NEW YORK - An estimated 41.3 million people saw “The Hurt Locker” top the popular “Avatar” for best picture in the most-watched Academy Awards telecast since 2005.

Oscar viewership was up 14 percent over last year, the Nielsen Co. said Monday, keeping with a trend of bigger audiences for major events on broadcast television a month after the Super Bowl set the mark for most-watched telecast ever.

In true film fashion, the Oscars built to a big climax when the Iraqi war thriller “The Hurt Locker” and its director, Kathryn Bigelow, topped “Avatar,” directed by her ex-husband James Cameron. Bigelow was the first woman to win the Oscar for best director.

The audience was up from the 36.3 million who saw “Slumdog Millionaire” win best picture last year and 32 million — Oscar’s smallest audience on record — in 2008, Nielsen said. The Oscars had just over 42 million watch in 2005, when “Million Dollar Baby” was the big winner.

The Oscar ratings fall in line with bigger audiences for awards shows in recent months. The Golden Globes were up 14 percent over the year before, and the performance-heavy Grammys up 36 percent, Nielsen said. The Emmys, the Tonys and the Miss America pageant all saw higher ratings.

Analysts say fewer chances for Americans to gather in front of the television set for communal events may help make these events more popular. With a poor economy, more people are staying home, too. The Internet may also help draw viewers; experts say many people are online while the shows are on, and they comment about them to friends.

Ratings for the New York market appeared unaffected by a business dispute between Cablevision and ABC’s parent, Walt Disney Co.

ABC had been dropped by Cablevision for its 3.1 million subscribers in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut on Sunday, and the network was not restored until 13 minutes after the Academy Awards telecast began.

Still, New York ranked No. 13 among among the 56 biggest media markets in the country, Nielsen said. New York’s overnight rating was 11 percent above the average for all of the big markets.

Source (article): MSNBC

Source (picture): AMERICANSUPERMAG

NORWOOD, Pa. - As the high-speed Acela train came thundering down the rails, a teenage girl screamed at her friends to get off the tracks.

But Gina Gentile and Vanessa Dorwart did not move. They hugged as the train bore down on them at speeds up to 110 mph, carrying out a suicide pact that the witness herself had backed out of only moments before.

The loss has shaken Norwood and its neighboring towns just outside Philadelphia. There were hints the pretty and popular high school sophomores may have been suffering from depression, but experts say such suicide pacts are extremely uncommon — especially among teens

Pacts are made because suicide is so daunting — and they are broken for the same reason, said Thomas Joiner, a psychology professor at Florida State University.

“This is a deeply fearsome thing,” Joiner said. “We’re not wired for it; our bodies will recoil from it.”

As close as sisters
Gee and Ness, or Gee-Gee and Nessa, were funny, outgoing and as close as sisters, said classmates at Interboro High School in Prospect Park.

Dorwart’s obituary describes a teen with “a wonderful, caring personality, amazing blue eyes and a pretty smile.” The second of five children, she had played youth soccer and softball and was a former Girl Scout. She would have turned 16 on Wednesday.

Gentile, whose father died a few years ago, was one of six children. The 16-year-old didn’t judge her friends, always thought of others first and “was never one to worry about herself,” said Patricia Roeder, a junior at Interboro.

But Gentile had been hard hit by the recent death of her boyfriend, who was killed by a car while riding his bike. And Dorwart’s parents say their daughter seemed withdrawn from family events and had talked of seeing a school counselor, even as she planned her upcoming Sweet 16.

On the snowy morning of Feb. 25, police say Gentile and a friend cut class with the intention of killing themselves. They walked the two blocks to the Norwood regional rail station, where Dorwart — who had stayed home that day — met up with them.

As the train barreled its way south from Boston to Washington, Gentile heard the whistle and stepped on the tracks. Dorwart ran to join her, even as the third girl reneged and implored them to stop.

Text messages between Dorwart and the witness seem to confirm this was no accident, police said. The Delaware County medical examiner agreed, ruling the deaths suicides.

Underlying problems
But Kimberly Dorwart, Vanessa’s mother, finds that hard to accept.

“I know she wanted to live,” Dorwart told the Delaware County Daily Times. “I know my daughter did not leave here with the intention of being hit by a train.”

The Associated Press was unable to contact the Dorwarts; Gentile’s relatives have requested privacy.

About 1 percent of suicides result from pacts, most of which are between older, partnered adults who have endured a recent hardship, said Brian Daly, an assistant professor of public health at Temple University.

Experts say suicide clusters — single occurrences that happen closely together — are more common in adolescents. Last year, the city of Palo Alto, Calif., was sent reeling by four teen suicides-by-train in less than six months. Two suicidal students from Manasquan High School in New Jersey were fatally hit by trains within two months in 2008.

Media reports that romanticize or sensationalize suicide can encourage copycats, said Dr. Paula Clayton, medical director of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. At the same time, she said, suicides should not be covered up.

“It’s a fine line,” Clayton said.

She noted nearly all suicides stem from underlying psychological problems such as depression. Nationwide, about 4,400 people between the ages of 10 and 24 kill themselves annually, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

‘It just breaks your heart’
Pat Carr, who sells train tickets at the Norwood station, is grateful she wasn’t working the day of the suicides. And as the grandmother of two Interboro students, Carr was taken aback at the loss.

“It just breaks your heart, my God,” Carr said Monday. “They’re so young.”

Later that day, teens gathered to grieve outside the ticket office at an impromptu shrine of candles, balloons, stuffed animals and flowers. Some brought homemade posters of Dorwart and Gentile, covered with photos and messages.

A few feet away, Roeder sat next to a pair of crosses overlooking the tracks. She said no one will ever understand what took place that morning.

“What happened here is going to stay here,” Roeder said. “You’re never going to know.”

As she spoke, Roeder slowly became surrounded by a group of students who began to share their feelings as well.

Then a train hammered by — WHOOSHWHOOSHWHOOSHWHOOSH! — and the teens fell into an uncomfortable silence.

That was like a slap in the face, said one.

No, said Roeder, that’s just life moving on.

source [article] MSNBC

source [picture] wanderlustandlipstick

SAN BERNARDO, Chile - The Desarmes family left their native Haiti two weeks after the devastating Jan. 12 earthquake, joining the eldest son in Chile for what seemed a refuge from the fear and chaos of Port-au-Prince.

Their sense of security lasted barely a month. It was shattered at 3:43 a.m. Saturday when one of the most powerful quakes on record shook a swath of Chile.

All the Desarmes’ immediate family survived both quakes. But twice cursed, the family now sleeps in the garden of a home that the eldest son, Pierre Desarmes, found for them just south of the Chilean capital of Santiago. They fear yet another temblor will strike.

“I left my country and came here because of an earthquake,” Seraphin Philomene, a 21-year-old student and cousin of Desarmes, said Wednesday. “And here, the same thing!”

“My God, I left my country and I didn’t die, but I’m going to die here!”

Pierre Desarmes, 34, managed to get his family out of Haiti thanks to personal contacts at the Chilean Embassy in Port-au-Prince and the Chilean armed forces. Nine members of his family — his parents, two brothers and their families, and three cousins — arrived in Santiago on a Chilean air force plane Jan. 23.

Desarmes, the lead singer of a popular Haitian reggaeton band in Chile, still gets choked up when he recalls seeing his family for the first time stepping off the plane.

“I saw them but I didn’t believe it. I said, ‘My God, they’re here.’ It was a very difficult moment,” he said, speaking in French in the garden of the house the family now calls home.

“Each time I think about it, I get sad, because I realize I was able to do this because I was here. But there are so many people who are there and I don’t know what’s going to happen to them.”

Deeply unsettled
His relatives had to leave Haiti with only hours’ notice, receiving instructions on where to go via cell phone text messages from a relative in the United States who was in contact with Desarmes in Santiago. Philomene didn’t even have time to pack, dashing to the Chilean Embassy when she received word the family had been cleared to fly out.

Saturday’s earthquake has made a difficult transition even more traumatic.

“When the aftershocks come, they refuse to stay in the house,” Desarmes said, sipping a Coke at a table in the garden, his relatives sitting nearby.

“I have to talk to them all day long telling them: ‘There are no problems, it’s a country that’s prepared for earthquakes, it’ll pass, it’s not so bad.’ But they don’t hear me. Psychologically for them, they’re still really affected by it.”

Desarmes’ brother, Stanley Desarmes, 32, is deeply unsettled. The father of a 2-year-old girl, Nelia, who plays in the yard, he worries for his family’s safety and is thinking about uprooting them again to move somewhere with less danger of earthquakes.

“I don’t know what I can do, but staying isn’t possible,” he said. “I could die and I could lose my family. I have to leave. I don’t know where, I don’t know how. But I don’t want to die with my family here.”

Philomene, his cousin, plans to stay, hoping to bring the rest of her family to Chile. She was the only member of her immediate family to get out because she was living with the Desarmes in the Haitian capital to finish her studies. Her mother, father, two sisters and a brother are still in Cap-Haitien, a town in northern Haiti about 90 miles from the capital.

“I’ve had no news from them,” she said, choking up.

‘God is looking out for us’
Reached late Wednesday by The Associated Press in Cap-Haitien, Philomene’s father, Luigene Philomene, was elated at the news that his daughter was safe. He said he hadn’t heard from her since before Chile’s earthquake and had been trying to reach relatives in Port-au-Prince for an update.

The elder Philomene said when he heard that his daughter had been in the Chile earthquake he thought of a Haitian saying that loosely translates as “we saved her from the river and she ended up in the sea.” Now he feels she has divine protection and the 43-year-old said he would eagerly join his daughter in South America if he could.

“God is looking for out for us,” he said. “Our family didn’t die in Haiti so they aren’t going to die in Chile either.”

Francius Pierre, a cousin of Seraphin’s in Port-au-Prince, had already learned from a brother that his relatives in Chile survived. Pierre, a university student who injured his knee in the Haitian quake, said Seraphin and his other relatives moved from Haiti for safety.

“If they knew something like this could happen again they never would have gone,” he said.

Source (article): MSNBC

Source (picture): BAHAMASLOCAL, DAILYMAIL

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - Tiger Woods is back at home after a week of family counseling in Arizona and is trying to get into a routine that includes golf and fitness, a person with knowledge of his schedule said Tuesday.

Woods returned to his home near Orlando on Saturday and has been hitting balls on the range at Isleworth, not far from where he ran his SUV into a tree in a middle-of-the-night accident on Nov. 27 that set off revelations of his extramarital affairs.

The person, who spoke on condition of anonymity because only Woods is authorized to release information about his schedule, said there is still no timetable for golf’s No. 1 player to return to competition.

Woods was photographed hitting golf balls at Isleworth on Feb. 18, the day before he ended nearly three months of silence by speaking to a small group of associates in a 13 1/2-minute statement that was televised around the world. Those photos of Woods were arranged to counter the paparazzi trying to follow his every move since Thanksgiving.

Woods has not practiced in earnest since winning the Australian Masters in Melbourne on Nov. 15 for his 82nd victory worldwide.

News of him getting back into a routine is sure to begin speculation when he might return to the PGA Tour. Woods announced on Dec. 4 that he was taking an “indefinite break” to try to salvage his marriage.

“I do plan to return to golf one day, I just don’t know when that day will be,” Woods said Feb. 19 in his statement at Sawgrass. “I don’t rule out that it will be this year.”

Woods said he was leaving the next day for more therapy, without saying what kind. The person who spoke to The Associated Press said he went to Arizona for a week of family and marriage counseling with his wife, Elin.

Woods said at Sawgrass of his infidelity, “As Elin pointed out to me, my real apology to her will not come in the form of words; it will come from my behavior over time. We have a lot to discuss; however, what we say to each other will remain between the two of us.”

Woods is not likely to play next week in the World Golf Championship at Doral, where he has won three times.

His next possibility on the PGA Tour is the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill, where he is the defending champion and a six-time winner. The Masters, which Woods has played every year since 1995, would follow. Augusta National officials have not indicated whether they expect Woods to compete.

“When he does come back, I hope it’s in the Masters, and I hope he’s in great form,” Masters champion Angel Cabrera said Tuesday on a conference call.

The fallout from Woods’ sex scandal has been immense. He already has had three sponsors drop him - Accenture, AT&T and, most recently, Gatorade - while other companies like Gillette have suspended promotions of Woods while he takes his break from golf.

When he does return, he will have a different logo on his golf bag, replacing AT&T, if he can find a deal.

Source (article): MSNBC

Source (picture): KVOA

SANTIAGO, Chile - A massive magnitude-8.8 earthquake struck Chile early Saturday, killing at least 85 people, triggering a tsunami and damaging buildings more than 200 miles away.

President Michelle Bachelet declared a “state of catastrophe”.

At least 23 aftershocks were reported, including one registering at 6.9 on the Richter scale.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the earthquake struck 56 miles northeast of the city of Concepcion at a depth of 22 miles at 3:34 a.m. (1:34 a.m. ET).

Jessica Sigala, a geophysicist with the USGS told NBC News that the quake released 500 times more energy than the than the one that hit Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on January 12. The quake was felt in Buenos Aires, Argentina, which is located more than 800 miles away.

Tsunami warnings were issued over a wide area, including Hawaii, South America, Australia and New Zealand, Japan, the Philippines, Russia and many Pacific islands.

NBC station KNHL reported that the first tsunami wave was expected to reach Hawaii’s coastline at 11:19 a.m. local time (4:19 p.m. ET). It warned that “urgent action should be taken to protect lives and property.”

Giant wave
Reuters reported that a tsunami caused by the quake caused “serious damage” to Chile’s sparsely populated Juan Fernández Islands. Citing local police, CNN reported that the islands had been hit by a 40-meter (131-foot) wave.

Bachelet, the country’s president, urged people to stay calm. She told Reuters that 85 deaths had been confirmed.

Edmundo Perez Yoma, the interior minister, warned the death toll “will continue rising.”

An Associated Press Television News cameraman said some buildings collapsed in the capital Santiago, which lies about 200 miles north of the epicenter.

In the moments after the quake, people streamed onto the streets of the capital, hugging each other and crying.

Jen Ross, a journalist based in Santiago, told NBC’s TODAY that she felt “three minutes of shaking”.

Broadcaster TVN reported that several hospitals had suffered structural damage and were being evacuated.

‘It’s like the end of the world’
“Never in my life have I experienced a quake like this, it’s like the end of the world,” one man told local television from the city of Temuco, where the quake damaged buildings.

Simon Shalders, who lives in Santiago, told Sky News: “There was a lot of movement. The houses were really shaking, walls were moving backwards and forwards, and doors were swinging open.

“Santiago has got a history of earthquakes and basically there’s not a lot of old construction in Santiago because of these earthquakes.

“The new buildings in Santiago are designed to withstand fairly strong quakes and they probably held up pretty well.”

There were blackouts in parts of Santiago and communications were still down in the area closest to the epicenter.

Santiago resident Leo Perioto told CNN that “windows were wobbling a lot” in his six-story building.

“The whole building was shaking,” he added. “We could feel the walls moving from side to side.”

An earthquake of magnitude 8 or over can cause “tremendous damage,” the USGS said. The quake that devastated Port-au-Prince on January 12 was rated magnitude 7.0.

‘Threat to more distant coasts’
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said the Chile quake generated a tsunami that may have been destructive along the coast near the epicenter “and could also be a threat to more distant coasts.”

According to a 2002 census, Concepcion is one of the largest cities in Chile with a population of around 670,000.

In 1960, Chile was hit by the world’s biggest earthquake since records dating back to 1900.

The 9.5 magnitude quake devastated the south-central city of Valdivia, killing 1,655 people and sending a tsunami which battered Easter Island 2,300 miles off Chile’s Pacific seaboard and continued as far as Hawaii, Japan and the Philippines.