French investigators are examining a camera which had been fixed to Michael Schumacher’s ski helmet, media reports say.
Authorities were hoping the device may reveal clues about the circumstances of his skiing accident in the French Alps, a source told the AFP news agency.
Police also interviewed Michael Schumacher’s teenage son, who witnessed the crash.
Fans earlier held a vigil outside the French hospital treating the F1 legend, to mark his 45th birthday.
Ferrari supporters gathered at the clinic in the city of Grenoble and held a one-minute silence on Friday afternoon.
French investigators are examining a camera which had been fixed to Michael Schumacher’s ski helmet
Michael Schumacher’s family said in a statement they had been moved to tears and “utterly overwhelmed” by the “incredible sympathies” shown by the fans.
The seven-time F1 champion, who retired in 2012, is in a medically induced coma after suffering head injuries during a fall in the resort of Meribel last Sunday.
His helmet cracked on impact when he hit a rock while skiing off-piste.
Michael Schumacher remains in a stable but critical condition after two operations to remove blood and pressure from his brain.
News of the camera’s existence emerged late on Friday afternoon.
AFP said Michael Schumacher’s family had handed both the device and helmet to the authorities for investigation.
It remains unclear whether the camera was switched on at the time of the accident.
The news comes after members of Ferrari clubs in France and Italy travelled to Grenoble to mark Michael Schumacher’s birthday on January 3rd.
Phil Everly, one half of the Everly Brothers, has died, aged 74, in California, his family announces.
Phil Everly died in the Los Angeles suburb of Burbank of complications from lung disease, his wife, Patti, told the Los Angeles Times.
“We are absolutely heartbroken,” Patti Everly said, adding that the disease was the result of a lifetime of smoking.
Phil Everly and his brother Don made up the Everly Brothers, one of the biggest pop acts of the 1950s and early 1960s.
They had a string of close-harmony hits including Wake Up Little Suzie, Cathy’s Clown, Bye Bye Love, and All I Have To Do Is Dream.
Phil Everly died on Friday of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, his son Jason Everly told AP.
Phil Everly died in the Los Angeles suburb of Burbank of complications from lung disease
The Washington Post quoted a woman at Don Everly’s home as saying he was too upset to talk about the death of his brother.
“He expected to go first,” she told the newspaper.
Rolling Stone magazine calls the Everly Brothers “the most important vocal duo in rock”.
In its biography of the pair, the magazine says Phil and his older brother Don were the children of Midwestern country music singers Ike and Margaret Everly and performed on the family radio show while growing up.
In their heyday between 1957 and 1962, the Everly Brothers had 19 Top 40 hits, according to the Associated Press. They influenced acts such as the Beatles and the Beach Boys.
Don and Phil Everly had an onstage breakup in 1973 that led to a decade-long estrangement, but Phil later told Time magazine the brothers’ relationship had survived this.
“Don and I are infamous for our split,” Phil Everly said, “but we’re closer than most brothers.”
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The Everly Brothers were elected to the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame in its first year, 1986, and they were given a lifetime achievement award at the Grammys in 1997.
Robert De Niro said he’s happy to play supporting roles as his time as a leading actor is over.
Robert De Niro, 70, admitted it is rare to land a big role at his age.
The actor told Britain’s Metro newspaper: “That’s just life. We can’t play certain parts any more. We’re playing the father or the grandfather or the great-grandfather, and that can be written in a funny way, so it’s fine. But you’re not carrying the movie as the young romantic lead – those days are gone.”
Robert De Niro said he’s happy to play supporting roles as his time as a leading actor is over
He credits the baby-boomer generation with keeping him in work as older movie fans continue to visit theaters.
Robert De Niro added: “I don’t go to see enough films. But I’m told that since baby-boomers will still actually go to see a movie in a theater – because it’s a communal experience that our generation is used to – there’s now a trend towards making some movies that those people could possibly identify themselves in.”
The White House has announced measures aimed at limiting access to firearms for the mentally ill.
The changes clarify ambiguous regulations and allow hospitals to provide more information for background checks, officials said.
The actions come more than one year after the Newtown school shooting, which sparked a national gun debate.
President Barack Obama’s push for stricter gun controls stalled after the incident.
In a statement released on Friday, the White House said the two new actions “will help strengthen the federal background check system and keep guns out of the wrong hands”.
The first proposed regulation, from the Department of Justice, aims to clarify who is prohibited under federal law from possessing a firearm for reasons related to mental health.
That change includes clarifying the term “committed to a mental institution” to include involuntary inpatient as well as outpatient commitments, the White House said.
Barack Obama’s push for stricter gun controls stalled after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting
The second proposed action, brought by the Department of Health and Human Services, lifts certain privacy provisions preventing states from forwarding relevant information to the background check system.
The change could give medical entities covered by federal health privacy law permission to disclose “limited information necessary to help keep guns out of potentially dangerous hands”, the White House said.
“The proposed rule will not change the fact that seeking help for mental health problems or getting treatment does not make someone legally prohibited from having a firearm,” the White House said.
The proposed changes follow the one-year anniversary of the December 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, in which 20 children and six school staff members were killed.
The gunman, Adam Lanza, is believed to have had severe mental health issues at the time of the crime.
Barack Obama proposed several federal gun control measures in the wake of the shooting, including tightening the background check system to make it harder for convicted criminals to buy guns, but Congress declined to act under pressure from the powerful gun lobby.
The president has continued to press Congress for further restrictions, although skeptics note that if the murder of 20 children failed to goad Congress to action, it is unclear what could.
“Passing common-sense gun safety legislation – including expanding background checks and making gun trafficking a federal crime – remains the most important step we can take to reduce gun violence,” the White House statement concluded.
Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones reunited once again.
Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones spent the holidays skiing with their two children on New Year’s Day, just four months after announcing their separation.
Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones spent the holidays skiing with their two children on New Year’s Day
Author and economics broadcast commentator George Goodman, best known by his pseudonym Adam Smith, has died at the age of 83.
His son, Mark Goodman, says that he died Friday at his home in Miami after a long battle with the bone marrow disorder myelofibrosis.
George Goodman was best known by his pseudonym Adam Smith
For years, George Goodman was known to PBS viewers as the personable host of Adam Smith’s Money World, a multiple Emmy winner.
George Goodman’s books included the best-selling The Money Game, a children’s story and a novel, The Wheeler Dealers, later adapted into a movie of the same name starring James Garner and Lee Remick.
New York Magazine editor Clay Felker convinced George Goodman to call himself Adam Smith, after the 18th century economist.
American Hustle and Gravity are among the 10 movies up for the Producers Guild of America’s best picture prize.
12 Years a Slave and Nebraska are also nominated for its ‘outstanding producer of theatrical motion pictures’ award.
The Butler and Coen brothers’ movie Inside Llewyn Davis are notably absent from the 10 films, one of which will collect the prize on 19 January.
The guild’s decision comes six weeks before the Oscars on March 2nd.
In the last six years, the recipient of the PGA’s top award has gone on to be named best picture at the Academy Awards.
Argo, which took the main prize at last year’s ceremony, was also the top dog at the 2012 Oscars.
Eight of the 10 films nominated by the PGA Awards 2013 went on to be nominated in the Academy Awards’ best picture category.
Other cinematic releases in contention include Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine, Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street and Tom Hanks’ thriller Captain Phillips.
Dallas Buyers Club, Spike Jonze’s oddball romance Her and Saving Mr. Banks, in which Tom Hanks also appears, round out the PGA shortlist.
But there is no place for August: Orange County, a darkly comic family drama starring Julia Roberts and Meryl Streep, or Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom biopic starring Idris Elba as Nelson Mandela.
The 25th annual PGA Awards winners will be announced during a ceremony on January 19 at the Beverly Hilton in Los Angeles
Despite this, producer Harvey Weinstein – whose company is distributing both films as well as Judi Dench’s drama Philomena – remained upbeat about their Oscar chances.
BAFTA – the British Academy of Film and Television Arts – announce the nominations for their 2014 film awards on Wednesday.
Five more titles make the cut for the PGA’s animated film producer prize, among them The Croods, Frozen and Monsters University.
Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, the producers of the James Bond films, will receive a special award at this year’s ceremony, to be held at Los Angeles’ Beverly Hilton Hotel.
So far in the awards season, critics’ groups have bestowed their honors upon American Hustle, Gravity and Her.
Steve McQueen’s historical drama 12 Years a Slave has also figured highly, collecting seven nominations for this year’s Golden Globe awards.
The Golden Globes, a key Los Angeles awards ceremony for both cinema and television, will be held on January 12, one week before the PGA event.
The Writers Guild of America (WGA) and Directors Guild of America (DGA) are also set to announce the nominees for their own film awards.
GM has reported a fall in car sales in December in what was a disappointing month for US car makers.
GM stocks fell 2.4% after it reported a 6.3% fall in sales compared with December 2012.
Ford and Chrysler both reported rising sales, but not the increases that industry analysts were expecting.
Chrysler sold 161,000 cars and trucks in December, up 5.7% on the same period in 2012 and Ford reported a 1.8% rise in December sales.
Analysts said that poor weather in parts of the US kept customers away from dealerships in December.
“At the very beginning of the month the pace of buying was slow because there were so many storms around the country,” said Edmunds.com senior analyst Michelle Krebs.
“Now what we’re seeing is some of the automakers are stretching their December deals into January.”
2013 is expected to be the best year for US auto market since 2007, with total annual sales of about 15.6 million
Kurt McNeil, vice president, of US sales for GM, said: “December started a little slow but sales were stronger later in the month, especially in the week between Christmas and New Year.”
Meanwhile Ford said that a four-day weekend for Thanksgiving late in November may have brought forward sales that would have fallen in December.
For Chrysler the Jeep brand continued to be a strong performer with a 34% rise in sales last month.
With a 9% rise in annual sales, 2013 was the strongest year for Chrysler since 2007.
“Our Jeep and Ram truck brands had a strong finish led by the all new 2014 Jeep Cherokee and the Ram pickup truck,” said Reid Bigland, head of US sales.
Overall, sales in 2013 were strong for the big three Detroit car manufacturers, who were helped along by strong sales of their truck offerings.
Truck sales tend to increase in relation to home sales, which were strong for much of the year as the US economic recovery spurred long-delayed housing activity.
“Trucks on the road are even older than cars on the road,” said Michelle Krebs.
However, Toyota, the third biggest player in the US market, didn’t do as well as the US manufacturers.
Toyota saw sales in December decline by 1.7% from a year ago to 190,843.
Analysts had been expecting Toyota to report rising sales.
However, 2013 is expected to be the best year for US auto market since 2007, with total annual sales of about 15.6 million.
That would be a strong recovery from 2009 when sales fell to 10.4 million during the depths of the recession.
A new virtual currency inspired by Kanye West is set to be launched, and has been dubbed Coinye West.
The rapper is not involved and has yet to comment on Coinye West’s inception.
Coinye West will follow in the footsteps of Dogecoin, another virtual currency based on the popular Doge meme.
The value of Bitcoin, the most famous virtual currency, peaked at over $1000 at the end of 2013, but is currently worth around $850.
Various alternatives to Bitcoin have sprung up, such as Litecoin, Namecoin and PPCoin.
Virtual currencies are often linked to the purchase of illegal items, namely drugs, thanks to transactions being extremely difficult to trace.
However, more humorous currencies like Dogecoin are used for more tongue-in-cheek transactions.
One user, posting on Dogemarket, a section on popular link sharing site Reddit, offered Dogecoins in exchange for ideas to name a company.
Coinye West will be launched on January 11
“I thought the whole Dogecoin thing was interesting,” said Jeremy Bonney, from virtual currency news site Coindesk.
“It grew into something somewhat legitimate. There are people that genuinely believe in it out there.”
The makers of Coinye West have lofty ambitions for the currency which they described as a “cryptocurrency for the masses”.
Speaking anonymously to music site Noisey, they said: “I can picture a future where Coinye is used to buy concert tickets, with cryptographically verified virtual tickets, and other ideas I can’t give away just yet.”
They said they planned to give away a number of Coinye to early users when the currency launches on January 11.
“It will get people who are on the fence interested and help them to start using the currency, and we hope they’ll share it with their friends, too.”
However, one Bitcoin expert urged caution in investing in new virtual currencies that were as yet untested in public use.
“There’s been a number of people who have put out ‘joke’ currencies in the past,” said Johnathan Turrall, chief technology officer at Metalair, a cryptocurrency start-up based at the University of Sussex.
“There were some coins in the past that seemed to be a <<pump and dump>> operation.
“In one case, the original developers launched on obscure websites, but when they took it mainstream, and the price spiked, they sold up and disappeared. Estimated earnings in one instance were $800,000.”
A massive winter storm has blanketed the Northeast with up to 2 ft snow and ushered in dangerously cold temperatures Friday, leaving travelers stranded and a cutting a deadly path across several states.
The storm has been blamed for 11 deaths and forced the cancellation of more than 4,000 flights since Wednesday.
Authorities warned residents to remain indoors, both for their own safety and to keep roads clear for snow removal.
Fatal traffic accidents occurred in New York, Michigan, Kentucky, Indiana and Illinois. Authorities said a woman suffering from Alzheimer’s disease froze to death after she wandered away from her rural western New York home.
And in suburban Philadelphia, as the storm approached, a worker at a salt storage facility was killed when a 100-foot-tall pile of road salt fell and crushed him. Falls Township police said the man was trapped while operating a backhoe.
The big storm followed closely the blueprint meteorologists drew up, slamming the Northeast overnight Thursday with as much as two feet of snow and sub-zero wind chills through Friday. The biting wind and blowing snow shut down interstates and airports alike and gave millions of school children a snow day.
John F. Kennedy Airport in New York was officially closed at 6:12 a.m. Friday and reopened four hours later, while Boston’s Logan International was effectively shut down, as well.
Interstate 84 in New York and the Long Island Expressway, closed at midnight as the storm roared in, remained so until 8 a.m.
The Northeast snowstorm has been blamed for 11 deaths and forced the cancellation of more than 4,000 flights since Wednesday
Snowfall reports varied widely, with New York City receiving 7 inches in some areas, Baltimore seeing 3 to 6 inches, Philadelphia closing in on 9 inches, Hartford 6 to 10 inches and Boston as much as 15 inches.
Some 20 inches fell on other parts of Massachusetts. Boxford, northwest of Boston, reported 23 inches.
The brutal storm blasted at least 22 states – stretching from Chicago through the New York tri-state region into New England – and affected an area home to more than 100 million people.
The high temperature in New York City reached the 20s on Friday during the day and was expected to drop to the single digits in the evening, with the wind chill making it feel well below zero.
“It’s deceptively cold outside. If you stay outside too long it could be dangerous,” New York City’s new mayor, Bill de Blasio, said at a news conference Friday morning, while hundreds of plows and salt spreaders continued to clear the roads.
Temperatures from upstate New York to Maine were below zero, and wind chills — the “feels like” effect — were minus-30 in some spots.
Across the Northeast, residents were fretting about the blast of bitter cold.
The weather was affecting air travel, with more than 2,600 flights cancelled Friday and another 8,800 delayed, according to flight tracking website FlightAware.
The delays and cancellations in storm-socked parts of the country created a logjam in other areas, including causing flights in Los Angeles to be delayed or scrapped Friday.
According to new reports, the NSA is building a quantum computer to break the encryption that keeps messages secure.
The NSA project came to light in documents passed to the Washington Post by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.
The agency hopes to harness the special qualities of quantum computers to speed up its code-cracking efforts.
The NSA is believed to have spent about $80 million on the project but it has yet to produce a working machine.
If the NSA managed to develop a working quantum computer it would be put to work breaking encryption systems used online and by foreign governments to keep official messages secure, suggest the documents excerpted in the Post.
The quantum computer is being developed under a research program called Penetrating Hard Targets and is believed to be conducted out of a lab in Maryland.
The NSA is building a quantum computer to break the encryption that keeps messages secure
Many research groups around the world are pursuing the goal of creating a working quantum computer but those developed so far have not been able to run the algorithms required to break contemporary encryption systems.
Current computers attempt to crack encryption via many different means but they are limited to generating possible keys to unscramble data one at a time. Using big computers can speed this up but the huge numbers used as keys to lock away data limits the usefulness of this approach.
By contrast, quantum computers exploit properties of matter that, under certain conditions, mean the machine can carry out lots and lots of calculations simultaneously. This makes it practical to try all the possible keys protecting a particular message or stream of data.
The hard part of creating a working quantum computer is keeping enough of its constituent computational elements, called qubits, stable so they can interact and be put to useful work.
The NSA is not believed to have made significant breakthroughs in its work that would put it ahead of research efforts elsewhere in the US and Europe. However, the documents passed to the Post by Edward Snowden suggest the NSA’s researchers are having some success developing the basic building blocks for the machine.
India’s PM Manmohan Singh has announced that he will not stay in the post if his Congress party wins the next election, due in the summer.
Manmohan Singh, 81, has been India’s prime minister for almost a decade.
He said a Congress candidate would be named at the appropriate time, but that deputy leader Rahul Gandhi had “outstanding credentials”.
Manmohan Singh said it would be “disastrous for the country” if opposition leader Narendra Modi were elected PM.
Narendra Modi leads the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which recently beat Congress in assembly elections in four politically crucial states.
“Someone who presided over the massacre of innocent people should not be the prime minister,” Manmohan Singh said in uncharacteristically harsh words for Narendra Modi.
India’s PM Manmohan Singh has announced that he will not stay in the post if his Congress party wins the next election
Narendra Modi is the chief minister of the western state of Gujarat and has been accused of doing little to stop the 2002 anti-Muslim riots there which left more than 1,000 people dead. Narendra Modi has always denied any wrongdoing.
The BJP condemned Manmohan Singh’s remark, saying Narendra Modi had made Gujarat “a model of development for the country”.
For the past decade, Manmohan Singh has headed a coalition government led by Congress.
He has often been criticized for not speaking out more forcefully. Friday’s press conference was only the third such briefing during his whole term of office.
Manmohan Singh spoke on a wide range of issues, including the economy, inflation and corruption.
“In a few months’ time, after the general election, I will hand the baton over to a new prime minister,” Manmohan Singh said in his opening remarks.
Manmohan Singh has been one of India’s longest serving prime ministers and is widely regarded as the architect of India’s economic reforms program.
Italian and Greek coast guards saved more than 300 migrants from rough waters in two separate incidents.
The Italian navy said it picked up 233 people, mostly from African countries, who had been stuck in an “overcrowded” vessel south of Sicily.
Meanwhile Greek coast guards rescued 85 migrants off the island of Astypalaia.
Every year thousands of African and Arab migrants fleeing war and poverty risk their lives trying to reach the Europe.
Greece and Italy are both main entry points for those who attempt to make the dangerous sea crossing.
In October more than 400 people drowned in two shipwrecks near the Italian island of Lampedusa.
Many of them were from Eritrea and Somalia, but the civil war in Syria has also resulted in an increased flow of migrants trying to reach Europe.
Italian and Greek coast guards saved more than 300 migrants from rough waters in two separate incidents
Italian officials said on Thursday that the migrants were rescued from a 33ft-long boat about 80 miles from Lampedusa.
“Considering the rough seas, the overcrowded boat and the precarious conditions, a situation of emergency was declared,” the Italian navy said in a statement.
It added that the migrants were in good health and had been ferried to Sicily.
They are reported to have come from Eritrea, Nigeria, Somalia, Zambia, Mali and Pakistan.
Greek authorities said they picked up migrants near Astypalaia after receiving a distress signal from the vessel’s captain because of bad weather.
Women and children were among those rescued.
In the past, human rights organizations, including the UN refugee agency UNHCR, have strongly criticized Italy and Greece countries for “push-backs” – a policy of sending migrants back to their point of departure.
In the aftermath of the Lampedusa shipwrecks, the Italian government launched an operation called “Mare Nostrum”, mobilizing warships and aircraft to prevent further tragedies.
Italy has also called for help from other EU states to deal with the migrant influx.
The European Commission has asked for more resources for joint sea patrols, and more co-ordination with countries that migrants embark from, such as Libya.
Zoe Averianov, from Hebden Bridge, UK, who threw a message in a bottle into the North Sea 23 years ago, has received a reply after it was discovered in the Netherlands.
Zoe Averianov was 10 when she threw the note as she went on holiday on a ferry from Hull to Belgium on September 12, 1990.
Over Christmas the woman was given a letter sent from Europe which had been posted to her parents’ address.
Zoe Averianov threw a message in a bottle into the North Sea 23 years ago
Zoe Averianov said she was surprised at how far the message had travelled.
The envelope, addressed to Zoe Averianov’s maiden name, contained her original letter and a reply from a couple in the Netherlands.
Zoe Averianov’s letter had read: “Dear finder, my name is Zoe Lemon. Please would you write to me, I would like it a lot.
“I am 10 years old and I like ballet, playing the flute and the piano. I have a hamster called Sparkle and fish called Speckle.”
The reply read: “Dear Zoe, yesterday on one of my many walks with my wife along the dikes of Oosterschelde looking among the debris thrown by the sea of embankment I found a little plastic bottle containing your message.”
The interview with Duck Dynasty’s Willie and Korie Robertson on Fox News Channel appears to have given a welcome jolt to the network’s New Year’s Eve coverage.
All-American New Year’s Eve on Tuesday put Fox News ahead of CNN’s rival New Year’s Eve Live in total viewers, in the period from 11 p.m. to 12:00 a.m.
This included Bill Hemmer and Elisabeth Hasselbeck’s interview with Willie and Korie Robertson, which helped FNC gain considerable boosts over the previous year.
The special aired from 9 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. and averaged 1.7 million total viewers, compared to the 1.4 million that the CNN offering, co-hosted by Anderson Cooper and Kathy Griffin, averaged.
In the key news demo, however, CNN’s New Year’s Eve offering still came out on top, averaging 584,000 viewers to the 329,000 that Fox’s offering averaged.
The interview with Willie and Korie Robertson on Fox News Channel appears to have given a welcome jolt to the network’s New Year’s Eve coverage
The 11 p.m. to midnight period that included Willie and Korie Robertson’s interview, meanwhile, averaged 1.97 million total viewers, compared to CNN’s 1.73 million.
Again, CNN won the demo in that time period, averaging 742,000 viewers 25-54 compared to 401,000 for Fox.
In the demo, All-American New Year’s Eve averaged 413,000 total viewers during that time period, a 19% boost over the previous year.
Even so, CNN bested Fox in that time period, averaging 2.095 million total viewers and 906,000 in the demo – though those numbers were down 11% and 4%, respectively, from the previous year.
According to the figures released by the Vatican, more than 6.6 million people attended the papal events presided by Pope Francis from his election in March to the end of 2013, compared to 2.3 million for former Pope Benedict in all of 2012.
The figures were based on the number of tickets issued for papal events where they are needed, such as general audiences, Masses and private audiences.
They were also based on estimates of the number of people at events where tickets are not needed, such as his weekly appearance from a window overlooking St. Peter’s Square.
The Vatican did not issue comparative figures on Thursday but figures released on January 4, 2013 showed that some 2.3 million people attended all events presided by Benedict in 2012.
Figures released last month which were limited to the number of people who attended weekly general audiences showed that Pope Francis had drawn around four times as many people in about 9 and a half months of 2013 than Pope Benedict had in all of 2012. Pope Francis was elected on March 13, 2013, after Pope Benedict’s resignation in February.
More than 6.6 million people attended the papal events presided by Pope Francis from his election in March to the end of 2013
Pope Francis, who last month was named Person of the Year by Time Magazine, has drawn people to the Vatican because of his outgoing, simple and friendly style. Pope Benedict was more reserved and far less spontaneous.
The Vatican said the figures released on Thursday did not include the crowds that turned out to see the pope during his trips to Brazil, and to Assisi and Lampedusa in Italy.
More than 3 million people attended the pope’s final event of the Brazil trip on Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro on July 28, 2013.
The crowds at Pope Francis’ general audiences and Sunday addresses have often topped 100,000, forcing police to close off the boulevard leading to the Vatican to accommodate more people.
Tickets to audiences and Masses are issued for free by the Vatican’s Prefecture of the Pontifical Household and usually distributed through parishes and Church institutions.
Michael Schumacher fans will hold a “silent” vigil for the former F1 champion to mark his 45th birthday on Friday, Ferrari says.
Ferrari clubs from France and Italy are to gather outside Grenoble hospital in the morning.
Michael Schumacher’s family earlier thanked fans for their “great support” and described the German as a “fighter”.
The most successful F1 racer in history is in a medically induced coma after a skiing accident in the French Alps.
Michael Schumacher remains in a stable but critical condition, his manager has said.
The German had been skiing off-piste when he fell and hit his head last Sunday. His helmet cracked on impact after hitting a rock.
Doctors confirmed on Tuesday that Michael Schumacher had shown signs of improvement, but was still “not out of danger”.
They ruled out giving a prognosis for his condition in the coming days and months.
Michael Schumacher fans will hold a “silent” vigil for the former F1 champion to mark his 45th birthday
But it is medically possible for someone to spend several weeks in an induced coma and fully recover from it.
Michael Schumacher’s former driving team, Ferrari, said buses had been organized to transport the Italian and French fans to Grenoble for the tribute.
They are expected to arrive on Friday morning.
Ferrari spokesman Renato Bisignani said people were being encouraged to dress in red and bring flags, as “a sign of closeness to Michael Schumacher, done in a very respectful way”.
But the spokesman insisted that the event was not about promoting the Ferrari brand or its clients.
“We will make sure we remain sensitive at this difficult time,” Renato Bisignani said.
International messages of support have been pouring in for the popular race driver.
On Thursday, Michael Schumacher’s family thanked “people from all around the world who have expressed their sympathy and sent their best wishes for his recovery”.
“We all know he is a fighter and will not give up,” the family said in an online statement.
Michael Schumacher retired from F1 for a second time in 2012.
Duck Dynasty family has launched their own line of guns in collaboration with gunmaker Mossberg.
Mossberg has teamed with Duck Commander, the company owned by Duck Dynasty family, to release nine different shotguns, as well as two semiautomatic rifles and a semiautomatic pistol.
The gunmaker has begun shipping some of the shotguns to distributors, according to spokeswoman Linda Powell. She declined to name specific retailers that will carry them.
Phil Robertson founded Duck Commander 40 years ago.
The Duck Dynasty patriarch was recently suspended – and then reinstated – by A&E network after making controversial remarks about gay people and African-Americans during GQ magazine interview.
Phil Robertson and his sons are featured prominently in four video ads for the new guns on Mossberg website. He narrates one of the spots saying: “Do you know what makes me happy ladies and gentlemen? To blow a mallard drake’s head smooth off.”
Duck Dynasty family has launched their own line of guns in collaboration with gunmaker Mossberg
The Robertson family business in Louisiana sells duck calls as well as hunting DVDs and clothing through Wal-Mart and other retailers. Duck Dynasty brand has already been affixed to everything from action figures and door mats to wine, (produced by the Trinchero Family Estates) as well as books about cooking and religion.
Mossberg says the Duck Commander guns will come in a “waterfowl pattern” camouflage design, though not all of them are intended for duck hunting. They also bear the Duck Commander logo, of a duck in flight.
The pistol and one of the rifles have military-style designs with large capacity magazines holding at least 25 rounds. The rifle has some of the features of an assault rifle, but with a relatively low .22 caliber.
Mossberg’s website says its .22-caliber pistol is “perfect for small game, plinking, target shooting – or clearing cottonmouths out of your duck blind.”
The firearms will all come with an American flag bandana like the one worn by Willie Robertson.
A major snowstorm and blizzard-like conditions are expected to affect 100 million people across the Midwest and Northeast.
While the immediate focus was on snow – with up to 10 inches possible in New York City, possibly 18 inches burying New England, and more than 1,800 flights canceled – the cold behind the snowstorm could be crippling.
The high temperature in New York City will be in the teens on Friday during the day and drop to between 5 and 8 degrees in the evening, with the wind chill making it feel well below zero. Lows in Boston will be below zero. Maine could see the mercury drop to minus 30 after dark.
“That is a very, very dangerous set of circumstances,” Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick said. He dismissed all state workers at 3 p.m. and urged residents to minimize time outside and be aware of frostbite and hypothermia symptoms.
A second wave of icy weather will hit the nation’s midsection by late Sunday, stretching from the upper Midwest to Kentucky and Tennessee, forecasters said.
Chicago will struggle to get above minus 8 and by Monday morning the wind will make it feel like it’s 40 below zero there.
Blizzard targets Northeast after pounding Midwest
In Green Bay, Wisconsin, where the Packers host an NFL playoff game Sunday evening, the low temperature could reach minus 18.
Larry Wittmers, a hypothermia expert at the University of Minnesota-Duluth medical school, said it’s not necessarily the coldest areas that face the most peril.
“True hypothermia cases turn up more often in more southern regions because people are not prepared and don’t know what to do,” Larry Wittmers said.
How long people can safely spend outside depends on how wet or windy it is and how they are dressed, he said. Shoveling snow or other exercise can be dangerous because sweat reduces the insulation capability of clothing, and consuming alcohol can speed heat loss and reduce awareness of the cold.
And even though record snowfall is not expected, the cold could make roads even more hazardous because the snow-melting homeowners and road crews use loses effectiveness at between 10 and 20 degrees.
Winter storm warnings and advisories were in effect in 22 states, stretched from Chicago through the New York tri-state region into New England and affecting an area home to more than 90 million people.
Flights were being canceled by the hundred at some of the nation’s busiest airports. Five hundred had been scrapped at Newark, LaGuardia and Kennedy; Boston’s last departure was slated for 8:30 p.m.; almost 600 were off the boards at Chicago’s O’Hare, according to FlightAware.
Alane Church from the Chicago suburbs got an unexpected package that appears to be a Christmas present from the Obama family to Sasha and Malia’s godmother.
She told Today show on Thursday that her family received a package from their uncle a week late and that it was in total disarray, having apparently been opened before it arrived.
Alane Churche said: “Parts of the old box were in this toilet paper box that the post office repackaged.
“In the bottom of the box was this extra gift. And we were reading the tag, trying to figure out, you know, where this came from, and it was opened. So we then discovered this was a very personal gift to Mama Kaye.”
Alane Church from the Chicago suburbs got an unexpected package that appears to be a Christmas present from the Obama family to Sasha and Malia’s godmother
“Mama Kaye” is the nickname of Kaye Wilson, the godmother of Sasha and Malia Obama.
A picture of the gift showed a tag addressed to “Mama Kaye and Papa Wellington,” from “Barack, Michelle and the girls.”
Inside was a homemade photo book, like those that can be made on the photo-sharing site Shutterfly, containing pictures of the Obama family, Alane Church said. She showed the cover, which featured a photo of Malia Obama smiling, to the camera, but wouldn’t show the inside.
“We are sort of wanting to keep it private for Mama Kaye. It’s very special, very special. Private moments of their year 2013 together,” Alane Church said.
Disgraced Toronto Mayor Rob Ford has filed re-election papers.
Rob Ford – who admitted to once smoking crack cocaine while in a “drunken stupor” – revealed his new campaign slogan: “Ford more years.”
“I’ve got the strongest track record,” he told journalists.
“I’ve been the best mayor this city has ever had.”
Rob Ford is the sole candidate so far for the October 27 municipal election, but rivals are expected to challenge him.
Rob Ford is the sole candidate so far for the October 27 municipal election
The conservative mayor was first elected in 2010 to lead Canada’s largest city on a pledge to tackle wasteful spending at city hall.
Rob Ford said it was for the voters ultimately to deliver their verdict on his personal problems.
He told reporters on Thursday: “My track record speaks for itself. We’ve got the lowest taxes than any other major city in North America.
“The city is absolutely booming… I’ve dealt with the issues that other mayors couldn’t deal with.”
Rob Ford put Toronto in the international spotlight in November when he admitted having once smoked crack cocaine “in a drunken stupor”.
In the fallout from the drug scandal, political opponents stripped Rob Ford of most of his mayoral powers as he insisted he would run for office again.
Rob Ford has brushed aside pressure to quit and remains popular in some of Toronto’s more conservative suburban areas.
A car bomb hit a southern suburb of the Lebanese capital Beirut killing at least 5 people and injuring other 20, media and officials say.
The suburb is a stronghold of the Shia militant group Hezbollah.
Hezbollah’s al-Manar TV station said the blast destroyed part of a facade of a building in a densely populated area of Haret Hreik district.
Beirut has been recently been hit by attacks linked to heightened Sunni-Shia tensions over the Syrian war.
Beirut has been recently been hit by attacks linked to heightened Sunni-Shia tensions over the Syrian war
Former minister Mohamad Chatah, a Sunni and a critic of Hezbollah, was killed by a car bomb last Friday. Six other people died and at least 50 were injured.
Former PM Saad Hariri, to whom Mohamad Chatah was an adviser, blamed Hezbollah for that attack but it has denied any involvement.
No-one has yet said they carried out the attack, but it came a day after Majid al-Majid, the head of a Sunni jihadist group which claimed a suicide bomb attack on the Iranian embassy in Beirut in November, was reportedly arrested.
Al-Manar TV showed large crowds gathered around twisted and burnt-out vehicles in front of a building that had been badly damaged in Thursday’s blast.
Initial reports say the bomb was detonated in a four-wheel-drive vehicle.
The street is home to shops, restaurants and residential buildings. The TV said the explosion took place a few hundred metres from the nearest Hezbollah political offices.
Majid al-Majid, the Saudi “emir” of the al-Qaeda-linked Abdullah Azzam Brigades, had said that attacks would continue in Lebanon until Iranian and Hezbollah forces stopped fighting alongside government forces in Syria.
Tommy Lee has won a legal battle against engineer Scott King who alleged the rocker stole his idea for a drum kit rollercoaster.
The 51-year-old Motley Crue musician used the stunt during the band’s 2011 tour, where he could be seen turning upside down as he played, but Scott King claimed he pitched a similar idea to Tommy Lee in 1991.
Tommy Lee has won a legal battle against engineer Scott King who alleged the rocker stole his idea for a drum kit rollercoaster
In 2012, Scott King filed a lawsuit in L.A. County Superior Court demanding at least $400,000 in damages over allegations the rocker stole his idea.
Scott King has lost the legal battle after a judge ruled he never obtained exclusive rights to the concept and Tommy Lee created his own version of the rollercoaster drum set, TMZ reported.
Legendary bluesman Tabby Thomas has died at his home in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, at the age of 84.
His daughter, Joylyn Thomas Wright, says her father passed away “peacefully and of natural causes” Wednesday.
Tabby Thomas would have turned 85 on Sunday.
Funeral arrangements were pending.
Tabby Thomas is best known for his Louisiana-style blues, a hard-driving blues influenced by the Chicago bands.
Tabby Thomas is best known for his Louisiana-style blues, a hard-driving blues influenced by the Chicago bands
He opened a music club in Baton Rouge called Tabby’s Blues Box, which closed in November 2004 after Thomas suffered a stroke and could no longer oversee its operations.
Tabby Thomas was married to Jocelyn Johnson for over 50 years. She passed away in 2005.They had eight children and 20 grandchildren.
Tabby Thomas’ son, Chris Thomas King, is also a musician known for his fusion of rap and blues.
