Shhhh! A new law says TV ads can't blare anymore

NEW YORK (AP) — TV viewing could soon sound a little calmer. The CALM Act, which limits the volume of TV commercials, goes into effect on Thursday.

CALM stands for Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation. The act is designed to prevent TV commercials from blaring at louder volumes than the program content they accompany. The rules govern broadcasters as well as cable and satellite operators.

The rules are meant to protect viewers from excessively loud commercials.

The Federal Communications Commission adopted the rules a year ago, but gave the industry a one-year grace period to adopt them.

Suspected violations can be reported by the public to the FCC on its website.

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Online: www.fcc.gov

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Indianapolis to replace fleet with electric, hybrid vehicles

Indianapolis wants to become the first major city to replace its entire fleet with electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles.

Mayor Greg Ballard signed an executive order Wednesday mandating that the city replace its current sedans with electric vehicles. The city will also work with the private sector to phase in snow plows, fire trucks and other heavy vehicles that run on compressed natural gas, and it will ask automakers to develop a plug-in hybrid police car because one doesn't yet exist.

The city hopes to complete the switch by 2025.

Ballard hopes that in making the switch, Indianapolis will help the country reduce its dependence on foreign oil. City spokesman Marc Lotter said the mayor considers it an issue of national security.

"The United States' current transportation energy model, driven by oil, exacts an enormous cost financially and in terms of strategic leverage," Ballard, a retired Marine officer and Gulf War veteran, said in a statement. "Our oil dependence in some cases places the fruits of our labor into the hands of dictators united against the people of the United States."

The city fleet includes 500 non-police vehicles, and the police car switch alone has the potential to save taxpayers $10 million a year in fuel costs, the statement from the mayor's office said.

Lotter did not provide an estimate on the cost of the change. The new vehicles will be purchased as older vehicles are retired. He said the city buys about 50 non-police vehicles every year.

"We are negotiating with the automakers and several international capital fleet firms to get the best deal possible for taxpayers," Lotter said.

City officials and the U.S. Conference of Mayors have researched the issue and found that no other major U.S. city has announced it will convert its entire fleet.

"From everything we know, we are the first city in the nation to take this step," Lotter said.

The Indianapolis area has 200 charging stations, and Lotter said the city is working with private companies to develop more.

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Police Commission eases LAPD's illegal immigrant policy

The Los Angeles Police Commission on Tuesday approved a plan from Los Angeles Police Department Chief Charlie Beck to no longer turn over illegal immigrants arrested in low-level crimes to federal authorities for deportation.

The new rules, which are expected to go into effect early next month and affect about 400 people arrested each year, mark a significant move by the state's most influential local police agency to distance itself from federal immigration policies that Beck has said unfairly affects undocumented immigrants who are caught committing petty offenses.

For years, police departments have sent fingerprint information on every person arrested to Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials. Federal officials, in turn, use the fingerprints to identify people suspected of being in the country illegally and often ask local agencies to put a 48-hour hold -- a detainer in law enforcement jargon -- on people.

These detainers authorized police to keep suspected illegal immigrants in custody for 48 hours longer than they otherwise would have been held in order to give ICE officials time to take them into federal custody.

Until now, the LAPD honored all ICE detainer requests, regardless of what offense the person was suspected of committing. When Beck announced the outline of his plan in October, he said he supported the basic idea of cooperating with federal officials, but believed ICE officials had failed to distinguish between violent criminals and those accused of low-level offenses.

Under the terms of the new policy, the LAPD will continue to honor detainer requests for anyone arrested on suspicion of a felony offense, a misdemeanor charge with a bail above $5,000, or a vehicle violation with a bail of more than $2,500, according to a report presented to the commission at a meeting Tuesday. Documented gang members and people with previous felony convictions will also be detained regardless of their offense.

Otherwise, unless ICE officials can spell out special circumstances that require someone be held, the department will release people after they have been booked and ordered to appear in court for the alleged crime.

Several immigrant-rights advocates spoke out against the plan, claiming it did not do enough to protect illegal immigrants.

Commissioner John Mack called the plan "an enlightened first step," telling the critics that the policy "was not set in stone" and may be revised again in the future if police officials believe it is warranted.

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Microsoft ups Surface production, to sell in more stores

SEATTLE (Reuters) – Microsoft Corp has stepped up manufacturing of the Surface tablet, its new device designed to counter Apple Inc‘s iPad, and will introduce it to third-party retailers this week.

The moves suggest Microsoft is seeing some demand for its first own-brand computer in the crucial holiday shopping season, although it has yet to divulge any sales figures.

“The public reaction to Surface has been exciting to see,” said Panos Panay, general manager of Microsoft’s Surface project, which forms part of the company’s Windows unit.

“We’ve increased production and are expanding the ways in which customers can interact with, experience and purchase Surface,” said Panay, but gave no details of how many extra units were being produced.

Panay did not mention names of retailers that will sell the Surface, but separately office equipment retailer Staples Inc said it would stock the tablet from Wednesday.

He said the Surface would also be on sale at retailers in Australia from mid-December, with more countries to follow in the next few months.

Since launch in late October, the Surface has only been sold by Microsoft itself, in its own brick and mortar stores in the United States and Canada and online in Australia, China, France, the UK and Germany.

The only Surface model available now – officially called Surface with Windows RT – runs a version of Windows created to work on the low-power chips designed by ARM Holdings, which dominate smartphones and tablets but are incompatible with old Windows applications.

It starts at $ 499 for the 32 gigabyte version plus $ 120 for a thin cover that doubles as a keyboard.

A larger, heavier tablet – called Surface with Windows 8 Pro – will be introduced in January, running on an Intel Corp chip that works with all Microsoft’s Windows and Office applications. Microsoft plans to price the new Surface from $ 899 for a 64 gigabyte version.

The world’s largest software company also said it would keep its chain of ‘pop-up’ holiday stores open into the new year and will convert them into permanent retail outlets or what it called “specialty store locations”.

Microsoft’s recent push into physical retail – following Apple’s great success – has resulted in 31 permanent stores plus 34 holiday ‘pop-up’ stores in the U.S. and Canada.

If Microsoft converted each of the temporary stores into permanent outlets it would have 65 stores, still well below Apple with almost 400 worldwide.

(Reporting by Bill Rigby in Seattle, Sruthi Ramakrishnan in Bangalore)

Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Lawsuit claims A&E's 'Storage Wars' show is rigged

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Some of the valuables found hidden in abandoned lockers on A&E's "Storage Wars" have been added by producers to deceive viewers, a former cast member of the show claims in a lawsuit filed Tuesday.

David Hester's suit claims producers have added a BMW Mini and newspapers chronicling Elvis Presley's death to lockers in order to build drama for the show and that his complaints about the practices led to his firing.

Hester is seeking more than $750,000 in his wrongful termination, breach of contract and unfair business practices lawsuit. A&E Television Network declined comment, citing the pending lawsuit.

"Storage Wars" follows buyers who bid for abandoned storage lockers hoping to find valuables tucked inside.

"A&E regularly plants valuable items or memorabilia," the lawsuit states. Hester's suit claims he was fired from participating in the series' fourth season after expressing concerns that manipulating the storage lockers for the sake of the show was illegal.

He claims that producers stopped adding items to his units after his initial complaints but continued the practice for other series participants. The lawsuit alleges entire units have been staged and the practice may violate a federal law intended to prevent viewers from being deceived when watching a show involving intellectual skills.

"Storage Wars" depicts buyers having only a few moments to look into an abandoned unit before deciding on whether to bid on it at auction. The lawsuit claims some of the auction footage on the show is staged.

Hester, known as "The Mogul" on the show, has been buying abandoned storage units and re-selling their contents for 26 years, according to the suit.

Nielsen Co. has ranked "Storage Wars" among cable television's top-ranked shows several times since its 2010 debut.

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Rate of Childhood Obesity Falls in Several Cities

Jessica Kourkounis for The New York Times

At William H. Ziegler Elementary in Northeast Philadelphia, students are getting acquainted with vegetables and healthy snacks.

PHILADELPHIA — After decades of rising childhood obesity rates, several American cities are reporting their first declines.

The trend has emerged in big cities like New York and Los Angeles, as well as smaller places like Anchorage, Alaska, and Kearney, Neb. The state of Mississippi has also registered a drop, but only among white students.

“It’s been nothing but bad news for 30 years, so the fact that we have any good news is a big story,” said Dr. Thomas Farley, the health commissioner in New York City, which reported a 5.5 percent decline in the number of obese schoolchildren from 2007 to 2011.

The drops are small, just 5 percent here in Philadelphia and 3 percent in Los Angeles. But experts say they are significant because they offer the first indication that the obesity epidemic, one of the nation’s most intractable health problems, may actually be reversing course.

The first dips — noted in a September report by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation — were so surprising that some researchers did not believe them.

Deanna M. Hoelscher, a researcher at the University of Texas, who in 2010 recorded one of the earliest declines — among mostly poor Hispanic fourth graders in the El Paso area — did a double-take. “We reran the numbers a couple of times,” she said. “I kept saying, ‘Will you please check that again for me?’ ”

Researchers say they are not sure what is behind the declines. They may be an early sign of a national shift that is visible only in cities that routinely measure the height and weight of schoolchildren. The decline in Los Angeles, for instance, was for fifth, seventh and ninth graders — the grades that are measured each year — between 2005 and 2010. Nor is it clear whether the drops have more to do with fewer obese children entering school or currently enrolled children losing weight. But researchers note that declines occurred in cities that have had obesity reduction policies in place for a number of years.

Though obesity is now part of the national conversation, with aggressive advertising campaigns in major cities and a push by Michelle Obama, many scientists doubt that anti-obesity programs actually work. Individual efforts like one-time exercise programs have rarely produced results. Researchers say that it will take a broad set of policies applied systematically to effectively reverse the trend, a conclusion underscored by an Institute of Medicine report released in May.

Philadelphia has undertaken a broad assault on childhood obesity for years. Sugary drinks like sweetened iced tea, fruit punch and sports drinks started to disappear from school vending machines in 2004. A year later, new snack guidelines set calorie and fat limits, which reduced the size of snack foods like potato chips to single servings. By 2009, deep fryers were gone from cafeterias and whole milk had been replaced by one percent and skim.

Change has been slow. Schools made money on sugary drinks, and some set up rogue drink machines that had to be hunted down. Deep fat fryers, favored by school administrators who did not want to lose popular items like French fries, were unplugged only after Wayne T. Grasela, the head of food services for the school district, stopped buying oil to fill them.

But the message seems to be getting through, even if acting on it is daunting. Josh Monserrat, an eighth grader at John Welsh Elementary, uses words like “carbs,” and “portion size.” He is part of a student group that promotes healthy eating. He has even dressed as an orange to try to get other children to eat better. Still, he struggles with his own weight. He is 5-foot-3 but weighed nearly 200 pounds at his last doctor’s visit.

“I was thinking, ‘Wow, I’m obese for my age,’ ” said Josh, who is 13. “I set a goal for myself to lose 50 pounds.”

Nationally, about 17 percent of children under 20 are obese, or about 12.5 million people, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which defines childhood obesity as a body mass index at or above the 95th percentile for children of the same age and sex. That rate, which has tripled since 1980, has leveled off in recent years but has remained at historical highs, and public health experts warn that it could bring long-term health risks.

Obese children are more likely to be obese as adults, creating a higher risk of heart disease and stroke. The American Cancer Society says that being overweight or obese is the culprit in one of seven cancer deaths. Diabetes in children is up by a fifth since 2000, according to federal data.

“I’m deeply worried about it,” said Francis S. Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health, who added that obesity is “almost certain to result in a serious downturn in longevity based on the risks people are taking on.”

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Restaurants 2013: Sales to exceed $660 billion, challenges loom

The American restaurant industry is headed into a year full of obstacles, including health coverage costs related to "Obamacare," employee turnover, rising food costs and weak consumer spending.

Still, the National Restaurant Assn. predicts that the country’s 980,000 eateries will pull in more than $660 billion in sales in 2013 – or 3.8% more than this year’s revenue stream. If the forecast is accurate, restaurants will enjoy four consecutive years of real sales growth.

The industry will employ 13.1 million people in 2013, or 10% of the total American workforce, according to the Tuesday report. That’s a 2.4% rate of employment growth, which is slower than the 3% pace set by restaurants this year but still much higher than the overall 1.4% rate among all employers.

Over the next decade, the association expects restaurants to hire 1.3 million new employees, bringing the total foodservice workforce to 14.4 million by 2023.

QUIZ: How well do you know fast food?

But the surge in workers means a shallower labor pool. Long-running restaurant industry problems, such as the difficulty in recruiting and retaining employees, will likely be exacerbated, according to the association's  forecast.

And many restaurant owners worry that once President Obama’s healthcare reform goes into effect in 2014, their slim margins will be even more squeezed. Major eatery businesses such as Papa John’s and Olive Garden parent Darden have started fretting about the requirement to provide access to coverage for all full-time employees.

And the aftershocks of a severe summer drought will continue inflating wholesale food and beverage costs, already high after several years of increases and responsible for sucking up a third of restaurants’ sales, according to the restaurant group.

The tepid economy and continuing high unemployment still gives consumers second thoughts about their discretionary spending. Nearly half of Americans say they don’t patronize restaurants as often as they’d like.

“To be successful, restaurants need potential patrons to feel good about their economic prospects,” said Jimmy Haber, managing partner of ESquared Hospitality, which owns restaurants such as BLT Steak LA. “The fiscal cliff will bring higher taxes, uncertainty in the workplace and fears of another recession, just to name of few of the effects. The current 'feel good' index will fall, which will undoubtedly create downward pressures in restaurants and in the hospitality business as a whole.”

Eateries will also have to struggle with evolving diner preferences in 2013.

More consumers say they want table-side electronic payment options, mobile ordering systems, self-order kiosks, tablet menus and smartphone apps for reservations. Currently fewer than one in 10 restaurants have such capabilities, but more than half told the restaurant association that they’re investing in new technologies next year.

And more than seven in 10 consumers say they’re looking for more healthful and locally sourced menu items at restaurants -- a trend that even industry giants such as McDonald’s have been hustling to follow.

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Movie massacre: Defense challenges police on suspect's notebook

CENTENNIAL, Colo. -- The handling of a key piece of evidence in the Aurora movie massacre fell under scrutiny on Monday as defense attorneys raised the question of whether law enforcement officers were careless when they confiscated a notebook that might have detailed suspect James E. Holmes’ plans in advance.

An intriguing, even eerie, fact emerged about the notebook tied to the man who is accused of opening fire on a crowded theater showing a Batman movie: The notebook  has been stuffed with money that had been burned. Burned money appeared in the Batman movie "The Dark Knight."

The spiral notebook was sent by Holmes to Dr. Lynne Fenton, a University of Colorado-Denver psychiatrist, on July 19, hours before he is alleged to have unleashed an attack on a packed screening of the Batman movie “The Dark Knight Rises.” The July 20 rampage killed 12 and wounded at least 58.

Fenton counseled Holmes once on June 11, four days after he failed a key exam as a doctoral neuroscience student and one day after he began to withdraw from the university.

Public defenders in the case also sought Monday to determine who leaked details about the contents of the notebook to the press in violation of a strict gag order.

Detective Alton Reed of the Aurora Police Department testified that he “fanned” through the notebook addressed to Fenton from Holmes on July 23 in the mailroom of the Anschutz Medical Campus. However, he did not disclose the contents in court beyond saying he saw writing and money that had been burned. He also insisted he did not tell the news media about the notebook.

It is unclear what significance, if any, the burned money has to the case but there is some speculation it is tied to a scene in a previous Batman movie in which the homicidal Joker burns piles of money. Holmes has reportedly said he thought of himself as the Joker. Before the shooting Holmes had dyed his brown hair a neon orange, perhaps to evoke the Joker, though the character's hair is green.

On July 23, the Aurora police, FBI agents and the Adams County bomb squad were called to the university mailroom after employees and campus police searched for anything addressed to Fenton or Dr. Robert Feinstein, chairman of the university’s outpatient psychiatric clinic. Holmes’ public defenders had alerted Fenton the day before that a package would be arriving for her and that they wanted it back.

Although Reed said he wore protective gloves to preserve the evidence as he briefly examined the notebook, campus police Chief Douglas Abraham admitted he did not when he briefly shook the notebook to see if anything else was inside.  “I was careless,” he testified.

The defense team has been strongly critical not just of press leaks but also of the prosecution for making what the defense calls false statements about Holmes’ time at the university. Previously prosecutors have said Holmes was banned from campus after making unspecified threats to a professor. University officials immediately denied that, saying Holmes’ campus pass was deactivated as part of his withdrawal process.

Holmes was admitted to the elite neuroscience doctoral program in June 2011 but withdrew a year later. He is being held without bond.

Holmes was back in court Monday. He seemed alert as he glanced around the courtroom.

Last month a pretrial hearing was abruptly postponed after his lawyers said he had been taken to the hospital for an undisclosed reason. Local media outlets reported he had tried to bash his head against a wall in his cell.

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Behind the New Modern Seinfeld Twitter Account, Which Is Not About Nothing

Seinfeld has never left our pop culture lexicon. Just recently we’ve seen it referenced in the presidential race and in Game of Thrones parodies. But what would the seminal “show about nothing” be like if its characters could use cell phones or Facebook? The @SeinfeldToday Twitter account, which popped up Sunday evening, ventures to propose of-the-moment plots for a modern Seinfeld. For example:  

Kramer is under investigation for heavy torrenting. Jerry’s new girlfriend writes an extremely graphic blog. George discovers Banh Mi.

— Modern Seinfeld (@SeinfeldToday) December 10, 2012

The man behind the account, BuzzFeed’s sports editor Jack Moore, started tweeting out scenarios with his friend, comedian Josh Gondelman, and then decided that the joke merited its own account. Moore is a Seinfeld fanatic himself: “I’m pretty much constantly watching episodes in the background while I’m doing anything,” he told us in an email. “I have a thumb drive with the whole series on it that I keep in my bag pretty much all the time.” 

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So far, the modern-day episode summaries ring true, despite warnings from Gawker last year that classic episodes wouldn’t have worked if the characters just had the use of newfangled technology. “It would be different but not as different as everyone acts like,” Moore wrote to us. “People always say that ‘if they had cell phones Seinfeld couldn’t exist,’ which is true for a certain type of Seinfeld episode, but not as a general rule (which I think the account shows).” 

RELATED: Jon Huntsman Finds His Voice by Sounding Like a Dad on Twitter

The account makes it obvious that Internet apps and 2012 trends would create the same awkward situations that Seinfeld thrived on. For example: 

Kramer uses grinder to meet new friends, doesn’t know it’s a gay hook-up app. Jerry refuses to admit he cried on @wtfpod.

— Modern Seinfeld (@SeinfeldToday) December 10, 2012

Elaine has a bad waiter at a nice restaurant, her negative Yelp review goes viral, she gets banned. Kramer accidentally joins the Tea Party.

— Modern Seinfeld (@SeinfeldToday) December 10, 2012

George thinks his GF is faking a gluten-intolerance, feeds her real cookies, sending her to the ER. Autocorrect ruins Jerry’s relationship.

— Modern Seinfeld (@SeinfeldToday) December 10, 2012

We kind of really want to see some of these made, actually. Reunion special? 

Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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'Skyfall' launches back to top spot with $10.8M

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The James Bond blockbuster "Skyfall" has risen back to the No. 1 spot at the weekend box office, taking in $10.8 million.

That brought its domestic total to $261.4 million and its worldwide haul to a franchise record of $918 million.

The top 20 movies at U.S. and Canadian theaters Friday through Sunday, followed by distribution studio, gross, number of theater locations, average receipts per location, total gross and number of weeks in release, as compiled Monday by Hollywood.com are:

1. "Skyfall," Sony, $10,780,201, 3,401 locations, $3,170 average, $261,400,281, five weeks.

2. "Rise of the Guardians," Paramount, $10,400,618, 3,639 locations, $2,858 average, $61,774,192, three weeks.

3. "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 2," Summit, $9,156,265, 3,646 locations, $2,511 average, $268,691,029, four weeks.

4. "Lincoln," $8,916,813, 2,014 locations, $4,427 average, $97,137,447, five weeks.

5. "Life of Pi," Fox, $8,330,764, 2,946 locations, $2,828 average, $60,948,293, three weeks.

6. "Playing For Keeps," FilmDistrict, $5,750,288, 2,837 locations, $2,027 average, $5,750,288, one week.

7. "Wreck-It Ralph," Disney, $4,859,368, 2,746 locations, $1,770 average, $164,402,934, six weeks.

8. "Red Dawn," FilmDistrict, $4,236,105, 2,754 locations, $1,538 average, $37,240,920, three weeks.

9. "Flight," Paramount, $3,130,305, 2,431 locations, $1,288 average, $86,202,541, six weeks.

10. "Killing Them Softly," Weinstein Co., $2,806,901, 2,424 locations, $1,158 average, $11,830,638, two weeks.

11. "Silver Linings Playbook," Weinstein Co., $2,171,665, 371 locations, $5,854 average, $13,964,405, four weeks.

12. "Anna Karenina," Focus, $1,544,859, 422 locations, $3,661 average, $6,603,042, four weeks.

13. "The Collection," LD Entertainment, $1,487,655, 1,403 locations, $1,060 average, $5,455,328, two weeks.

14. "Argo," Warner Bros., $1,482,346, 944 locations, $1,570 average, $103,160,015, nine weeks.

15. "End of Watch," Open Road Films, $751,623, 1,259 locations, $597 average, $39,989,766, 12 weeks.

16. "Hitchcock," Fox Searchlight, $712,544, 181 locations, $3,937 average, $1,661,670, three weeks.

17. "Talaash," Reliance Big Pictures, $449,195, 161 locations, $2,790 average, $2,397,909, two weeks.

18. "Taken 2," Fox, $387,227, 430 locations, $901 average, $137,700,304, 10 weeks.

19. "Pitch Perfect," Universal, $305,765, 387 locations, $790 average, $63,517,408, 11 weeks.

20. "The Sessions," Fox, $218,973, 197 locations, $1,112 average, $4,948,342, eight weeks.

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Online:

http://www.hollywood.com

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Universal and Focus are owned by NBC Universal, a unit of Comcast Corp.; Sony, Columbia, Sony Screen Gems and Sony Pictures Classics are units of Sony Corp.; Paramount is owned by Viacom Inc.; Disney, Pixar and Marvel are owned by The Walt Disney Co.; Miramax is owned by Filmyard Holdings LLC; 20th Century Fox and Fox Searchlight are owned by News Corp.; Warner Bros. and New Line are units of Time Warner Inc.; MGM is owned by a group of former creditors including Highland Capital, Anchorage Advisors and Carl Icahn; Lionsgate is owned by Lions Gate Entertainment Corp.; IFC is owned by AMC Networks Inc.; Rogue is owned by Relativity Media LLC.

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