Go forth and Tweet! Pope sees web networks as “portals of truth”

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – Pope Benedict urged Catholics on Thursday to use social networks like Twitter and Facebook to win converts, as he launched his own smartphone app streaming live footage of his speeches.

The websites – often associated with endless postings of idle gossip and baby photos – could be used as “portals of truth and faith” in an increasingly secular age, the pontiff said in his 2013 World Communications Day message.

“Unless the Good News is made known also in the digital world, it may be absent in the experience of many people,” the 85-year old Pope said in the a letter published on the Vatican‘s website.

The Holy See has become an increasingly prolific user of social media since it launched its ‘new evangelization’ of the developed world, where some congregations have fallen in the wake of growing secularization and damage to the Church’s reputation from a series of sex abuse scandals.

The Pope himself reaches around 2.5 million followers through eight Twitter accounts, including one in Latin.

Belying his traditionalist reputation, the Pope praised connections made online which he said could blossom into true friendships. Online life was not a purely virtual world but “increasingly becoming part of the very fabric of society,” he said.

Social networks were also a practical tool that Catholics could use to organize prayer events, the pope suggested. But he called for reasoned debate and respectful dialogue with those with different beliefs, and cautioned against a tendency towards “heated and divisive voices” and “sensationalism”.

The websites were creating a new “agora”, he added, referring to the gathering spaces that were the centers of public life in ancient Greek cities.

The speech coincided with the launch of ‘The Pope App’, a downloadable program that streams live footage of the pontiff’s speaking events and Vatican news onto smartphones.

Pope Benedict‘s embrace of new media responds to the Church’s concern that it is invisible on the internet.

The Vatican commissioned a study of internet use and religion prior to the pope’s Twitter debut, which found the majority of U.S. Catholics surveyed were unaware of any significant Church presence online.

(Reporting by Naomi O’Leary; editing by Andrew Heavens)

Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Julia Pace Mitchell Expecting First Child

Mom & Babies
Celebrity Baby Blog

01/24/2013 at 09:00 AM ET

Stephanie Matthews

Life will soon be imitating art for actress Julia Pace Mitchell — she’s pregnant!

The Young and the Restless star, 27, and her husband Stephen L. Hightower are expecting a baby together in May, her rep tells PEOPLE exclusively.

“I feel so blessed and hopeful about becoming a mommy for the first time,” the mom-to-be says in a statement.

Having experienced an onscreen delivery, Pace Mitchell, who plays Sofia Winters on the long running show, isn’t expecting to wrap the arrival of her first child — a boy the couple plan to name Stephen L. Hightower III — so quickly.

“I’m sure giving birth in real life will take a lot longer than on TV!” she jokes to PEOPLE.

Pace Mitchell and businessman Hightower tied the knot in September 2011.

– Anya Leon

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AP Interview: UN wants better family planning

DAVOS, Switzerland (AP) — The U.N.'s top population official wants governments to do more to ensure that women have access to family planning.

The U.N. says the world will add a billion people to its current population of some 7 billion within a decade, further straining the planet's resources.

Babatunde Osotimehin, executive director of the U.N. Population Fund, says more than 220 million women in the developing world want family planning but aren't getting it.

Speaking to The Associated Press at the World Economic Forum in Davos, he said many women want to have fewer children and that "30 percent of those who die giving birth we can prevent with family planning."

He also called for providing girls with "comprehensive sexuality education."

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Wall Street opens lower after Apple results

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks opened lower on Thursday, a day after Apple Inc reported revenue that missed expectations, tanking the stock and weighing on technology shares.

As the most valuable U.S. company and a heavy weight in both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 <.ndx>, a decline in Apple shares has an outsized impact on the broader market. Apple dropped 10.5 percent to $459.84 in early trading.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was up 21.73 points, or 0.16 percent, at 13,801.06. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was down 2.16 points, or 0.14 percent, at 1,492.65. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was down 24.98 points, or 0.79 percent, at 3,128.69.

(Reporting by Ryan Vlastelica; Editing by Bernadette Baum)

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The Lede Blog: Live Updates: Clinton Testifies on Benghazi Attacks

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The Lede is following Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks on the American Consulate in the eastern city of Benghazi, Libya, that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.

Mrs. Clinton had been scheduled to testify before Congress last month, but an illness, a concussion and a blood clot near her brain forced her to postpone her appearance.

As our colleagues Michael R. Gordon and Eric Schmitt reported, four State Department officials were removed from their posts on last month after an independent panel criticized the “grossly inadequate” security at a diplomatic compound in Benghazi.

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First “Firefox OS” Phones Previewed, to Launch in February

Mozilla, the non-profit organization behind the popular Firefox web browser, has been promoting its Firefox OS project (once known as “Boot to Gecko”) for some time now. A hardware partnership with Telefonica, the international telecom giant, had been announced, but no phones had yet been unveiled.

But in an announcement today on its blog, Mozilla announced the impending launch of its first “developer preview” phones, the Keon and the Peak. Made in partnership with Geeksphone, a Spanish smartphone producer which used to make Android phones, these devices are meant to help app developers preview their work on the small screen. But they may also serve as a sneak preview of Mozilla’s plan to enter the smartphone market.

Introducing Firefox OS

Designed as an alternative to Google’s Android for low-powered smartphones, Firefox OS’ claim to fame is that it’s “built entirely using open web standards,” or open-source code written in the programming languages which make up the web, like JavaScript. Likewise, Firefox OS apps are websites specially formatted to look and feel like apps, and to respond to touchscreen controls and access phone features like vibration and the GPS.

A selection of Firefox apps is already available in the Mozilla Marketplace, but developers will eventually be able to take the open-source code behind it and create their own app markets like it if they so choose. These apps also run on the preview “Aurora” version of Firefox for Android, which is available for download from Mozilla’s website.

“Say ‘hola’” to the Keon and Peak

The Keon is Mozilla’s entry-level developer smartphone, while the Peak has somewhat more modern hardware specs.

The Keon has a 1 GHz Snapdragon processor, 512 MB of RAM, a 3.5-inch touchscreen, and 4 GB of flash memory, plus a microSD card slot to expand storage space. Its built-in camera is a basic 3-megapixel shooter, and lacks an LED flash. It’s roughly comparable to 2010′s iPhone 4 in terms of raw hardware specs, although it probably won’t be able to play the same kinds of 3D games since they’ll be written as web applications.

The Peak has a dual-core 1.2 GHz processor, a 4.3-inch IPS display, and an 8-megapixel camera with a flash, plus a 2-megapixel front-facing camera. It has the same amount of RAM and flash storage as the Keon does, though.

Both the Keon and the Peak are unlocked GSM smartphones, which may mean they will work on AT&T and T-Mobile’s networks in the States.

Pricing and availability

According to Peters, the “First phones will be available in February.” Prices have yet to be announced.

Jared Spurbeck is an open-source software enthusiast, who uses an Android phone and an Ubuntu laptop PC. He has been writing about technology and electronics since 2008.

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Adele Wears the Name 'Angelo' Around Her Neck

Buzz

By Simon Perry

01/23/2013 at 09:05 AM EST

So far, Adele has kept her baby boy's name a closely guarded secret. But has she revealed the moniker by keeping it close to her heart?

Born in October, the little boy is staying with his mother in Los Angeles during Hollywood's awards season.

On an outing Monday to a favorite baby boutique, Adele – who won a Golden Globe for her James Bond tune "Skyfall" and is scheduled to perform at the Oscars – was spotted wearing a gold necklace featuring the name "Angelo."

Could that be her angel? The singer, who has referred to him as a "little Peanut," won't likely say.

"I am not sharing his name at the moment. It is very personal to me," she told PEOPLE backstage at the Golden Globes. "I am enjoying him on my own."

A rep for the singer did not return calls for comment.

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Foes of NYC soda size limit doubt racial fairness

NEW YORK (AP) — Opponents of the city's limit on the size of sugary drinks are raising questions of racial fairness alongside other complaints as the novel restriction faces a court test.

The NAACP's New York state branch and the Hispanic Federation have joined beverage makers and sellers in trying to stop the rule from taking effect March 12. With a hearing set Wednesday, critics are attacking what they call an inconsistent and undemocratic regulation, while city officials and health experts defend it as a pioneering and proper move to fight obesity.

The issue is complex for the minority advocates, especially given obesity rates that are higher than average among blacks and Hispanics, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control. The groups say in court papers they're concerned about the discrepancy, but the soda rule will unduly harm minority businesses and "freedom of choice in low-income communities."

The latest in a line of healthy-eating initiatives during Mayor Michael Bloomberg's administration, the beverage rule bars restaurants and many other eateries from selling high-sugar drinks in cups or containers bigger than 16 ounces. Violations could bring $200 fines; the city doesn't plan to start imposing those until June.

The city Board of Health OK'd the measure in September. Officials cited the city's rising obesity rate — about 24 percent of adults, up from 18 percent in 2002 — and pointed to studies linking sugary drinks to weight gain. Care for obesity-related illnesses costs more than $4.7 billion a year citywide, with government programs paying about 60 percent of that, according to city Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Farley.

"It would be irresponsible for (the health board) not to act in the face of an epidemic of this proportion," the city says in court papers. The National Association of Local Boards of Health and several public health scholars have backed the city's position in filings of their own.

Opponents portray the regulation as government nagging that turns sugary drinks into a scapegoat when many factors are at play in the nation's growing girth.

The American Beverage Association and other groups, including movie theater owners and Korean grocers, sued. They argue that the first-of-its-kind restriction should have gone before the elected City Council instead of being approved by the Bloomberg-appointed health board.

Five City Council members echo that view in a court filing, saying the Council is "the proper forum for balancing the city's myriad interests in matters of public health." The Bloomberg administration counters that the health board, made up of doctors and other health professionals, has the "specialized expertise" needed to make the call on limiting cola sizes.

The suit also argues the rule is too narrow to be fair. Alcohol, unsweetened juice and milk-based drinks are excluded, as are supermarkets and many convenience stores — including 7-Eleven, home of the Big Gulp — that aren't subject to city health regulations.

The NAACP and the Hispanic Federation, a network of 100 northeastern groups, say minority-owned delis and corner stores will end up at a disadvantage compared to grocery chains.

"This sweeping regulation will no doubt burden and disproportionally impact minority-owned businesses at a time when these businesses can least afford it," they said in court papers. They say the city should focus instead on increasing physical education in schools.

During Bloomberg's 11-year tenure, the city also has made chain restaurants post calorie counts on their menus and barred artificial trans fats in french fries and other restaurant food.

In general, state and local governments have considerable authority to enact laws intended to protect people's health and safety, but it remains to be seen how a court will view a portion-size restriction, said Neal Fortin, director, Institute for Food Laws and Regulations at Michigan State University.

___

Follow Jennifer Peltz at http://twitter.com/jennpeltz

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Wall Street edges up at open as tech leads

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks edged higher at the open on Wednesday, with technology stocks among the best performers after earnings from Google and IBM .

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> gained 44.78 points, or 0.33 percent, to 13,756.99. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> rose 0.81 point, or 0.05 percent, to 1,493.37. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> advanced 12.16 points, or 0.39 percent, to 3,155.34.

(Reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Kenneth Barry)

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IHT Rendezvous: It's Davos Time Again

Our colleagues over at DealBook, in their first posts about Davos 2013, ruminate on how many of Davos predictions each year actually come true and whether capital can really compete with politics in the real New World Order.

This year Davos will again take place against a changing economic landscape in Europe. The Continent, no longer a ticking time bomb, is “potentially facing a starker problem,” the IHT’s Liz Alderman and Jack Ewing write in DealBook. “The biggest concern is that leaders might become less vigilant now that the heat is off, ushering in a spate of new troubles that could dog the euro for years to come.”

Apparently, bankers attending Davos may find the mood to be more congenial than in years past. “Among the government overseers who will also be in attendance, there appears to be a growing sentiment that the banks have taken enough abuse,” DealBook writes.

Any questions for those attending Davos, or for the IHT reporters and editors covering the World Economic Forum? Send them our way in the comments below.

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