With TV and film production heading overseas, should Uncle Sam get into showbiz?

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Is it time for Uncle Sam to go Hollywood?

With the exodus of film and TV production to foreign shores – and with the states’ incentives plans frequently out-gunned by countries outside the U.S. – there is some thought that it may be time for the federal government to step in.

The idea of the federal government helping out Hollywood while it is drowning in red ink is sure to raise hackles in some quarters. But filmmaker Michael Moore, for one, thinks it’s an idea whose time has come. And he’s not alone.

“That is one good thing the government can do in terms of being helpful and supportive, whether it’s filmmaking or other artistic endeavors,” Moore told TheWrap.

And he added, it’s also time for the states to stop fighting each other with differing tax-incentive plans. “I’ve always opposed New Mexico against North Carolina, or Michigan against L.A. I don’t like that. It’s not right. We’re Americans.”

Moore is not alone.

There are reasons to keep TV and film production from going abroad. The industry provides more than 2.4 million American jobs and adds nearly $ 180 billion to the U.S. economy annually and $ 15 billion in federal and state taxes, according to the Motion Picture Association of America.

Joe Chianese, executive VP at showbiz payroll giant Entertainment Partners Financial Solutions, believes the idea of getting the feds involved makes sense.

“You watched the debates and heard both President Obama and Gov. Romney talking about how it’s all about jobs, and they talked about how the manufacturing industry has basically been lost to overseas,” Chianese told TheWrap. “Well, we’re looking at the same sort of situation with the TV and film industry if something isn’t done.”

As he spoke to TheWrap, Chianese was about to set off for Japan, where government and film-industry officials were considering an incentive program that would align them with the more than 30 foreign countries trying to lure U.S. entertainment productions.

“You can’t blame filmmakers for taking their business elsewhere,” he said. “They’re taking their work overseas for the same reasons manufacturers are: It’s cheaper.”

Until recently, the federal government provided some help. Section 181 of the current tax code lowered the cost of capital for domestic film and TV production by providing immediate expensing on the first $ 15 million of production costs. To be eligible, 75 percent of the production had to occur in the U.S.

But it expired at the end of 2011.

California Republican Congressmen David Dreier has co-authored legislation to bring 181 back for another two years, but it is mired in Congress, along with a number of other tax-law extensions.

“Jobs are our No. 1 priority, and this bill will help more people find good jobs in California and across the U.S.,” said Dreier, who represents much of the San Gabriel Valley. “We need to create an environment that will keep entertainment productions here so that caterers, makeup artists and other small businesses that support them can create jobs too.”

Amy Lemistch, executive director of the California Film Commission, shares the world view on keeping show business here.

“We see California’s runaway production problem as a global issue,” she told TheWrap “not a state vs. state issue. People are going to the U.K. and Canada as much as they are going to other states.”

Smaller nations like Sri Lanka have begun offering breaks, and others like New Zealand have ramped up state-of-the-art production infrastructures. Even Iceland recently lured the HBO series “Game of Thrones” and the feature films “Noah” and “Prometheus.”

Particularly galling to California Film Commission officials is when productions set in the state are lured overseas. Recent examples would be the now-canceled Fox TV series “Alcratraz” and the L.A.-set movie “This Means War,” both of which shot in Vancouver.

Unlike Moore, Chianese, a tax specialist who worked with the commission when it was crafting its credits program, sees the federal incentives coming on top of state credits, rather than replacing them.

“You add, say, a 15 percent jobs credit, where companies would get 15 percent of the salary of every hire they make,” he said. “Add that on top of, say, the 25 percent credit California offers, and you’re up to 40 percent credit. That would make a real difference when it comes to keeping entertainment jobs here.”

Chianese said he’d be willing to see Section 181 go away in favor of more direct and immediate incentives. But with Obama and Congress focused on cutbacks and new taxes to pare down the national debt before the end of the year, the timing’s not good now.

It will always be an uphill fight, particularly with the House of Representatives controlled by the budget-conscious GOP.

“You’d face the same question you always do with incentives, which is: Why favor one industry over another?” Chianese said.

Not to mention major blowback from the segments of the right, which see liberal politicians as too tied to Hollywood already.

As for state credits, Hollywood breathed a sigh of relief in late September when California Gov. Jerry Brown signed a two-year extension of the state’s film and TV production-tax credit program. But no one expects it to be a game-changer when it comes to California’s fight to remain the world’s production capital.

New York, for example, is offering 30 percent tax credits, has $ 420 million available and recently added a 25 to 30 percent credit for post-production work. By comparison, California offers a 25 percent credit, has just $ 100 million available and has tougher eligibility rules.

Still, Lemisch said, the extension was critical.

“It sends a signal to the production community that California is committed in the short and long term,” she said. That’s vital, she pointed out, especially for the producers of TV dramas, which are the most desirable shows to land because they’re typically an hour long and shoot multiple episodes.

California’s output of TV dramas fell more than 11 percent last year, while While New York was hitting record production levels.

California does have some built-in advantages that aren’t going away. If you’re based in Hollywood, staying here can be cheaper than going out of state even with incentives, because you’re not paying to ship equipment and transport crews. The state’s infrastructure of studios and post-production facilities is still the most extensive.

But that doesn’t mean other states aren’t beating California to the production punch.

North Carolina – which made headlines when it enticed the feature film “Battlefield Los Angeles” to shoot there instead of in L.A. – is very busy these days. The first “Hunger Games” was filmed there, as was “Iron Man 3.’ NBC’s new drama “Revolution” and Showtime’s “Homeland” are in production there now.

Georgia, too, has seen a recent surge in feature filming. Paramount’s “Flight,” Fox’s “Parental Guidance” and Warner Bros.’ “Trouble With the Curve” all shot there.

(Steve Pond contributed to this report)

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J&J, Lilly, Merck plan clinical trial site database

(Reuters) – Johnson & Johnson, Merck & Co Inc and Eli Lilly & Co, plan to launch a one-stop database of global clinical trial sites aimed at streamlining paperwork and speeding the process for testing new drugs.

The partners have begun securing approval from as many as 100,000 clinical investigators to enter their details into the database, Andreas Koester, head of clinical trial innovation/external alliances at J&J’s Janssen unit, said in a telephone interview.

“The feedback we have gotten so far is … they can’t wait to get rid of the administrative burden and red tape,” he said.

The initiative was limited to three companies while the kinks are ironed out, but the goal is for additional pharmaceutical companies to join in.

Ten drugmakers – J&J, Lilly, Abbott Laboratories Inc, AstraZeneca Plc, Boehringer Ingelheim, Bristol-Myers Squibb Co, GlaxoSmithKline Plc, Pfizer Inc, Roche Holding AG and Sanofi SA – announced in September the formation of the nonprofit TransCelerate BioPharma with the wider goal of simplifying and standardizing trial practices.

The clinical investigator database will contain key information such as infrastructure details and good clinical practice (GCP) training records.

“GCP doesn’t get any better if the investigator takes it repeatedly,” Koester said. “We wouldn’t have to ask each site – do you have a centrifuge, or do you have a minus 70 degrees freezer?”

J&J estimated that the investigator databank will be operational by the end of the year.

(This story corrects spelling of Lilly in headline and throughout story)

(Reporting By Deena Beasley; Editing by Bob Burgdorfer)

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Rubio: ‘My trip to Iowa has nothing to do with 2016′

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio at the 2012 Republican National Convention (Getty)

On Thursday in Washington, D.C., Florida Sen. Marco Rubio sounded very much like he's embracing his role as a rising star in the Republican Party, but he dismissed the notion that an upcoming visit to Iowa puts him on the presidential grid for 2016.

"My trip to Iowa has nothing to do with 2016," Rubio said during a wide-ranging interview at the Atlantic's Washington Ideas Forum. "I'm one of 100 senators."

Rubio noted that when he agreed to attend the Nov. 17 fundraiser for Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad he believed Mitt Romney would be the 45th president. Romney's loss in the election, he said, underscored the GOP's need to reconnect with the middle class. "If we don't, we'll have more days like last Tuesday. What makes America vibrant is a middle class. My dad is a bartender, my mom is a maid. ... [But] our country is not creating middle-class jobs" like it used to.

On Wednesday at the same forum, Republican Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham made headlines when they said they would do everything they could to block U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice from being appointed secretary of state should she be nominated for the position. Both have said Rice is "unqualified" and that she misrepresented the events leading up to the attack on the American Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11.

On Thursday, Rubio took a more diplomatic tack, saying he would go into a confirmation hearing with an open mind and would not "prejudge" Rice.

Rubio did say, however, that questions about the attack in Benghazi would come up. "I think we need to know the truth," he said.

On the subject of the looming "fiscal cliff," Rubio said both Republicans and Democrats need to take responsibility. "The fiscal cliff is a complete and total congressional creation," he said. "It's bipartisan dumb."

Rubio, who lives in Miami, said it's also critical that the Republican Party not alienate Hispanic voters with a hard line on immigration. "Rhetoric is important," Rubio said. "We're speaking not about statistics, but about human beings."

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Beating tax cheats key to Italy’s recovery plan

ROME (AP) — Good plumbers may be worth their weight in gold, but when one was spotted zipping around in a bright red Ferrari, Italian tax police were fast on his trail.

Stamping out entrenched tax evasion is crucial to Premier Mario Monti‘s quest to keep Italy from succumbing to the European debt crisis, and it is critical to fellow eurozone members in more dire straits, such as Greece and Spain — which are also notorious for making cheating the taxman a way of life.

Indeed, Greece’s international rescue creditors have been pressing Greece for two years to reform its ailing tax system, citing poor collection as a key factor keeping the country mired in crisis. In Spain, where tax fraud is rampant, as much as €90 billion ($ 150 billion) is lost each year to tax fraud — the equivalent of the country’s national debt, according to Spain’s main tax inspectors union.

To succeed in Italy, authorities will have to catch the legions of self-employed and small business owners who brazenly lie about their earnings, like the plumber in the eastern town of Pescara, who socked away undeclared income in 30 bank accounts, or a successful pastry shop owner in Calabria, who on his tax return claimed he was earning next to crumbs.

And those are the less sophisticated schemers.

Tax police officials say that wealthy Italians, their companies and foreigners who make their money in Italy are increasingly trying to avoid taxes by using such strategies as falsely declaring that their base of operations or residence is abroad.

Another daunting challenge is the so-called “submerged” economy, a term embracing Italians who declare only a fraction or nothing at all of their earnings — and dentists, lawyers, doctors and other big-earning professionals are frequently among the worst offenders.

Tax evasion of all types in Italy totals about euros 240 billion ($ 300 billion), or 15 percent of the country’s gross domestic product of €1.6 trillion ($ 2 trillion), tax police estimate. Winning the war on tax cheats could therefore more than wipe out the country’s budget deficit, which is expected to increase to euros 42 billion ($ 53 billion), or 2.6 percent of GDP this year. That would start knocking away at the nation’s colossal public debt of €2 trillion ($ 2.5 trillion), or 125 percent of GDP.

But “big international frauds are up,” lamented Lt. Col. Gianluca Campana, in charge of the income tax unit revenue protection office at the Guardia di Finanza, Italy’s financial police corps which reports to the Economy Ministry.

The entrenched practice by many cafes, eateries, hair dressers and similar small business of neglecting to give customers mandatory cash register receipts commonly grabs the attention in crackdowns on tax evasion in Italy.

But, cautioned Campana, “one false (big business) invoice can equal no cash register receipts for coffees for two months.”

Over all of 2011, the total of non-declared income discovered by tax police amounted to some €50 billion ($ 65 billion), of which some 20 percent was due to international tax evasion, he said. By comparison, in the first nine months of this year, tax police discovered some €40 billion in undeclared income, with 30 percent of that blamed on international tax evasion, Campana said.

With the economic crisis shrinking bottom lines, and Italy increasingly on the hunt for big-time evasion, especially by big businesses, “there is a tendency to move capital abroad, using maneuvers apparently legal but which really are not,” Campana said. A classic technique consists of declaring one’s formal residence abroad in tax havens like Monte Carlo. Also common are companies that clearly have their business base in Italy but claim it is abroad in countries with far lower tax brackets.

Campana is armed with three degrees, including a masters in tax law from Milan’s Bocconi University, the prestigious economics institute formerly headed by Monti. He brings skills to this specialized police corps that are as finely tuned as sharp-shooting.

“We are going after the big cases (of evasion) in order to rake in more money,” Campana said.

The Ferrari-driving plumber hid some €2 million ($ 2.6 million) of his income over several years by giving his customers invoices — for jobs ranging from fixing leaks to installing new bathrooms — for the actual cost of his work, but kept a second, false registry of much lower figures for tax purposes, said Pescara tax police Col. Mauro Odorisio.

Armed with a 2008 law, authorities confiscated assets belonging to the plumber equivalent to the approximately €1 million ($ 1.3 million) they contend he owed in taxes, Odorisio said.

With Ferraris in red or yellow, and snazzy Porsches parked inside, Guardia di Finanza garages practically resemble luxury car dealerships.

The cars get sold to help recoup unpaid taxes and interest.

Overall, tax revenues in Italy were up by 4.1 percent, says the Economy Ministry, when comparing figures from the first eight months of 2012 with the same period in 2011, but much of that was due to new taxes, and not necessarily a revolution in citizens’ consciences about tax obligations.

Monti’s recipe relies heavily on taxes that are nearly impossible to avoid, such as sales tax. He also revived a property tax that his populist predecessor, Premier Silvio Berlusconi, had abolished in a promise to voters.

The ministry’s report last month noted that the property tax figured prominently in the “tendency toward growth” in tax revenues. But sales tax revenue dropped slightly despite higher sales tax rates, indicating that consumers were feeling the pinch of the stagnant economy.

The heavier fiscal burden seems to have driven some honest citizens to rebel against the engrained culture of tax evasion.

The number of phone calls from the public to the tax police’s hotline to report stores, restaurants and other businesses that didn’t give customers sales receipts has almost doubled in the first nine months of this year, compared with the same period in 2011.

It’s apparently dawning on Italians that shirking taxes in the end only costs them, in terms of ever-higher levies and cutbacks in public services.

Citizens now increasingly understand that “the lack of revenue over time caused by tax evaders forced the government to stiffen the tax burden on categories where you can’t evade taxes,” Campana said, referring to workers whose taxes are deducted from paychecks. Another area where evasion is close to impossible is real estate ownership.

Odorisio noted the crackdown included extending the statute of limitations on tax evasion from six to eight years and establishing prison as a penalty for big-time evasion.

Other weapons include a measure promoted by the Monti government that limits cash payments to no more than €1,000. Paying by credit card or personal check is a relatively new habit for Italians, who are used to carrying wads of cash in their pockets, even for big-ticket items like home renovations or vacations.

Past governments in Italy sometimes resorted to tax amnesties to try to boost revenues. But critics, contending some Italians counted on such a possibility, described that strategy as only perpetuating the tax cheat culture.

Spain hasn’t had much success with its own tax amnesty introduced by the conservative government in March. That measure, expiring soon, allows undeclared assets or those hidden in tax havens to be repatriated by paying a 10 percent tax without criminal penalty. The amnesty is estimated to recuperate far less than the expected €2.5 billion ($ 3.25 billion).

Greece saw demands for tax system reform from international rescue creditors added on to conditions for future rescue loan payments, as Greek authorities acknowledged that a high-profile campaign to crack down on major tax cheats has produced disappointing results.

The cash-strapped government over the last 10 months recovered just €19 million ($ 25 million) of the €13 billion ($ 17 billion) of arrears on the list. A prominent Greek magazine publisher recently tapped anger over rich tax evaders by publishing a list of people allegedly holding Swiss bank accounts. He was acquitted this month of breaching privacy laws.

Meanwhile, Italian tax police are chasing after cheats who have shown some of the most chutzpah about not paying their fair share of taxes, like the Padua woman who advertised on the Internet that she had a couple of “cash-only” bed and breakfast rooms to let.

Tax police discovered the lodgings are part of an apartment in public housing she was given after falsely declaring she was indigent on her annual tax forms.

____

AP reporters Derek Gatopoulos in Athens and Ciaran Giles in Madrid contributed to this report.

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Actor Channing Tatum dubbed People’s sexiest man alive

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Actor Channing Tatum, who set female hearts fluttering in the summer movie hit “Magic Mike”, was named the sexiest man alive by People magazine on Wednesday.

“My first thought was, ‘Y’all are messing with me,” Tatum told the magazine after hearing the news.

The 32-year-old actor, who is married to actress Jenna Dewan-Tatum, is training to play an Olympic athlete in his upcoming film, “Foxcatcher”.

The couple, who have been married since 2009, are ready to start a family, according to People.

“The first number that pops into my head is three, but I just want one to be healthy and then we’ll see where we go after that,” he told the magazine.

Tatum joins a long list of Hollywood heartthrobs who also have also received the “sexiest man” title from the magazine including Brad Pitt, Johnny Depp, Ryan Reynolds, George Clooney and Matt Damon.

(Reporting by Patricia Reaney; Editing by Maureen Bavdek)

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New Hope For ‘Man on Fire Syndrome’

Pamela Costa has never known a day without agonizing pain in her legs and feet.

At age 11, the Seattle native was diagnosed with inherited erythromelalgia, a genetic condition that causes such severe pain and redness some call it “Man on Fire Syndrome.”

“Think of the feeling that you get when you come in from the cold and your hands and feet are rewarming too fast,” said Costa, 47. “I have that feeling all of the time.”

Inherited erythromelalgia is a disease of small nerves and blood vessels that causes severe pain in response to heat, pressure, exertion or stress.

“These people feel excruciating, scalding pain while putting on shoes or putting on a sweater,” said Dr. Stephen Waxman, a neuroscientist at Yale University and the West Haven Veterans Affairs Hospital. “They will keep their feet on ice to the point of getting gangrene, just to relieve the sensation.”

When Costa was growing up, playing outside would trigger the unbearable burning sensation.

“I used to come in from recess and just hold my hands on the cool metal of my school desk,” said Costa, who has more than two dozen relatives with the same affliction. “I have had cousins suffer devastating injuries from over-cooling themselves.”

Although the disease is rare, researchers are searching for clues to its cause with hopes of uncovering treatments for chronic pain of all kinds. The story starts at the molecular level within tiny nerves that conduct pain signals.

An Overactive Channel Protein

Pain comes in different forms, depending on the type of nerve that senses it. And for chronic pain patients, the pain is not quick and specific, but instead slow and sharp.

This slow pain is transmitted from the limbs and body to the brain along small nerves in the spinal cord called C-fibers. Messages move along these nerve fibers due to the action of special proteins in their membranes called channels. One specific type of channel is the Nav1.7 sodium channel, which is present in great numbers in the C-fibers of the spinal cord.

Work by Waxman and others has shown that patients with inherited erythromelalgia have a defect in their Nav1.7 channels that allows too many sodium ions to enter the C-fibers, causing an increase in the sensitivity of the nerves.

The specific atomic structure of the Nav1.7 channel has been modeled by Waxman’s lab, and the results are detailed in the current issue of Nature Communications. Armed with this new model of the Nav1.7 channel, the lab has been able to show why some patients with inherited erythromelalgia respond well to an anti-epileptic drug called Carbamazepine.

Furthermore, in studying the channel structure in many different people, Waxman and colleagues have found variations in the channel from person to person. These variations may cause some people to be more likely to experience chronic pain than others.

A New Drug Target

Patients with a completely defective Nav1.7 suffer from the opposite condition, known as congenital indifference to pain. These people do not experience pain at all, with case reports of being able to walk on hot coals without pain.

As the role of Nav1.7 in the mechanism for pain sensation becomes clearer, biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies will likely take notice, according to Waxman.

“I anticipate a race to develop Nav1.7 specific blockers,” he said.

Current drug therapies for pain include medicines like morphine, as well as aspirin and ibuprofen. While all of these decrease the sensation of pain, they also interact with other tissues such as the brain, heart and stomach, causing side effects.

Nav1.7 does not appear to be present in large quantities outside of the C-fibers of the spinal cord. As such, new drugs targeting this protein could herald a new class of pain treatments with many fewer side effects than our current drugs for pain.

Costa said she hopes to see a day where such a medicine would be available to her, providing her with full relief for the first time in her life.

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Patraeus' mistress Broadwell in classified document probe

Paula Broadwell, the author who allegedly had an affair with former CIA
Director David Petraeus, is suspected of storing significant amounts of
military documents, including classified material, at her home,
potentially in violation of federal law.

A source familiar with case told ABC News that Broadwell admitted to the
FBI she took the documents from secure government buildings. The
government demanded that they all be given back, and when federal agents
descended on her North Carolina home on Monday night it was a
pre-arranged meeting.

Prosecutors are now determining whether to charge Broadwell with a
crime, and this morning the FBI and military are poring over the
material. The 40-year-old author, who wrote the biography on Gen.
Petraeus "All In," is cooperating and the case, which is complicated by
the fact that as an intelligence officer in the U.S. Military Reserve
she had security clearance to review the documents.

FULL COVERAGE: David Petraeus Scandal

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. Authorities could decide to seek disciplinary action against
her rather than pursue charges.

Senior FBI officials are expected to brief the House and Senate
Intelligence Committees today on their handling of the Petraeus
investigation. The officials are expected to lay out how the case was
developed and argue that there were no politics involved.

The case is so critical that FBI Director Robert Mueller may attend to
defend the bureau, ABC News has learned. Members of Congress have been
angry that they were not informed about the case before the story was
reported by the media, but FBI officials maintain that their guidelines
forbid them from discussing ongoing criminal cases.

This summer, Florida socialite and "honorary ambassador" to the military Jill Kelley
received anonymous emails accusing her of flaunting a friendly
relationship with military brass in Tampa. Kelley then called the FBI,
which traced those emails back to Broadwell's computer. Investigators
are said to have then found emails in Broadwell's inbox that pointed to
an intimate affair with Petraeus, who on Friday admitted to the affair
and announced his resignation as CIA director.

See the timeline of the Petraeus/Broadwell affair HERE.

The FBI has now uncovered "potentially inappropriate" emails between
Gen. John Allen, the commander of American forces in Afghanistan, and
Kelley, according to a senior U.S. defense official who is traveling with
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. The department is reviewing between
20,000 and 30,000 documents connected to this matter, the official said.
The email exchanges between Kelley and Allen took place from 2010 to
2012.

The U.S. official said the emails were "innocuous" and mostly about
upcoming dinner parties and seeing him on TV. Allen denies he was
involved in an affair, a Pentagon official said. An intermediary for
Allen told ABC News that Allen and his wife are friends with Kelley and
her husband and most of the emails were sent from Kelley to Allen's
wife.

A U.S. official said Allen may have triggered the investigation when he
got an anonymous email a few months ago that was traced to Broadwell.
The email had a "Kelley Patrol" return address or subject line and
painted Kelley as a seductress, which Allen found alarming and mentioned
to Kelley in a subsequent email, the official said.

The official described Kelley as a "nice, bored rich socialite who drops
the honorary from her title... and tells people she is an ambassador.
She gets herself in anything related to Centcom and all the senior
people and has been for years."

MORE: Jill Kelley and Twin Closely Tied to Top Brass

Leon Panetta: 'No One Should Leap to Any Conclusions' Regarding Gen. Allen

Panetta cautioned that "no one should leap to any conclusions" about allegations against Allen over the investigation.

Panetta said he supports Allen, who has been in command in Kabul since
July 2011. He took over that summer for Petraeus, who retired from the
Army to take over as the head of the CIA.

"He certainly has my continued confidence to lead our forces and to
continue the fight," Panetta said at a news conference in Perth,
Australia, Wednesday.

Panetta declined to explain the nature of Allen's correspondence with
Kelley, connected to the scandal that led to Petraeus' resignation last
week as director of the CIA.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who appeared with Panetta,
declined to comment on the Allen case, but insured the scandal has not
harmed the war effort.

"There has been a lot of conversation, as you might expect, but no
concern whatsoever being expressed to us because the mission has been
set forth and it's being carried out," Clinton said.

Allen had been nominated as the next commander of U.S. European Command
and the commander of NATO forces in Europe, and despite President
Obama's backing, the nomination has been put on hold. The change of
command at NATO is currently slated to not take place until March at the
earliest.

Allen was supposed to appear before a Senate confirmation hearing this
Thursday alongside his designated replacement, Marine Gen. Joseph
Dunford. Panetta said that while the matter is being investigated by
the Defense Department IG, Allen will remain in his post as commander of
the International Security Assistance Force, based in Kabul.

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General investigated for emails to Petraeus friend

PERTH, Australia (AP) — In a new twist to the Gen. David Petraeus sex scandal, the Pentagon said Tuesday that the top American commander in Afghanistan, Gen. John Allen, is under investigation for alleged “inappropriate communications” with a woman who is said to have received threatening emails from Paula Broadwell, the woman with whom Petraeus had an extramarital affair.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said in a written statement issued to reporters aboard his aircraft, en route from Honolulu to Perth, Australia, that the FBI referred the matter to the Pentagon on Sunday.

Panetta said that he ordered a Pentagon investigation of Allen on Monday.

A senior defense official traveling with Panetta said Allen’s communications were with Jill Kelley, who has been described as an unpaid social liaison at MacDill Air Force Base, Fla., which is headquarters to the U.S. Central Command. She is not a U.S. government employee.

Kelley is said to have received threatening emails from Broadwell, who is Petraeus’ biographer and who had an extramarital affair with Petraeus that reportedly began after he became CIA director in September 2011.

Petraeus resigned as CIA director on Friday.

Allen, a four-star Marine general, succeeded Petraeus as the top American commander in Afghanistan in July 2011.

The senior official, who discussed the matter only on condition of anonymity because it is under investigation, said Panetta believed it was prudent to launch a Pentagon investigation, although the official would not explain the nature of Allen’s problematic communications.

The official said 20,000 to 30,000 pages of emails and other documents from Allen’s communications with Kelley between 2010 and 2012 are under review. He would not say whether they involved sexual matters or whether they are thought to include unauthorized disclosures of classified information. He said he did not know whether Petraeus is mentioned in the emails.

“Gen. Allen disputes that he has engaged in any wrongdoing in this matter,” the official said. He said Allen currently is in Washington.

Panetta said that while the matter is being investigated by the Defense Department Inspector General, Allen will remain in his post as commander of the International Security Assistance Force, based in Kabul. He praised Allen as having been instrumental in making progress in the war.

The FBI’s decision to refer the Allen matter to the Pentagon rather than keep it itself, combined with Panetta’s decision to allow Allen to continue as Afghanistan commander without a suspension, suggested strongly that officials viewed whatever happened as a possible infraction of military rules rather than a violation of federal criminal law.

Allen was Deputy Commander of Central Command, based in Tampa, prior to taking over in Afghanistan. He also is a veteran of the Iraq war.

In the meantime, Panetta said, Allen’s nomination to be the next commander of U.S. European Command and the commander of NATO forces in Europe has been put on hold “until the relevant facts are determined.” He had been expected to take that new post in early 2013, if confirmed by the Senate, as had been widely expected.

Panetta said President Barack Obama was consulted and agreed that Allen’s nomination should be put on hold. Allen was to testify at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday. Panetta said he asked committee leaders to delay that hearing.

NATO officials had no comment about the delay in Allen’s appointment.

“We have seen Secretary Panetta‘s statement,” NATO spokeswoman Carmen Romero said in Brussels. “It is a U.S. investigation.”

Panetta also said he wants the Senate Armed Services Committee to act promptly on Obama’s nomination of Gen. Joseph Dunford to succeed Allen as commander in Afghanistan. That nomination was made several weeks ago. Dunford’s hearing is also scheduled for Thursday.

___

Associated Press writer Slobodan Lekic in Kabul, Afghanistan, contributed to this report.

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Day-Lewis heeded inner ear to find Lincoln’s voice

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A towering figure such as Abraham Lincoln, who stood 6 feet 4 and was one of history’s master orators, must have had a booming voice to match, right? Not in Daniel Day-Lewis‘ interpretation.

Day-Lewis, who plays the 16th president in Steven Spielberg‘s epic film biography “Lincoln,” which goes into wide release this weekend, settled on a higher, softer voice, saying it’s more true to descriptions of how the man actually spoke.

“There are numerous accounts, contemporary accounts, of his speaking voice. They tend to imply that it was fairly high, in a high register, which I believe allowed him to reach greater numbers of people when he was speaking publicly,” Day-Lewis said in an interview. “Because the higher registers tend to reach farther than the lower tones, so that would have been useful to him.”

“Lincoln” is just the fifth film in the last 15 years for Day-Lewis, a two-time Academy Award winner for best actor (“My Left Foot” and “There Will Be Blood”). Much of his pickiness stems from a need to understand characters intimately enough to feel that he’s actually living out their experiences.

The soft, reedy voice of his Lincoln grew out of that preparation.

“I don’t separate vocal work, and I don’t dismember a character into its component parts and then kind of bolt it all together, and off you go,” Day-Lewis said. “I tend to try and allow things to happen slowly, over a long period of time. As I feel I’m growing into a sense of that life, if I’m lucky, I begin to hear a voice.

“And I don’t mean in a supernatural sense. I begin to hear the sound of a voice, and if I like the sound of that, I live with that for a while in my mind’s ear, whatever one might call it, my inner ear, and then I set about trying to reproduce that.”

Lincoln himself likely learned to use his voice to his advantage depending on the situation, Day-Lewis said.

“He was a supreme politician. I’ve no doubt in my mind that when you think of all the influences in his life, from his childhood in Kentucky and Indiana and a good part of his younger life in southern Illinois, that the sounds of all those regions would have come together in him somehow.

“And I feel that he probably learned how to play with his voice in public and use it in certain ways in certain places and in certain other ways in other places. Especially in the manner in which he expressed himself. I think, I’ve no doubt that he was conscious enough of his image.”

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War uproots 2.5 million Syrians, aid groups say

GENEVA (Reuters) – At least 2.5 million Syrians are believed to have fled their homes because of civil war, aid groups said on Tuesday, more than double previous estimates.

The figure comes from the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, whose volunteers are on the frontlines of the 20-month conflict, delivering aid supplies and evacuating wounded.

“The figure they are using is 2.5 million. If anything, they believe it could be more, that this is a very conservative estimate,” Melissa Fleming, chief spokeswoman of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), told a news briefing.

“So people are moving, people are really on the run, hiding. They are difficult to count and to access,” she said.

Aid agencies had previously thought there were around 1.2 million internally displaced Syrians.

Only 5 percent of the 2.5 million are believed to be living in public facilities, including warehouses and schools, said Fleming. The rest are staying with host families, making it more difficult to count them.

In recent days, air strikes on the town of Ras al-Ain near the Turkish border have caused some of the biggest refugee movements of the conflict.

The United Nations said on Friday that up to 4 million people inside Syria will need humanitarian aid by early next year when the country is in the grip of winter, up from 2.5 million now whose needs are not fully met.

For now, the U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) says its food rations are reaching some 1.5 million. The UNHCR aims to provide assistance to 500,000 in Syria by the end of the year, mainly blankets, clothing, cooking kits and jerry cans, Fleming said.

“Unfortunately the recent deliveries have been very difficult, marred by violence and insecurity also spreading to parts of the country that used to be relatively calm,” she said.

A Syrian Arab Red Crescent warehouse in Aleppo was apparently hit by a shell, burning 13,000 blankets, she said. Unknown armed men hijacked a truck carrying 600 blankets on its way to Adra, outside Damascus.

The UNHCR has temporarily withdrawn about half of its 12 staff from north-eastern Hassaka province due to fierce fighting and insecurity, Fleming said.

“We see corresponding movement of populations there, Syrian Kurds for the most part, across the border into Iraq,” she said.

More than 407,000 Syrian refugees have registered or await registration in the surrounding region – Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan and Iraq – and more are fleeing every day, according to UNHCR.

(Editing by Tom Pfeiffer)

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