Voting Goes From Inalienable Right to Bragging Right

A woman I went to high school with voted for Barack Obama today. I know this because she posted a picture of her ballot to Facebook (FB). She quickly deleted it—perhaps because, according to the Citizen Media Law Project, doing so in Illinois, where she lives, is actually illegal—but not before five other people took self-portraits of themselves wearing their “I voted!” stickers. Media outlets are in on the game, too; the New York Times is soliciting readers’ stylized Instagram photos while NPR wants to know what’s on people’s election-night playlist.

Do people make election-night playlists? Then how do they listen to Wolf Blitzer? This year, voting in America has moved from an inalienable right to a bragging right. It’s the democratic equivalent of telling everyone how well you’re sticking to your diet.

Social media has changed since the 2008 election, when Sarah Palin impersonations abounded on YouTube (GOOG) but the Internet had not yet become infatuated with sepia-toning its every move. There were 10.3 million tweets about the Denver presidential debate last month—of which, I admit, I contributed at least a dozen. That’s one tweet for every 14 people who reportedly watched it. Today, Facebook is tracking the number of people who clicked on its “I voted” prompt in real time. But how useful are these statistics? The site currently shows that only 8 percent of its self-identified voters are over age 55, while in 2008 that age group had a voter turnout of roughly 70 percent. And for some reason, nearly twice as many women have voted on Facebook as men. Maybe that’s because Lena Dunham has asked them to tweet pictures of the outfits they’re wearing to the polls.

In a way, this is an unofficial grassroots version of Rock the Vote, the nonpartisan organization that tried to get young people to the polls by making the democratic process seem cool. But can you actually guilt-trip someone into voting with a Thomas Jefferson quote translated into LOL-speak and a picture of a sticker? Or change someone’s mind with a grammatically incorrect, all-caps rant about a candidate? Who are these pictures for, anyway?

I can’t wait until next week, when we’ll go back to posting pictures of our lunch.

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HANNITY ON TWEET

“I learned a big civics lesson today.” — Fox News Channel host Sean Hannity, who tweeted a picture of his filled-out ballot (for Mitt Romney, natch), only to learn that appeared to break the law in New York state.

— David Bauder — http://twitter.com/dbauder

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EDITOR’S NOTE — Election Watch shows you Election Day 2012 through the eyes of Associated Press journalists. Follow them on Twitter where available with the handles listed after each item.

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Rihanna unveils Chris Brown duet “Nobodies Business”

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – R&B star Rihanna unveiled a duet entitled “Nobodies Business” with ex-boyfriend Chris Brown on Tuesday, three years after Brown was charged with assaulting her.

The song was part of an official track list that Barbadian singer Rihanna tweeted to her followers for her upcoming album “Unapologetic,” and comes after weeks of speculation in the media that the couple have rekindled their romance being spotted together at numerous events.

While Rihanna, 24, has stayed mum on her relationship status with Brown, the “Turn Up The Music” singer attended Rihanna‘s Halloween party last week and tweeted a photograph of himself dressed in Arab robes and a rifle.

Brown, 23, is currently halfway through his five-year probation after pleading guilty to assaulting Rihanna on the eve of the Grammy awards in 2009. He was ordered to complete community service and a domestic violence program.

Brown was given permission by a Los Angeles judge to embark on his European tour at a recent hearing overseeing his progress on his probation.

The former couple have had a tumultuous relationship in the last three years, including a restraining order against Brown following the assault.

But recently the two singers have made peace, coming together on a remix of Rihanna‘s raunchy song “Birthday Cake” earlier this year.

The Barbadian singer told Oprah Winfrey in an emotional interview in August that she and Brown now had a “very close friendship,” and that she still loved him.

Other collaborations on Rihanna‘s upcoming “Unapologetic” album include rapper Eminem, newcomer singer-songwriter Mikky Ekko and rapper Future.

(Reporting By Piya Sinha-Roy, editing by Jill Serjeant)

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If it’s a U.S. “swing state,” Paul Ryan calls it home

MINNEAPOLIS (Reuters) – He’s sold hot dogs in Minnesota and spent summers in Colorado. His mother lives in Florida and Ohio looks just like his native Wisconsin. Whatever the swing state, Paul Ryan finds a way to call it home.

Addressing one of his largest crowds of the 2012 presidential campaign, the Republican vice presidential candidate ticked off his many ties to Minnesota, one of a handful of states that Mitt Romney‘s team has visited in the final hours of the U.S. presidential race.

Ryan is from Wisconsin, Minnesota’s neighbor and occasional friendly rival. But he boasted that he is often mistaken as one of the crowd’s own.

“In (Washington) D.C., people say, ‘Oh yeah, Ryan, you’re the budget guy from Minnesota, right? I’m from Wisconsin. Close,” Ryan said at the gathering at an airport hangar on Sunday evening.

Politicians often highlight connections to states they visit, hoping a little local pride will go a long way on Election Day. But few politicians can match Ryan.

In Minnesota, Ryan talked about the summer job he had selling Oscar Mayer products in northern part of the state. He mentioned his cousin, Terry, who works for the Minnesota Twins baseball team. He joked about needing better equipment for ice fishing, a passion in the state with long, cold winters.

Ryan’s actual home happens to be a swing state, one of the nine or so battlegrounds likely to determine whether Romney and Ryan can defeat President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden in Tuesday’s election.

He spent three days there last week, telling voters about his passion for deer hunting and the state’s dairy and farming traditions.

Ryan, who has represented a district in southern Wisconsin in Congress for 14 years, visited Green Bay on Sunday to shake hands with Packers fans, wearing the football team’s green and yellow colors on his tie.

On Friday, he told supporters in Cedar Falls, Iowa, that his wife’s mother’s family comes from Iowa. Playing on the state’s frugal reputation, he recounted how his wife Janna’s grandmother once froze five ounces of dog food for months, worried that it would go to waste.

“That is Iowa fiscal conservatism. That is Iowa common sense,” said Ryan.

Earlier that day, he told a crowd in Montrose, Colorado, that he visited their state each summer growing up.

“Janna and I spent our childhoods coming to Colorado every year. We love this state whether it’s fishing, hunting, climbing, skiing, backpacking, just hanging out,” Ryan said.

“This is God’s country,” he added.

On Saturday, Ryan flew to Panama Beach, Florida, where he reminded the crowd that his mother calls the state home.

And in Ohio, the campaign’s most fiercely contested battleground, Ryan’s enthusiasm knows no bounds.

Roving the state on an eight-stop bus tour late last month, he urged crowd to vote for the local — or almost local — guy.

Ryan likes to call Wisconsin and Ohio, “Big Ten” country, linking the two states by a shared college football conference.

“I look around here I feel like I’m 10 miles from my house, except our corn is already down by now,” Ryan told a crowd of 2,000 in Yellow Springs, Ohio, one evening.

At a midday rally, Ryan reveled in the similarity between the names of his host, Zanesville, and his real home town.

“I almost said hello Janesville,” Ryan said. “That’s where I’m from.”

(Reporting By Samuel P. Jacobs; Editing by Frances Kerry and Doina Chiacu)

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Cashback credit cards ‘double’

5 November 2012 Last updated at 19:01 ET

Cashback deals are becoming more common in reward schemes for credit card customers, research has indicated.

The number of cards on the market that carry the feature has doubled in two years, according to the report by financial research group Defaqto.

The report, commissioned by card provider Capital One, suggested that the growth had not been mirrored by other rewards features.

One expert has warned of the danger of choosing a card based on rewards.

Spending

The Defaqto report found that people in the UK could choose from about 245 different credit cards. About three quarters of these were regarded as standard, rather than platinum or gold, cards.

The most common features that these cards carried as customer rewards were points schemes and shopping rewards, that were each found on 20% of cards.

Air miles featured on 10% of cards, while 9% of cards had cashback rewards.

Cashback is the only one of these that has seen a big rise in the past two years, the report suggested. However, it still only features on 22 cards.

Each time the customer uses their card an amount of cashback is accrued. After a set period, usually annually or monthly, the cashback amount is paid automatically to the customer’s credit card.

Cashback amounts can vary between £1.10 and £36 for every £100 spent on the card each month.

“To make the card truly worthwhile a customer would need to spend well in excess of £1,000 per month, so these cards are most likely to appeal to the higher spenders,” the report said.

Habit

For many people this would require a change of habit, by using a credit card for everyday spending.

So, customers should be realistic about whether they would be happy to do this for the cashback rewards, according to Sarah Pennells, founder of the Savvywoman financial website.

“If people are used to paying for their shopping or fuel by cash, then they might not think about getting a credit card out,” she said.

Customers should consider the whole package being offered by a credit card provider when choosing a card, she added.

Cashback would only prove to be a benefit if borrowers paid off their credit card each month, or took advantage of longer interest-free periods, she said. Other considerations when shopping around for a card might include charges when using the card overseas, she added.

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Methane warnings ignored before NZ mine disaster

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — A New Zealand coal mining company ignored 21 warnings that methane gas had accumulated to explosive levels before an underground explosion killed 29 workers two years ago, an investigation concluded.

The official report released Monday after 11 weeks of hearings on the disaster found broad safety problems in New Zealand workplaces and said the Pike River Coal company was exposing miners to unacceptable risks as it strove to meet financial targets.

“The company completely and utterly failed to protect its workers,” New Zealand Prime Minister John Key said Monday.

The country’s labor minister, Kate Wilkinson, resigned from her labor portfolio after the report’s release, saying she felt it was the honorable thing to do after the tragedy occurred on her watch. She plans to retain her remaining government responsibilities.

The Royal Commission report said New Zealand has a poor workplace safety record and its regulators failed to provide adequate oversight before the explosion.

At the time of the disaster, New Zealand had just two mine inspectors who were unable to keep up with their workload, the report said. Pike River was able to obtain a permit with no scrutiny of its initial health and safety plans and little ongoing scrutiny.

Key said he agrees with the report’s conclusion that there needs to be a philosophical shift in New Zealand from believing that companies are acting in the best interests of workers to a more proscriptive set of regulations that forces companies to do the right thing.

The commission’s report recommended a new agency be formed to focus solely on workplace health and safety problems. It also recommended a raft of measures to strengthen mine oversight.

Key said his government would consider the recommendations and hoped to implement most of them. He would not commit on forming a new agency. Workplace safety issues are currently one of the responsibilities of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment.

In the seven weeks before the explosion, the Pike River company received 21 warnings from mine workers that methane gas had built up to explosive levels below ground and another 27 warnings of dangerous levels, the report said. The warnings continued right up until the morning of the deadly explosion.

The company used unconventional methods to get rid of methane, the report said. Some workers even rigged their machines to bypass the methane sensors after the machines kept automatically shutting down — something they were designed to do when methane levels got too high.

The company made a “major error” by placing a ventilation fan underground instead of on the surface, the report found. The fan failed after the first of several explosions, effectively shutting down the entire ventilation system. The company was also using water jets to cut the coal face, a highly specialized technique than can release large amounts of methane.

The report did not definitively conclude what sparked the explosion itself, although it noted that a pump was switched on immediately before the explosion, raising the possibility it was triggered by an electrical arc.

The now-bankrupt Pike River Coal company is not defending itself against charges it committed nine labor violations related to the disaster. Former chief executive Peter Whittall has pleaded not guilty to 12 violations and his lawyers say he is being scapegoated.

An Australian contractor was fined last month for three safety violations after its methane detector was found to be faulty at the time of the explosion.

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U.S. judge tosses Apple vs. Google lawsuit over patents

(Reuters) – An Apple lawsuit against Google‘s Motorola Mobility unit over alleged patent abuse was thrown out on Monday just hours before trial, a setback for the iPhone maker in its efforts to gain leverage in the smartphone patent wars.

The two rivals were set to square off in a Madison, Wisconsin federal court over the library of patents Google Inc acquired along with Motorola for $ 12.5 billion in May. Apple Inc claimed Motorola‘s licensing practices were unfair.

However, late last week District Judge Barbara Crabb questioned whether she had the legal authority to hear Apple‘s claims, and on Monday she dismissed the case.

A Google spokeswoman said the company was pleased with the order, while an Apple representative declined to comment. In a legal brief filed after Crabb’s ruling, Apple contended that the judge does indeed have the authority to hear its claims.

Lea Shaver, an intellectual property professor at Indiana University School of Law, said a ruling against Google would have diminished Motorola‘s patents as an effective bargaining chip in settlement negotiations.

“This puts Apple back into the position it was before,” Shaver said.

Apple and Microsoft Corp have been litigating in courts around the world against Google and partners like Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, which use the Android operating system on their mobile devices.

Apple contends that Android is basically a copy of its iOS smartphone software, and Microsoft holds patents that it contends cover a number of Android features. Microsoft is set for a trial against Motorola in Seattle next week in a case with similar issues as the Apple matter in Wisconsin.

Apple and Microsoft accuse Google of demanding too high a royalty for some of its so-called standard essential patents. Motorola promised to license those patents on fair terms, they argue, in exchange for Motorola technology being adopted as an industry standard.

In Wisconsin, Crabb had ruled during the run-up to trial that she might decide what a fair royalty for Motorola‘s patents should be.

However, in a court filing last week, Apple argued that it would not consider itself bound by Crabb’s rate if it exceeded $ 1 per Apple phone.

Given Apple‘s position, Crabb questioned whether she had the power to issue merely an advisory opinion. “It has become clear that Apple‘s interest in a license is qualified,” Crabb wrote on Friday.

Microsoft, by contrast, has agreed to live with whatever terms U.S. District Judge James Robart sets at the Seattle trial.

In Wisconsin, the trial was scheduled to begin Monday afternoon in Madison, but Crabb dismissed the case during a morning hearing. If Apple cannot convince Crabb to reconsider, then the matter could be appealed.

In its statement, Google said Motorola has long offered licensing at reasonable rates. “We remain interested in reaching an agreement with Apple,” the company said.

The case in U.S. District Court, Western District of Wisconsin is Apple Inc. v. Motorola Mobility Inc., No. 11-cv-178.

(Reporting By Alexei Oreskovic in San Francisco; Additional reporting by Dan Levine in San Francisco; Editing by Leslie Adler and Tim Dobbyn)

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Rare John Lennon letter to Eric Clapton up for auction

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – John Lennon held out the promise he could bring out more musical greatness in legendary guitarist Eric Clapton in a letter that could fetch as much as $ 30,000 when it is sold at auction next month, the organizers of the sale said on Monday.

The signed, hand-written letter by the Beatle, who died in 1980 at the age of 40, is one of a selection from some of the world’s great musicians that will go under the hammer in Los Angeles at the Profiles in History auction on December 18.

In a draft letter dated September 29, 1971, Lennon expressed his respect and admiration for British guitarist Clapton and suggested that they form a band together.

“Eric, I know I can bring out something great, in fact greater in you that had been so far evident in your music. I hope to bring out the same kind of greatness in all of us, which I know will happen if/when we get together,” Lennon wrote in the letter.

The letter will hold special significance for Beatles fans as auctioneer Joe Maddalena said it was widely known that there were problems in the Fab Four’s relationships with each other, and that Clapton had almost become a Beatle.

Clapton played in the Plastic Ono Band, formed by Lennon and Yoko Ono in 1969 before the breakup of the Beatles in 1970. He also played on the George Harrison song “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”, which was on the Beatles’ White Album.

“There was a point in time when George Harrison thought about leaving the band and his replacement was Clapton, so this letter is a link of what could have been,” Maddalena said.

The letter is one of 300 manuscripts and letters from literary, musical and political greats, that will be auctioned from the holdings of an American collector.

“What we know of history is from the written word, without these letters, it would all be verbal. It’s a really unique area of collecting as you’re getting a glimpse into people’s minds,” Maddalena said.

Other highlights include a handwritten letter from George Washington, with a pre-sale estimate of up to $ 300,000, and a Charles Dickens manuscript with an obituary of novelist William Thackeray, expected to fetch between $ 40,000 and $ 60,000.

Also on the auction block is a signed, handwritten letter from German composer Ludwig van Beethoven to Tobias Haslinger, a friend of his publisher, in which the musician discussed the second performance of his Ninth Symphony and the Missa Solemnis, two of his most revered works.

The letter, written in German, is undated, but both the Ninth Symphony and Missa Solemnis debuted in performances in 1824. Because of the rarity of the letter, it is estimated it will sell for between $ 40,000 and $ 60,000.

Other items going under the hammer include a signed letter in Russian by composer Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, which has a pre-sale estimate of $ 10,000 to $ 15,000, and a letter by composer George Gershwin dated March 24, 1932, in which he compares his compositions “Rhapsody in Blue” and “An American in Paris”.

The Gershwin letter is expected to sell for as much as $ 3,000, according to the auction house.

(Reporting By Piya Sinha-Roy; editing by Patricia Reaney; and Peter Galloway)

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Angioplasty costs are higher at non-surgery hospitals

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Angioplasty to clear blocked arteries costs more at hospitals not equipped for emergency heart surgery, according to a study presented on Sunday at the American Heart Association scientific meeting.

Elective angioplasty is becoming increasingly common at hospitals that do not conduct more complicated heart procedures. During angioplasty, doctors insert a balloon-tipped catheter into an artery and inflate a balloon to open the narrowed blood vessel.

Researchers from Duke University Medical School in North Carolina analyzed billing data from more than 18,000 patients and found that the average cumulative medical costs were $ 23,991 in surgery-equipped hospitals, versus $ 25,460 in those without surgical centers.

“Surprisingly, there was no difference in procedure cost,” said Dr. Eric Eisenstein, lead author of the study and assistant professor of medicine at Duke. “We did find a difference in follow-up cost.”

The difference was due mainly to the fact that non-surgery hospitals used intensive care units for post-angioplasty care, as required by the study, and patients treated at these hospitals were more likely to be readmitted nine months after treatment.

“Rising costs of medical care make it very pertinent for us to assess value,” said Dr. Mark Hlatky, director of the cardiovascular outcomes research center at Stanford University.

Eisenstein said, “there is no guarantee that a community hospital can provide angioplasty services at costs comparable with those of major hospitals with on-site cardiac surgery.”

More than 1 million coronary artery opening procedures are performed in the United States each year, according to the American Heart Association.

(Reporting By Deena Beasley; Editing by Stacey Joyce)

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Reviving Japan’s Economy With ‘Devil Wives’

After her son was born, Terue Suzuki moved back to her childhood home on weekdays so she could work while her sister cared for the baby, leaving her husband alone in the house they shared. “It was like a weekend marriage,” Suzuki says of the arrangement 14 years ago. “I had a satisfying job and really wanted to go back to it. In Japan, when a woman chooses work instead of staying at home to look after her husband, she’s called a ‘devil wife.’ ”

To spur the country’s moribund economy, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda aims to boost the proportion of working women aged 25 to 44 to 73 percent by 2020, from 66.5 percent in 2010.Limited day care, peer pressure, and job inflexibility mean Suzuki remains a minority in Japan, where 70 percent of women quit work with the birth of their first child, says Nana Oishi, a professor at Sophia University in Tokyo. In the U.S., about a third of new mothers don’t return to work, according to a 2010 Goldman Sachs (GS) report.

Suzuki, who remains happily married with two children, says she was fortunate to have the support of her husband and employer. The telecommunications company where she works let her switch departments to leave the office earlier and offered shorter hours, though she chose to remain full-time. She moved to her parents’ place in Yokohama after failing to find a day-care center near her home. Her sister quit a temporary job and looked after the baby for six months until an opening came up at a nursery near her parents’ house. Suzuki, now 45, continued with the “weekend marriage” when her second child was born, for a total of eight years.

A Japanese newspaper called her oniyome, popularizing the term devil wife, in an article on flexible office schedules that highlighted her determination to return to work. The phrase gained widespread awareness in 2005 when national television aired an 11-episode drama called Oniyome Nikki, or Diary of a Devil Wife.

In a survey of more than 6,000 couples in Japan in 2010, 70 percent of respondents said mothers should stop work to focus on raising children when they’re small, according to the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research. While Japan topped the list of 144 countries for innovation capacity in the World Economic Forum’s latest Global Competitiveness Report, it placed 87th for women’s participation in the labor force, the second-lowest, after Italy, among Group of Seven developed economies.

More than half of the 700 respondents in a survey by recruiter Robert Walters Japan said the main challenge for working women is balancing career and family. And 7 in 10 said starting a family makes a woman less employable. “I wanted to have kids but I kept putting it off because I wanted to gain recognition for my work,” says Yoko Ogata, an employee at a trading company who has no children.

After she married a co-worker, colleagues told her to “be a good wife,” while others told her husband he “shouldn’t make his wife continue working,” she says. In her mid-30s, Ogata started managing small teams, and when she became pregnant, she says, “I wasn’t sure what to do … I was finally being given responsibility to handle projects, and by getting pregnant I worried that people would say, ‘This is why we can’t use women.’ ”

Ogata, now 46, had a miscarriage after coming home late at night during the seventh week of pregnancy. “My husband and mother-in-law were very angry and asked if I hadn’t had a miscarriage on purpose,” she says. Ogata didn’t tell co-workers about the pregnancy or miscarriage, and she and her husband later divorced.

If Japan’s female employment rate rose to match the 80 percent rate for males, the workforce would grow by 10 percent, or 8.2 million people, spurring a 15 percent expansion of gross domestic product, Goldman Sachs economists wrote in a 2010 report called Womenomics. Easing rules, such as outdoor-space requirements for child-care facilities, would help make that happen, says Kathy Matsui, Goldman’s chief Japan strategist and a mother of two. The government can encourage more women to stay in the workforce, she said in an e-mail, “through greater deregulation and better enforcement of rules regarding equal employment opportunity and pay.”

The bottom line: To boost the economy, Japan wants to increase the proportion of young women who work to 73 percent from 66.5 percent.

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