A Minute With: Singer Trey Songz on new movie “Texas Chainsaw 3D”

LOS ANGELES, January2 (Reuters) – R&B and hip-hop artists have appeared in horror films before, but 28-year old singer Trey Songz tackles a brand new incarnation of the “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” franchise with “Texas Chainsaw 3D.”

The film, which opens in U.S. theaters on Friday, follows a young woman who inherits a lavish, isolated mansion. When she visits it for the first time with her three friends, one of whom is played by Songz, they realize there is horror awaiting them in the basement.

Songz, a Grammy-nominated artist with hits like “Say Aah,” “Can’t Be Friends” and “Bottoms Up,” took a break from his world tour to talk to Reuters about his first movie role as a lead actor.

Q: Is acting something you’ve had your eye on?

A: “It’s something I’ve always wanted to do, but music comes first. I wanted to make sure when I did choose a role, I had time to really get in to it. (Director) John (Luessenhop) came to the studio to meet me for the first time and I told him to give me 24 hours to figure it out. I had just come off tour, I was recording an album and the four weeks I was set to have for vacation would be the four weeks I’d be shooting the film.”

Q: What did you think about during that 24-hour period?

A: “Making sure I wouldn’t be carrying the weight of the film. My name means so much in the music world that I was worried I’d have to carry the film, but I think the franchise carries the weight of the film. Luckily, (my character) Ryan is a likeable guy. There wasn’t too much stress on me mentally and it didn’t take too much away from me as a person in order to be him … I couldn’t ask for a better stepping-stone as a first-time actor.”

Q: You’ve stated that you are the first black actor in the “Texas Chainsaw” franchise. What does that mean to you?

A: “I think it means something not only to me, but to the franchise. Ryan was originally envisioned as a white male. The fact that the studio, the producers and the director went out on a limb and put a black man in such a strong part in a classic movie first made in the 70s, when things were so different, speaks volumes too.”

Q: Your single “Heart Attack,” off your fifth and current album “Chapter V,” was nominated for a best R&B song Grammy, making it your third nomination. What would a win mean?

A: “Right now I feel like I’m in the Grammy club, but not in the V.I.P. I’m just looking at the V.I.P. going, ‘I got to drink. I want a bottle, just let me in the V.I.P. please!’ But all jokes aside, the Grammy is the most elite award you can win as a musician so it would mean so much.”

Q: You moved around a lot as child, partly because you had a stepfather who worked in the military and partly because of your mother’s work opportunities. What was that like?

A: “When you’re a young, single mother, you’re dependent on welfare. Your mother is struggling and we would move around a lot – Virginia, Florida, Kansas, New Jersey, Baltimore … I went to eight different schools before ninth grade.”

Q: How does that impact you today?

A: “I’ve never really been settled. I don’t think I’ve ever known what it was like to be a person that was used to sitting still. I think it’s given me the ability to detach from any situation. It’s so easy to remove myself from the closest of situations just because I’ve had to do it my whole life.”

Q: Do you ever want to know what it feels like to be settled?

A: “I do. I don’t know when it will happen. I don’t even know how to. When I sit still for a couple of days, I get fidgety. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”

Q: I suppose acting is another way to keep yourself from sitting still. Will there be more acting in store for you?

A: “I’ve set a goal for myself to land a couple of films a year. Recently, I shot a movie starring Paula Patton entitled ‘Baggage Claim.” It’s an urban film where I get to be comedic as well as sexy.”

Q: Comedic and sexy – it’s great that you see yourself that way. What confidence!

A: Some things just are what they are!

(Reporting by Zorianna Kit; Editing by Patricia Reaney and Jackie Frank)

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Antidepressants don’t raise stillbirth risk: study

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Taking common antidepressants during pregnancy doesn’t increase a woman’s risk of having a stillbirth, according to a new study of over one million Nordic women.

The drugs, known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs, include fluoxetine (marketed as Prozac) and citalopram (Celexa).

Earlier studies have tied SSRIs to a slightly higher rate of some kinds of birth defects and newborn lung problems. But whether the drugs also raise a woman’s chance of stillbirth – when the fetus dies in the uterus after at least 20 weeks of pregnancy – has been unclear.

“Studies previously have not really been large enough to answer this question,” said Dr. Olof Stephansson, the lead author of the new report from the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm.

“From our study, we don’t find any reason to stop taking your medication, because untreated depression may be harmful for the pregnancy and the baby,” he told Reuters Health.

Stephansson and his colleagues consulted prescription drug registries and birth records from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, including more than 1.6 million births between 1996 and 2007. Just over 29,000 of the mothers, or close to two percent, had filled a prescription for an antidepressant during their pregnancy.

Overall, between three and four of every 1,000 births was a stillbirth, the research team reported this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

In addition, about two of every 1,000 babies died within four weeks of being born and one in 1,000 died between one and 12 months of age.

Antidepressant use at any time during pregnancy was initially tied to a slightly higher risk of stillbirth. But when Stephansson and his colleagues took into account women’s general health, age and whether they smoked, any effect of the drugs disappeared.

Moms-to-be who were on SSRIs tended to be older and were more likely to smoke and have diabetes and high blood pressure than those who weren’t taking antidepressants, Stephansson said.

There was still a slightly higher chance of stillbirth among women who took the drugs very early in their pregnancies – the time when a fetus is thought to be most vulnerable to its mother’s medications and environmental exposures. But because less than 100 women fit into that category and had a stillbirth the finding “should be interpreted with caution,” the researchers said.

Blaming pregnancy complications on any specific drug is always a challenge, according to one researcher not involved in the new study.

“It’s difficult and under most circumstances impossible to separate the effects of SSRIs and depression itself or the lifestyle associated with depression,” said Dr. Richard Shelton, a psychiatrist who has studied antidepressant use in pregnancy at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

For example, even when women’s general health and behavior are accounted for, they might not mention drinking and illegal drug use – which can be tied to both depression and pregnancy complications.

But so far, the evidence suggests the effects of antidepressant use during pregnancy are “pretty neutral,” Shelton told Reuters Health.

IF YOU NEED THEM, TAKE THEM: RESEARCHERS

Women who are taking antidepressants and planning a pregnancy should talk with both their obstetrician and psychiatrist to figure out what will be safest for them and their baby, Stephansson said.

But the bottom line, he added, is that “you should stick to the lowest dose possible and not stop with the medication if you need it.”

“The general recommendation is if a woman can be off an antidepressant medication during pregnancy, that’s probably a good idea. I think that’s probably a good idea for any kind of medication,” said Shelton, because all drugs may have small, unknown risks.

“But if a woman is depressed enough to warrant treatment, then treatment is probably reasonable,” he added. That can mean antidepressants or other options such as talk therapy.

Shelton said women should also seek treatment for other health and lifestyle issues tied to depression, such as being overweight and smoking, preferably before getting pregnant.

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/VvAQrl Journal of the American Medical Association, online January 1, 2013.

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Car slump in France, Spain and Italy spells gloomy 2013

PARIS (Reuters) – Car sales in France, Spain and Italy in 2012 fell to the lowest levels in years, with December registration data underscoring the challenges facing the broader European economy.

Automakers are facing a sustained slump in the European car market as the euro zone debt crisis and government austerity measures sap consumer demand.

“The new car market continues to decline – a trait which we anticipate will continue through the course of 2013,” Credit Suisse analyst David Arnold said on Wednesday, adding European auto sales were unlikely to see growth in 2013.

Europe’s stagnating auto market will have knock-on effects for other economic players including steel producers, Nomura analyst Matthew Kates said in a note, citing forecasts by consulting firm AutoAnalysis.

Italy’s car sales, down 22.5 percent in December, slumped 19.9 percent for the full year to 1.4 million units, their lowest levels since 1979.

“The car market is suffering from an overdose of taxes aimed at hitting, if not criminalizing, the acquisition, ownership and use of autos,” said Filippo Pavan Bernacchi, the president of Italy’s car dealers’ trade group Federauto.

He said he expected Italian car sales in 2013 to be close to 1.33 million units.

French car registrations fell 15 percent in December, leaving the full year down 14 percent to 1.90 million vehicles – the lowest since 1997, French industry group CCFA said.

Spain’s monthly sales shrank 23 percent, after a 20 percent fall in November. Its full-year total of 699,589 cars, down 13 percent, was the lowest since industry association Anfac began keeping records in 1989.

Germany will report December data on Thursday.

Ford led December’s declines among mass-market brands with sales down 40 percent in France, 31 percent in Spain and 33 percent in Italy. Opel – the European unit of General Motors – posted declines of 16 percent, 17 percent and 47 percent, respectively.

Volkswagen , Europe’s biggest automaker, saw sales at its core brand slump 25 percent in France, 15 percent in Spain and 36 percent in Italy.

PSA Peugeot Citroen fell broadly in line with both markets, while Fiat brand sales dropped 11 percent in France, 28 percent in Spain and 20.5 percent in Italy.

Renault-brand registrations dropped 20 percent in Spain and 32 percent in France. Its home market is likely to shrink 2-5 percent this year, Renault France marketing director Nicolas Monnot said.

“This is completely coherent with the various macroeconomic forecasts available.”

In a note on Italian data, auto think-tank Promotor said Italy’s full-year fall in car sales was particularly worrying at a time when the global auto market was growing.

“The auto crisis does in fact involve only the euro area and is a direct consequence of the depressive effect of austerity policies on the real economy,” it said.

The chance of a recovery in the euro zone economy has faded further into 2013 after the recession deepened in the final months of last year, a Reuters poll found last month.

KNOCK-ON EFFECTS

Falling business investment and persistently weak consumer sentiment are challenging French President Francois Hollande’s efforts to stem rising unemployment and keep government spending within its 2013 deficit target.

Spain’s year-old recession was expected to continue well into 2013, weighed down by battered economic sentiment and 25 percent unemployment, a record high. Manufacturing activity shrank for a 20th straight month in December.

Italy was seen recording a 0.2 percent economic contraction this year, according to government figures. The International Monetary Fund predicted a 0.7 percent decline.

With fast-growing markets such as China and Russia increasingly meeting their own demand for steel, European producers are more than ever at the mercy of domestic industry.

“It is difficult to get bullish on the outlook for European auto demand in the near term, with obvious implications for European steel demand,” Kates at Nomura said.

German auto demand, which had long resisted the slump spreading north, turned negative in the second half to post a 1.7 percent drop for January through November.

In another sign of contagion, French delivery van sales contracted sharply in December, plunging 22 percent for their biggest monthly decline since the crisis of 2008, CCFA spokesman Francois Roudier said.

“We have already been seeing individual consumers holding back (on car purchases), particularly in the mass market,” Roudier said. “Now company fleet sales are slowing down as well.”

(Additional reporting by Paul Day, Gilles Guillaume, Gus Trompiz and Stephen Jewkes; Editing by Dan Lalor, James Regan and Hans-Juergen Peters)

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Four Android productivity apps you should use in 2013

Happy New Year! Like most folks, I am working on some resolutions for 2013. One resolution I have is to be more productive. One way I am going to do this is by using my Android phone better. Now there are apps that I have, but really have not used to their fullest. As I work on this resolution, I might discover even better apps. For now I will focus on these impressive apps that can make anyone more productive.

I use Hootsuite on the computer, but rarely find myself engaging with it on my smartphone. With Hootsuite, you can manage Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Foursquare accounts. The free version allows for up to five accounts and one member of your team to access the account. There is a pro version with a monthly fee, in which you can have more accounts and team members and helpful analytics tools.

The design of the app is very good. If you sync the web version to mobile, you will have everything automatically downloaded to the phone. When viewing content, you swipe left or right to change columns or streams. If you are in the middle of a stream, simply tap the top menu bar to automatically return to the top. The app allows for multiple profiles and scheduled tweets. My goal is to keep up with my feeds and tweets in real-time rather than waiting until I get to a computer.

Another web service that I started to use, but find myself not using it to the fullest. Producteev is a web-based task management service. With Producteev you can work as an individual or in a team by setting up workspaces and then organize tasks by labels. For each task you can assign a priority, due date, and share with team members, if you have any. Overall, this is a great service, since I like making lists, even though I rarely remember having made them.

The Producteev app is available for all platforms. The app has a very clean interface and is easy to find tasks. Probably the best way to keep up with tasks is to use the different widget for the home screen. Seeing the widgets will help keep those key tasks in the forefront of your mind. The app will work offline and syncs in the background.

I read blogs every single day, especially those related to new apps, Android, or mobile news. The only way I can do that is via my Google Reader. I find myself trying to catch up each day on the computer (just like with Twitter activity) when I would be better off reading a little bit over time during the day. NewsRob is a Google Reader that I have had for years. The interface is very clean and easy to use. The developer created a bunch of customizations options, which really make this reader stand out.

With NewsRob you can set up a notification of new articles, how you synchronize with Google and when, how many articles to keep in your cache, and more. If you set up folders within Google Reader, NewsRob will download the folders, too. This enables you to read the posts by blog or folder. The app provides a very clean blogpost display optimized for smaller screens. With each post you can zoom in or out, mark a post read or unread, view in the browser, and share the link to email or services such as Evernote. There is a free version of the app.

The last task I need to work on to be more productive is to keep up with the calendar. I find myself checking on the computer, after the fact, finding out that I am either late or forgot about a meeting or appointment. Using Google calendar is a good place to start, but I have not found the standard calendar app on my Droid was all that helpful.

Business Calendar is a very capable calendar app that has a ton of features. The app lets you view your calendar in a number of different views, and has search and favorite-calendar features, to name a few. The option of viewing different calendars, color coding and being able to easily add, delete, and edit events is helpful. The ability to use widgets for reminders is important. The pro version has over 10 different sizes and allows for the import or export of calendar files in the iCalendar format. Business Calendar also has a free version.

So my top goal or resolution for 2013 is to be more productive. I think using these apps more will help me accomplish that goal. Are there any apps you have but not using to their fullest? What resolutions do you have for 2013?

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Playboy Hugh Hefner marries his ‘runaway bride’

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Hugh Hefner is celebrating the new year as a married man once again.

The 86-year-old Playboy magazine founder exchanged vows with his “runaway bride,” Crystal Harris, at a private Playboy Mansion ceremony on New Year’s Eve. Harris, a 26-year-old “Playmate of the Month” in 2009, broke off a previous engagement to Hefner just before they were to be married in 2011.

Playboy said on Tuesday that the couple celebrated at a New Year’s Eve party at the mansion with guests that included comic Jon Lovitz, Gene Simmons of KISS and baseball star Evan Longoria.

The bride wore a strapless gown in soft pink, Hefner a black tux. Hefner’s been married twice before but lived the single life between 1959 and 1989.

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Biden will discuss “fiscal cliff” deal with House Democrats

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Vice President Joe Biden will meet with fellow Democrats in the House of Representatives on Tuesday to discuss the “fiscal cliff” deal that he forged with Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, a Democratic aide said.

The meeting is to be held at the Capitol at 12:15 p.m. ET (1715 GMT).

Biden needed to help sell Senate Democrats on the deal before they joined Republicans at about 2 a.m. ET (0700 GMT) in approving the measure. The Republican-led House may vote on the bill as early as later in the day.

(Reporting By Thomas Ferraro; Editing by Vicki Allen)

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UPDATE 7-Tennis-Auckland Classic women’s singles round 1 results

Jan 1 (Infostrada Sports) – Results from the Auckland Classic Women’s Singles Round 1 matches on Tuesday

2-Julia Goerges (Germany) beat Anastasija Sevastova (Latvia) 6-3 6-4

Marina Erakovic (New Zealand) beat Stephanie Dubois (Canada) 6-2 6-1

1-Agnieszka Radwanska (Poland) beat Greta Arn (Hungary) 6-2 6-2

8-Mona Barthel (Germany) beat Grace Min (U.S.) 6-1 6-3

6-Yaroslava Shvedova (Kazakhstan) beat Lara Arruabarrena Vecino (Spain) 6-3 6-2

Romina Oprandi (Switzerland) beat Nudnida Luangnam (Thailand) 6-0 6-2

Heather Watson (Britain) beat 5-Sorana Cirstea (Romania) 6-3 (Cirstea retired)

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iPad App Video Review: Anomaly Korea

The tower offense pioneers over at 11 Bit Studios finally released the sequel to their smash hit, Anomaly Warzone Earth. They branched out a bit, releasing the amusing Funky Smugglers and the dreamlike puzzler, Sleepwalker’s Journey, but now they’re back, and as this game will remind you a few times, Baghdad was just the beginning. The battle against a mysterious alien tower menace continues with new visuals, units, modes, and an awesome but sometimes hilarious Korean undertone.

The core game here is still the same, with you planning convoy routes through enemy infested streets, able to change your route on the fly. You technically continue to play as the invisible but ever-present commando unit, with your various power-ups, such as smoke screen, repair field, and others, activating and placing them with a simple tap or two. New units like the Horangi tank join your ranks, with unique unit abilities, like the aforementioned tank’s area of effect blast. As you make your way through the world, you’ll collect resources and upgrade units as well.

It’s not just new unit and enemy types mixing things up. For example, there are now artillery zones that will automatically be targeted and be fired upon as you pass through them, but only after a short countdown. Subtle additions like this are quite elegant, adding more dimensions of strategy without changing anything from previous games. Another great new addition is the Art of War trials. As you play and do well, you’ll unlock these brief but brutal challenges, and they are very satisfying to complete.

The visuals have received an upgrade, as has the voice acting. Still, there’s something kind of funny about all the Korean accented English speaking, along with the still excellent Asian-styled soundtrack. It’s not bad at all, but can feel out of place at first. All in all, Anomaly Korea offers more of the same, but improved, building upon the last game in all the right ways. You don’t even need to have played the first game to enjoy this one, so go ahead and download it for the current price of three dollars. I can’t wait to see where in the world this anomaly pops up next.

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Armstrong better, Green Day to resume tour in 2013

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Green Day is going back out on the road.

The Grammy-winning punk band announced new tour dates Monday.

The band canceled the rest of its 2012 club schedule and postponed the start of a 2013 arena tour after singer-guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong‘s substance abuse problems emerged publicly in September when he had a profane meltdown on the stage of the iHeartRadio Music Festival in Las Vegas.

Armstrong told fans in a statement Monday that he’s “getting better every day” and “the show must go on.”

The tour is scheduled to begin March 28 at the Allstate Arena in the Chicago area.

The band released its most recent album, “Tre,” on Dec. 11, more than a month ahead of schedule.

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Palestinians say 9 dead from swine flu outbreak

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — A Palestinian health official says an outbreak swine flu has killed nine people.

Deputy Health Minister Asad Ramlawi also said Monday more than 225 people have been infected by the H1N1 influenza strain, known as swine flu. He said more than 25,000 vaccinations have been administered this year to prevent it. The West Bank has 2.5 million residents.

The West Bank has been struck by swine flu before. Dozens died in the Palestinian territories during the 2009 worldwide pandemic.

The first outbreak was discovered in Mexico in March 2009. Thousands died around the world, causing a global panic. The World Health Organization declared swine flu the first global flu pandemic in 40 years.

H1N1 is now considered a seasonal flu and included in the standard annual flu vaccine.

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