Melcom department store has collapsed in Ghana’s capital, Accra, with dozens of people believed to be trapped inside.
Rescue efforts are under way, with officials saying that at least three people died in the multi-storey Melcom store.
Ten people have been pulled alive from the rubble so far.
Ghana’s President John Dramani Mahama said he had suspended his campaign for next month’s election.
The government has declared the area in the city’s Achimota neighborhood a disaster zone.
Vice-President Paa Kwesi Amissah-Arthur is at the site, co-ordinating rescue efforts at the building, which opened earlier this year.
Hundreds of rescuers are digging through the rubble, amid fears that dozens of people are trapped inside, our correspondent says.
Paa Kwesi Amissah-Arthur said the building collapsed shortly before the Melcom store was due to open for business.
Rescue efforts were being hampered by the large crowd that had gathered at the site, he added.
Melcom department store has collapsed in Ghana’s capital, Accra, with dozens of people believed to be trapped inside
“There’s so much noise that it’s not possible to hear the trapped people asking for help,” Paa Kwesi Amissah-Arthur said.
“If we could move out of here, it could help rescue operations.”
In a statement on its Facebook page, Melcom said it had rented the building which housed its Achimota branch on a 10-year lease.
“This is indeed a very tragic incident,” it said.
“We are doing everything possible to see that help reaches those who need it. Our heartfelt condolences and deepest sympathies goes to the families of those who may have lost their lives.”
Customers often queue outside the store before it opens and officials say they believe about 50 people may been inside at the time of the collapse.
Eyewitness Ama Okyere told the AFP news agency she was very close to the shopping centre when the building came down.
“I had to run for my life. I was so terrified. I believe there are lots of people trapped under this because this is a heavily patronized shopping mall in the area.”
Family members have been trying to call relatives feared trapped beneath the rubble on their mobile phones, AFP reports.
Another witness, John Owusu, said he heard a bang before the building collapsed.
President John Dramani Mahama, in a tweet moments after the building collapsed, said: “My prayers are with the workers, shoppers and others who are trapped in the rubble of the Achimota Melcom building.”
He has cut short his campaign in the north of the country and is flying back to Accra.
As relief efforts continue for the thousands of Northeasterners impacted by Superstorm Sandy, a new storm on Wednesday threatens to bring chilly temperatures and even snow to the wearied low lying coastal areas where residents are just beginning to pick up the pieces from the damage of last week.
The National Weather Service is warning that the nor’easter could bring high winds of up to 60 mph, rain and possible flooding, in addition to a very real danger from falling limbs from trees already beaten down by the previous superstorm.
The unnamed storm is moving up along the Atlantic coast from Florida and is set to join with a weather system moving East from the Midwest but some forecasters project the storm could veer offshore, which would be a welcome relief to the battered coast.
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie warned that the severe weather could mean residents who just had their power restored, could once again be living without electricity.
There is “nothing we can do to stop the storms”, he said.
Similarly, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said some residents living in neighborhoods at risk of flooding will be encouraged to relocate until the storm passes.
In a press conference on Tuesday, Michael Bloomberg warned the city would be “on a high wind watch and coastal flood watch beginning Wednesday morning through late Wednesday night”.
The mayor projected the city could receive an inch of rain, which could turn to sleet and even possibly snow.
“Keep in mind, these are forecasts and forecasts, as we know, change as you get closer to the event,” he added.
Though there are no forced evacuations, he said New York police will be patrolling at risk areas to encourage the elderly and families with children to evacuate.
“We can expect winds of up to 25 to 35 mph and gusts rising to 45 to 55 mph, with the highest winds occurring late Wednesday afternoon and Wednesday night,” he continued, adding that the strong winds will make it feel around 10 degrees colder than the listed temperature.
The city will close all parks, playgrounds and beaches, given the threat of falling tree branches, he added.
Nor’easter storm on Wednesday threatens to bring chilly temperatures and even snow
Travelers flying to and from the East Coast will also experience delays and cancellations.
United Airlines announced on Tuesday afternoon that it will suspend most service to and from the New York area between noon Wednesday and noon Thursday due to the winter storm.
Storm surges along the coasts of New Jersey and New York are expected to reach 3 feet, only half to a third of what Hurricane Sandy caused last week, National Weather Service meteorologist Lauren Masters said.
Coastal Virginia could also get a surge of 2 or 3 feet, causing minor flooding on the east side of Chesapeake Bay during high tides on Wednesday morning and evening, he said.
However, most of the storm’s rain will stay offshore.
Up to an inch of snow may fall in northeastern New Jersey and the lower Hudson River valley, weather service meteorologist Mike Layer said.
Central Massachusetts and western Connecticut also could get an inch or two of snow, according to Masters.
Along the Jersey shore, which was devastated by last week’s superstorm, there was some relief that damage projections from the nor’easter have been scaled back.
But there was still concern about the ocean barreling past beaches and dunes that were largely washed away.
The Empire State Building was bathed in blue light on Election Night as Barack Obama won a second term in office.
Two columns of light, one red and one blue, had been winding their way up the skyscraper in a display put on by CNN.
Each column represented the number of electoral college votes secured by Barack Obama and Mitt Romney.
But at 11:20 p.m. the building was lit completely blue as the channel predicted that Barack Obama would serve another four years in office.
Dominating the Midtown skyline of Manhattan, the Empire State Building already celebrates many cultures and causes worldwide with its iconic lighting’s and this latest addition is the brainchild of CNN.
The tower changes lights to recognize key milestones such as Christmas Day and Halloween, charitable organizations such as World AIDS Day and even beloved movies such as the Disney’s The Lion King.
The tradition began in 1932 when a searchlight shone from the skyscraper to announce the election of New York born Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
To celebrate the nation’s Bicentennial in 1976, the building’s owners installed colored lights to illuminate the building at night in red, white and blue – which was the direct descendant of the popular Lighting Partner program that runs to this day.
Soaring 1,454 feet above Midtown Manhattan (from base to antenna), the Empire State Building is the World’s Most Famous Office Building.
The skyscraper’s robust broadcasting technology supports all major television and FM radio stations in the New York metropolitan market.
The Empire State Building was named America’s favorite building in a poll conducted by the American Institute of Architects.
The Empire State Building Observatory is one of the world’s most beloved attractions and is the city’s number one tourist destination.
Indeed, CNN ran a test on 3:30 a.m. last Friday but no one worked out what the skyscraper was doing before today’s announcement.
The Empire State Building was bathed in blue light on Election Night as Barack Obama won a second term in office
FAMOUS LIGHTING OF EMPIRE STATE
• In May 1998 the Empire State was bathed in blue lights to celebrate the life of Frank Sinatra in honor of his nickname Ol’Blue Eyes
• After the death of Fay Wray, the star of 1933’s legendary King Kong which makes use of the skyscraper in its final scene – the building stood in complete darkness for 15 minutes.
• For several months after the destruction of the World Trade Center in 2001, the building was lit in the red, white and blue of the Star Spangled Banner.
• On June 4, 2002, the Empire State Building donned purple and gold (the royal colors of Queen Elizabeth II), in thanks for the United Kingdom playing the Star Spangled Banner during the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace on September 12, 2001 which was a show of support after the September 11 Attacks
• The building is illuminated in tennis-ball yellow during the US Open tennis tournament in late August and early September
Moments after Barack Obama’s victory was projected by several news outlets last night, Donald Trump took to Twitter to voice his outrage, demanding a “revolution”.
Donald Trump also said that the Democrat’s re-election to office was a “great and disgusting injustice”.
Earlier Tuesday, Donald Trump took to Twitter reminding his followers: “Whoever wins today, remember that tomorrow we still have a country struggling.
“Our work is not done until America is strong again.”
However, as it became apparent that former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney would not win the election, Donald Trump’s tweets became more enraged, and more hyperbolic.
He began with: “Well, back to the drawing board!”
Donald Trump quickly followed up with a call to revolution. He wrote: “He lost the popular vote by a lot and won the election. We should have a revolution in this country!”
He later deleted that tweet.
But he was far from over.
“This election is a total sham and a travesty,” he wrote.
“We are not a democracy!”
He also added the “serious and unprecedented trouble” that America is in – “like never before”.
Donald Trump said that Barack Obama’s re-election to office was a great and disgusting injustice
Donald Trump, 66, later went onto attack the Electoral College, but offered a kernel of hope for the still-Republican House of Representatives.
“Hopefully the House can hold our country together for four more years,” he tweeted.
“House shouldn’t give anything to Obama unless he terminates Obamacare.”
He did not tweet anything after Mitt Romney’s gracious concession speech.
Donald Trump’s attacks on Barack Obama have been more frequent in the weeks preceding the election.
Only last week, he lashed out at Barack Obama for using Superstorm Sandy to garner more votes and essentially buy the election.
The billionaire’s grudge hasn’t gone unnoticed by the president.
During a recent appearance on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno, Barack Obama quipped that their rivalry began when the two were growing up in Kenya.
“We had constant run-ins on the soccer field, he wasn’t that good,” Barack Obama told the NBC late-night host.
Bolivia has returned a 700-year-old mummy to Peru, from where it was stolen by antiquities traffickers.
The mummy of a child of about two years of age is only 30 cm (12 in) tall and sits wrapped in blankets.
Bolivian police seized it two years ago from a woman who was going to ship it to France.
Experts determined it was an original but found that one of its legs had been added later presumably by the smugglers who wanted to raise its value.
Experts have not been able to determine the sex of the mummy but archaeologists think it came from a pre-Inca culture of coastal Peru.
Bolivian Culture Minister Pablo Groux handed the mummy to his Peruvian counterpart Luis Peirano at a ceremony at the Peruvian Foreign Ministry in Lima.
The two ministers also signed an agreement to improve their co-operation in the fight against the smuggling of cultural artefacts.
Bolivia has returned a 700-year-old mummy to Peru, from where it was stolen by antiquities traffickers
Referring to an increase in the illegal trade in antiquities, Luis Peirano said the mummy was “just a sample of the sacking, of the violation of our patrimony and all our inheritance.”
Peru, at the centre the Inca culture and other civilizations predating the Incas, has had thousands of its relics plundered and stolen over the centuries.
Peruvian officials say trafficking in mummies has been less common, though “lately, there has been an increase in the trafficking of human remains”.
American classical composer Elliott Carter has died at the age of 103.
Known for his challenging and complex pieces, Elliott Carter won two Pulitzer Prizes and was also honored with the US National Medal of Arts.
While not widely known by the general public, Elliott Carter was hugely respected by critics and musicians.
In 2002, The New York Times said Elliott Carter’s string quartets were among “the most difficult music ever conceived”.
Elliott Carter was hailed by fellow composer Igor Stravinsky for his Double Concerto for harpsichord, piano and two chamber orchestras (1961) and Piano Concerto (1967), both of which Stravinsky dubbed “masterpieces”.
Twelve years ago, during an interview, Elliott Carter said hearing Stravinsky’s famous work The Rite of Spring in the 1920s was what made him want to become a composer.
“It was a scandal. Everybody walked out of the hall and people were terrified. Maybe that’s why I liked it but in any case I became a fan of modern music in very early adolescence.”
His music publisher, Boosey & Hawkes, said in a statement announcing his death: “The great range and diversity of his music has, and will continue to have, influence on countless composers and performers worldwide.
“He will be missed by us all but remembered for his brilliance, his wit and his great canon of work.”
Elliott Carter once said he was unperturbed by his apparent lack of fame.
“I don’t think it means anything to be popular,” he said.
“When we see the popular tastes and the popular opinion constantly being manipulated by all sorts of different ways, it seems to me popularity is a meaningless matter.”
Elliott Carter composed more than 130 works, including 1942’s Symphony 1 and 1944’s Holiday Overture.
His later works included Dialogues (2004), which was nominated for the a Pulitzer, and 2006’s Boston Concerto, nominated for a Grammy for best classical contemporary composition.
American classical composer Elliott Carter has died at the age of 103
Aldeburgh Music, which organizes the annual Aldeburgh Festival said they were “very sad” to hear of Elliott Carter’s death.
His music was first heard at Aldeburgh in 1968 and he last visited the festival in 2009 aged 100.
Pierre-Laurent Aimard, artistic director of the festival, said they would remember “his smile, his joie de vivre and his sense of humor”.
“He was and will always remain a composer of fantasy and structure, reflective yet alive, always reinventing and yet true to himself,” he said.
“By turns lyrical, dramatic, complex, amusing and poetic, this grand master of polyphony understood the challenges of his time and entertained us with great intelligence,” he added.
Elliott Carter’s latest work, Instances – for chamber orchestra – will have its world premiere in February next year, and will be performed by the Seattle Symphony.
He won his first Pulitzer Prize in 1960 for his Second String Quartet, the second was for his Third String Quartet in 1973.
In 1998, Elliott Carter was inducted into the Classical Music Hall of Fame.
Elliott Carter was also honored with prestigious awards in France and Germany.
He said he found Europeans were more receptive to his work because music was part of the culture, “something that people make an effort to understand”.
The composer celebrated his 100th birthday at New York’s Carnegie Hall in 2008, where a new work of his was played by the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
Elliott Carter was born in New York in 1908 and was first encouraged toward a musical career by his friend and mentor Charles Ives.
He went on to study literature at Harvard and then studied music in Paris under Nadia Boulanger, who also taught Leonard Bernstein and Aaron Copland.
It was his First String Quartet in 1951 which first brought him to the attention of music critics.
In 1939, Elliott Carter married sculptor Helen H. Frost Jones.
Elliott Carter is survived by his son and a grandson.
The first banknotes featuring the face of former President Nelson Mandela have gone into circulation in South Africa.
They are the first South African notes to bear the image of a black person – they replace notes with wild animals and rural and industrial scenes.
President Jacob Zuma says the banknotes were a “humble gesture” to express South Africa’s “deep gratitude”.
Nelson Mandela, 94, is one of the world’s best loved figures after spending 27 years in prison for fighting apartheid.
Reserve Bank governor Gill Marcus was the first to use the new banknotes when she spent 160 rand, about $18 on some nuts, beetroot, a watermelon and a cucumber at her local shop in the capital, Pretoria.
She said that Nelson Mandela was delighted with the design.
The first banknotes featuring the face of former President Nelson Mandela have gone into circulation in South Africa
Gill Marcus also noted that South Africa tries to update its currency every seven years for security reasons. The new design includes watermarks and a metal strip, while raised printing was added to assist the visually impaired.
Nelson Mandela’s face is on one side of all the new banknotes, while the “Big Five” animals – lion, leopard, rhino, buffalo and elephant – remain on the reverse.
He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993 for his campaign against white minority rule and was elected president the following year before stepping down after a single term.
Known affectionately by his clan name “Madiba”, Nelson Mandela has now retired from public life.
Diane Sawyer’s Election Night performance left some viewers asking if she had begun celebrating Tuesday’s election a bit early.
Co-anchoring ABC News’ coverage, the veteran journalist struck a different manner from her practiced, straight-news-delivering style.
Diane Sawyer spoke more slowly than usual while seeming to prop herself on outstretched arms at the anchor desk she shared with George Stephanopoulos.
“OK,” she said at one point around 10 p.m. EST, “I wanna – can we have our music, because this is another big one here?
“Minnesota, we’re ready to project Minnesota, rrright now. … Well, tonight we know that President Barack has won Minnesota,” she rambled on, stumbling over the president’s name.
Maybe Sawyer was just weary from the recent torrent of news.
In any case, the Twitterverse took quick notice and began cracking wise.
Diane Sawyer’s Election Night performance left some viewers asking if she had begun celebrating Tuesday’s election a bit early
Her name was soon trending with unflattering posts, while a new Twitter handle, Drunk Diane Sawyer, collected hundreds of followers. An ABC spokesman did not comment.
“A bit tipsy”, ”hammered” or “on pain killers, muscle relaxers, benzos or some combination” were among the jeering explanations.
Another likened it to an episode of HBO’s drama The Newsroom, where Will McAvoy, the fictitious anchorman, had eaten a couple of pot brownies before unexpectedly being summoned to his anchor desk to report a news story.
Some tweeters joked that a more fun-loving Diane Sawyer was a ploy by ABC to boost viewership.
Several Twitter followers said they were drawn to the network by word that Diane Sawyer was behaving, by one description, “a bit wacky”.
Barack Obama won re-election to the White House tonight with a landslide victory over Mitt Romney, according to projections from most of the television networks.
Broadcast networks called the 2012 presidential election for Barack Obama as he swept the map with wins in the swings states of Ohio, Iowa, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire and Virginia while Florida still hung in the balance.
Barack Obama seemed poised for a resounding electoral college win – despite predictions of one of the tightest finishes in history and the dogged insistence of Mitt Romney advisers that they were making gains all over the political battlefield.
Despite unemployment standing at 7.9% and Barack Obama performing very poorly during the first presidential debate, Mitt Romney was crushed nationally, though he might finish only just behind in the popular vote.
Barack Obama won re-election to the White House tonight with a landslide victory over Mitt Romney
Minutes after his victory was announced, Barack Obama tweeted: “We’re all in this together. That’s how we campaigned, and that’s who we are. Thank you.”
He also posted a picture of himself embracing his wife Michelle Obama – and the post rapidly became the most popular tweet of all time.
Mitt Romney called Barack Obama to concede defeat shortly before 1:00 a.m., a few minutes before he was set to take the stage at his Boston headquarters to deliver his concession speech.
Natina Reed had been living in an extended stay motel when she was killed in a car accident last week.
The tragic RnB star was just 12 miles from the $45 per night StudioPlus Atlanta Peachtree Corners extended stay motel in Norcross, Georgia, when she was knocked down last Friday according to the police incident report.
Gwinnett County authorities are still seeking information to help explain the accidental death of the 32-year-old, who was a popular member of the 1990s girl group Blaque.
According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Natina Reed’s family is planning a press conference in the city to discuss the case, according to attorney Christopher Chestnut’s office.
Investigators are still trying to determine why Natina Reed was in the roadway and whether she was crossing or walking alongside it.
She was wearing dark clothing in an area that had no artificial lighting, according to the incident report.
Other than the driver, who was not charged, and a passenger in the car, there do not appear to be any additional witnesses.
Natina Reed had been living in an extended stay motel when she was killed in a car accident last week
Gwinnett police spokesman Sgt. Rich Long said: “It’s kind of a dark lit area. There is not really anything in that area that’s open at that time of night, that would be any kind of a draw to a person up there.”
Police said toxicology reports are pending and are standard in fatal accidents.
It comes after the likes of Brandi, Jordin Sparks and Gabrielle Union lead the celebrity tributes to R&B singer Natina Reed who tragically died in a car accident on Friday.
The Gwinnett Police Department said the driver of the vehicle which hit Natina Reed called 911 at 10:30 PM on Friday night.
They added that she was pronounced dead at Gwinnett Medical Centre 29 minutes later.
A press release relayed that Natina Reed “was in the roadway on Lawrenceville Highway near Hamilton Road when struck”.
Police say the driver “was determined to be not at fault and there are no charges pending”.
Natina Reed also appeared in the 2000 film, Bring It On, in which she played cheerleader Jenelope.
Kim Kardashian paraded her stunning curves in a pretty light pink string bikini as she took a morning dip earlier this month in Miami.
Against the stunning backdrop of the pink and red-hued Miami skyline and the glistening sea, Kim Kardashian, 32, strolled along the sand with her best pal Jonathan Cheban.
Kim Kardashian wore hardly any make-up for her swimming session, an unusual move for her who is usually made up to an inch of her life.
Her body was however benefitting from a heavy glow, most likely from a fresh application of fake tan.
Kim Kardashian smiled as she walked along the coastline with Jonathan Cheban, who displayed his own fit figure in a pair of swimming trunks.
The brunette beauty at one point hitched up her bikini bottoms to make sure her famous derriere was not exposed.
Kim Kardashian paraded her stunning curves in a pretty light pink string bikini as she took a morning dip earlier this month in Miami
Kim Kardashian had headed into the warm water in the early am just hours before leaving Miami Beach to go to a special birthday getaway with boyfriend Kanye West in Rome, Italy.
She was treated to a surprise birthday trip, jetting across the pond to Italy to tour the likes of romantic Italian cities Rome, Venice and Florence.
Kanye West jetted Kim Kardashian to Venice earlier this month to mark her 32nd birthday.
During their trip the pair visited the most expensive restaurants and did plenty of shopping at the designer boutiques.
Like most women, the famous Kardashian wasn’t into the idea of turning another year older.
Speaking to E! News in the run-up to her 32nd, Kim Kardashian revealed: “I’m not so into a 32nd birthday. Doesn’t do it for me, so I don’t really care.”
Barack Obama has been re-elected to a second term, defeating Republican rival Mitt Romney.
With results in from most states, Barack Obama has secured the 270 votes in the electoral college needed to win the race.
Barack Obama prevailed despite lingering dissatisfaction with the economy and a well-funded challenge by Mitt Romney.
Barack Obama’s margin of victory is not yet certain because four states have yet to report results.
With swing states Virginia, Florida and Colorado still too close to call, Barack Obama has won 281 electoral votes to Mitt Romney’s 203.
Under the US constitution, each state is given a number of electoral votes in rough proportion to its population. The candidate who wins 270 electoral votes – by prevailing in the mostly winner-takes-all state contests – becomes president.
The popular vote, which is symbolically and politically important but not decisive in the race, remains too close to call.
Barack Obama has been re-elected to a second term, defeating Republican rival Mitt Romney
On Tuesday, the president held the White House by assembling solid Democratic states and a number of important swing states such as Iowa, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin. His narrow victory in Ohio, a critical Mid-Western swing state, sealed the victory.
Mitt Romney, former governor of Massachusetts, won North Carolina and Indiana, as well as the solid Republican states.
But he was unable to win in Ohio or other states needed to breach the 270 threshold.
Also on Tuesday’s ballot were 11 state governorships, a third of the seats in the 100-member US Senate and all 435 seats in the House of Representatives.
Republicans are projected to keep control of the House, while Democrats are tipped to remain in control in the Senate.
Walking for just 2.5 hours a week could add more than seven years to your life, researchers believe.
The study found even half of that is beneficial, with 75 minutes of brisk walking a week enough to extend life by almost two years.
The analysis of the lives of more than 600,000 men and women aged 40 and over also added weight to the idea that it is possible to be fat and fit.
The experts from the US government’s medical research agency and Harvard University crunched the results of six previous long-term studies into health and lifestyle.
The analysis focused on moderate exercise – defined as walking fast enough to break into a sweat but slow enough to hold a conversation.
The benefits were clear, with two and a half hours of brisk walking a week adding 3.4 years to life on average.
Doing twice this added 4.2 years, while walking for seven and a half hours weekly added 4.5 years to life.
The biggest gains were seen in people of a healthy weight, where two and a half hours of moderate exercise a week extended life by more than seven years, the journal PLoS Medicine reported.
However, people of a healthy weight who didn’t exercise could expect to die 3.1 years earlier than obese people who did stay active – a finding that underlines the importance of exercising whatever your weight.
The study also revealed the association between physical activity and life expectancy was similar between men and women, and that black people gained more years of life expectancy than white people.
The relationship between life expectancy and exercise was stronger among those with a history of cancer or heart disease than those with no history of either disease.
Dr. I-Min Lee, the study’s senior author, said: “We must not underestimate how important physical activity is for health – even modest amounts can add years to your life.”
An electronic voting machine in Pennsylvania has been removed from service after it changed votes for Barack Obama into those for Mitt Romney.
An 18-second clip posted onto YouTube shows a voter’s finger repeatedly pressing the button for Barack Obama, but the check mark instead comes up next to Mitt Romney’s name.
This is the latest in a flurry of voting glitches across the country today from West Palm Beach in Florida where ballot counting machines broke down, to vast swathes of New Jersey where text alert systems for residents sent them to the wrong polling stations.
In comments attached to the clip, the anonymous user named “centralpavote” said that “all the other buttons worked fine” and asked voters either side if they were experiencing similar problems – which they denied.
NBC News has reported that since the clip was posted to Reddit this morning, it spread across the Internet and the offending machine has been retired from service.
The video which was filmed on the YouTube users Android phone shows the potentially serious malfunction affect only a vote for the incumbent president.
A vote for any other of the candidates for the presidency and vice presidency resulted in a successful choice – it was only a vote for Barack Obama that caused the machine to change to Mitt Romney.
An electronic voting machine in Pennsylvania has been removed from service after it changed votes for Barack Obama into those for Mitt Romney
“I initially selected Obama but Romney was highlighted,” said “centralpavote” on the introduction to his video on YouTube.
“I assumed it was being picky so I deselected Romney and tried Obama again, this time more carefully, and still got Romney.
“Being a software developer, I immediately went into troubleshoot mode.
“I first thought the calibration was off and tried selecting Jill Stein to actually highlight Obama. Nope. Jill Stein was selected just fine.
“Next I deselected her and started at the top of Romney’s name and started tapping very closely together to find the <<active areas>>.
“From the top of Romney’s button down to the bottom of the black checkbox beside Obama’s name was all active for Romney.
“From the bottom of that same checkbox to the bottom of the Obama button (basically a small white sliver) is what let me choose Obama.
“Stein’s button was fine. All other buttons worked fine.”
The voter reported the problem to an electoral official who declared it a non issue.
“I then called over a volunteer to have a look at it,” said “centralpavote”.
“She him hawed (sic) for a bit then calmly said <<It’s nothing to worry about, everything will be OK>>. and went back to what she was doing.
“I then recorded this video.”
However, far from evidence of electoral fraud, experts have weighed in with the theory that this is a calibration problem specific to the machine.
“It’s a concern but not because of fraud… that’s an obviously miscalibrated iVotronic (ES&S) voting machine,” said Jospeh Lorenzo Hall, Senior Staff Technologist at the Center for Democracy & Technology to Gawker.
“We would recommend that poll workers would recalibrate the machine and everything would be fine.
“Also, with some models of voting system if you place a thumb on accident while resting on the machine it can <<bias>> the calibration of the touchscreen up towards the errant thumb.
“That could be happening to, if it’s only for this one voter.”
Further controversy over voting continued at a polling place in a Philadelphia school where workers ignored a judge’s order to cover a mural of President Barack Obama “in its entirety”.
The art work which is positioned behind voting machines contains the words “change!” and “hope” together with a quote from the president and a painting of him.
However, electoral poll workers only covered up the mural with three pieces of paper – leaving the Obama logo and quote from the serving president in full view of all prospective voters.
Seeing an attempt to influence the votes of those attending the polling place in Ward 35, Republicans were outraged.
The final voting precincts on the west coast won’t even begin to be tallied until early Wednesday morning, but the election could be decided much earlier than that.
Polls begin to close at 6:00 p.m. Eastern Time, and results will flood in not long thereafter. Whichever candidate reaches 270 electoral college votes wins the White House.
Crucially, Barack Obama won each of the swing states listed below in 2008.
7:00 p.m.: Virginia is the first battleground state to close its polls. Barack Obama has a slight lead in most recent polls, but the state is essentially a tossup. The president won the state in 2008 by 6.3% – but Mitt Romney has made it essential to his election strategy. If he wins Virginia, and its 13 electoral votes, it will confirm that the national race is as tight as everyone believed it to be. If Barack Obama wins, Mitt Romney’s chances of taking the White House become narrower.
Polls begin to close in North Carolina, as well. Barack Obama won the state by a narrow margin in 2008, though a strong rightward swing in the last four years means Romney has a large advantage.
7:30 p.m.: Polls close in Ohio – the most important swing state in the nation. This is a must-win for Mitt Romney. If he cannot take Ohio, with 18 electoral votes, he will have to win nearly every other swing state in the country. No Republican has ever won the presidency without Ohio. If Barack Obama loses Ohio, his chances of winning reelection become significantly smaller. Watch the Cincinnati metro area – which is perhaps the most important region of the state for determining the overall outcome. Barack Obama won Ohio by 5.4% in 2008.
It is important to note that Barack Obama is likely to take an early lead in Ohio as early voters are counted first. Polls show he leads among people who cast their ballots before Election Day.
The final voting precincts on the west coast won’t even begin to be tallied until early Wednesday morning, but the election could be decided much earlier than that
8:00 p.m.: Florida, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania close their polls.
Florida is another essential state for Mitt Romney, though it is less important to Obama’s strategy. With 29 electoral votes, Florida is the largest swing state in the country. Mitt Romney has a 1.5-point advantage, though both candidates have fought hard for it. However, don’t expect rapid results from the Sunshine state. Ballots in Florida are long and voting lines are expected to be even longer – meaning it could be hours before results are tabulated.
Pennsylvania, 20 electoral votes, is heavily leaning in Barack Obama’s favor, but Mitt Romney has fought hard to reduce the Democratic lead.
New Hampshire has just four electoral votes, but both candidates have visited multiple times. Barack Obama holds and edge in the polls, but Mitt Romney owns a house in the Granite State and was governor of neighboring Massachusetts.
9:00 p.m.: Wisconsin and Colorado polls close.
Colorado isn’t a big catch, with nine electoral votes, but it’s a major test of Barack Obama’s support among Hispanic voters. Both candidates have campaigned heavily here and Barack Obama has a narrow lead in recent polls.
A Mitt Romney win in Wisconsin would be hugely symbolic. With ten electoral votes, the state has not gone for a Republican since Ronald Reagan in 1984. However, Vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan hails from Wisconsin and the divisive Republican Gov Scott Walker recently survived a recall election. Polls show Barack Obama has a four-point lead in polls.
10:00 p.m.: Iowa and Nevada, the last of the swing states, close their polls.
Iowa has just six electoral votes, but it’s important to Barack Obama – it’s the state where his presidential campaign began in 2008. The president currently leads here, though it’s a traditionally white, working-class state with a largely rural electorate – all Mitt Romney’s strong points.
Nevada, also six electoral votes, is the westernmost swing state. Barack Obama leads here in polls, as well, though the economy has been badly battered by the housing crisis and unemployment is more than 11% – much higher than the rest of the nation.
Chrysler gave all 55,000 of its employees the day off work on Election Day and urged them to go vote – a move that is likely to help President Barack Obama, since most employees are members of the heavily Democratic United Autoworkers union.
The automaker, which received a $6.6 billion government bailout under Obama’s presidency, has been at odds with Republican Mitt Romney after he accused the company of shipping jobs to China.
Voting has now opened in all 50 states and millions of Americans are standing in long lines to cast their ballots. Hawaii, which opened their polls at noon Eastern Time (7:00 a.m. local time), was the last to begin.
It’s impossible to tell yet what voter turnout for the pivotal presidential election will be – but throngs of Americans are already showing up. In Florida, some voters are reporting waiting in line for up to three and a half hours. Waits in other states were more than an hour before 10:00 a.m. and likely to grow only longer as the day progressed.
Thousands of voters turned out before dawn, hoping to cast their ballots before heading to work. Polls opened at 6:30 a.m. in Ohio, which is perhaps the most important state in this year’s neck-and-neck election. In Virginia and New Hampshire – two other pivotal states – voters began lining up before 6:00 a.m.
Chrysler gave all 55,000 of its employees the day off work on Election Day and urged them to go vote
Ralph Gilles, Chrysler’s vice president for product design, announced on Twitter that the company was shutting down for the day.
“Chrysler gave its entire work force the day off to Vote Today! Let’s go! #America,” he wrote.
Mitt Romney ran an ad in Ohio last month claiming that Chrysler was planning to build its Jeep SUVs in China. The company strenuously denied those claims and Ralph Giles even tweeted: “You are full of s***!” when Donald Trump repeated Mitt Romney’s allegation.
Ralph Gilles pointed out that all UAW workers already had the day off – a perk the union has negotiated for the last 15 years. Chrysler, which is owned by Italian car company Fiat, only extended the policy to its non-union employees.
Mitt Romney and his wife Ann showed up together at their local polling station in Belmont, Massachusetts, outside Boston, to cast their ballots early Tuesday. Vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan was seen at the polls in Wisconsin with his family.
Microsoft has announced it intends to “retire” its instant message chat tool Windows Live Messenger (WLM) and replace it with Skype’s messaging tool.
The news comes 18 months after the software giant announced it was paying $8.5 billion for the communications software developer.
Microsoft said WLM would be turned off by March 2013 worldwide, with the exception of China.
It reflects the firm’s determination to focus its efforts on Skype.
WLM launched in 1999 when it was known as MSN Messenger. Over time, photo delivery, video calls and games were added to the package’s text-based messages.
In 2009, the firm said it had 330 million active users.
According to internet analysis firm Comscore, WLM still had more than double the number of Skype’s instant messenger facility at the start of this year and was second only in popularity to Yahoo Messenger.
But the report suggested WLM’s US audience had fallen to 8.3 million unique users, representing a 48% drop year-on-year. By contrast, the number of people using Skype to instant message each other grew over the period.
Microsoft intends to close its instant message chat tool Windows Live Messenger and replaces it with Skype’s messaging tool
“When a company has competing products that can result in cannibalization it’s often better to focus on a single one,” said Brian Blau from the consultancy Gartner.
“Skype’s top-up services offer the chance to monetize its users and Microsoft is also looking towards opportunities in the living room.
“Messenger doesn’t seem like an appropriate communications platform for TVs or the firm’s Xbox console – but Skype does.”
He also noted that the firm had opted to integrate Skype into its new Windows Phone 8 smartphone software, eclipsing the effort to integrate WLM into the message threads of the operating system’ previous version.
To ease the changeover, Microsoft is offering a tool to migrate WLM messenger contacts over.
The risk is that the move encourages users to switch instead to rival platforms such as WhatsApp Messenger, AIM or Google Talk.
But Microsoft is at least partially protected by its tie-up with Facebook last year. Skype video calls are now offered as an extra to the social network’s own instant messaging tool.
Sienna Miller decided to take the plunge a la Demi Moore and show off her baby bump and the rest of her pregnant body in a portrait by acclaimed artist Jonathan Yeo.
In July, just weeks before the birth of her daughter Marlowe, the actress decided to sit for the British artist for a series of portraits which are due to be exhibited in (I’ve Got You) Under My Skin at the Circle Culture Gallery in Berlin.
Showing off her completely naked body, Sienna Miller, 30, is painted in gold and shows the star with her hands on her arched back, pushing out her prominent bump.
Just like stars including Demi, Jerry Hall and Kate Moss, Sienna Miller has chosen to show the world her pregnant body in all its glory.
Sienna Miller decided to take the plunge a la Demi Moore and show off her baby bump and the rest of her pregnant body in a portrait by acclaimed artist Jonathan Yeo
Sienna Miller met the high profile contemporary artist, who’s painted the likes of Tony Blair, Nicole Kidman and Prince Phillip, eight years ago in Los Angeles.
The pair struck up a friendship and since then the star has posed for a series of portraits for him.
Jonathan Yeo’s striking portrait, which is shown alongside paintings of plastic surgery, was created to confront society’s reactions to the naked female form.
“I wanted an image that epitomized the human body in its most naturally beautiful state to make the sharpest possible contrast with my other paintings in this exhibition, which document patients undergoing cosmetic surgery in a bid to help them conform to societal notions of beauty,” Jonathan Yeo writes in the exhibition catalogue.
“It has been 22 years since a pregnant Demi Moore caused uproar by posing for Annie Leibovitz on the cover of Vanity Fair. In that time society has become almost completely desensitized to the daily exposure to people who have surgically distorted their appearance for artificial reasons,” he continues.
“Yet certain sections of society are still uncomfortable with the appearance of pregnancy.”
The artist admits that Sienna Miller was the obvious choice to showcase what natural beauty really is:
“The power of the painting partly lies in the fact that Sienna is widely regarded as being one of the most naturally beautiful actresses in the world as well as being a fashion icon to a generation of girls. It is a tribute to her courage and self-confidence that she agreed to sit for this,” he adds in the catalogue.
Few weeks ago U.S. researchers finally discovered why we like to combine sharp, acrid tastes with fatty flavors: a fry-up with a pot of tea; steak with red wine; and cheese with pickle.
Researchers at Rutgers University in New York asked volunteers to drink tea or water in between bites of a fatty meat such as salami.
Results showed the tea helped counter the fatty feeling left in the mouth by the meat.
“The way foods make our mouths feel has a great effect on what we choose to eat,” says Professor Paul Breslin, an oral biologist at Rutger.
It seems the contrast between fatty and sharp, acrid tastes allows us to eat fatty foods more easily – astringent food and drink reduce saliva, drying the mouth and cancelling out the greasy feeling created by fatty ones.
This, in turn, creates a clean feeling.
“This natural tendency for seeking balance in our mouths might have benefits for maintaining a diversity of foods in our diet,” says Prof. Paul Breslin.
It might also be good for our oral health, as it stops our mouths becoming too lubricated.
“This is necessary to keep our teeth from wearing down and our oral tissues healthy,” adds Prof. Paul Breslin.
Taste is an incredibly important and sometimes complicated, sense, playing a huge role in our enjoyment of life, says Shahzada Ahmed, a consultant ear, nose and throat surgeon at Queen Elizabeth Hospital and BMI The Priory Hospital, Birmingham.
Taste is the combination of different chemical signals on the tongue: sweet, sour, bitter, salty and umami (savory).
These are picked up by tastebuds – up to 10,000 of them.
Contrary to popular belief, they aren’t the lumps you see on your tongue – those are papillae.
The tastebuds are on or around the papillae.
Each bud contains 100 or so receptor cells, which respond to the taste chemicals and send impulses to the brain.
We reveal the latest revelations about how taste works, and how it affects your health . . .
The reason you hate healthy veg
Up to a quarter of us are what’s known as supertasters.
They have more tastebuds – more than 10,000 rather than the average 2,000. As a result they taste food far more intensely.
This can be a bonus. Many chefs and wine tasters are supertasters, able to differentiate flavor more readily than the rest of us.
But you can be too sensitive for your own good.
Nutrient-rich but bitter vegetables such as broccoli, cabbage and Brussels sprouts can be unpalatable.
To find out if you’re a supertaster, there’s an easy test. Punch a hole in the corner of a piece of card before putting a few drops of blue food coloring on your tongue.
Next, place the card on the front of your tongue and press gently.
“With a magnifying glass and mirror, count the papillae – these won’t pick up the dye, so will appear as pink dots against the blue,” says Shahzada Ahmed.
“If you have 35 or more, you may be a supertaster.”
Overweight? Blame dulled tastebuds
German researchers revealed last month that obese children have a less sensitive sense of taste than children of normal weight.
A study published in the Archives Of Disease In Childhood observed 99 obese children and 94 of normal weight aged between six and 18.
It found that obese children found it significantly more difficult to tell one taste sensation from another, and to identify the taste correctly.
“We are still unsure why this may occur and whether obesity causes a dulled sense of taste or if they have this to begin with, but having a dulled sense of taste probably means the children need increasing amounts of food and flavour to give them stimulation,” says Shahzada Ahmed.
There are tastebuds in your tummy, too
Taste cells aren’t found only on your tongue – they’re everywhere, from the roof of your mouth to your stomach and intestine.
Those in the mouth help us make those instant judgments about what we should be eating, while those in the gut ensure the digestive system is prepared for what happens next.
“If you were to eat something bitter and potentially toxic, gut cells would sound an alarm to slow down absorption or encourage you to be sick,” says Shahzada Ahmed.
And if you ate something sweet, these taste cells may then ensure the body boosts your insulin levels to cope with the extra sugar.
The tongue tip is more sensitive to sour tastes
For years, people thought we tasted different flavors on different parts of the tongue.
The so-called “tongue map” put sweet flavors at the tip, bitter at the back, and salty and sour at the sides.
This was based on misguided science from a century ago, says George Murty, a consultant ear, nose and throat specialist at University Hospital Leicester.
“However, studies do suggest that some parts of the tongue may be more sensitive to specific flavors,” he says.
A Japanese study found women were more sensitive to sourness on the tongue tip, and to salty and bitter tastes on the soft palate (the fleshy part at the back of the mouth).
Both sexes were less sensitive to a sour taste on the soft palate than the tongue tip.
It is thought hormones may play a role: poisons are bitter or sour, and a woman needs to be sensitive to harmful toxins, particularly when trying to get pregnant or when carrying a baby.
Ear infections can damage taste for good
It is well known that colds affect taste.
This is because 90% of the flavor of food comes from our sense of smell (particles of food are breathed into the nose, hitting sensory cells that send an electric signal to the brain).
If the nose is blocked, this is affected.
But ear infections, too, can cause problems.
“Repeated middle ear infections such as glue ear can affect the ability to taste,” says Shahzada Ahmed.
“This is because ear infections can damage the taste nerve, which runs up from the tongue right through the middle ear and into the brain.
“This damage can intensify the sensation of the texture of fatty foods, and as a result these people may put on weight.”
Other illnesses linked to a loss of taste include Sjogren’s Syndrome, an auto-immune condition that affects up to 4% of adults and causes the immune system to attack glands that secrete fluid, such as the saliva glands.
An underactive thyroid can also cause problems, possibly because the thyroid hormone helps maintain the health of the lining of the taste nerves.
Fortunately, hormone replacement tablets will help reverse any problems.
“Liver disease and kidney failure can also damage your sense of taste,” says Dr. George Murty.
These organs rid the body of toxins. If they stop functioning poisons can build up, affecting the tongue lining and nerves.
Why fatty foods are so moreish?
Who can stop at just one or two chips? Now scientists think they know why this is so.
University of California researchers discovered that when rats tasted something fatty, cells in their upper gut started producing endocannabinoids – marijuana-like chemicals that give a natural high.
Interestingly, the study showed sugars and proteins do not have the same effect.
Fats may be the only foodstuff to produce these chemicals because of evolution.
“Fats are the ultimate energy source,” says Carl Philpott, a consultant ear, nose and throat surgeon and rhinologist at James Paget University Hospital, Norfolk.
“So when we needed to survive long, cold winters, that was the type of food we needed to stock up on.”
Could your heart pills ruin the taste of food?
A number of drugs can interfere with our sense of taste. Anti-depressants can block taste messages reaching the brain, says Dr. George Murty.
Beta-blockers, taken for heart conditions and high blood pressure, can also cause problems.
These block the transmission of nerve impulses that cause blood vessels to narrow and the heart to beat faster, but they can also affect other nerves, including receptor nerves on the tongue.
Chemotherapy can also cause total loss of taste or alter it, so everything seems bitter, salty or metallic.
This is because chemo drugs target cells with a fast turnover rate. This includes tastebuds cells (and smell receptor cells).
However, normal taste generally returns within a couple of months of stopping chemo.
Good taste starts with your mother
What you like to eat might not be such a personal choice after all.
Certain foodstuffs – garlic and vanilla, for instance – have been shown to enter the womb through the amniotic fluid, giving the baby a preference for those foods after birth, says Carl Philpott.
Genes, too, play a part.
A study at Kings College, London compared the diets of 3,000 female twins with non-identical twins. Identical twins were found to share far more preferences, such as weaknesses for coffee, garlic or fruit and vegetables.
“This suggests genetics play a moderate part in the development of preferred foods,” says Professor Jane Wardle, who led the study.
It is possible that genes involved with taste, or the reward chemicals released by the brain in response to certain foods, play a role.
Marmite – you can make yourself love it!
It is possible to train yourself to like certain tastes – particularly important with children (who tend to default to sweet tastes when young, primarily because the growing body is programmed to go for high-energy food).
A lot of the time it’s simply psychological, taking cues from others. Try eating with people who enjoy your dreaded food type.
“Bringing out the sweetness of foods can also make them more palatable,” says Shahzada Ahmed.
“Roasting bitter broccoli will draw out its natural sugars.”
Finally, teaming it with something fatty – say cauliflower with a cheesy sauce – can also help.
“Fatty foods trigger receptors in the stomach that produce feel-good chemicals,” says Shahzada Ahmed.
Superman’s home planet, Krypton, has been pinpointed by an influential astrophysicist hired by DC Comics.
The fictional planet Krypton would have orbited a red dwarf star called LHS 2520, says Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of the American Museum of Natural History’s Hayden Planetarium in New York City.
As reported by SPACE.com senior writer Mike Wall, the star is 27.1 light-years from Earth in the southern constellation Corvus, also known as “The Crow”, says Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson. The star is cooler and smaller than our sun.
The coordinates of LHS 2520 are:
Right Ascension: 12 hours, 10 minutes, 5.77 seconds
Declination: -15 degrees, 4 minutes, 17.9 seconds
Proper Motion: 0.76 arcseconds per year, along 172.94 degrees from due north
Superman’s home planet, Krypton, has been pinpointed by an influential astrophysicist hired by DC Comics
“This is a major milestone in the Superman mythos that gives our super hero a place in the universe,” DC Entertainment co-publisher Dan DiDio said in a company statement.
“Having Neil deGrasse Tyson in the book was one thing, but by applying real-world science to this story he has forever changed Superman’s place in history,” he said.
“Now fans will be able to look up at the night’s sky and say, <<That’s where Superman was born>>.”
The planetary details will be encompassed in a new Superman book titled Star Light, Star Bright, which comes out on Wednesday.
Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson, who has a history of applying science to entertainment, will appear in the comic, aiding Superman on his adventure.
In real life, Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson made headlines in April after getting film director, James Cameron, to alter the night’s sky as seen in The Titanic due to inaccuracies. The correction was made and can be seen in the re-release of Titanic 3-D.
Staten Island residents were guided to a polling site in the dark this morning by flares as problems mounted for New York voters across the city struggling with power outages caused by Hurricane Sandy.
With hundreds of temporary polling places in operation across the battered East Coast, voters in the Midland Beach neighborhood of Staten Island lined in pitch black to cast their ballots in outdoor tents as police officers stood guard.
In Rockaway Park in Queens, voting was reportedly delayed because of a loss of power and in New Jersey tens of thousands of e-mail voters were thrown into panic after they were told they had to send in hard copies of their ballots as well – with no exceptions.
Across the East Coast problems were compounded by near freezing temperatures early this morning at temporary polling stations and New York’s MTA said it was providing free ‘voter shuttles’ today for people in the Rockaways, Staten Island and Coney Island whose normal polling stations were destroyed or damaged in last week’s storm.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg urged city residents to check the Board of Elections website to discover any polling changes as government officials struggled to ensure that everyone who wants to vote can.
“Vote. It is our most precious right,” said Michael Bloomberg on election eve.
However, with the myriad of problems presenting residents with barriers to vote, some are simply not bothering.
“We’ve got too many concerns that go beyond the national scene,” said Staten Island resident Paul Hoppe – who lost his home in last week’s massive storm which claimed over 100 lives across the nation.
Staten Island residents were guided to a polling site in the dark this morning by flares as problems mounted for New York voters across the city struggling with power outages caused by Hurricane Sandy
Across New Jersey almost 100 polling stations across the state are without power as the Lieutenant Governor performed a U-turn last night and said that the state does need email voters to submit hard copies of their ballots by mail immediately.
The move which allowed no exceptions for victims of Sandy caused massive confusion, as earlier in the day Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno had told county-level officials to accept e-mailed ballots until 8:00 p.m. on Tuesday.
However, the security risks inherent in voting remotely was deemed a danger that could compromise the result and the Lt. Gov was forced to issue new advice to beleaguered voters across the state who are keen to vote.
The confusing about-turn was designed to relieve the damage caused by flooding and winds from Hurricane Sandy, which has made hundred of polling locations unavailable nationwide.
However, voting experts were unanimous that her advice was incorrect: “You must have a paper ballot backup,” said Penny Venetis, a professor at Rutgers University School of Law in Newark.
“Voters’ e-mails can be modified or interfered with – without their knowledge – coming into the county election computers,” said Andrew Appel to NJ.Com, a computer science professor at Princeton University.
“E-mail voting is completely untrustworthy and insecure unless it’s backed up by paper ballots that a voter signs and sends in.”
Larry Norden, a voting-rights advocate for New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice, said the email option wouldn’t be viable for voters still without power.
“My biggest concern about all this is confusion. These places need to take statewide action to make sure people who have been displaced know there is some way they can vote,” said Larry Norden.
Meanwhile, problems for voters not affected by Sandy began to mount during the early morning.
Voting machine problems have caused delays and long lines at one polling station in a heavily populated Indianapolis suburb.
Hamilton County residents had to wait nearly 30 minutes to vote at Hamilton Southeastern High School in Fishers because voting machines weren’t operating when that polling site opened Tuesday.
WTHR-TV reports that by the time the problem was fixed a half-hour later the school’s gym was filled with voters and the line spilled out the door.
The heavily Republican county north of Indianapolis saw other polling station problems, but those were quickly fixed.
Hamilton County Election Administrator Kathy Richardson says cards used to clear tallies from machines before voting begins were improperly programmed. Some 500 machines in about 150 polling places had to be reset once those cards were reprogrammed.
Because of the turbulent counting process and new regulations about proper ballot submissions, there is a distinct possibility that the country will not know the next president for days or weeks after they cast their votes.
A half-dozen problems are at the top of the list for political analysts, who are zoning in on new voter identification requirements and provisional ballot measures in a number of states as two legal issues.
The hurricane may play a role in any potential battle over a close popular vote, as would any machine malfunction issues that inevitably arise every election.
The final two problem areas come from a group of civilians from a subset of the Tea Party who are intent on serving as extra minders at polling stations to look out for fraud, and the onslaught of lawsuits that has already begun in Florida over the deadline for early voting.
Echoes of the mess created in Florida back in 2000 are already flashing before pundits’ eyes as the Democratic Party filed lawsuits calling for an extension of the early voting deadline because of excessive lines this weekend.
Though the early voting period officially ended on Saturday, the Democrats challenged- and were quickly rebuked by- Republican governor Rick Scott by demanding the deadline was extended.
The lawsuits were rejected, and now the focus turns solely to Tuesday.
Nissan has slashed its full-year profit forecast by 20% after car sales slumped in China amid anti-Japanese protests.
The Japanese carmaker now expects a net profit of 320 billion yen ($4 billion) for the year ending March 2013, down from an earlier estimate of 400 billion yen.
Nissan says car sales plunged 35% in China in September.
A territorial dispute between Japan and China over islands in the East China Sea has led consumers in China to boycott Japanese products.
Among Japanese carmakers, Nissan has been hardest hit by the anti-Japan sentiment.
Koji Endo, automotive analyst with Advanced Research Japan, said that close to 30% of Nissan’s vehicle sales come from China. By way of comparison, rival Toyota relies on China for about 10% of its global sales.
The company trimmed its 2012 China sales forecast to 1.175 million vehicles from a previous 1.35 million.
Nissan has slashed its full-year profit forecast by 20 percent after car sales slumped in China amid anti-Japanese protests
However, chief operating officer Toshiyuki Shiga said the company remains committed to China with no major changes in its long-term growth plans.
He did say, though, that it will assess future investments cautiously.
“We are gradually seeing signs of recovery [in China]. Customers are gradually coming back to dealerships,” Toshiyuki Shiga told reporters on Tuesday.
He said visitors to the company’s China dealerships were back to around 80% of pre-dispute levels, and orders were running at about 70%.
Nissan’s fortunes contrasted sharply with German carmaker BMW, which announced a record pre-tax profit of 2 billion euros ($2.5 billion) in the third quarter, thanks largely to booming sales in Asia.
The world’s largest luxury carmaker saw sales in China and Japan rise by 33% and 21.5% respectively in the nine months to the end of September.
Nissan said its setback in China was somewhat countered by growth in sales elsewhere, however, including in the US, Indonesia and India in the July-to-September quarter.
The company posted a net profit of 106 billion yen, an almost 8% rise compared with the same period last year.
Koji Endo said he remained optimistic about Nissan’s overall growth as the US market “seems to be very strong” for Nissan, and other Asian countries could also make up the shortfall in China.
“Asia is another very strong market especially in Thailand and Indonesia, Nissan seems to be aggressively investing in Thailand, so hopefully in the future, any weakness in the Chinese market can be offset by Thailand, Indonesia as well as in the US,” said Koji Endo.
Insano, the world’s tallest water slide, is towering over the Brazilian landscape at a whopping 41 metres high, it is the equivalent of a 14-storey building.
Insano has been listed in the Guinness Book of World Records and brave riders plummet down the slide at a nerve-shredding speed, reaching around 65 miles an hour.
The plunge is so steep that although riders travel 41 metres, the whole ride takes just four or five seconds.
The Brazilian beach park website describes the Insano as the most extreme equipment of this type of the planet.
Constructed in 1989, the thrill ride attracts dare devils from all over the world.
Martha Carolina, who works at the beach park, said: “I’m a Brazilian and I work at the water park – it’s funny to watch the tourists start panicking and sometimes they really start crying. Normally they’re all Europeans, Germans, Russians and French.”
One rider commented: “When you slide down, you basically fly because the fall is too steep so you’re in mid-air for most of it.”
Insano, the world’s tallest water slide, is towering over the Brazilian landscape at a whopping 41 metres high, it is the equivalent of a 14-storey building
For safety reasons Insano only allows travel in a single position – on your back with arms and legs crossed. However with such hair-raising speeds it is hard to imagine this would be a problem for most as it is unlikely many would want to plunge down head first.
Insano can be found in Fortaleza, Brazil, and for those not distracted by the significant drop below it offers great views of the Atlantic Ocean from the top.
Snooki and her castmates came together to spearhead the fundraising efforts to rebuild the Hurricane Sandy devastated Jersey Shore.
Snooki led the way on Monday morning when she made an early start on Good Morning America to appeal for funds.
And it was a success, with charitable fans donating $7 million. Thrilled Snooki tweeted: “Wow GMA raises 7 million! Thank you everyone for calling in!!!”
As a resident of the area Snooki has been busy tweeting to her many followers with appeals to help.
Snooki has also been updating them about her own situation, tweeting: “Back in jersey! Hope our power comes back this week!!”
Buildings were knocked down, roads swept away, the historic boardwalk partially destroyed, and a piece of the iconic Star Jet rollercoaster was left hanging into the ocean after the storm hit Sunset Height a week ago.
Snooki and her castmates came together to spearhead the fundraising efforts to rebuild the Hurricane Sandy devastated Jersey Shore
On November 15th, Snooki will appear alongside her former Jersey Shore castmates in a one-hour fundraising special.
The program will be broadcast from MTV’s Times Square studio in New York.
The network said on Monday that the program will solicit contributions for the rebuilding of Seaside Heights, the heart of the Jersey Shore and the principal setting for the Jersey Shore series.
For this effort, MTV will be partnering with Architecture for Humanity, a nonprofit organization that provides design and construction services to communities in need. Seaside Heights was among numerous coastal areas devastated by Sandy last week.
Snooki tweeted: “MTV, Arch For Humanity and I are coming together to help re-build Seaside stronger than ever. Join us November 15 on MTV.”
