Watson returns as Ryder Cup captain

NEW YORK (AP) — The Americans are bringing back Tom Watson as Ryder Cup captain with hopes of ending two decades of defeats in Europe.

"We're just really tired of losing Ryder Cup," PGA of America President Ted Bishop said Thursday during a news conference at the Empire State Building.

Watson faces a tall order.

The Americans have lost seven of the last nine Ryder Cups and have not won away from home since 1993, when Watson was the captain at The Belfry in England. They are coming off a staggering loss this year at Medinah, where Europe strung together a remarkable rally from a 10-6 deficit going into the final day to win by one point.

Watson is the first repeat captain for the U.S. team since Jack Nicklaus in 1987, when the Ryder Cup was played on his home course of Muirfield Village in Ohio. Watson, one of the most respected figures in golf worldwide, becomes the seventh U.S. captain to get more than one shot.

His selection received an immediate endorsement from Tiger Woods, whom Watson has strongly criticized because of Woods' behavior.

"I'd like to congratulate Tom Watson on his selection as Ryder Cup captain," Woods said in a statement. "I think he's a really good choice. Tom knows what it takes to win, and that's our ultimate goal. I hope I have the privilege of joining him on the 2014 United States Team."

Watson had said Woods needs to "clean up his act" in the months after Woods' personal life fell apart after being caught in multiple extramarital affairs, though the Stanford alums have never been particularly close.

Watson went out of his way Thursday to praise Woods as "the best player maybe in the history of the game."

"My relationship with Tiger is fine," he said. "Whatever has been said before is water under the bridge. No issues."

Watson breaks the PGA of America's prototype in a big way. The eight-time major champion will be 65 when the 2014 Ryder Cup is played at Gleneagles in Scotland, making him the oldest captain in Ryder Cup history. Sam Snead was 57 when he was captain in 1969, and the oldest European captain was John Jacobs (56) in 1981.

Watson has not been back to the Ryder Cup since that '93 victory at The Belfry, though he sounded as if he couldn't wait to get started.

The PGA of America first contacted him more than a year ago about the job, Watson, with that familiar gap-tooth grin, replied: "Boy, I've been waiting for this call for a long time."

The matches will be played in Scotland, contributing to Watson's selection. As much as he is beloved around the world for his timeless game, epic duels with Nicklaus and graciousness in any outcome, the Scots consider him one of their own. Watson won his first major at Carnoustie in 1975 when he quickly understood how to play links golf. He won five British Open titles, the most of any American, with four of those in Scotland.

He nearly made it six claret jugs three years ago, when at 59, he came within an 8-foot par putt on the last hole from winning at Turnberry. Watson missed the putt, and then lost to Stewart Cink in a playoff.

The ovation he heard that week in Turnberry might be different at Gleneagles.

"They're going to be cheering against me," he said during a brief appearance on the "Today" show to announce his captaincy.

The PGA of America broke from its model of taking former major champions in their late 40s who still play the PGA Tour and are in touch with the players. Watson last played a full schedule in 1998, though the PGA of America had to wonder if perhaps the young captains were too close to the players.

As for the pressure of bringing back the Ryder Cup?

"This responsibility is a challenge," Watson said. "But I've been there before, and I love it."

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AP Golf Writer Doug Ferguson contributed to this report.

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World’s Population Living Longer, New Report Suggests

A sharp decline in deaths from malnutrition and diseases like measles and tuberculosis has caused a shift in global mortality patterns over the past 20 years, according to a new report, with far more of the world’s population now living into old age and dying from diseases more associated with rich countries, like cancer and heart disease.

The shift reflects improvements in sanitation, medical services and access to food throughout the developing world, as well as the success of broad public health efforts like vaccine programs. The results are dramatic: infant mortality has declined by more than half between 1990 and 2010, and malnutrition, the No. 1 risk factor for death and years of life lost in 1990, has fallen to No. 8.

At the same time, chronic diseases like cancer now account for about two out of every three deaths worldwide, up from just over half in 1990. Eight million people died of cancer in 2010, 38 percent more than in 1990. Diabetes claimed 1.3 million lives in 2010, double the number in 1990.

But while developing countries made big strides – the average age of death in Brazil and Paraguay, for example, jumped to 63 in 2010, up from 28 in 1970 – the United States stagnated. American women registered the smallest gains in life expectancy of all high-income countries between 1990 and 2010. The two years of life they gained was less than in Cyprus, where women gained 2.3 years of life and Canada, where women gained 2.4 years. The slow increase caused American women to fall to 36th place in the report’s global ranking of life expectancy, down from 22nd in 1990.

“It’s alarming just how little progress there has been for women in the United States,” said Christopher Murray, director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, a health research organizationfinanced by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation at the University of Washington that coordinated the report. Rising rates of obesity among American women and the legacy of smoking, a habit women in this country formed later than men, are among the factors contributing to the stagnation, he said.

The World Health Organization issued a statement Thursday saying that some of the estimates in the report differ substantially from those done by United Nations agencies, though others are similar. All comprehensive estimates of global mortality rely heavily on statistical modeling because only 34 countries – representing about 15 percent of the world’s population – produce quality cause-of-death data.

Health experts from more than 300 institutions contributed to the report, which measured disease and mortality for populations in more than 180 countries. It was published Thursday in the Lancet, a British health publication.

The one exception to the trend was sub-Saharan Africa, where infectious diseases, childhood illnesses and maternal causes of death still account for about 70 percent of all illness. In contrast, they account for just one-third in South Asia, and less than a fifth in all other regions. Sub-Saharan Africa also lagged in mortality gains, with the average age of death there rising by fewer than 10 years from 1970 to 2010, compared to a more than 25-year increase in Latin America, Asia and North Africa.

The change means that people are living longer, an outcome that public health experts praised. But it also raises troubling questions. Behavior affects people’s risks of developing noncommunicable diseases like cancer, heart disease and diabetes, and public health experts say it is far harder to get people to change their ways than to administer a vaccine that protects children from an infectious disease like measles.

“Adult mortality is a much harder task for the public health systems in the world,” said Colin Mathers, a senior scientist at the World Health Organization in Geneva. “It’s not something that medical services can address as easily.”

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European Leaders Hail Accord on Banking Supervision

BRUSSELS — European Union leaders gathering here Thursday for their year-end summit meeting hailed an agreement to place euro zone banks under a single supervisor, calling it a concrete measure to maintain the viability of the currency as well as a step in laying the groundwork for a broader economic union.

Pool photograph by Michael Euler

Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, and François Hollande, the French president, conferring on Thursday at a summit meeting of European leaders. "It's a good day for Europe," Mr. Hollande said.

The pact was hashed out in an all-night session of finance ministers that ended Thursday morning after France and Germany made significant compromises. Under the agreement, between 100 and 200 large banks in the euro zone will fall under the direct supervision of the European Central Bank.

A round of talks a week earlier broke up amid French-German discord over how many banks in the currency union should be covered by the new system.

In a concession to Germany, the finance ministers agreed that thousands of smaller banks would be primarily overseen by national regulators. But to satisfy the French, who wanted all euro zone banks to be held accountable, the E.C.B. would be able to take over supervision of any bank in the region at any time.

The agreement by the finance ministers, which still requires the approval of the European Parliament and some national parliaments including the German Bundestag, made it possible for E.U. leaders arriving here later Thursday to gather in a spirit unity.

“It’s a good day for Europe,” said François Hollande, the French president. “The crisis came from the banks, and mechanisms have been put in place that will mean nothing is as it was before.”

Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, said the agreement was “a big step toward more trust and confidence in the euro zone.” The summit meeting could now focus “on strengthening economic coordination” and “set out a road map for the coming months,” she added.

In another measure to shore up the euro, the finance ministers approved the release of nearly €50 billion, or $65 billion, in further aid to Greece, including long-delayed payments, support that is crucial for the government to avoid defaulting on its debts.

“Today is not only a new day for Greece, it is indeed a new day for Europe,” Antonis Samaras, the Greek prime minister, said ahead of the summit meeting.

But threatening to spoil the upbeat atmosphere were questions over the future leadership of Italy, where the economy is contracting, debt levels are rising, and Silvio Berlusconi, the former prime minister, has threatened to try to reclaim the office in an election next year.

It remained unclear Thursday whether Mr. Berlusconi would run and, if that were to happen, whether he would campaign on promises to reverse reforms put in place by Mario Monti, the current prime minister. Even so, the re-emergence of Mr. Berlusconi — who attended a summit meeting of center-right parties in Brussels on Thursday — could destabilize markets and even rekindle the financial crisis.

The bank supervision plan was first discussed in June and wrapped up in a matter of months — record time by the glacial standards of E.U. rulemaking. The agreement should serve as a springboard for leaders to weigh further steps toward economic integration during their meeting.

Such measures could include a unified system, and perhaps shared euro area resources, to ensure failing banks are closed in an orderly fashion. This could be followed, in time, by measures intended to reinforce economic and monetary union, including, possibly, the creation of a shared fund that could be used to shore up the economies of vulnerable members of the euro zone.

Mario Draghi, the president of the European Central Bank, said the agreement on banking supervision “marks an important step towards a stable economic and monetary union, and toward further European integration.” But he noted that governments and the European Commission still had to work on the details of the supervision mechanism.

The new system should be fully operational by March 2014, but ministers left the door open for the E.C.B. to push that date back if the central bank would “not be ready for exercising in full its tasks.”

A series of compromises were needed for finance ministers to reach agreement on banking supervision.

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AP PHOTOS: Top 10 Search Trends of 2012

NEW YORK (AP) — From the tragic to the downright silly, millions of people searched the Web in 2012 to find out about a royal princess, the latest iPad, a record-breaking skydiver and the death of a pop star.

Google released its 12th annual “zeitgeist” report on Wednesday. The company calls it “an in-depth look at the spirit of the times as seen through the billions of searches on Google over the past year.”

Here’s an Associated Press photo gallery of the top ten trending searches of 2012.

Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Assad Fires Scud Missiles at Rebels, U.S. Says, Escalating War in Syria

Narciso Contreras/Associated Press

Free Syrian Army fighters with two bodies they found in the rubble during clashes with government forces in Aleppo on Monday.

WASHINGTON — Syrian forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad have fired Scud missiles at rebel fighters in recent days, Obama administration officials said on Wednesday.

 The move represents a significant escalation in the fighting, which has already killed more than 40,000 civilians in a nearly two-year-old conflict that has threatened to destabilize the Middle East, and suggests increased desperation on the part of the Assad government. A fresh wave of mayhem struck the Syrian capital Damascus on Wednesday, reports from the region said, including a deadly triple bombing outside the Interior Ministry. One American official, who asked not to be identified because he was discussing classified information, said that missiles had been fired from the Damascus area at targets in northern Syria.

 “The total is number is probably north of six now,” said another American official, adding that the targets were in areas controlled by the Free Syrian Army, the main armed insurgent group.

It is not clear how many casualties resulted from the attacks by the Scuds — a class of Soviet-era missiles with a range of nearly 200 miles, made famous by Saddam Hussein of Iraq during the first Persian Gulf war when he lobbed them at Israel. But it appeared to be the first time that the Assad government had fired the missiles at targets inside Syria.

American officials did not say how they had monitored the missile firings, but American intelligence has been closely following developments in Syria through aerial surveillance and other methods, partly out of concern that Mr. Assad may resort to the use of chemical weapons in the conflict.

The Obama administration views the Assad government’s use of Scud missiles as a “significant escalation” of the conflict, said a senior official. It also shows, he said, the increasing pressure on Mr. Assad, since Scuds are primarily defensive weapons, being used by the government offensively against a counterinsurgency.

 “Using Scuds to target tanks or military bases is one thing,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “Using them to target rebels hiding in playgrounds at schools is something else.”

Among other repercussions the Obama administration fears is the possibility that Mr. Assad’s military could fire Scuds near, or over, the border with Turkey, which has become one of the Syrian president’s most ardent foes.

Military experts said the Assad government’s use of Scuds might reflect worries that its aircraft have been vulnerable to rebel air defenses. In recent weeks, rebel forces have captured Syrian military bases, seized air-defense weapons and used some of them to fire at Syria warplanes. But one expert said that the government may have decided to use large missiles in order to wipe out military bases — and the arsenals they hold — that had been taken over by the opposition.

 The Obama administration has yet to comment publicly on the missile attacks, but a senior administration official alluded to the development in a briefing for reporters on Tuesday.

 “The Syrian regime has used aircraft,” the administration official said. “It has used artillery, and it appears that it has even used missile to attack the Syrian population and to attack what was a peaceful protest movement.”

There have been other indications of Syrian government use of missiles. The Local Coordinating Committees, an antigovernment activist network in Syria, reported from its Damascus office in an e-mail late Tuesday that “Regime forces are firing land missiles that are capable of carrying chemical warheads.” The group did not elaborate on what the missiles were or where the information had originated.

 The developments came as representatives of more than 100 countries and organizations that support the anti-Assad movement met in Morocco and endorsed a newly formed insurgent coalition as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people. President Obama formally acknowledged that coalition, known as the National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, in an interview on Tuesday with ABC News.

But the leader of the coalition took issue with a decision by the Obama administration to classify Al Nusra Front — one of several armed groups fighting Mr. Assad — as a foreign terrorist organization and urged the United States to review that decision.

The coalition leader, Sheik Ahmad Moaz al-Khatib, said, “The logic under which we consider one of the parts that fights against the Assad regime is a terrorist organization is a logic one must reconsider.”

Reporting was contributed by Mark Landler from Washington; Aida Alami from Marrakesh, Morocco; Alan Cowell from London; Anne Barnard, Hwaida Saad and Hania Mourtada from Beirut, Lebanon, and Hala Droubi from Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

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Lawmaker: NFL players 'trying to back out' on HGH

WASHINGTON (AP) — A congressman accused the NFL Players Association of "trying to back out" of an agreement to start testing for human growth hormone in pro football.

Speaking at a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing about the science behind the testing, Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the panel's ranking Democrat, noted Wednesday that nearly two full NFL seasons have passed since the league and the players' union signed a labor deal in August 2011 that set the stage for adding HGH to the sport's drug program.

The NFLPA won't concede the validity of a test that's used by Olympic sports and Major League Baseball, and the sides haven't been able to agree on a scientist to help resolve that impasse. HGH is a banned substance that is hard to detect and used by athletes for what are believed to be a variety of benefits, whether real or only perceived — such as increasing speed or improving vision.

"They say they need more time ... before doing what they agreed to do. To me, it seems obvious the Players Association is simply running out the clock," Cummings said in his opening statement. "Although they agreed to HGH testing, they are now trying to back out of the contract."

Cummings and committee chairman Darrell Issa, a California Republican, both said additional hearings are expected.

"It is our hope (to) move these parties closer together," Issa said.

Issa also said there could be a connection between head injuries in football and the use of HGH, "based in part on the strength of the players hitting each other."

The committee did not ask anyone from the league or union to testify Wednesday. Witnesses included Pro Football Hall of Fame member Dick Butkus, U.S. Anti-Doping Agency Chief Science Officer Larry Bowers, and National Institutes of Health Deputy Director Lawrence Tabak.

Bowers told the committee "there is a broad consensus among scientific experts who regularly work in the growth hormone field" that the test is reliable and valid, and that "the chances of an athlete who has not used synthetic growth hormone testing positive are comparable to the chance of that same athlete being struck by lightning during his or her lifetime."

He closed by saying: "I would like to point out that the only people who are still questioning the methodology and validity of the ... test are lawyers, not scientists."

Tabak said many studies vouch for the reliability of HGH testing, even though the naturally occurring hormone and the artificial form are tough to tell apart.

He also pointed out the "serious risks" to athletes who give themselves HGH.

Even once scientific issues are resolved, there will be other matters the league and union need to figure out, including who administers the test and what the appeals process will be. The latter could be of particular import in the aftermath of the decision in the New Orleans Saints' bounty case Tuesday, when NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell's suspensions of four players were tossed aside by former Commissioner Paul Tagliabue.

The collective bargaining agreement that ended the NFL lockout 16 months ago included a provision for HGH testing — but only once the NFLPA approved the process.

"First, I applaud the NFL and players for taking a bold and decisive position on HGH in their 10-year agreement. Now let's get on with it," Butkus told the committee. "The HGH testing process is proven to be reliable. It's time to send a clear message that performance-enhancing drugs have no place in sports, especially the NFL."

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Connect with Howard Fendrich on Twitter at http://twitter.com/HowardFendrich

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Online: http://pro32.ap.org/poll and http://twitter.com/AP_NFL

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Health Centers Find Opportunity in Brownfields

PHILADELPHIA — The community health center rising on a derelict corner here in West Philadelphia never would have broken ground if not for the asbestos inside the building that was demolished to make way for it. Because of the contamination, Spectrum Health Services received a $2 million federal cleanup grant, the first piece of a $14 million construction financing puzzle.

When complete, the 36,000-square-foot building will provide a new home for a health center that has been squeezed into a deteriorating strip mall nearby for decades. It will also be the latest in a nationwide trend to replace contaminated tracts in distressed neighborhoods with health centers, in essence taking a potential source of health problems for a community and turning it into a place for health care. In recent years, health care facilities have been built on cleaned-up sites in Florida, Colorado, New Hampshire, Minnesota, Oregon and California.

“These health care providers are getting good at it,” said Elizabeth Schilling, policy manager for Smart Growth America, an advocacy group. “They have internalized the idea that this is an opportunity for them.”

Because these sites are contaminated, many qualify for government tax credits and grants, providing health centers with vital seed money to build. Community health centers, by design, exist to serve populations in poor neighborhoods, where there also tend to be available but contaminated properties like old gas stations, repair shops and industrial sites.

In fact, many of the country’s 450,000 contaminated sites, known as brownfields, are in poor neighborhoods, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. These tracts are disproportionately concentrated in poor communities because contaminated sites are more difficult to redevelop if property values are depressed. Banks are often reluctant to finance construction on a property that might require a costly cleanup.

“In communities where the real estate market isn’t working that well, you end up with a brownfield,” said Jody Kass, executive director of New Partners for Community Revitalization, a brownfield advocacy group.

“It’s a Catch-22,” said Phyllis B. Cater, chief executive of Spectrum Health Services. “The environmental issues are significant and yet there are scarce resources for communities to do the cleanup and remediation that’s required.”

But if the state or federal government provides the first piece of financing, other funders are more likely to fall into step.

Community health centers, in particular, are under pressure to grow. By 2015, the number of Americans who rely on community health centers for care is expected to double to 40 million from the 20 million who relied on the centers in 2010, according to the National Association of Community Health Centers. The Affordable Care Act allocated $11 billion to expand these centers. Of that, $1.5 billion was allotted to construction.

But finding a viable site is not always easy. It took Spectrum 15 years to find its new home on Haverford Avenue. The original building, an aging medical office, went up for auction in 2007 after the owner was arrested on a tax evasion charge. Spectrum bought the property for $650,000. Ms. Cater speculated that if Spectrum hadn’t bought the site, it most likely would have fallen into disrepair like the decaying row houses and the dilapidated bodega across the street that Spectrum hopes to redevelop eventually.

Spectrum currently occupies 10,000 square feet in a rundown strip mall four blocks away. The center is divided among three crowded spaces, so employees must walk outside to get from the medical offices to the billing department. The treatment rooms are dreary and cramped, with holes in the drywall and collapsing ceiling panels.

“I’ve seen better centers in rural Mississippi. This is not how you support a community,” Ms. Cater said.

When it opens next summer, the new, three-story center will have 34 exam rooms, eight dental rooms, a spacious community center and a full-service laboratory. It will also employ twice as many people as the current facility, adding 66 jobs to Spectrum’s payroll.

The 50-year-old building was in poor shape, but it was the presence of asbestos that allowed Spectrum to qualify for the critical first piece of financing: a $2 million brownfield redevelopment grant from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development. The organization also received an additional $2 million H.U.D. loan that was tied to the brownfield grant, a $1.7 million redevelopment grant from Pennsylvania and $3.45 million in other loans.

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Avon Products to Cut 1,500 Jobs and Leave 2 Markets

NEW YORK (AP) — Avon Products plans to cut about 1,500 jobs and exit two Asian markets, as the struggling beauty products seller starts on a broad restructuring plan in an effort to turn around results.

The job cuts amount to almost 4 percent of its workforce and mark one of the first major moves by CEO Sheri McCoy. McCoy was brought on in April to replace longtime CEO Andrea Jung at Avon, a direct seller of beauty products like Skin So Soft lotion and Mark cosmetics.

Avon said the job cuts span all regions and functions. The 1,500 cuts include 100 employees in Vietnam and South Korea, which Avon will exit entirely.

Avon said in November that it would embark on a plan to save $400 million in three years, but the jobs cuts and market exits are the first details about the plan. The restructuring follows moves other consumer product makers have made this year to cut costs and exit businesses as they face an uncertain global economy.

"The decisions outlined today are necessary to stabilize the company and begin the process of returning Avon to sustainable growth," McCoy said in a statement late Tuesday.

The New York-based direct beauty products seller said it plans to focus on high-priority markets as part of the push to save $400 million. The initial steps are expected to be largely completed by the end of next year.

Citi Investment Research analyst Wendy Nicholson said the job cuts aren't surprising and she expects there will be more.

"New Avon management has said several times that they consider their overhead costs to be excessive, and that they are keenly focused on boosting the productivity of their selling, general and administrative spending," said Nicholson, who rates Avon "Buy," in a note to investors.

The exit from South Korea and Vietnam are also good moves, she said.

"While each of these markets are unprofitable and small, we like that Avon is making some hard choices about where to play," Nicholson said.

Avon has struggled this year to improve its performance after suffering through declining sales, a bribery investigation and other problems. In addition to hiring a new CEO, the company has tried to cut costs and focus on improving sales in international markets.

A growing number of consumer product makers are exiting businesses and cutting costs to deal with slowing growth in North America and China and the weak European economy.

Procter & Gamble announced a $10 billion cost cutting plan in February, including cutting more than 10 percent of its non manufacturing jobs. In November, Kimberly Clark said it is exiting its European diaper business, and Colgate said it will cut 6 percent of its workforce

Pre-tax costs related to Avon's moves are expected to total between $80 million and $90 million. Avon will take a charge of between $50 million and $60 million in the fourth quarter tied to the cost-cutting. It said initial steps will account for about 20 percent of its savings goal.

As of last Dec. 31, the company employed about 40,600 people including about 5,400 in the U.S. and 35,200 in other countries.

Last month, Avon reported an 81 percent drop in third-quarter net income, hurt by a stronger dollar and a hefty impairment charge. Its adjusted loss also fell short of Wall Street expectations. At that time, the company slashed its quarterly dividend to 6 cents from 23 cents.

Meanwhile, Avon still faces long-running bribery investigations. The problems began in 2008, when it started to investigate possible bribery in China related to travel, entertainment and other expenses, and soon widened the probe to other countries, with the Securities and Exchange Commission and Justice Department getting involved.

In September, the SEC decided it wouldn't recommend any action against the company over whether Avon contacted analysts inappropriately during a separate bribery investigation. But Avon still faces wider probes about possible bribery in China and other countries.

Founded in 1886, Avon became a fixture in households across the United States as its legions of "Avon ladies" went door to door selling makeup to family, friends and acquaintances.

Today, the company markets to women in more than 100 countries via 6 million independent sellers.

Shares fell 14 cents, or 1 percent, to close at $14.33 Wednesday. Shares have ranged from a 52-week low of $13.70 in mid-November to a high of $23.58 in mid-April.

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Obama election tweet most repeated but Olympics tops on Twitter

(Reuters) – An election victory tweet from President Barack Obama — “Four more years” with a picture of him hugging his wife — was the most retweeted ever, but the U.S. election was topped by the Olympics as the most tweeted event this year.

Obama’s tweet was retweeted (repeated) more than 810,000 times, Twitter said as it published a list of the most tweeted events in 2012. (http://2012.twitter.com/)

“Within hours, that Tweet simultaneously became the most retweeted of 2012, and the most retweeted ever. In fact, retweets of that simple message came from people in more than 200 countries around the world,” Twitter spokeswoman Rachael Horwitz said.

Twitter users were busiest during the final vote count for the presidential elections, sending 327,452 tweets per minute on election night on their way to a tally of 31 million election tweets for the day.

The 2012 Olympic Games in London had the most overall tweets of any event, with 150 million sent over the 16 days.

Usain Bolt’s golden win in the 200 meters topped 80,000 tweets per minute but he did not achieve the highest Olympic peak on Twitter. That was seen during the closing ceremony when 115,000 tweets per minute were sent as 1990s British pop band the Spice Girls performed.

Syria, where a bloody civil war still plays out, was the most talked about country in 2012 but sports and pop culture dominated the tally of tweets.

Behind Obama was pop star Justin Bieber. His tweet, “RIP Avalanna. i love you” sent when a six-year-old fan died from a rare form of brain cancer, was retweeted more than 220,000 times.

Third most repeated in 2012 was a profanity-laced tweet from Green Bay Packers NFL player TJ Lang, when he blasted a controversial call by a substitute referee officiating during a referee dispute. That was retweeted 98,000 times.

This was the third year running that the microblogging site published its top Twitter trends, offering a barometer to assess the biggest events in social media.

Superstorm Sandy, which slammed the densely populated U.S. East Coast in late October, killing more than 100 people, flooding wide areas and knocking out power for millions, attracted more than 20 million tweets between October 27 and November 1.

European football made the list of top tweets when Spain’s Juan Mata scored as his side downed Italy 4-0 in the Euro 2012 final — sparking 267,200 tweets a minute.

News of pop star Whitney Houston‘s death in February generated more than 10 million tweets, peaking at 73,662 per minute.

Romantic comedy “Think Like a Man” was the most tweeted movie this year, topping “The Hunger Games”, “The Avengers” and “The Dark Knight Rises.”

Rapper Rick Ross who notched his fourth No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 chart this year, was the most talked about music artist.

(Editing by Rodney Joyce)

Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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The Female Factor: Hillary Dominates 2016 Chatter in Washington

NEW YORK — Even before President Barack Obama’s Election Day victory last month, one name kept popping up in political circles, cable news programs, blogs, opinion columns and newspaper articles: Hillary Clinton — Hillary Clinton in 2016.

Speculation about Mrs. Clinton’s presidential prospects is feeding political talk in Washington’s power centers, in global capitals, and among American women and progressives of all genders.

But the Hillary boom is not a U.S. phenomenon alone.

Women around the world are likely to see a Clinton presidency as a major breakthrough. Globally, women’s status has improved since 2008, when Mrs. Clinton sought the Democratic nomination.

“It is very hard to overstate the impact that a Hillary Clinton presidency would have in fundamentally altering expectations for women around the world,” said Steven Clemons, an expert on international affairs and senior fellow at the New America Foundation.

Sure, we have superimportant female leaders like Angela Merkel, the chancellor of Germany, Christine Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, and President Dilma Rousseff of Brazil. But none of them has Mrs. Clinton’s stature.

“Her winning the presidency would be seismic,” said Mr. Clemons, who is also the Washington editor at large of The Atlantic, “and could trigger a global tsunami that would dislodge and upend the male-dominating social, political and economic structures around the world.”

Clearly, Mrs. Clinton’s election would “have monumental impact,” Laura A. Liswood, the secretary general of the Council of Women World Leaders, a policy program of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, said by telephone from Washington.

Mrs. Clinton is already a global figure, Ms. Liswood said. “She has already brought a gender perspective to world affairs. With the presidency, she becomes even bigger,” Ms. Liswood noted.

As president, Mrs. Clinton could hit a 9 on the 1-to-10 scale in domestic policy, Ms. Liswood suggested. “She’s already a 9 on the gender scale.” That puts her ahead, in Ms. Liswood’s view, of Margaret Thatcher, who was certainly a major force on domestic and international policy but did not have a sizable impact on women’s advancement.

What’s more, Ms. Liswood says, Mrs. Clinton, as secretary of state, has built a reservoir of trust with a number of world leaders. “In addition, she’s gained the trust of a number of senators from both parties, which is really important to be a successful leader.”

Other female executives with global experience emphasize the need for women at the top.

Beth A. Brooke, the global vice chairwoman for public policy at Ernst & Young, said in an e-mail, “Secretary Clinton is one of the world’s greatest leaders on the issue of empowering women. Having her in the U.S. presidency would be inspiring to women from all reaches of the world.” She pointed at the need for more women in all types of leadership positions to give more balance to the diversity of perspectives facing some global economic challenges.

“Women in top leadership — be it the U.S. presidency or on boards or at the helm of multiglobal corporations — is critical,” said Deborah M. Soon, senior vice president for global strategy at Catalyst, a nonpartisan and nonprofit international organization centered on women in business.

All this talk may be irresistible to a woman who has devoted her life and career to solving tough social and international issues, who has set the pace for the advancement of women and children around the world, who has traveled farther and more widely than any previous secretary of state (just under 1 million miles, or more than 1.5 million kilometers, since 2009).

After more than 30 years in the public arena, how could she turn her back on the opportunity to crack the ceiling she sought to smash in 2008? How can she refuse the chance to finally break through and do even bigger things as president of the United States?

Mr. Clemons put it this way: “Her tenure at the State Department has been marked by bringing nontraditional issues like women’s rights, water, poverty, disease and more into classic national security discussions. Her presidency would consolidate serious treatment of these issues and make them a core part of American diplomacy and development.”

Publicly she wards off such talk, saying in Ireland on Friday, “I’m right now too focused on what I’m doing to complete all the work we have ahead of us before I do step down.”

Political experts and pundits alike say that she will run. “Every Democrat I know says, ‘God, I hope she runs. We don’t need a primary,”’ the former Bill Clinton campaign strategist James Carville said on Sunday on the public affairs program “This Week,” on ABC.

A former Republican presidential candidate and House speaker, Newt Gingrich of Georgia, didn’t mince words on “Meet the Press,” on NBC. A contest against Hillary Clinton, he said, would be like the Super Bowl. “The Republican Party today is incapable of competing at that level,” he said.

It is nearly impossible to believe that after all that, she will not reach up one more time. Her tenure at State is ending, but this is hardly the finish line of Mrs. Clinton’s public life. On the contrary, she has new heights to scale, ascending to unquestioned leader of the world’s women, and galvanizing them.

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