new products and at maximizing profitability of its product range over time through software innovations and clever marketing."
Apple's new iPad Air - its full-size tablet - is about 20 percent thinner than the previous generation of tablets, weighs one pound and starts at $499. It will go on sale on November 1.
The iPad mini now has a "retina" high-resolution screen and starts at $399, compared with $329 for the previous mini model. The two new tablets would face stiff competition, with Microsoft, Nokia and Amazon.com Inc all plugging rival devices in coming months.
Apple also showed off a new Mac Pro, a premium and high-powered cylindrical desktop computer that will be assembled in United States. It had shown the computer at a previously event.
For the first, Apple will launch the new iPads simultaneously in the United States and China, its biggest market, which is also a key growth region.
Apple, which jumpstarted the tablet computing market in 2010 with the first iPad, has already come under increasing pressure from cheaper devices ranging from Amazon's Kindle Fire to Samsung Electronics Co Ltd's Note.
But while Apple is ceding market share to rivals, its superior library of apps and content should safeguard its lead for years to come, analysts say.
Longer term however, investors hope to see real device innovation from a company that has not unveiled a new breakthrough product in years.
Cook on Tuesday dismissed the competition as directionless.
"Our competition is different: they're confused," he said. "Now they're trying to make PCs into tablets and tablets into PCs. Who knows what they'll do next?"
"We have a very clear direction and a very ambitious goal. We still believe deeply in this category and we're not slowing down on our innovation."

Obamacare: Truth and Myths

These days, it can be hard to separate truth from myth when it comes to the Affordable Care Act. Opponents of the law have sought to discredit it by repeating statements that aren't backed by facts, while its proponents do their own stretching of the truth.
Here, we demystify some of the most vexing questions surrounding the new health care law:
Myth: People are having difficulty signing up for health care everywhere.
It's been all over the news since the Affordable Care Act's marketplaces opened for business on Oct 1: delays, broken web pages and glitches galore. While there have been enormous difficulties for the ACA's health insurance exchanges, the problems have been largely confined to the 34 state marketplaces that the federal government runs. In 16 other states and the District of Columbia, the state-run exchanges seem to be working fine.
Some of them are actually doing pretty well -- at least when compared with the others. Kentucky has already enrolled 15,000 people in health insurance plans with few problems. And within two weeks, California said that 95,000 people had started applications for insurance.
Public Splits on Health Care Law Amid Concern About Website Flaws
Myth: The website's' biggest problem is the number of people seeking insurance.
At least initially, the White House tried to paint Obamacare's severe technical problems as a victim of its success. "We found out that there have been times this morning where the site has been running more slowly than it normally will," Obama said hours after the exchanges opened their doors. "The reason is because more than 1 million people visited healthcare.gov before 7 in the morning."
It turns out that wasn't quite the case. The Wall Street Journal reported that insurers said the website had been giving them faulty data weeks after the initial launch. And the Washington Post reported that the site began experiencing its first problems after only 2,000 people tried to complete the first step of their applications shortly after midnight on Oct. 1.
Three weeks later, the problems have persisted, so much so that the White House now said it has called in an emergency tech squad to help it fix the site before the end of the year so that people who need insurance can get it before Jan. 1.
Obamacare Sites Still Swamped but Wait Times Cut
Myth: Obamacare is leading to part-time jobs
It's a common refrain of its opponents: Obamacare will force struggling Americans into part-time work. Well, the first bits of evidence have come in, and it does not look as if the Affordable Care Act has had any negative impact on full-time work.
Between August and September the economy has added 691,000 full-time jobs, while it has lost 594,000 part-time jobs, according to the September jobs report. While this is only one month's worth of data, it indicates that at least so far, the law hasn't pushed full-time employees into part-time work.
Myth: Employers aren't changing the insurance they offer because of Obamacare.
"If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan," said President Obama in 2009 as he worked to sell the health care bill that would result in the Affordable Care Act. For many Americans, fall means open enrollment season for their employee-based health care plans. And some of those plans have definitely changed.
Here are some high profile examples: Citing the Affordable Care Act, UPS announced it would drop health coverage for some spouses of employees who were eligible for health insurance elsewhere. And Home Depot said it would shift its part-time employees to public health insurance exchanges instead of providing insurance through the company.
The truth is, some health insurance plans would be required to change because of the Affordable Care Act: Either they don't meet the minimum coverage requirements of the new law, or they are too generous -- so called "Cadillac" insurance plans.
But not all changes stem from the new law. Employers have been changing health insurance plans for years before the ACA. For example, the average deductible has increased every year since 2006 -- before and after the health care law -- according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Official: 2 Fla. prisoners captured by authorities

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Two convicted killers who were freed from prison by phony documents were captured together without incident Saturday night at a Panama City motel, authorities said.
Joseph Jenkins and Charles Walker, both 34, were taken into custody about 6:40 p.m. at Coconut Grove Motor Inn. They were apprehended just a couple of hours after their family members held a news conference urging the men to turn themselves in.
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement did not immediately release any other details about their capture or investigation.
Jenkins was found guilty of first-degree murder in the 1998 killing and botched robbery of Roscoe Pugh, an Orlando man. It was Pugh's family that contacted the prosecutor's office earlier this week and told them Jenkins had been released, setting off a manhunt.
The prosecutor's office also discovered Walker had been mistakenly released. Walker was convicted of second-degree murder in the 1999 Orange County slaying of 23-year-old Cedric Slater.
Jenkins and Walker were both serving life sentences.
The bogus paperwork, complete with case numbers and a judge's forged signature, reduced their sentences to 15 years.
Jenkins was released Sept. 27 and Walker was set free Oct. 8.
Family members and friends of the men said Saturday they initially thought their release was legitimate and spent time with them, even planning a birthday party for one.
Three days after both men were released, they went to an Orlando jail and registered as felons, as required by law.
They filled out paperwork, had their photographs taken and were even fingerprinted. By doing this, authorities said they didn't raise any alarms.
Henry Pearson, who was described as Jenkins' father figure, said he brought Jenkins clothes when he picked him up from prison and drove him to see his mother and grandmother.
Pearson planned a birthday party at his home for Jenkins a few days later, but he never showed up. Jenkins turned 34 on Oct. 1.Before the capture, family members pleaded with the men to turn themselves in.
"We love you. We believe in you. We just want you to surrender yourself to someone you trust who will bring you back here safely. We don't want any harm to come to you," said Walker's mother, Lillie Danzy.
Danzy said the family thought their prayers had been answered when she got the call saying Walker was being released. There wasn't time to pick him up, so he hopped a bus to central Florida.
Walker went to church last Sunday, and his mother said they have been cooperating with authorities and made no attempts to hide him.
There are still questions about who created the legitimate-looking documents that exposed gaps in Florida's judicial system.
In light of the errors, the Corrections Department changed the way it verifies early releases and state legislators promised to hold investigative hearings.
The Corrections Department said on Friday it verified the early release by checking the Orange County Clerk of Court's website and calling them.
Corrections Secretary Michael Crews sent a letter to judges saying prison officials will now verify with judges — and not just court clerks — before releasing prisoners early.
The state Department of Law Enforcement and the Department of Corrections are investigating the error, but so far have not released any details.