Wall Street heads for longest losing streak in three months

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks fell on Friday, putting the S&P 500 on track for a fifth straight decline, as President Barack Obama and top congressional leaders were set to make a last-ditch attempt to steer the country away from severe fiscal austerity next year.

Obama and lawmakers from both political parties will meet at the White House on Friday afternoon for talks in an effort to agree on a solution before a New Year's deadline to keep large tax hikes and spending cuts from taking effect. Economists say that combination of automatic higher taxes and lower government spending - known as the "fiscal cliff" - could push the U.S. economy into a recession.

Trading was volatile and stocks rebounded from their session lows after unconfirmed reports that President Obama was about to offer a new plan to Republicans.

But investors' pessimism about achieving anything more than a stop-gap deal by the deadline was reflected in the benchmark S&P 500's drop of 1.3 percent so far this week. The broad index was on pace for its worst weekly performance since mid-November.

A five-day decline would be the S&P 500's longest losing streak in three months.

"There's a pretty good chance that we won't have something in hand by year-end," said Jonathan Golub, chief U.S. equity strategist at UBS, in New York. "It should be pretty obvious that that is now the majority case."

Golub, however, said investors were still counting on a deal that would avoid most of the tax hikes and spending cuts next year even if it does come after the deadline.

"It is widely believed that we're going to get a deal," he said. "We are not going to go over the cliff to the extent that we have a huge economic contraction."

With time running short, members of Congress may attempt to pass a retroactive fix to neutralize tax increases and spending cuts soon after the automatic fiscal policies come into effect on January 1.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell 65.65 points, or 0.50 percent, to 13,030.66. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index dropped 6.03 points, or 0.43 percent, to 1,412.07. The Nasdaq Composite Index slipped 7.29 points, or 0.24 percent, to 2,978.62.

"It doesn't matter which side wins, but at this point, nobody wants to play a game where there aren't rules," said Joe Costigan, director of equity research at Bryn Mawr Trust, in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania.

"So everybody is talking about what the prospects are for changes in the rules. But at the end of the day, nothing is happening."

Highlighting Wall Street's sensitivity to developments in Washington, stocks tumbled slightly more than 1 percent on Thursday after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid warned that a deal was unlikely before the deadline. But late in the day, the three major U.S. stock indexes rebounded and ended down just 0.1 percent after the U.S. House of Representatives said it would hold an unusual Sunday session to work on a fiscal solution.

With many investors away for the holiday-shortened week, volume is expected to remain light and that could exacerbate the stock market's swings.

Positive economic data failed to alter the market's downtrend.

The National Association of Realtors said contracts to buy previously owned U.S. homes rose in November to their highest level in 2-1/2 years, while a report from the Institute for Supply Management-Chicago showed business activity in the U.S. Midwest expanded in December.

Barnes & Noble Inc shares rose 6.2 percent to $15.24 after the top U.S. bookstore chain said British publisher Pearson Plc had agreed to make a strategic investment in its Nook Media subsidiary. But Barnes & Noble also said its Nook business will not meet its previous projection for fiscal year 2013.

Shares of magicJack VocalTec Ltd jumped 8.5 percent to $17.67 after the company, which provides VoIP or voice over Internet protocol services, forecast more than $39 million in GAAP revenue and over 70 cents per share in operating income for the fourth quarter. The company also said it has appointed Gerald Vento as president and CEO, effective January 1.

The U.S.-listed shares of Canadian drugmaker Aeterna Zentaris Inc surged 16.1 percent to $2.52 after the company said it had reached an agreement with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on a special protocol assessment by the FDA for a Phase 3 registration trial in endometrial cancer with AEZS-108 treatment.

(Reporting by Edward Krudy; Editing by Jan Paschal)

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Senate Democratic leader warns U.S. poised to go over 'fiscal cliff'

Rana Foroohar, Time magazine's assistant managing editor for business news, talks to Rebecca Jarvis and Jeff Glor about what a drop off the "fiscal cliff" could mean to businesses and consumers.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The top Democrat in the Senate warned on Thursday that the United States looks to be headed over the "fiscal cliff" of tax hikes and spending cuts that will start next week if squabbling politicians do not reach a deal.

Majority Leader Harry Reid told the Senate in a speech that "it looks like that is where we're headed.

He called on the Republicans who control the House of Representatives to prevent the worst of the fiscal shock by getting behind a Senate bill to extend existing tax cuts for all except those households earning more than $250,000 a year.

With the House not in session and the clock ticking toward the scheduled January start of tax increases and deep, automatic government spending cuts, Reid offered little hope.

"I don't know time-wise how it can happen now," he said.

Referring to the House run by Speaker John Boehner - the top Republican in Congress - Reid said, "It's being operated with a dictatorship of the speaker, not allowing a vast majority of the House of Representatives to get what they want."

Boehner's failed effort last week to push his own "fiscal cliff" solution through the House was a "debacle," Reid added. He also accused Boehner of delaying "fiscal cliff" action until after he seeks re-election as House speaker on January 3.

"John Boehner seems to care more about keeping his speakership than about keeping the nation on firm financial footing," Reid added.

Reid's pessimistic remarks sent world stocks, the euro and U.S. shares lower.

But Reid's comments may have been more an attempt to spur Republican rivals into action than a definitive prediction that "fiscal cliff" talks will fail.

President Barack Obama arrived back at the White House from his brief vacation in Hawaii to try to restart stalled negotiations with Congress.

Obama made phone calls to congressional leaders from both parties on Wednesday from Hawaii to try to revive the stalled talks to prevent the "fiscal cliff" scenario, which would worry world financial markets and could push the United States back into recession.

In addition, consumer confidence fell to a four-month low in December as the budget crisis sapped what had been a growing sense of optimism about the economy, a report released on Thursday showed.

"People are hearing about (the cliff) and it negatively impacts confidence and investor sentiment and even holiday sales," said Todd Schoenberger, managing partner at Landcolt Capital in New York.

The chances of a last-minute deal - at least one that would prevent tax hikes - remained uncertain, with Republicans and Democrats each insisting the other side move first amid continuing partisan gridlock.

The Senate, controlled by Democrats, was scheduled to meet later on Thursday but on matters unrelated to the "fiscal cliff."

REPUBLICAN CONFERENCE CALL

Boehner and other House Republican leaders, who say they are willing to take up a "fiscal cliff" measure only after the Senate acts on one, were to hold a conference call with Republican House members on Thursday.

The expectation for the call was that lawmakers would be told to get back to Washington within 48 hours to consider anything the Senate might pass.

Weather permitting, that would bring them to Washington with perhaps three days left before the deadline for action. Storms affecting the Midwest, the South and the Northeast played havoc with airline schedules.

The House and Senate passed bills months ago reflecting their own sharply divergent positions on the expiring low tax rates, which went into effect during the administration of Republican former President George W. Bush.

Democrats want to allow the tax cuts to expire on the wealthiest Americans. Republicans want to extend the tax cuts for everyone.

"This isn't a one party or one house problem. This is (that) leaders in both parties in all branches of the government are not willing to make the deal that they know they have to make. Everybody wants their stuff but doesn't want to give up what they don't want to give up," Republican U.S. Representative Steven LaTourette told CNN.

Congress has proven that it can act swiftly once an agreement is reached. Hope persisted that Republicans and Democrats might come up with a resolution before New Year's Day that could at least postpone the impact of the tax hikes and spending cuts while further discussions take place.

Another battle is just over the horizon in late January or early February over raising the debt ceiling, which puts a limit on the amount of money the U.S. government can borrow to pay its debts and can be raised only with the approval of Congress.

Republican leaders have said they will insist on more budget cuts as a condition of raising the ceiling. Without any action, the U.S. Treasury said on Wednesday the government is set to reach its $16.4 trillion debt ceiling on December 31.

The Treasury Department is to begin "extraordinary measures" to buy time. Many analysts believe the government can stave the default date off into late February.

(Additional reporting by Doina Chiacu, Alina Selyukh and Richard Cowan)

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Police using Twitter to offer virtual ridealongs

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — Riding side by side as a police officer answers a call for help or investigates a brutal crime during a ridealong gives citizens an up close look at the gritty and sometimes dangerous situations officers can experience on the job.

But a new approach to informing the public about what officers do is taking hold at police departments across the United States and Canada 7/8— one that is far less dangerous for citizens but, police say, just as informative.

With virtual ridealongs on Twitter, or tweetalongs, curious citizens just need a computer or smartphone for a glimpse into law enforcement officers‘ daily routines.

Tweetalongs typically are scheduled for a set number of hours, with an officer — or a designated tweeter like the department’s public information officer— posting regular updates to Twitter about what they are seeing as they perform their normal on-duty routine. The tweets, which also include photos and links to videos of the officers, can encompass an array of activities — everything from an officer responding to a homicide to a noise complaint.

Police departments say virtual ridealongs reach a wider range of people at once and help add transparency to the job.

“People spend hard-earned money on taxes to allow the government to provide services. That’s police, fire, water, streets, the whole works, and there should be a way for those government agencies to let the public know what they’re getting for their money,” said Steve Allender, chief of the Rapid City Police Department in South Dakota, which started offering tweetalongs several months ago after watching departments like those in Seattle, Kansas City, Mo., and Las Vegas do so.

On the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, Tarah Heupel, the public information officer for the Rapid City Police Department, rode alongside Street Crimes Officer Ron Terviel as he patrolled Rapid City. Heupel posted regular updates every few minutes about what Terviel was doing, including the officer citing a woman for public intoxication, responding to a call of three teenagers attempting to steal cough syrup and body spray from a store and locating a man who ran from the scene of an accident. Photos were included in some of the tweets.

Michael Taddesse, a 34-year-old university career specialist in Arlington, Texas, has done several ridealongs with police and regularly follows multiple departments that conduct tweetalongs.

“I think the only way to effectively combat crime is to have a community that is engaged and understands what’s going on,” he said.

Ridealongs where “you’re out in the elements” are very different than sitting behind a computer during a tweetalong and the level of danger is “dramatically decreased,” he said. But in both instances, the passenger gains new information about the call, what laws may or may not have been broken and what transpires, he added.

For police departments, tweetalongs are just one more way to connect directly with a community through social media.

More than 92 percent of police departments use social media, according to a survey of 600 agencies in 48 states conducted by the International Association of Chiefs of Police’s Center for Social Media. And Nancy Kolb, senior program manager for IACP, called tweetalongs a “growing trend” among departments of all sizes.

There is no set protocol and departments are free to conduct the tweetalong how they see fit, she said.

In Ontario, Canada, the Niagara Regional Police Service conducted their first virtual ridealong in August over a busy eight-hour Friday night shift. The police department‘s followers were able to see a tweet whenever the police unit was dispatched to one of the more than 140,000 calls received that night.

Richard Gadreau, the social media officer for the police department, said officers routinely take people out on real ridealongs, but there is a waiting list and preference is given to people interested in becoming an officer.

With tweetalongs, many calls also mean many tweets. Kolb said departments are cognizant of cluttering peoples’ Twitter feeds.

That’s why the Rapid City Police Department decided to create a separate account for the tweetalong, Allender said.

Kolb also said officers are careful not to tweet personal or sensitive information. Officers typically do not tweet child abuse or domestic abuse cases, and they usually only tweet about a call after they leave the scene to protect officers and callers.

But Allender, the chief of police in Rapid City, said tweetalongs also show some of the more outrageous calls police deal with on a regular basis — like the kid who breaks out the window of a police car while the officer is standing on the sidewalk.

“Real life is funnier than any comedy show out there and not to make fun of people, embarrass them or humiliate them, but people do funny things,” Allender said. “… I mean, that guy deserves a little bit of ridicule, and everyone who would be watching would agree. That’s just good clean fun to me.”

___

Follow Kristi Eaton on Twitter at http://twitter.com/kristieaton

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Christmas box-office haul paces Hollywood for record year

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – A strong Christmas-day box office performance by musical “Les Miserables” and western “Django Unchained” put Hollywood on pace to set an all-time box office record with $ 10.8 billion in annual revenue, box-office tracker Hollywood.com said on Wednesday.

Universal Pictures‘ star-studded “Les Miserables” took in a weekday Christmas record of $ 18.2 million in the United States and Canada when it opened on Tuesday, according to studio estimates of weekday ticket sales.

Quentin Tarantino‘s spaghetti western “Django Unchained,” starring Jamie Foxx and Leonardo DiCaprio, hauled nearly $ 15 million for The Weinstein Co.

Studios “are definitely on the road to a record year with $ 10.8 billion expected (up 6 percent over last year and beating the previous record of $ 10.6 billion in 2009),” Hollywood.com analyst Paul Dergarabedian told Reuters in an email, adding that the number of tickets sold should climb 6 percent from 2011 to 1.36 billion.

Dergarabedian credits a successful marketing year for studios as a chief reason for the projected box-office record, as well as spring and summer smashes “The Hunger Games” and “The Avengers” helping boost revenue.

“It was not just the fact that most of the movies delivered, it was the timing of their release dates and the marketing was obviously effective as well with social media continuing to provide an outlet for the movie-going peer group to talk about their favorite flicks,” Dergarabedian said.

“The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,” based on the J.R.R. Tolkein classic fantasy novel, brought in $ 11.4 million on Christmas day after ruling the box office with nearly $ 37 million in sales over the weekend.

Billy Crystal family film “Parental Guidance” debuted in fourth place with about $ 6.4 million in Christmas sales while Tom Cruise’s “Jack Reacher,” which featured author Lee Child’s character in an investigation into a sniper shooting, was fifth with some $ 5.3 million.

“The Hobbit” was distributed by Time Warner Inc’s Warner Bros. Studio. News Corp’s 20th Century Fox released “Parental Guidance” and Paramount Pictures, a unit of Viacom, released “Jack Reacher.” Universal Pictures is owned by Comcast Corp.

(Reporting by Eric Kelsey; Edited by Ronald Grover and Andrew Hay)

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Home Tech: Devices to Monitor Physical Activity and Food Intake

STEP LIVELY Fitbit One pedometer clips onto your belt or pocket to record activity.

WHEN I received the results of a routine cholesterol test this summer, I was certain there had been some kind of mistake. I’m young, unstressed and healthy, or so I imagined. I work out, too, and most impartial observers — and some partial ones — would describe me as lean. Plus, I eat a nutritious diet, I swear. So why did my LDL levels surpass my I.Q. — or, for that matter, Einstein’s?

The facts were stark: My genes predisposed me to metabolic syndrome, my doctor told me. Like my forebears, I was on a fast path to heart disease and diabetes. My doctor ordered me to reduce my carbs and come up with a more stringent exercise plan. I’ve rarely monitored what I eat and how much exercise I get. I had no idea how to go about the logistics of it. How would I count my carbs? How would I track my fitness routine?

Of course, there are apps for that. I set out to scour the market for devices and programs to help me and any family member who wished to join me in my low-carb adventure improve our health. I found two kinds of technologies: fitness trackers to monitor physical activity, and P.C. and smartphone apps to track diet. I spent weeks testing several of them. And while I found a few to be quite helpful, they were all just short of fantastic.

I tried four high-end fitness gadgets: Nike’s FuelBand ($149), the Fitbit One ($99.95), Jawbone’s Up ($129.99) and the BodyMedia FIT wireless armband ($149). I also threw in a plain-Jane pedometer, the Omron HJ-720ITC, which I found for $31 at many stores online.

All of these devices work in a similar way. You attach them to your person (the FuelBand and Up fit around your wrist, the FIT goes around your upper arm, and the Fitbit and Omron pedometer can be placed in a pocket or clipped to your belt). Then, as you move, the devices measure your activity.

Unfortunately each device had major drawbacks. Even though I had gotten the proper size, I found that the Up and the FuelBand did not fit well around my wrist. They tapped against my desk while I typed, and they slid about uncomfortably when I washed the dishes. (They are both water-resistant.) BodyMedia’s FIT, meanwhile, is about the size of a man’s large wristwatch. Positioned directly against the skin around the upper arm, it is ungainly — I found it distracting when I was in a short-sleeve workout shirt, and strange-looking under a nice button-down shirt.

The pedometer and the Fitbit were easier to handle; I hardly noticed them crammed with my keys and phone in my pocket. On the other hand, because they are not wearable, I often forgot them on my bedside table, where they did no good.

Still, among these vast offerings, I found the Fitbit and the cheap Omron to be best. The Fitbit is an unobtrusive slab of plastic about the size of a U.S.B. thumb drive. Its software — which is available for Macs and Windows P.C.’s, as well as iOS and Android devices — is simple to learn and offers plenty of graphs and stats to track your progress. The most useful is a graph of your activity over the course of the day: you can see how many calories you burned while at work and alter your behavior accordingly. Maybe go for a brief walk after lunch?

(I was a big fan of Jawbone’s Up software, too, but I ultimately found it too limited: It works only on Apple’s iOS devices; the company has not yet made versions for P.C.’s or Android devices.)

The best thing about the Fitbit is its wireless syncing capability. It comes with a tiny receiver that plugs into your computer’s U.S.B. port; whenever your Fitbit is near your machine, it sends its data over the air, no physical docking required. It also syncs directly to your phone over Bluetooth. (You do have to plug your Fitbit in to charge it, but only rarely — you can go more than a week between charges.)

The Omron, by comparison, does not do wireless syncing, and its optional P.C. software is pretty basic. But paucity is its beauty. No setup is required. Just turn it on and leave it in your pocket. At the end of the day, peek at its screen — in large, readable type, it shows a single stat: how many steps you have walked that day. The Omron does not promise the world, but it delivers enough information to keep you healthy.

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Toyota to pay big to settle suits

Toyota Motor Corp., moving to put years of legal problems behind it, has agreed to pay more than $1 billion to settle dozens of lawsuits relating to sudden acceleration.

The proposed deal, filed Wednesday in federal court, would be among the largest ever paid out by an automaker. It applies to numerous suits claiming economic damages caused by safety defects in the automaker's vehicles, but does not cover dozens of personal injury and wrongful-death suits that are still pending around the nation.

The suits were filed over the last three years by Toyota and Lexus owners who claimed that the value of their vehicles had been hurt by the potential for defects, including floor mats that could cause the vehicles to surge out of control.

ROAD TO RECALL: Read The Times' award winning coverage

In addition, Toyota said it is close to settling suits filed by the Orange County district attorney and a coalition of state attorneys general who had accused the automaker of deceptive business practices. The costs of those agreements would be included in a $1.1-billion charge the Japanese automaker said it will take against earnings to cover the actions.

"We concluded that turning the page on this legacy legal issue through the positive steps we are taking is in the best interests of the company, our employees, our dealers and, most of all, our customers," Christopher Reynolds, Toyota's chief counsel in the U.S., said in a statement.

Toyota's lengthy history of sudden acceleration was the subject of a series of Los Angeles Times articles in 2009, after a horrific crash outside San Diego that took the life of an off-duty California Highway Patrol officer and his family.

Under terms of the agreement, which has not yet been approved in court, Toyota would install brake override systems in numerous models and provide cash payments from a $250-million fund to owners whose vehicles cannot be modified to incorporate that safety measure.

In addition, the automaker plans to offer extended repair coverage on throttle systems in 16 million vehicles and offer cash payments from a separate $250-million fund to Toyota and Lexus owners who sold their vehicles or turned them in at the end of a lease in 2009 or 2010. The total value of the settlement could reach $1.4 billion, according to Steve Berman, the lead plaintiff attorney in the case.

The lawsuits, filed over the last several years, had been seeking class certification.

News of the agreement comes scarcely a week after Toyota agreed to pay a record $17.35-million fine to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for failing to report a potential floor mat defect in a Lexus SUV. Those come on top of almost $50 million in fines paid by Toyota for other violations related to sudden acceleration since 2010.

The massive settlement does not, however, put Toyota's legal woes to rest. The automaker still faces numerous injury and wrongful death claims around the country, including a group of cases that have been consolidated in federal court in Santa Ana, and other cases awaiting trial in Los Angeles County.

The first of the federal cases, involving a Utah man who was killed in a Camry that slammed into a wall in 2010, is slated for trial in mid-February.

The California cases are set to begin in April, among them a suit involving a 66-year-old Upland woman who was killed after her vehicle allegedly reached 100 miles per hour and slammed into a tree.

Edgar Heiskell III, a West Virginia attorney who has a dozen pending suits against Toyota, said he is preparing to go to trial this summer in a case that involved a Flint, Mich., woman who was killed when her 2005 Camry suddenly accelerated near her home.

"We are proceeding with absolute confidence that we can get our cases heard on the merits and that we expect to prove defects in Toyota's electronic control system," he said.

Toyota spokesman Mike Michels said the settlement would have no bearing on the personal injury cases.

"All carmakers face these kinds of suits," he said. "We'll defend those as we normally would."

The giant automaker's sudden acceleration problems first gained widespread attention after the August 2009 crash of a Lexus ES outside San Diego.

That accident set off a string of recalls, an unprecedented decision to temporarily stop sales of all Toyota vehicles and a string of investigations, including a highly unusual apology by Toyota President Akio Toyoda before a congressional committee. Eventually Toyota recalled more than 10 million vehicles worldwide and has since spent huge sums — estimated at more than $2 billion, not including Wednesday's proposed settlement — to repair both its automobiles and public image.

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One of Chicago's most feared mobsters dies in prison

Convicted mob hitman Frank Calabrese Sr. has died in a federal prison in North Carolina.

Calabrese died on Christmas at the Butner Federal Correctional Complex, where he had been serving a life sentence, according to a spokesman for the Bureau of Prisons. He was 75.

Calabrese, one of Chicago’s most feared mobsters, was convicted in 2007 during the Operation Family Secrets trial.

A federal jury held Calabrese and two other aging mobsters -- Joseph "Joey the Clown" Lombardo and James Marcello -- responsible for 10 murders after a trial that exposed the seedy inner workings of organized crime in Chicago.

Calabrese,  a portly, bearded loan shark who according to witnesses doubled as a hit man, was found responsible for seven mob murders. Witnesses, including his brother Nicholas Calabrese, said he strangled victims with a rope, then cut their throats to make sure they were dead.

Marcello, described by prosecutors as a top leader of the Chicago Outfit, was held responsible for the June 1986 murder of Tony "The Ant" Spilotro, the Chicago mob's longtime man in Las Vegas and the inspiration for the Joe Pesci character in the movie "Casino."

The Family Secrets trial was the biggest organized crime case in Chicago in years. The defendants were convicted of operating the Chicago Outfit as a racketeering enterprise.

They allegedly squeezed "street tax," similar to protection money, out of businesses, ran sports bookmaking and video poker operations as well as engaged in loan sharking. And they allegedly killed many of those who they feared might spill mob secrets to the government -- or already were doing so.

The cases went unsolved for decades.

Calabrese’s attorney in the Family Secrets trial, Joseph “Shark” Lopez, said Calabrese had been in ill health.

“Last I spoke with him a little over a year ago, he was a sick man,” Lopez said. “He was on about 17 different medications. But always a strong-willed individual.”

After spending hundreds of hours together while Calabrese was on trial, Lopez said the two developed a relationship.

“Sure he was difficult at times because he was used to getting his way, but I only saw one side of him and that was the good side,” Lopez said. “He was a pleasure to deal with and a pleasure to talk to. We’d talk about cooking, restaurants, history, you name it.”

“He was quick-witted, smart and street-savvy,” Lopez said. “Always very upbeat; nothing could keep Frank down.”

Lopez said Calabrese was very religious, making his Christmas day death feel “odd.”

“He always talked about how much he loved spending Christmas with his family. It was his favorite holiday of the year,” he said.

Lopez said he thinks there will be mixed feelings in Chicago about Calabrese’s death.

“I’m sure there are some people really sad and some people really happy,” Lopez said. “I’m sad for his family.”

Calabrese's body was taken to the medical examiner's office, where it will be examined this afternoon, according to Kevin Gerity, autopsy manager for the office. Gerity said an autopsy or an external examination will be conducted.

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Ouch, Charlie! YouTube Sensation Kids Talk Christmas Toys

The infamous “Charlie Bit My Finger” video has surpassed half a billion views on YouTube — not bad for a 56-second clip of a one-year-old kid biting his older brother’s finger.

Charlie and Harry, now six and eight, returned to the web earlier this year with a new series through Viral Studios. The mini-episodes focus on the boys and their younger brother, Jasper, as they talk about toys, viral videos and — of course — biting things.

[More from Mashable: 8 Festive Christmas Tumblrs, Presented by Santa Dogs]

Mashable sat down for a Skype interview with the three boys last week. Unfortunately, the Internet connection wasn’t the greatest — Harry twice referred to me as a “man made out of boxes” because of the spotty video quality — but they were still able to talk about what toys they were most excited about this holiday season. Check ‘em out below:

[More from Mashable: Now and Then: 10 Awesome Past and Present Pics]

Charlie’s Pick: Playmobil Large Pirate Ship

Price: $ 95.50

Image courtesy of Playmobil

Harry’s Pick: Thomas & Friends Take-n-Play The Great Quarry Climb

Price: $ 19.99

Image courtesy of Fisher-Price

Jasper’s Pick: Turbo Snake Remote Control

Price: £38.45 (only available in the U.K.)

Image courtesy of Amazon

You can catch all the episodes on the “Charlie Bit Me!” series on their YouTube page. Which toys or gadgets did you score this year? Tell us below.

BONUS: 10 Gifts for People You Hate

1. 50 Used Toilet Paper Rolls

Price: $ 19.99 Mother Earth appreciates a little holiday upcycling. Your mother-in-law, on the other hand, may not. Cheaper DIY alternative: Your own toilet paper rolls.

Click here to view this gallery.

Image courtesy of Viral Studios

This story originally published on Mashable here.

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Britain’s royal family attends Christmas services

LONDON (AP) — Britain‘s royal family is attending Christmas Day church services — with a few notable absences.

Wearing a turquoise coat and matching hat, Queen Elizabeth II arrived at St. Mary Magdelene Church on her sprawling Sandringham estate in Norfolk. She was accompanied in a Bentley by granddaughters Beatrice and Eugenie.

Her husband, Prince Philip, walked from the house to the church with other members of the royal family.

Three familiar faces were missing from the family outing. Prince William is spending the holiday with his pregnant wife Kate and his in-laws in the southern England village of Bucklebury. Prince Harry is serving with British troops in Afghanistan.

Later Tuesday, the queen will deliver her traditional, pre-recorded Christmas message, which for the first time will be broadcast in 3D.

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Op-Ed Contributor: Our Failed Approach to Schizophrenia

TOO many pendulums have swung in the wrong directions in the United States. I am not referring only to the bizarre all-or-nothing rhetoric around gun control, but to the swing in mental health care over the past 50 years: too little institutionalizing of teenagers and young adults (particularly men, generally more prone to violence) who have had a recent onset of schizophrenia; too little education about the public health impact of untreated mental illness; too few psychiatrists to talk about and treat severe mental disorders — even though the medications available in the past 15 to 20 years can be remarkably effective.

Instead we have too much concern about privacy, labeling and stereotyping, about the civil liberties of people who have horrifically distorted thinking. In our concern for the rights of people with mental illness, we have come to neglect the rights of ordinary Americans to be safe from the fear of being shot — at home and at schools, in movie theaters, houses of worship and shopping malls.

“Psychosis” — a loss of touch with reality — is an umbrella term, not unlike “fever.” As with fevers, there are many causes, from drugs and alcohol to head injuries and dementias. The most common source of severe psychosis in young adults is schizophrenia, a badly named disorder that, in the original Greek, means “split mind.” In fact, schizophrenia has nothing to do with multiple personality, a disorder that is usually caused by major repeated traumas in childhood. Schizophrenia is a physiological disorder caused by changes in the prefrontal cortex, an area of the brain that is essential for language, abstract thinking and appropriate social behavior. This highly evolved brain area is weakened by stress, as often occurs in adolescence.

Psychiatrists and neurobiologists have observed biochemical changes and alterations in brain connections in patients with schizophrenia. For example, miscommunications between the prefrontal cortex and the language area in the temporal cortex may result in auditory hallucinations, as well as disorganized thoughts. When the voices become commands, all bets are off. The commands might insist, for example, that a person jump out of a window, even if he has no intention of dying, or grab a set of guns and kill people, without any sense that he is wreaking havoc. Additional symptoms include other distorted thinking, like the notion that something — even a spaceship, or a comic book character — is controlling one’s thoughts and actions.

Schizophrenia generally rears its head between the ages of 15 and 24, with a slightly later age for females. Early signs may include being a quirky loner — often mistaken for Asperger’s syndrome — but acute signs and symptoms do not appear until adolescence or young adulthood.

People with schizophrenia are unaware of how strange their thinking is and do not seek out treatment. At Virginia Tech, where Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 people in a rampage shooting in 2007, professors knew something was terribly wrong, but he was not hospitalized for long enough to get well. The parents and community-college classmates of Jared L. Loughner, who killed 6 people and shot and injured 13 others (including a member of Congress) in 2011, did not know where to turn. We may never know with certainty what demons tormented Adam Lanza, who slaughtered 26 people at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., on Dec. 14, though his acts strongly suggest undiagnosed schizophrenia.

I write this despite the so-called Goldwater Rule, an ethical standard the American Psychiatric Association adopted in the 1970s that directs psychiatrists not to comment on someone’s mental state if they have not examined him and gotten permission to discuss his case. It has had a chilling effect. After mass murders, our airwaves are filled with unfounded speculations about video games, our culture of hedonism and our loss of religious faith, while psychiatrists, the ones who know the most about severe mental illness, are largely marginalized.

Severely ill people like Mr. Lanza fall through the cracks, in part because school counselors are more familiar with anxiety and depression than with psychosis. Hospitalizations for acute onset of schizophrenia have been shortened to the point of absurdity. Insurance companies and families try to get patients out of hospitals as quickly as possible because of the prohibitively high cost of care.

As documented by writers like the law professor Elyn R. Saks, author of the memoir “The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness,” medication and treatment work. The vast majority of people with schizophrenia, treated or untreated, are not violent, though they are more likely than others to commit violent crimes. When treated with medication after a rampage, many perpetrators who have shown signs of schizophrenia — including John Lennon’s killer and Ronald Reagan’s would-be assassin — have recognized the heinousness of their actions and expressed deep remorse.

It takes a village to stop a rampage. We need reasonable controls on semiautomatic weapons; criminal penalties for those who sell weapons to people with clear signs of psychosis; greater insurance coverage and capacity at private and public hospitals for lengthier care for patients with schizophrenia; intense public education about how to deal with schizophrenia; greater willingness to seek involuntary commitment of those who pose a threat to themselves or others; and greater incentives for psychiatrists (and other mental health professionals) to treat the disorder, rather than less dangerous conditions.

Too many people with acute schizophrenia have gone untreated. There have been too many Glocks, too many kids and adults cut down in their prime. Enough already.

Paul Steinberg is a psychiatrist in private practice.

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