Strauss-Kahn, maid don't have deal yet: lawyers

NEW YORK: Lawyers for Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the disgraced former IMF chief, shot down reports Friday that he was ready to pay $6 million to a Manhattan maid accusing him of sexual assault -- but confirmed that he was negotiating.

In a statement seeking to dampen media speculation over an out-of-court settlement of the maid's civil suit, the lawyers stressed that Strauss-Kahn was talking, but had yet to ink a deal.

"The parties have discussed a resolution but there has been no settlement. Mr Strauss-Kahn will continue to defend the charges if no resolution can be reached," attorneys William Taylor and Amit Mehta said in a brief statement.

The attorneys repeated an earlier denial of a report in French daily Le Monde specifying that Strauss-Kahn, once seen as France's likely next president, was prepared to pay off Sofitel room cleaning lady Nafissatou Diallo.

"Media reports that Dominique Strauss-Kahn has agreed to pay $6 million to settle the civil case are flatly false," Taylor and Mehta said.

According to Le Monde, Strauss-Kahn was to raise the money by borrowing $3 million from a bank and the rest from his estranged wife, Anne Sinclair, a well-known former newsreader who inherited a fortune from her art dealer father.

Diallo's legal team did not comment, but an earlier statement from Strauss-Kahn's legal team had already called the Le Monde report "imaginary and mistaken."

The latest statement did make official that Strauss-Kahn is negotiating with Diallo to end the sordid 18-month legal saga, a development first reported late Thursday by The New York Times, quoting unidentified sources.

Until now, Strauss-Kahn's lawyers repeatedly said they would not agree to a deal, while Diallo's legal team insisted she wanted her day in court to confront her alleged abuser.

Judge Douglas McKeon, who is presiding over the civil case in New York, told AFP "there may be a court session as early as next week," but declined to comment further.

Diallo's allegation of attempted rape in May 2011 triggered a stunning fall from grace for Strauss-Kahn, who had been seen as close to announcing he would run in an upcoming French presidential election.

Criminal charges were thrown out when Manhattan prosecutors said Diallo's testimony wouldn't stand up in court. She then filed her own civil lawsuit in a Bronx court, alleging that the 63-year-old leapt on her, naked, and forced her into oral sex.

Strauss-Kahn, who says a hurried but consensual sex act took place in his luxury room, returned immediately to France after the criminal case disintegrated.

However, by then Strauss-Kahn's career was in tatters, his marriage was on the rocks and he soon faced a string of other sex-related investigations by French authorities.

In France, Strauss-Kahn will learn December 19 if he is to face further investigation into pimping charges arising from allegations that he and associates arranged sex parties with prostitutes in the northern French city of Lille.

His lawyers have filed a request for the charges to be dismissed.

French prosecutors last month dropped an investigation into Strauss-Kahn's alleged participation in a gang rape after the woman involved said she had consented and was not pressing charges.

Strauss-Kahn has also been accused by 32-year-old author Tristane Banon of trying to rape her in 2002.

French investigating magistrates questioned Strauss-Kahn and his accuser and concluded that while there appeared to be evidence of a sexual assault, the alleged attack had occurred too long ago to be prosecuted.

-AFP/ac

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Cyber Monday rings up record U.S. sales (week in review)

This year's Cyber Monday was one for the record books.

Market analyst ComScore reported that spending in the U.S. on Monday reached $1.465 billion, up 17 percent from a year ago, "representing the heaviest [U.S.] online spending day in history and the second day this season (in addition to
Black Friday) to surpass $1 billion in sales."

ComScore said that the top category for sales was digital content and subscriptions (up 28 percent), followed by consumer electronics (up 24 percent and "buoyed by gains in smartphone sales"), computer hardware (up 22 percent, boosted by
tablet sales), video games, consoles and accessories (up 18 percent) and jewelry and watches (up 17 percent).

That followed Black Friday's record online sales, which surpassed $1 billion for the first time, a 26 percent increase of last year's Black Friday.

•  Amazon: Kindle's Cyber Monday sales beat last year

More headlines

Apple launches redesigned iTunes 11 after delay

New software brings redesigned interface and new playback features. Update goes out to users after a monthlong delay.

•  iTunes 11 surprise: Apple sneaks in a gift card scanner

Blackout: Syria vanishes from Internet

An outage shuts down all Syrian access to the Web. Phone lines also appear to be down, and airlines are canceling flights.
•  Anonymous declares war on Syrian government Web sites

Commenters push Facebook policy changes to public vote

For the third time in Facebook history, the social network will put a vote about how it does business to its members. And if history is any guide, turnout will be low.

•  Privacy watchdogs aren't happy about Facebook's site changes

•  Viral post won't copyright your Facebook updates

iPad still dominates tablets, but Android grabs market share

Apple's tablets made up 55 percent of third-quarter shipments, but it lost 14 percent to
Android competitors, according to new research.

•  iPad Mini, iMac to face supply shortages, report claims

Google gets punked by fake news of ICOA acquisition

A press release on PRWeb says the search giant bought Wi-Fi technology provider ICOA for $400 million, but ICOA says the news is false.

•  PRWeb finally takes down fake Google press release


•  Did someone try to make a quick buck on ICOA this morning?

Obama opposes Silicon Valley firms on immigration reform

White House announcement before congressional vote on STEM Jobs Act puts president in opposition to many of the Silicon Valley firms and executives who bankrolled his re-election campaign.

Conservative groups dump on Pandora's royalty legislation

Citizens Against Government Waste joins the likes of artists such as Rihanna and Katy Perry in opposing the Internet Radio Fairness Act.

•  Songwriters remind Pandora: You're profiting from our songs

Samsung finds no child labor, promises fixes to supply chain

The company says that it found "several instances of inadequate practices," including excessive overtime and a fine policy for lateness or absences.

•  Samsung accused of labor violations by watchdog group

Also of note

•  Apple's new iMac line arrives

•  NASA confirms rumors about Mars discovery 'incorrect'

•  Groupon decides to keep Andrew Mason as CEO

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Pictures: Inside the World's Most Powerful Laser

Photograph courtesy Damien Jemison, LLNL

Looking like a portal to a science fiction movie, preamplifiers line a corridor at the U.S. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's National Ignition Facility (NIF).

Preamplifiers work by increasing the energy of laser beams—up to ten billion times—before these beams reach the facility's target chamber.

The project's lasers are tackling "one of physics' grand challenges"—igniting hydrogen fusion fuel in the laboratory, according to the NIF website. Nuclear fusion—the merging of the nuclei of two atoms of, say, hydrogen—can result in a tremendous amount of excess energy. Nuclear fission, by contrast, involves the splitting of atoms.

This July, California-based NIF made history by combining 192 laser beams into a record-breaking laser shot that packed over 500 trillion watts of peak power-a thousand times more power than the entire United States uses at any given instant.

"This was a quantum leap for laser technology around the world," NIF director Ed Moses said in September. But some critics of the $5 billion project wonder why the laser has yet to ignite a fusion chain reaction after three-and-a-half years in operation. Supporters counter that such groundbreaking science simply can't be rushed.

(Related: "Fusion Power a Step Closer After Giant Laser Blast.")

—Brian Handwerk

Published November 29, 2012

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Mo. Couple Wins Half of Powerball Jackpot

The lucky winners of half of the record $587.5 million Powerball jackpot have been identified as Mark and Cindy Hill of Dearborn, Mo., their working-class lives suddenly taking a turn to the financial stratosphere.

Cindy Hill, who with her husband has three adult sons and a 6-year-old daughter adopted from China, purchased the ticket at a Trex Mart gas station in Dearborn.

"I called my husband and told him, 'I think I am having a heart attack,'" Cindy Hill, 51, said, according to the Missouri Lottery. "I think we just won the lottery!"

Cindy, who worked as an office manager but was laid off in 2010, said that when she learned that a winning ticket was sold in Missouri, she dropped her daughter off at school, went to a convenience store for a winning numbers report, and checked her tickets in her car, according to the Missouri State Lottery.

"I was just telling my daughter the night before, 'Honey, that probably never happens (people winning)," Cindy said. "It's really going to be nice to spend time – not have to work – and be able to take trips with our family."

Cindy did mention that her husband has mentioned one extravagance -- a red Camaro, but today he said that he plans on keeping his same old pick-up truck.

The winning ticket was one of five Cindy purchased, for a total of $10. She let the computer quick-pick choose the numbers, according to the Missouri Lottery. As soon as she saw that she had a winning ticket, Cindy had her mother-in-law and husband double check it.

"You know it's the Show Me State, so he said, 'Show me,'" she said.

Appearing at a press conference today in Dearborn along with their three sons, aged 28, 30, 31, and their 6-year-old daughter, the Hills appeared overjoyed.

"We were blessed before we ever won this," Cindy said. "We want to go back to China, Ireland of course -- we're Irish, and wherever the win takes us."

Cindy said that she bought the winning ticket Wednesday at about 4:45 p.m.

"I stuck it in my car, and it stayed there all night," she said. "Now that I know that it was a winner I wouldn't have done that!"

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The Hills will take home $193,750,000 in lump sum payout -- which works out to $396,000 for each person in Dearborn, a town of 496.

The couple say that they will remain in Dearborn, and plan on launching a scholarship at the local high school.

Speculation began running wild in the small town when 52-year-old Hill, a factory worker, updated his Facebook account late Thursday, writing, "We are truly blessed, we are lucky winners of the Powerball."

Within hours, his family began celebrating, telling ABC News Hill is one of the two big winners.

"Just shocked. I mean, I thought we were all going to have heart attacks," Hill's mother, Shirley, said Thursday.

Hill's mother says her son and his wife have been struggling financially. Hill works in a hot dog and deli packaging factory, but it was unclear whether he showed up for work Thursday night.

"I'm very happy for him. He's worked hard in his life; well, not anymore," Hill's son Jason said. "Well, I hope we all stay very grounded, stay humble and don't forget who we are."

Missouri Lottery official Susan Goedde confirmed to ABC News Thursday that one of the winning tickets was purchased at a Trex Mart in Dearborn, about 30 miles north of Kansas City.

The winning numbers were 5, 23, 16, 22 and 29; Powerball was 6.

Hill did not respond to ABC News' requests for comment.
Meanwhile, employees and customers at Marlboro Village Exxon in Upper Marlboro, Md., said a tall, black, bald man held the winning ticket purchased in Arizona, according to ABC News affiliate WJLA-TV.

Surveillance cameras at the Upper Marlboro gas station captured the apparent winner walking into the store Thursday afternoon, digging into his chest pocket for his lottery tickets. After a few seconds of scanning the wad of tickets, the man began jumping up and down, pumping his arms.

The man gave the tickets to store manager Nagassi Ghebre, who says the six Powerball numbers were on the ticket, which the apparent winner said he bought in Arizona.

"And then he said, 'I got to get out of here,'" employee Freddie Lopez told WJLA.

But before leaving, the possible winner felt the need to check again to see whether he really had the ticket that millions of Americans dreamed of having.

"He says, 'Is this the right number? I don't know.' And I said, 'Yeah that's the numbers. You got them all,'" customer Paul Gaug told WJLA.

Employees and customers said the main stuck around for a few more seconds shouting, "I won," before leaving.

"He came back a minute later and said, 'I forgot to get my gas. What am I thinking?'" Lopez said.

The man drove out of the gas station in a black car and on a full tank of gas with a cash payout of $192.5 million coming his way.

"He said he lives in Maryland. I'm pretty sure," Gaug said.

The possible jackpot winner was wearing bright neon clothing and store employees told WJLA that he appeared to be a highway or construction worker.

Arizona lottery officials told WJLA that if the man does have the winning ticket, it needs to be redeemed within 180 days of the drawing in Arizona.

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Leaping shark scores big air, but no dinner

Flora Graham, deputy editor, newscientist.com

(Image: Dana Allen/Caters news)

Despite its spectacular leap, this great white shark is going home with an empty stomach. The seal that it has crushed in its jaws is a rubber decoy, created by the photographer, Dana Allen, to tempt it out of the sea.

The shark was pictured in False Bay, off Cape Town in South Africa. It's common for great whites to leap out of the water in this area, but it took three days of dangling his decoy for Allen to capture this perfect moment on film.

"We were getting ourselves settled, preparing for a long wait and then whoosh! In an instant the 4-metre great white shark was up and out of the water, right in front of our eyes," said Allen. "It almost seemed like slow motion and I remember seeing the eyes and the teeth as the shark leaped up."

Some shark chasers get far closer to their prey. Last year, Dorien Schröder's shark study took a twist when a 3-metre great white jumped into her boat. 

"I heard a splash behind me and turned around to see a great white hovering in the air," said Schröder of her close shark shave. Happily, despite an hour out of the water, Schröder's shark survived after being craned back into the water.

Neither close encounter of the shark kind happened by chance. Like Allen, Schröder was also attracting sharks to her boat - with fish oils. She was documenting their distinctive dorsal fins - which unfortunately make them the target of a bloody worldwide market in shark fins.

If you'd rather keep Jaws and its kin away, there are chemical shark repellents that may do the trick - although not dragging a rubber seal behind you while spreading fish oil is a good place to start. You can also read our handy guide to shark body language to ensure you appear as un-delicious as possible.

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Long hard road for Spain in recession: OECD

MADRID: Spain is engulfed in a long recession with little hope of a quick recovery and its towering unemployment rate will soar further, the OECD club of industrialised nations said Thursday.

Spain must quickly fix its banks to avert the "substantial risk" of being cut off from external financing and plunging into an even deeper recession, the body warned in a report.

"The economy is undergoing a prolonged recession," the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development said in a report, citing the 2008 global financial crisis and the bust of a Spanish housing boom.

"The prospect of an immediate recovery remains remote," the OECD said, noting that people and businesses were struggling to repay loans and the nation was stuck in a debt crisis.

OECD secretary-general Angel Gurria called for Spain's European partners to make a declaration that they would support Madrid in any bailout request, though it has staunchly resisted making such a call over recent months.

Addressing Spain's 25-percent unemployment rate, the OECD urged drastic labour market changes, on top of much-protested reforms already taken by conservative Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy that make it cheaper to fire staff.

It called for cutting compensation for unfair dismissal, considering abolishing an extension of industry-wide collective bargaining, and more training and job-search help for the young.

Gurria highlighted the level of youth unemployment -- more than 52 percent among 16 to 24-year-olds. The OECD forecast the overall jobless rate would reach 26.9 percent in 2013.

Spain's economy has been shrinking for 15 months, with output slumping 0.3 percent in the third quarter, according to official data, and the recession is expected to last right through 2013.

Spain's "immediate policy priority" is to restore trust in banks by fixing weak balance sheets, making orderly resolution of non-viable banks, and shifting bad assets into a new bad bank, the body said.

"In the short-term, there is a substantial risk that the economy, notably the banks, will remain cut off from external funding," it said.

"This would deepen the recession, especially if measures taken at the European level provide ineffective in easing tensions in interbank and sovereign markets."

Spain's banks are struggling with loans turned sour after the property crash.

Eurozone powers agreed in June to extend to Madrid an emergency rescue loan of up to 100 billion euros ($129 billion) to fix their balance sheets and reform the sector.

Now, Spain also is pondering whether to apply to the eurozone's bailout fund for a sovereign rescue, which would open the way for the European Central Bank to buy Spanish bonds and curb Madrid's borrowing costs.

"The thing we need now is to ask that Spain's European partners, given its performance, make an unequivocal declaration that in case Spain asks for support, that this support will be given," Gurria told a news conference.

The ECB's offer to make unlimited purchases of stricken states' bonds if they accept strict conditions has brought down Spain's interest rates even before Madrid decides whether to seek the help.

On another sensitive reform that has fuelled mass street protests, the OECD urged the Spanish government to broaden a hike in sales tax to more goods and services and increase tax on fuel.

The Madrid stock exchange strengthened Thursday, with the IBEX-35 index closing 1.74 higher as tensions eased over Greek debt. Banks' shares picked up after sharp losses Wednesday linked to their restructuring.

-AFP/ac

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Military judge accepts plea terms in Bradley Manning case

Bradley Manning, the U.S. Army private accused of sharing documents with WikiLeaks that were eventually released on the Internet, is now one step closer to handling some of the claims brought against him.

Military judge Colonel Denise Lind today accepted the language used to describe seven charges to which Manning could plead guilty. The charges include Manning willfully sending videos, war logs, and other classified materials to WikiLeaks.

The Associated Press was first to report on the ruling.

To be clear, Col. Lind's ruling is not an acceptance of a guilty plea. Instead, the ruling approves how the charges will be presented in the event Manning pleads guilty to them.

Earlier this month, Manning's attorney, David Coombs, said in a pre-trial hearing that his client would plead guilty to the charges brought before the court today. The attorney said at the time that "Manning is attempting to accept responsibility for offenses that are encapsulated within, or are a subset of, the charged offenses."

Last year, the U.S. military slapped Manning with 22 charges, including an offense that could carry a maximum penalty of life in prison.

According to the Associated Press, if Manning goes through with a guilty plea to the seven charges and the court accepts it, he could face a maximum of 16 years in prison. It's not clear what might happen with the remaining charges if the pleas are accepted.

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Caterpillar Fungus Has Anti-Inflammatory Properties

In the Tibetan mountains, a fungus attaches itself to a moth larva burrowed in the soil. It infects and slowly consumes its host from within, taking over its brain and making the young caterpillar move to a position from which the fungus can grow and spore again. (Learn about other fungi that invade brains.)

Sounds like something out of science fiction, right? But for ailing Chinese consumers and nomadic Tibetan harvesters, the parasite called cordyceps means hope—and big money. Chinese markets sell the "golden worm," or "Tibetan mushroom"—thought to cure everything from cancer to asthma to erectile dysfunction—for up to $50,000 per pound. Patients, following traditional medicinal practices, brew the fungal-infected caterpillar in tea or chew it raw.

Now the folk medicine is getting scientific backing. A new study published in the journal RNA finds that cordycepin, a chemical derived from the caterpillar fungus, has anti-inflammatory properties.

"Inflammation is normally a beneficial response to a wound or infection, but in diseases like asthma it happens too fast and to too high of an extent," said study co-author Cornelia H. de Moor of the University of Nottingham. "When cordycepin is present, it inhibits that response strongly."

And it does so in a way not previously seen: at the mRNA stage, where it inhibits polyadenylation. That means it stops swelling at the genetic cellular level—a novel anti-inflammatory approach that could lead to new drugs for cancer, asthma, diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, and cardiovascular-disease patients who don't respond well to current medications.

From Worm to Pill

But such new drugs may be a long way off. The science of parasitic fungi is still in its early stages, and no medicine currently available utilizes cordycepin as an anti-inflammatory. The only way a patient could gain its benefits would be by consuming wild-harvested mushrooms.

De Moor cautions against this practice. "I can't recommend taking wild-harvested medications," she says. "Each sample could have a completely different dose, and there are mushrooms where [taking] a single bite will kill you."

Today 96 percent of the world's caterpillar-fungus harvest comes from the high Tibetan Plateau and the Himalayan range. Fungi from this region belong to the subspecies Ophiocordyceps sinensis, known locally as yartsa gunbu ("summer grass, winter worm"). While highly valued in Chinese traditional medicine, these fungi have relatively low levels of cordycepin. What's more, they grow only at elevations of 10,000 to 16,500 feet (3,000 to 5,000 meters) and cannot be farmed. All of which makes yartsa gunbu costly for Chinese consumers: A single fungal-infected caterpillar can fetch $30.

Brave New Worm

Luckily for researchers, and for potential consumers, another rare species of caterpillar fungus, Cordyceps militaris, is capable of being farmed—and even cultivated to yield much higher levels of cordycepin.

De Moor says that's not likely to discourage Tibetan harvesters, many of whom make a year's salary in just weeks by finding and selling yartsa gunbu. Scientific proof of cordycepin's efficacy will only increase demand for the fungus, which could prove dangerous. "With cultivation we have a level of quality control that's missing in the wild," says de Moor.

She adds: "There is definitely some truth somewhere in certain herbal medicinal traditions, if you look hard enough. But ancient healers probably wouldn't notice a 10 percent mortality rate resulting from herbal remedies. In the scientific world, that's completely unacceptable."

If you want to be safe, she adds, "wait for the medicine."

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Petraeus Tells Friend He 'Screwed Up Royally'

One of David Petraeus' closest friends says the former CIA director admitted that he "screwed up royally" by having an affair with his biographer Paula Broadwell.

Retired Brigadier Gen. James Shelton has been friends with Petraeus for more than three decades and reached to out to him after he resigned from the CIA. Shelton told ABC News that the former four-star general wrote him a letter recently confessing to the affair.

Petraeus, 60, writes in the letter, "Team Petraeus will survive…. though [I] have obviously created enormous difficulty for us," according to Shelton.

A former spokesman for Petraeus told ABC News that fury was an inadequate description for Holly Petraeus after learning her husband of 38 years had an affair.

But in the letter, Petraeus writes that his wife is "…once again demonstrating how incredibly fortunate I was to marry her."

Shelton said he has shocked when news of the affair broke. Shelton says he has never met Broadwell but talked to her on the phone as she worked on the Petraeus biography, "All In." Broadwell thanked Shelton in the book's acknowledgments as "being wonderfully helpful."

Shelton says he found Broadwell engaging.

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"I don't think she wove a web around Dave and dragged him in, I don't think that at all. I think it was mutual," Shelton told ABC News.

The disgraced general also stuck by his decision to step down as head of the CIA, writing, "I paid the price (appropriately) and I sought to do the right thing, at the end of the day."

Neither Broadwell nor Petraeus would comment when ABC News tried to reach them overnight.

However, there are many in Washington who now wonder if Shelton's talking about this letter is the beginning of a carefully choreographed campaign by Petraeus to rehabilitate his image.

Shelton says while he was disappointed in Petraeus' actions, he thinks it was a one-time mistake.

"I believe that Dave Petraeus was that kind of guy. He wasn't looking for it, it happened," he said.

While it is unclear who may have initiated the affair, what is clear is the scope of their relationship. An FBI investigation has uncovered hundreds if not thousands of emails exchanged between the two.

The 40-year-old author was stripped of her military security clearance after a federal probe alleged she was storing classified military material at her home.

The FBI found classified material on a computer voluntarily handed over by Broadwell earlier in the investigation.

Prosecutors will now have to determine how important the classified material is before making a final decision on how to proceed. Authorities could decide to seek disciplinary action against her rather than pursue charges.

Since announcing his resignation from the CIA last month, Petraeus has kept a low profile only appearing in closed door hearings before the House and Senate intelligence committees to testify about what he learned first-hand about the Sept. 11 attack in the U.S. consulate in Benghazi.

ABC News' Mosheh Gains contributed to this report.

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Europe in 2050: a survivor's guide to climate change

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