First Lady Sees 'Movement' in Childhood Obesity












As she celebrates the third anniversary of her Let's Move! initiative, first lady Michelle Obama told "Good Morning America" co-anchor Robin Roberts that the country is seeing real "movement" on the issue of childhood obesity.


"We've really changed the conversation in this country. When we started, there were a lot of people in this country who would have never thought that childhood obesity was a health crisis. But now we're starting to see some movement on this issue," the first lady told Roberts. "Our kids are eating better at school. They're moving more. And we're starting…to see a change in the trends. We're starting to see rates of obesity coming down like never before."


"What we're seeing is that there's hope, and when a nation comes together, and everyone is thinking about this issue and trying to figure out what role they can play, then we can see changes," she said.


Mrs. Obama is set to embark on a star studded national tour this week to promote and celebrate her Let's Move! initiative. Her first stop will be in Clinton, Miss. on Wednesday when she appears at an event highlighting healthy school lunches with Rachael Ray.


"I'm going back to Mississippi because when I first went there, Mississippi was considered one of the most unhealthy states in the nation," Mrs. Obama said.












Michelle Obama: Bangs Are Her Mid-Life Crisis Watch Video





"If we could fry water in Mississippi, we would, we would do that," Roberts, who grew up in Pass Christian, Mississippi, said. "Food is a culture."


"But the good news in Mississippi is that they've seen a decline in childhood obesity of 13 percent, so we're gonna go celebrate and highlight what has been going on there. There's still work to do," the first lady said.


On Thursday, the first lady will travel to her hometown of Chicago, where she will be joined by Olympic gymnasts and tennis star Serena Williams to promote more physical activity in schools. Later in the day, Mrs. Obama will discuss healthy food choices at a Wal-Mart store in Springfield, Mo.


Mrs. Obama said she will announce a new initiative called the "My Plate Recipe Partnership," which will provide families with online access to healthy recipes that meet the My Plate guidelines, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's replacement of the food pyramid.


"More and more chefs, more and more food companies are understanding that they have to find ways to help families do this in a way that's gonna taste good, that kids are gonna like it," she said.


The first lady, Roberts and Chef Marcus Robert Samuelsson, who owns Red Rooster Harlem in New York City, cooked a healthy meal of beef stir fry and broccolini together on the "Good Morning America" set. Mrs. Obama admitted "it's been a while" since she's cooked for her family, but said she looks forward to the day she can whip up meals for her husband and daughters.


"I walk in the kitchen every day, every day," she joked.


But cooking for her family isn't the only thing Mrs. Obama said she misses since becoming first lady.


"Going to Target for me is like a dream, you know? That one time I went, you noticed it created a stir. I'm gonna do it again, doggone it. Next four years, I'm going out. I'm breaking out. I'm gonna disguise Bo. I'm gonna put on a coat. I'm gonna take a walk, and my agents won't know a thing. Don't tell 'em," she joked.






Read More..

Jewell nomination roadblock; McCain may hold up Brennan; and Arne Duncan deployed in sequester fight (read-this roundup)




President Obama’s pick to be Interior Secretary, Sally Jewell, could face a Senate obstacle.
(Andrew Harrer - Bloomberg)
Here’s what the Loop is reading Monday:



Road to somewhere — Nominations often face roadblocks, but this one’s a bit more literal than most: Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski is holding up Interior Secretary nominee Sally Jewell over a “20-mile gravel road” in Murkowski’s home state of Alaska.



More questions — Sen. John McCain renewed his threat to hold up the nomination of John Brennan to be CIA director. The Arizona Republican also predicted former senator Chuck Hagel’s nomination to be defense secretary would get a vote this week, but only if “questions are answered.”



Duncan deployed — Education Secretary Arne Duncan joins Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood as one of President Obama’s sequestration Cabinet Cassandras with an appearance on the Sunday talk-show circuit.



Stay classy — A former congressional candidate got kicked out of a high-school wrestling match for badgering the referee.

Read More..

Fidel Castro backs move to younger leadership: report






HAVANA: Fidel Castro and the Cuban communist party have given the green light for reforms paving the way for a new, younger generation of leaders in the single-party state, state media said Monday.

As expected, Sunday's session of Cuba's National Assembly re-elected Castro's 82-year-old brother Raul to serve a second and final five-year presidential term.

But the assembly also promoted Miguel Diaz-Canel, 52, already a member of the Council of State, to a senior vice presidency of that panel, making him the number two figure in the regime.

The official newspaper Granma said Monday that the changes were approved on Sunday at a meeting of the Communist Party central committee, whose members had not been told in advance of the changes.

Castro, 86, attended Sunday's meeting, in which the National Assembly that was elected February 3 with no opposition candidates took up its seats.

It chose a new 31-member council of state, Cuba's top executive body, with Raul Castro again as its president.

Diaz-Canel already had a post, but was promoted to first vice president, sweeping past some Castro revolutionary era veterans who are historic figures of the gerontocracy that now rules the country.

Diaz-Canel, as political heir, cuts a starkly different profile from the revolutionary leadership, whose members are mostly in their 80s.

If he comes to lead Cuba, he would be the first leader of the regime whose entire life has been under the Castro regime that started in January 1959.

Barring any changes, Diaz-Canel would succeed Raul Castro, who will be 82 in June, if the president serves out his term through 2018.

Fidel Castro stepped aside as president in 2006. Raul Castro took over as acting president and officially became leader in 2008.

-AFP/fl



Read More..

Chopper scam: CBI names ex-IAF chief SP Tyagi as suspect

NEW DELHI: Former Air Force chief SP Tyagi has been named in a CBI preliminary enquiry (PE) on allegations of kickbacks in the Rs 3,600 crore VVIP chopper deal, becoming the second former defence services chief to figure in the agency probe.

Besides the former IAF chief, 10 others including his cousins — Julie, Docsa and Sandeep Tyagi have also been named besides four companies in the PE, CBI sources said here.

This is the second instance when a former services chief has been named in a CBI inquiry. Former Admiral Sushil Kumar was named in a CBI case to probe alleged kickback in purchase of Barak missiles in early 2000.

The sources said suspected European middlemen Carlo Garosa, Christian Michel and Guido Haschkhe, advocate Gautam Khaitan formerly associated with Aeromatrix and its CEO Praveen Bakshi, former Finmeccanica chairman Giuseppe Orsi, former AgustaWestland CEO Bruno Spagnolini have also been named.

Italian companies Finmeccanica and AgustaWestland, IDS Infotech and Aeromatrix also figure in the PE, they said.

Read More..

Picture Archive: Dorothy Lamour and Jiggs, Circa 1938


Dorothy Lamour, most famous for her Road to ... series of movies with Bing Crosby and Bob Hope, never won an Oscar. In her 50-plus-year career as an actress, she never even got nominated.

Neither did Jiggs the chimpanzee, pictured here with Lamour on the set of Her Jungle Love in a photo published in the 1938 National Geographic story "Monkey Folk."

No animal has ever been nominated for an Oscar. According to Academy Award rules, only actors and actresses are eligible.

Uggie, the Jack Russell terrier from last year's best picture winner, The Artist, didn't rate a nod. The equines that portrayed Seabiscuit and War Horse, movies that were best picture contenders in their respective years, were also snubbed.

Even the seven piglets that played Babe, the eponymous star of the best picture nominee in 1998, didn't rate. And the outlook seems to be worsening for the animal kingdom's odds of ever getting its paws on that golden statuette.

This year, two movies nominated in the best picture category had creatures that were storyline drivers with significant on-screen time. Neither Beasts of the Southern Wild (which featured extinct aurochs) or Life of Pi (which featured a CGI Bengal tiger named Richard Parker) used real animals.

An Oscar's not the only way for animals to get ahead, though. Two years after this photo was published, the American Humane Association's Los Angeles Film & TV Unit was established to monitor and protect animals working on show business sets. The group's creation was spurred by the death of a horse during the filming of 1939's Jessie James.

Today, it's still the only organization that stamps "No Animals Were Harmed" onto a movie's closing credits.

Editor's note: This is part of a series of pieces that looks at the news through the lens of the National Geographic photo archives.


Read More..

Best Moments From the Academy Awards






Host Seth MacFarlane took the stage at the 2013 Oscars with an opening monologue revealing he was ready to poke fun at the star-studded audience.


"The quest to make Tommy Lee Jones laugh begins now," he said.


But it wasn't too long before MacFarlane was interrupted. William Shatner, dressed as his iconic character Captain Kirk from "Star Trek," descended on the stage to warn MacFarlane that he was about to ruin the Oscars and be branded the worst host ever.


"The show is a disaster. I've come back in time … to stop you from ruining the Academy Awards," Shatner said.

Seth MacFarlane's Boobs Tribute


Shatner tried to steer MacFarlane away from singing an "incredibly offensive song that upsets a lot of women in the audience."


Cue MacFarlane's medley "We Saw Your Boobs," a laundry list set to music of acclaimed actresses in Hollywood who all bared their breasts in film.


MacFarlane was joined by the Gay Men's Chorus of Los Angeles to call out Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Naomi Watts, Jodie Foster, Hilary Swank and countless others who we've seen nude in film.



Not every joke funnyman Seth MacFarlane made landed with the A-list crowd at the 85th annual Academy Awards.


The host elicited gasps from the crowd when he introduced "Django Unchained" as "the story of a man fighting to get back his woman, who's been subjected to unthinkable violence. Or, as Chris Brown and Rihanna call it, a date movie."


Another joke that somehow earned a too-soon nod? A throw to President Abraham Lincoln's assassination.


"I'd argue that the actor who really got inside Lincoln's head was John Wilkes Booth," MacFarlane said.


MacFarlane's jab at Mel Gibson didn't land too smoothly either. MacFarlane said the N-word laden "Django Unchained" screenplay was "loosely based on Mel Gibson's voicemails."

Oscars' Movie Musical Tribute


The theme of the 85 annual Academy Awards was celebrating music in film, and the tributes to movie musicals didn't disappoint.


Featured performers included Catherine Zeta-Jones belting "All That Jazz" from 2002's Best Picture winner "Chicago," Jennifer Hudson's show-stopping "And I'm Telling You I'm Not Going" from 2006's "Dreamgirls," and the cast of this year's Best Picture nominee "Les Miserables" reuniting on stage for "One Day More."

Introducing the Von Trapp Family


To introduce Christopher Plummer to the stage to present the award for Best Supporting Actress, MacFarlane couldn't help but make a joke out of the actor's infamous role as Captain Von Trapp in "The Sound of Music."


MacFarlane came out to announce the Von Trapp family singers, but no one came out. Instead, a man dressed in a Nazi uniform ran in to tell him that they were gone.

Kristen Stewart Hobbles on Stage to Present


When Daniel Radcliffe took the stage to present the award for Achievement in Production Design, he was joined by his hobbling co-presenter Kristen Stewart, who was seen crutching along the red carpet during the pre-show.


The "Twilight" star's makeup artist told People magazine that the actress "cut the ball of her foot, quite severely, on glass two days ago."


The Associated Press reported that backstage, Best Supporting Actress winner Anne Hathaway told Stewart to "break a leg."

Jennifer Lawrence's Unstable Victory


Jennifer Lawrence was so shocked to take home the Oscar for Best Actress that she lost her footing on her way up to the stage to accept her award.


"You guys are just standing up because I fell and that's really embarrassing," she said to the audience.


Lawrence regained her composure to give her acceptance speech, extending a special thank you to "the women this year," who she called "so magnificent and so inspiring."

Daniel Day-Lewis a Three-Peat Best Actor Winner


It was a highly anticipated win for Daniel Day-Lewis, who took home the award for Best Actor for his portrayal of Abe Lincoln in Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln."


Lewis cracked a joke in his acceptance speech, saying he was supposed to be cast as Margaret Thatcher and presenter Meryl Streep was the first choice for Lincoln.


"Meryl Streep was Steven's first choice to play Lincoln… I'd like to see that version," Lewis said.

Michelle Obama Announces Best Picture Winner


In one of the biggest surprises of the night, the Academy brought out First Lady Michelle Obama to help Jack Nicholson introduce the nominees for Best Picture.


Rocking her new bangs and a silver gown, the first lady, live from the White House, announced "Argo" as this year's Best Picture.


"It was a thrill to announce the #Oscars2013 best picture winner from the @WhiteHouse! Congratulations Argo!" FLOTUS tweeted afterwards.

Ben Affleck Triumphs at Oscars


Ben Affleck was flabbergasted by his win for Best Picture for "Argo." His frenzied, heartfelt acceptance speech resonated as he thanked his wife, Jennifer Garner, and ended on an inspirational high note.


"I want to thank my wife, who I don't normally associate with Iran. I want to thank you for working on our marriage. It is work, but it is the best kind of work," he said.


"I was here 15 years ago or something and you know I had no idea what I was doing. I stood out here in front of you all, really just a kid. I went out and I never thought I'd be back here and I am because of so many of you who are here tonight …. I want to thank them for what they taught me, which is that you have to work harder than you think you possibly can, you can't hold grudges. It's hard, but you can't hold grudges. And it doesn't matter how you get knocked down in life because that's going to happen. All that matters is that you got to get up."


Read More..

Egypt protesters block doors to Cairo administrative hub






CAIRO: Protesters on Sunday blocked the doors to Cairo's main administrative building as part of a growing campaign of civil disobedience around the country against Islamist President Mohamed Morsi.

A group of protesters closed the doors of the Mugamma, a massive labyrinth of bureaucratic offices on the edge of Tahrir Square, leaving only a side exit for employees to leave, employees told AFP.

"This is a call for civil disobedience... We want the implementation of the goals of the revolution such as social justice as well as a delay of parliamentary elections," which is set for April 22, one of the protesters told AFP, declining to give his name.

"We must break the monopoly of the state by Brotherhood," he said of the Islamist movement from which Morsi hails.

Since a November decree that pushed through an Islamist-drafted constitution, Egypt has been deeply divided between Morsi's Islamist supporters and a wide-ranging opposition that accuses the president of betraying the uprising that brought him to office and consolidating power in the hands of his Muslim Brotherhood.

Outside the Mugamma, the protesters threatened to extend their protest, adding that the next step could be to close down the television building which also houses the information ministry.

In the northern city of Kafr el-Sheikh, hundreds of quarry workers stormed the governorate headquarters to protest against working conditions and forced employees out of the building, chanting against governor Saad al-Husseini, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood.

A crippling economic crisis has also fuelled the anger.

Bakeries across Egypt have threatened to go on strike on Thursday due to rising wheat prices, a potentially devastating move in a country where many rely on subsidised bread as the main food staple.

Thousands are employed at the Mugamma, which houses passport offices, tax offices and various other government agencies.

"A small group of young people closed the main doors of the building and they are not letting anyone in," one employee told AFP from inside the building.

The protesters "did not enter the building," the employee said.

"They have left a door open and said employees who finish their shift must leave and that they won't let anyone in," a witness said.

The Mugamma has been closed before, most recently during protests marking two years since the ouster of president Hosni Mubarak in a popular uprising.

A general strike in the canal city of Port Said, meanwhile, entered its second week on Sunday, with most shops and factories closed down.

- AFP/fa



Read More..

Congress president or VP natural choice for PM's post: Tharoor

BHOPAL: Union minister Shashi Tharoor on Sunday suggested if the party is voted to power, its president or the vice-president will be the natural choice for the post.

"Everybody knows who is the president and vice president of our party and if people vote for our party, then naturally one among them would become Prime Minister of the country," he said without specifying any name.

He was suggesting that that Congress does not need to name its prime ministerial candidate before the elections.

When asked whether the Lok Sabha polls will be a contest between Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi and Rahul Gandhi for Prime Minister's post, he dismissed the query.

"In India, we don't have a system like the US where it was a direct contest between President Barack Obama and Republican Party leader Mitt Romney. Here people vote for the party and the elected members then elect their leader," Tharoor told reporters here without taking names of Rahul Gandhi and Modi.

He was here to address a seminar on women empowerment, organised by a private educational institution.

When asked whether Modi has prime ministerial qualities, Tharoor did not to comment.

The Centre is providing lot of funds to the states for the implementation of Right to Education, Sarva Shiksha Ahbiyan and other programmes and it is the duty of the governments under federal system to utilize the money properly, the minister of state for human resource development said.

Without naming any state, Tharoor said he was aware that in some states money was not being utilised properly.

The government should also provide the facility of toilets to girls, which is a major problem, and also ramps in the schools, he said.

When asked about cases of rapes in Madhya Pradesh, he said he was not aware of the exact situation and added that it was a nationwide problem.

There is a need to change the mindset towards women to address the issue in a proper manner, he said.

Read More..

Elderly Abandoned at World's Largest Religious Festival


Every 12 years, the northern Indian city of Allahabad plays host to a vast gathering of Hindu pilgrims called the Maha Kumbh Mela. This year, Allahabad is expected to host an estimated 80 million pilgrims between January and March. (See Kumbh Mela: Pictures From the Hindu Holy Festival)

People come to Allahabad to wash away their sins in the sacred River Ganges. For many it's the realization of their life's goal, and they emerge feeling joyful and rejuvenated. But there is also a darker side to the world's largest religious gathering, as some take advantage of the swirling crowds to abandon elderly relatives.

"They wait for this Maha Kumbh because many people are there so nobody will know," said one human rights activist who has helped people in this predicament and who wished to remain anonymous. "Old people have become useless, they don't want to look after them, so they leave them and go."

Anshu Malviya, an Allahabad-based social worker, confirmed that both men and women have been abandoned during the religious event, though it has happened more often to elderly widows. Numbers are hard to come by, since many people genuinely become separated from their groups in the crowd, and those who have been abandoned may not admit it. But Malviya estimates that dozens of people are deliberately abandoned during a Maha Kumbh Mela, at a very rough guess.

To a foreigner, it seems puzzling that these people are not capable of finding their own way home. Malviya smiles. "If you were Indian," he said, "you wouldn't be puzzled. Often they have never left their homes. They are not educated, they don't work. A lot of the time they don't even know which district their village is in."

Once the crowd disperses and the volunteer-run lost-and-found camps that provide temporary respite have packed away their tents, the abandoned elderly may have the option of entering a government-run shelter. Conditions are notoriously bad in these homes, however, and many prefer to remain on the streets, begging. Some gravitate to other holy cities such as Varanasi or Vrindavan where, if they're lucky, they are taken in by temples or charity-funded shelters.

In these cities, they join a much larger population, predominantly women, whose families no longer wish to support them, and who have been brought there because, in the Hindu religion, to die in these holy cities is to achieve moksha or Nirvana. Mohini Giri, a Delhi-based campaigner for women's rights and former chair of India's National Commission for Women, estimates that there are 10,000 such women in Varanasi and 16,000 in Vrindavan.

But even these women are just the tip of the iceberg, says economist Jean Drèze of the University of Allahabad, who has campaigned on social issues in India since 1979. "For one woman who has been explicitly parked in Vrindavan or Varanasi, there are a thousand or ten thousand who are living next door to their sons and are as good as abandoned, literally kept on a starvation diet," he said.

According to the Hindu ideal, a woman should be looked after until the end of her life by her male relatives—with responsibility for her shifting from her father to her husband to her son. But Martha Chen, a lecturer in public policy at Harvard University who published a study of widows in India in 2001, found that the reality was often very different.

Chen's survey of 562 widows of different ages revealed that about half of them were supporting themselves in households that did not include an adult male—either living alone, or with young children or other single women. Many of those who did live with their families reported harassment or even violence.

According to Drèze, the situation hasn't changed since Chen's study, despite the economic growth that has taken place in India, because widows remain vulnerable due to their lack of education and employment. In 2010, the World Bank reported that only 29 percent of the Indian workforce was female. Moreover, despite changes in the law designed to protect women's rights to property, in practice sons predominantly inherit from their parents—leaving women eternally dependent on men. In a country where 37 percent of the population still lives below the poverty line, elderly dependent relatives fall low on many people's lists of priorities.

This bleak picture is all too familiar to Devshran Singh, who oversees the Durga Kund old people's home in Varanasi. People don't pay toward the upkeep of their relatives, he said, and they rarely visit. In one case, a doctor brought an old woman to Durga Kund claiming she had been abandoned. After he had gone, the woman revealed that the doctor was her son. "In modern life," said Singh, "people don't have time for their elderly."

Drèze is currently campaigning for pensions for the elderly, including widows. Giri is working to make more women aware of their rights. And most experts agree that education, which is increasingly accessible to girls in India, will help improve women's plight. "Education is a big force of social change," said Drèze. "There's no doubt about that."


Read More..

Crash at Daytona Exposes Risks to Fans












The risks of racing extend beyond the drivers.



Fans can wind up in the danger zone, too.



A horrifying crash on the last lap of a race at Daytona International Speedway injured at least 30 fans Saturday and provided another stark reminder of what can happen when a car going nearly 200 mph is suddenly launched toward the spectator areas.



The victims were sprayed with large chunks of debris — including a tire — after rookie Kyle Larson's machine careened into the fencing that is designed to protect the massive grandstands lining NASCAR's most famous track.



"I love the sport," said Shannan Devine, who witnessed the carnage from her 19th-row seat, about 250 feet away. "But no one wants to get hurt over it."



The fencing served its primary purpose, catapulting what was left of Larson's car back onto the track. But it didn't keep potentially lethal shards from flying into the stands.



"There was absolute shock," Devine said. "People were saying, 'I can't believe it, I can't believe it. I've never seen this happen, I've never seen this happen. Did the car through the fence?' It was just shock and awe. Grown men were reaching out and grabbing someone, saying, 'Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh!' It was just disbelief, absolute disbelief."



From Daytona to Le Mans to a rural road in Ireland, auto racing spectators have long been too close to the action when parts start flying. The crash in the second-tier Nationwide race follows a long list of accidents that have left fans dead or injured.





The most tragic incident occurred during the 1955 24 Hours of Le Mans, when two cars collided near the main stands. The wreck sent debris hurtling into the crowd, while one of the cars flipped upside down and exploded in a giant fireball.



Eighty-three spectators and driver Pierre Levegh were killed, and 120 fans were injured.



The Daytona crash began as the field approached the checkered flag and leader Regan Smith attempted to block Brad Keselowski. That triggered a chain reaction, and rookie Kyle Larson hit the cars in front of him and went airborne into the fence.



The entire front end was sheared off Larson's car, and his burning engine wedged through a gaping hole in the fence. Chunks of debris from the car were thrown into the stands, including a tire that cleared the top of the fence and landed midway up the spectator section closest to the track.



"I thought the car went through the fence," Devine said. "I didn't know if there was a car on top of people. I didn't know what to think. I'm an emotional person. I immediately started to cry. It was very scary, absolutely scary. I love the speed of the sport. But it's so dangerous."



The fencing used to protect seating areas and prevent cars from hurtling out of tracks has long been part of the debate over how to improve safety.



Three-time Indianapolis 500 winner Dario Franchitti lost close friend Dan Wheldon at Las Vegas in the 2011 IndyCar season finale, when Wheldon's car catapulted into the fencing and his head struck a support post. Since his death, IndyCar drivers have called for studies on how to improve the safety barriers.



Franchitti renewed the pleas on Twitter after the Daytona crash, writing "it's time (at)Indycar (at)nascar other sanctioning bodies & promoters work on an alternative to catch fencing. There has to be a better solution."



Another fan who witnessed the crash said he's long worried that sizable gaps in the fencing increase the chances of debris getting through to the stands.





Read More..