Women have caught up to men on lung cancer risk

Smoke like a man, die like a man.

U.S. women who smoke today have a much greater risk of dying from lung cancer than they did decades ago, partly because they are starting younger and smoking more — that is, they are lighting up like men, new research shows.

Women also have caught up with men in their risk of dying from smoking-related illnesses. Lung cancer risk leveled off in the 1980s for men but is still rising for women.

"It's a massive failure in prevention," said one study leader, Dr. Michael Thun of the American Cancer Society. And it's likely to repeat itself in places like China and Indonesia where smoking is growing, he said. About 1.3 billion people worldwide smoke.

The research is in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine. It is one of the most comprehensive looks ever at long-term trends in the effects of smoking and includes the first generation of U.S. women who started early in life and continued for decades, long enough for health effects to show up.

The U.S. has more than 35 million smokers — about 20 percent of men and 18 percent of women. The percentage of people who smoke is far lower than it used to be; rates peaked around 1960 in men and two decades later in women.

Researchers wanted to know if smoking is still as deadly as it was in the 1980s, given that cigarettes have changed (less tar), many smokers have quit, and treatments for many smoking-related diseases have improved.

They also wanted to know more about smoking and women. The famous surgeon general's report in 1964 said smoking could cause lung cancer in men, but evidence was lacking in women at the time since relatively few of them had smoked long enough.

One study, led by Dr. Prabhat Jha of the Center for Global Health Research in Toronto, looked at about 217,000 Americans in federal health surveys between 1997 and 2004.

A second study, led by Thun, tracked smoking-related deaths through three periods — 1959-65, 1982-88 and 2000-10 — using seven large population health surveys covering more than 2.2 million people.

Among the findings:

— The risk of dying of lung cancer was more than 25 times higher for female smokers in recent years than for women who never smoked. In the 1960s, it was only three times higher. One reason: After World War II, women started taking up the habit at a younger age and began smoking more.

—A person who never smoked was about twice as likely as a current smoker to live to age 80. For women, the chances of surviving that long were 70 percent for those who never smoked and 38 percent for smokers. In men, the numbers were 61 percent and 26 percent.

—Smokers in the U.S. are three times more likely to die between ages 25 and 79 than non-smokers are. About 60 percent of those deaths are attributable to smoking.

—Women are far less likely to quit smoking than men are. Among people 65 to 69, the ratio of former to current smokers is 4-to-1 for men and 2-to-1 for women.

—Smoking shaves more than 10 years off the average life span, but quitting at any age buys time. Quitting by age 40 avoids nearly all the excess risk of death from smoking. Men and women who quit when they were 25 to 34 years old gained 10 years; stopping at ages 35 to 44 gained 9 years; at ages 45 to 54, six years; at ages 55 to 64, four years.

—The risk of dying from other lung diseases such as emphysema and chronic bronchitis is rising in men and women, and the rise in men is a surprise because their lung cancer risk leveled off in 1980s.

Changes in cigarettes since the 1960s are a "plausible explanation" for the rise in non-cancer lung deaths, researchers write. Most smokers switched to cigarettes that were lower in tar and nicotine as measured by tests with machines, "but smokers inhaled more deeply to get the nicotine they were used to," Thun said. Deeper inhalation is consistent with the kind of lung damage seen in the illnesses that are rising, he said.

Scientists have made scant progress against lung cancer compared with other forms of the disease, and it remains the leading cause of cancer deaths worldwide. More than 160,000 people die of it in the U.S. each year.

The federal government, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the cancer society and several universities paid for the new studies. Thun testified against tobacco companies in class-action lawsuits challenging the supposed benefits of cigarettes with reduced tar and nicotine, but he donated his payment to the cancer society.

Smoking needs more attention as a health hazard, Dr. Steven A. Schroeder of the University of California, San Francisco, wrote in a commentary in the journal.

"More women die of lung cancer than of breast cancer. But there is no 'race for the cure' for lung cancer, no brown ribbon" or high-profile advocacy groups for lung cancer, he wrote.

Kathy DeJoseph, 62, of suburban Atlanta, finally quit smoking after 40 years — to qualify for lung cancer surgery last year.

"I tried everything that came along, I just never could do it," even while having chemotherapy, she said.

It's a powerful addiction, she said: "I still every day have to resist wanting to go buy a pack."

___

Online:

American Cancer Society: http://www.cancer.org

National Cancer Institute: http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/tobacco/smoking and http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/types/lung

Medical journal: http://www.nejm.org

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Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP

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Shares dip as investors brace for euro zone data

LONDON (Reuters) - European shares weakened on Thursday as investors braced for the year's first reading on euro zone business activity for 2013 after data showed that France, the region's second-biggest economy, may be in recession.

Markets are hoping for a modest improvement in the estimates for manufacturing and service sector activity across the euro area for January, due later, to support the recent rallies in equities and peripheral European debt markets.

"January's flash PMI data (for France) signals a very disappointing start to 2013," said Jack Kennedy, senior economist at Markit, which compiles the purchasing managers' index (PMI) data.

Europe's FTSEurofirst 300 index <.fteu3> of top company shares fell 0.3 percent to 1,164.30 points after the French data was released, still not far from a peak of 1,170.29 points hit two weeks ago, a level not seen since early 2011.

London's FTSE 100 <.ftse>, Paris's CAC-40 <.fchi> and Frankfurt's DAX <.gdaxi> were down by up to 0.5 percent.

"All the major benchmarks are looking overbought, and any short-term correction will be seen as a buying opportunity, but the longer-term trend is still to the upside," said Jawaid Afsar, a sales trader at Securequity.

The euro fell 0.2 percent on the day to hit $1.3286 after Markit said its preliminary composite purchasing managers' index (PMI) for France, covering activity in the services and manufacturing sectors combined, came out at 42.7 for the month, down from 44.6 in December.

The common currency recovered slightly when German PMI data for January showed private-sector activity jumped to its highest level in a year.

APPLE BITES

The main European tech stock index <.sx8p> was down 0.85 percent after the world's largest technology company, Apple , released disappointing earnings figures after the U.S. markets had closed.

The results had earlier fanned earnings worries across the technology sector in Asia, overshadowing positive data on Chinese manufacturing activity.

China's HSBC flash purchasing managers' index (PMI) rose to 51.9 in January to a two-year high, signaling a rebound in manufacturing activity and confirming a recovery in growth in the world's second-largest economy was on track.

(Additional reporting by David Brett; Editing by Will Waterman)

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Cameron Promises Britons a Vote on E.U. Membership

Oli Scarff/Getty Images

Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain speaking in London on Wednesday.

LONDON — Prime Minister David Cameron promised Britons a far-reaching referendum within five years on membership in the European Union in a long-awaited speech on Wednesday whose implications have alarmed the Obama administration.

“It is time for the British people to have their say. It is time to settle this European question in British politics,” he said. “I say to the British people: this will be your decision. And when that choice comes, you will have an important choice to make about our country’s destiny.”

Speaking in London, Mr. Cameron coupled his promise of a referendum with an impassioned defense of continued membership in a more streamlined and competitive European Union, built around its core single market underpinning the body’s internal trade.

“I know there will be those who say the vision I have outlined will be impossible to achieve. That there is no way our partners will cooperate. That the British people have set themselves on a path to inevitable exit. And that if we aren’t comfortable being in the E.U. after 40 years, we never will be. But I refuse to take such a defeatist attitude — either for Britain or for Europe.”

“And when the referendum comes,” he said, “ I will campaign for it with all my heart and soul.”

The speech was a defining moment in Mr. Cameron’s political career, reflecting a belief that, by wresting some powers back from the E.U., he can win the support of a grudging British public which has long been ambivalent — or actively hostile — toward the idea of European integration.

“I never want us to haul up the drawbridge and retreat from the world,” he said. “I am not an isolationist.” But he said Britons had a particular view of Europe. “We can no more change this sensibility than drain the English Channel,” he said.

The projected referendum is also a gamble since, if Britons chose to leave the union — a course Mr. Cameron says he opposes — they would be casting aside an engagement which has been a fundamental part of British policy for four decades. A British exit would also mean the departure from the bloc of a major economic and banking power, placing new obstacles between British businesses and their main trading partners across the English Channel.

“If we left the European Union,” Mr. Cameron warned, “it would be a one-way ticket, not a return.”

The referendum is dependent on his Conservative Party winning the next election scheduled for 2015, Mr. Cameron said, and the ballot on the E.U. will take place in or before 2018.

He had initially planned to deliver the address in the Netherlands last Friday but postponed it because of the hostage crisis in Algeria.

Mr. Cameron said public disillusionment with the European Union was at an “all-time high” in Britain, and “democratic consent” for membership was “wafer-thin.”.

He ruled out an immediate ballot, saying that the turmoil within the 17-nation zone which uses the euro single currency, of which Britain is not a member, meant that the broader European Union was heading for sweeping reforms which his government wanted to influence.

A referendum before those changes are made, he said, would present an “entirely false choice” with the euro crisis and the shape of the European Union’s future unresolved.

In his speech, Mr. Cameron said he will seek a mandate at the 2015 election for a Conservative government to negotiate a new relationship with the European Union.

“And when we have negotiated that new settlement, we will give the British people a referendum with a very simple in-or-out choice: to stay in the E.U. on these new terms, or come out altogether. It will be an in-out referendum,” he said.

Mr. Cameron added that he will complete the negotiations and hold this referendum within the first half of his next term, if he wins, suggesting that the vote would take place in 2017 or 2018.

Mr. Cameron had been under mounting pressure from his Conservative Party to make the announcement. Apart from a longstanding aversion to closer European integration among many of them, Conservative lawmakers are also concerned about a potential electoral threat from insurgent euroskpeticsin the U.K. Independence Party. The United States has been unusually public in its insistence that Britain, a close ally, stay in the union. Last week, a White House spokesman quoted President Obama as telling Mr. Cameron by telephone that “the United States values a strong U.K. in a strong European Union, which makes critical contributions to peace, prosperity and security in Europe and around the world.”

In his speech, Mr. Cameron said: “We would have to think carefully too about the impact on our influence at the top table of international affairs. There is no doubt that we are more powerful in Washington, in Beijing, in Delhi because we are a powerful player in the European Union.”

But, he noted “a gap between the E.U. and its citizens which has grown dramatically in recent years and which represents a lack of democratic accountability and consent that is — yes — felt particularly acutely in Britain.”

“If we don’t address these challenges, the danger is that Europe will fail and the British people will drift toward the exit. I do not want that to happen. I want the European Union to be a success, and I want a relationship between Britain and the E.U. that keeps us in it.”

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FTC study taking aim at online marketing of booze and kids

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) plans this summer to recommend ways that the alcoholic beverage industry can better protect underage viewers from seeing its advertisements online.

Distillers, brewers and wineries pour millions of dollars into brand promotion on Twitter, Facebook and other social media, and industry critics contend they are not doing enough to prevent young consumers from receiving these messages.

“We’re doing a deep dive on how they’re using the Internet and social media,” said Janet Evans, a lawyer with the FTC, which is conducting a year-long study due to be released by early summer. “We’re focusing on underage exposure.”

She would not elaborate on any potential recommendations that might come out of the study, which began in April 2012.

The FTC is reviewing data from 14 big producers, Evans said, including Beam Inc, the maker of Jim Beam, Diageo Plc, home to Johnnie Walker, and Constellation Brands Inc, which makes Robert Mondavi and Ravenswood wines.

The FTC report “is something we take seriously and place at high priority,” said Karena Breslin, director for digital marketing at Constellation.

The FTC has made two requests for information since the study began, she said.

The regulatory agency has not said it intends to impose restrictions on liquor company social media advertising but it can make recommendations to the industry.

The FTC is empowered to file suit to ensure consumers are protected from deceptive marketing practices, Evans said, but she stressed that studies of this nature are meant to promote better self-regulation, not provide a basis for a case.

Executives say alcohol makers and distributors voluntarily adhere to the same industry-set standard for marketing to underage viewers on social media sites that the industry set for its ads on TV and other medium. That requires that at least 71.6 percent of an audience consists of adults 21 and older.

“No one in their right mind would want to advertise to people who can’t legally buy their product,” said Frank Coleman, senior vice president for Distilled Spirits Council of the United States (DISCUS), the trade group that sets the industry’s advertising codes.

In June 2011, DISCUS revised its code upwards to 71.6 percent from 70 percent, after the FTC recommended it review the standard to better reflect U.S. Census population data.

Industry critics, including David Jernigen, director of the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth at Johns Hopkins University, and Sarah Mart, research director of the advocacy group Alcohol Justice, contend the industry didn’t go far enough and should raise the standard further.

Jernigen says it needs to be at least 85 percent to effectively protect youth, so there would be no more than 15 percent exposure to the underage drinking population.

“The industry says its self-regulating but it’s ineffective and social media opens up a whole new set of problems because their ads are everywhere,” said Sarah Mart, research director for the San Rafael, Calif.-based group Alcohol Justice.

The industry group’s Coleman said the group now requires members to install age-checking tools via instant-messaging as a gateway to Twitter feeds and other branded Web platforms that ask the user for a birth date before admitting them.

In the first nine months of 2012, beer, wine and spirits manufacturers’ spent an estimated $ 35 million for paid Web display advertising, but industry executives estimate many millions more were spent on Web site creation, video production for platforms like Google’s YouTube and social media marketing efforts.

“We’ve significantly adjusted more money to digital for online video, Web sites, Facebook and Twitter content,” said Kevin George, global chief marketing officer for Jim Beam, which he says spends 30 percent of its media spend for online outlets, up from 10 percent in 2008.

Many companies are expanding their digital staff. Wine maker Constellation hired Breslin three years ago to initiate digital marketing and now has a team of five reporting to her.

Many alcoholic beverage companies flocked to Facebook because it requires users to post their birth dates when signing up. Last year Twitter partnered with Buddy Media to offer a more effective screening tool that sends a direct message to fans who click on a brand. The message sends the fan a link to a site that asks for date of birth, which has allowed Twitter to grab some more of the sector marketing. Salesforce.com bought Buddy Media last June, which is now folding the platform into its marketing cloud portfolio.

Health advocates and industry critics are crying foul. “Facebook and other interactive platforms are poorly monitored and not well age protected,” said Jernigen of Johns Hopkins University. “Anyone can say they’re 21 and click yes.”

(Reporting By Susan Zeidler; Editing by Ron Grover and Alden Bentley)

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PEOPLE's Music Critic: Why We're Upset About Beyoncé's Lip-Synching Drama

By Chuck Arnold

01/22/2013 at 08:40 PM EST

Did she lip-synch or didn't she?

That's the question surrounding Beyoncé after reports surfaced that she didn't sing "The Star-Spangled Banner" live at yesterday's presidential inauguration.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Marine Band, which backed the pop diva at the ceremony, said Tuesday that Mrs. Jay-Z decided to use a previously recorded vocal track before delivering the national anthem, but later on another spokesperson, this one for the Pentagon, said there was no way of knowing whether the 16-time Grammy winner was guilty of lip-synching or not.

Should it matter? Let's remember that Whitney Houston, in what is widely considered one of the best renditions of "The Star-Spangled Banner" of all time, didn't sing it live either at the 1991 Super Bowl.

There are all sorts of technical reasons why it can be challenging to perform a song as difficult as this on such a large scale, and there are many extenuating circumstances that could have played a role in any decision to lip-synch. Certainly no one is questioning whether Beyoncé – who, in removing her earpiece midway through, may have been experiencing audio problems – has the chops to sing it.

Lip-synching – or at least singing over pre-recorded vocal tracks – has long been acceptable for dance-driven artists like Madonna, Janet Jackson and Britney Spears, whose emphasis on intense, intricate choreography makes it hard to execute the moves fans have come to expect while also singing live. Huffing and puffing into the microphone or barely projecting for the sake of keeping it real just isn't gonna cut it. Of course, there have been other instances – such as Ashlee Simpson's 2004 Saturday Night Live debacle – where faking it crossed the line.

Surely there wouldn't be the same controversy about Beyoncé had she been hoofing across the stage performing "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" on one of her tour stops. But this was the presidential inauguration, the national anthem, and there was no choreography involved.

Some things have to remain sacred, and for "the land of the free and the home of the brave," this was one of them.

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Flu season fuels debate over paid sick time laws

NEW YORK (AP) — Sniffling, groggy and afraid she had caught the flu, Diana Zavala dragged herself in to work anyway for a day she felt she couldn't afford to miss.

A school speech therapist who works as an independent contractor, she doesn't have paid sick days. So the mother of two reported to work and hoped for the best — and was aching, shivering and coughing by the end of the day. She stayed home the next day, then loaded up on medicine and returned to work.

"It's a balancing act" between physical health and financial well-being, she said.

An unusually early and vigorous flu season is drawing attention to a cause that has scored victories but also hit roadblocks in recent years: mandatory paid sick leave for a third of civilian workers — more than 40 million people — who don't have it.

Supporters and opponents are particularly watching New York City, where lawmakers are weighing a sick leave proposal amid a competitive mayoral race.

Pointing to a flu outbreak that the governor has called a public health emergency, dozens of doctors, nurses, lawmakers and activists — some in surgical masks — rallied Friday on the City Hall steps to call for passage of the measure, which has awaited a City Council vote for nearly three years. Two likely mayoral contenders have also pressed the point.

The flu spike is making people more aware of the argument for sick pay, said Ellen Bravo, executive director of Family Values at Work, which promotes paid sick time initiatives around the country. "There's people who say, 'OK, I get it — you don't want your server coughing on your food,'" she said.

Advocates have cast paid sick time as both a workforce issue akin to parental leave and "living wage" laws, and a public health priority.

But to some business owners, paid sick leave is an impractical and unfair burden for small operations. Critics also say the timing is bad, given the choppy economy and the hardships inflicted by Superstorm Sandy.

Michael Sinensky, an owner of seven bars and restaurants around the city, was against the sick time proposal before Sandy. And after the storm shut down four of his restaurants for days or weeks, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars that his insurers have yet to pay, "we're in survival mode."

"We're at the point, right now, where we cannot afford additional social initiatives," said Sinensky, whose roughly 500 employees switch shifts if they can't work, an arrangement that some restaurateurs say benefits workers because paid sick time wouldn't include tips.

Employees without sick days are more likely to go to work with a contagious illness, send an ill child to school or day care and use hospital emergency rooms for care, according to a 2010 survey by the University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center. A 2011 study in the American Journal of Public Health estimated that a lack of sick time helped spread 5 million cases of flu-like illness during the 2009 swine flu outbreak.

To be sure, many employees entitled to sick time go to work ill anyway, out of dedication or at least a desire to project it. But the work-through-it ethic is shifting somewhat amid growing awareness about spreading sickness.

"Right now, where companies' incentives lie is butting right up against this concern over people coming into the workplace, infecting others and bringing productivity of a whole company down," said John A. Challenger, CEO of employer consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

Paid sick day requirements are often popular in polls, but only four places have them: San Francisco, Seattle, Washington, D.C., and the state of Connecticut. The specific provisions vary.

Milwaukee voters approved a sick time requirement in 2008, but the state Legislature passed a law blocking it. Philadelphia's mayor vetoed a sick leave measure in 2011; lawmakers have since instituted a sick time requirement for businesses with city contracts. Voters rejected a paid sick day measure in Denver in 2011.

In New York, City Councilwoman Gale Brewer's proposal would require up to five paid sick days a year at businesses with at least five employees. It wouldn't include independent contractors, such as Zavala, who supports the idea nonetheless.

The idea boasts such supporters as feminist Gloria Steinem and "Sex and the City" actress Cynthia Nixon, as well as a majority of City Council members and a coalition of unions, women's groups and public health advocates. But it also faces influential opponents, including business groups, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who has virtually complete control over what matters come to a vote.

Quinn, who is expected to run for mayor, said she considers paid sick leave a worthy goal but doesn't think it would be wise to implement it in a sluggish economy. Two of her likely opponents, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio and Comptroller John Liu, have reiterated calls for paid sick leave in light of the flu season.

While the debate plays out, Emilio Palaguachi is recovering from the flu and looking for a job. The father of four was abruptly fired without explanation earlier this month from his job at a deli after taking a day off to go to a doctor, he said. His former employer couldn't be reached by telephone.

"I needed work," Palaguachi said after Friday's City Hall rally, but "I needed to see the doctor because I'm sick."

___

Associated Press writer Susan Haigh in Hartford, Conn., contributed to this report.

___

Follow Jennifer Peltz at http://twitter.com/jennpeltz

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Insight: Boeing 787 battery woes put FAA approval under scrutiny

SEATTLE/TOKYO (Reuters) - In 2007, U.S. regulators cleared Boeing's use of a highly flammable battery in the 787 Dreamliner, deciding it was safe to let the lithium-ion battery burn out if it caught fire mid-air as long as the flames were contained, and smoke and fumes vented properly, according to documents reviewed by Reuters.

Fire risk on planes has always been a major concern, especially given the amount of fuel they carry and the heat generated by jet engines. U.S. aviation standards require planes to have numerous on-board fire suppression systems.

But through a review of government documents and interviews with aviation and battery experts, Reuters found that the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration granted the Dreamliner special conditions and said its contain-and-vent system was sufficient to control the build-up of explosive or toxic gases, except in situations considered "extremely remote."

The FAA's 2007 decision is now coming under scrutiny after the lithium-ion batteries in two 787 planes failed within days of each other, sparking a fire in one case in Boston, and generating warnings and an acrid smell that prompted the pilots of the second plane to make an emergency landing in Japan.

A key U.S. Senate committee plans to hold a hearing in the coming weeks to examine aviation safety oversight and the FAA's certification of the 787, an aide to the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee told Reuters on Tuesday.

The FAA has grounded the Dreamliner in the U.S. pending an investigation, and other aviation regulators around the world immediately followed, stopping use of all 50 planes in service, each of which can carry about 250 passengers.

The National Transportation Safety Board is conducting the U.S. probe, with help from Boeing, the battery maker, GS Yuasa Corp of Japan, and the FAA.

The review has broad implications for other aircraft makers, including EADS unit Airbus, which also had to meet special conditions set by the FAA to use lithium-ion batteries on the A380 - a superjumbo jet that carries about 550 passengers.

A spokesperson for the FAA defended the 2007 approval, saying, "the whole aviation system is designed so that if a worst case happens, there are systems in place to prevent that from interfering with other systems on the plane."

Boeing said the 787's battery system has four layers of protection to prevent the battery from overcharging, making a fire extremely unlikely. The company said it was confident the battery could safely burn out in air because of a robust system for containing a fire and venting smoke and fumes.

The batteries were chosen "after a careful review of available alternatives because they best met the performance and design objectives of the 787," Boeing spokesman Marc Birtel said. "Based on everything we know at this point, we have not changed our evaluation."

The cause of the two 787 battery failures is not yet known and investigators are still determining how the contain-and-vent systems performed. But the incidents have revived a decades-old debate on the safety of lithium-ion batteries and raised questions over whether the FAA should have consented to their use in the 787.

Congressman Rick Larsen, who was named ranking member of the House Aviation Subcommittee on Tuesday, said it was appropriate for the FAA to impose special conditions for the 787, the world's first carbon composite aircraft, but a review of the approval "may be something we could look at in light of the current problems."

The FAA spokesperson said the agency may add new requirements for the batteries upon completion of the NTSB probe, but declined to elaborate.

Depending on the outcome of the review, Boeing could face steep costs, ranging from compensating airlines for lost use of planes to a possible major redesign and re-certification of the battery or electrical system, industry experts say.

WIDELY USED TECHNOLOGY

Lithium-ion batteries are lightweight, recharge quickly and can hold more power than conventional cells. But they have a history of safety concerns, leading some battery experts to question their use in any consumer product.

In the FAA's 2007 review, it said lithium-ion batteries were "significantly more susceptible" to fires than other types and added that those fires are tough to put out.

"Metallic lithium can ignite, resulting in a self-sustaining fire or explosion," the FAA said in granting approval.

FAA rules do not cover lithium batteries, so the agency in 2007 set nine "special conditions" Boeing had to meet to ensure their safety. A year earlier, the FAA had set similar conditions for Airbus. Special conditions are commonly used to cover new technology for which rules have not yet been written.

In both cases, the Air Line Pilots Association International, the world's largest pilot union, said airplane fire is so dangerous that the FAA should require cabin crew to have fire extinguishers and training to put out a lithium-ion battery fire. "A fire from these devices, in any situation, is unacceptable," the union said, during the 787 approval process.

The FAA said it chose not to require special fire extinguishers and training because of the four redundant systems already in the Boeing system to prevent the battery from catching fire.

The ALPA said on Tuesday it is monitoring the investigation into the 787 battery incidents, but declined to comment while the probe is going on.

"It goes back to why this was approved in the first place," said Hidetake Sakuma, an aviation safety consultant and a former safety manager at Japan Airlines Co Ltd.

"Of course there were people asking whether this was really safe, but they (the FAA) approved it and the Japanese airlines never questioned it."

Japanese airlines operate nearly half of the 787s in service.

ODD SMELL

Passengers on the Japan flight reported an odor like burning plastic soon after takeoff. All Nippon Airways Co Ltd Vice President Osamu Shinobe said in addition to a battery alert in the cockpit, "there was an odd smell detected in the cockpit and cabin."

The NTSB declined to comment, citing the ongoing probe. The Japan Transportation Safety Board, which is leading that investigation, and the NTSB so far describe it as a "battery incident," not a fire.

A photograph of the battery retrieved from the flight showed a blackened, melted interior with fused wires, a deformed lid and scorched casing.

A GS Yuasa spokesman said the company is cooperating with the investigation, but declined to comment on the details.

Boeing has not commented specifically on the battery failure in this incident. In the case of the Boston plane, Boeing said smoke got into the cabin because the 787 was on the ground without cabin pressure to redirect airflow.

Some experts cautioned against a rush to judgment about lithium-ion battery technology, saying the key was to understand failure rates and design a safe system.

"Everyone knew these dangers, but after it was designed, there were multiple tests and that's why it's in the final plane," said Yoshitomo Aoki, a Japanese aviation commentator. "It wouldn't have been approved if it wasn't safe."

Airbus plans to use lithium-ion batteries in its forthcoming A350 jet, its answer to the 787. That plane will use a different architecture that puts less stress on batteries, while expelling unwanted gases safely, Airbus says.

On Sunday, the NTSB widened its probe to include the Tucson, Arizona-based company that makes the charger for the batteries, Securaplane Technologies, a unit of Britain's Meggitt Plc. Securaplane said it is cooperating with the investigation.

"In no way would a fire like this lead me to say you should never have a lithium-ion battery on an airplane. That's just the wrong way to go," said Daniel Doughty, who helped write testing standards for electrical cars and worked on battery technology during 27 years at Sandia National Laboratory, a federally funded research center owned by Lockheed Martin Corp.

But Doughty and others said the FAA's earlier decisions deserved scrutiny.

"It's fair to ask about the approval process," Doughty said. "There needs to be some explanation and defense of whatever they did."

(Reporting by Alwyn Scott in SEATTLE and Mari Saito in TOKYO; Additional reporting by Tim Kelly, Maki Shiraki and Kentaro Sugiyama in TOKYO, Antoni Slodkowski in TAKAMATSU, Yoshiyuki Osada in OSAKA, Andrea Shalal-Esa in WASHINGTON, Bill Rigby in SEATTLE, Tim Hepher in PARIS, Peter Henderson in SAN FRANCISCO and Bernie Woodall and Deepa Seetharaman in DETROIT; Editing by Edward Tobin, Tiffany Wu and Andre Grenon)

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IHT Rendezvous: Hong Kong Holiday Makeover, in Lights

Last month, just in time for Christmas, I wrote a piece about the elaborate, colorful building illuminations that decorate dozens of skyscrapers in Hong Kong this time of year.

The Lunar New Year – the highlight of the Chinese calendar – falls a few weeks after Christmas, so the lights usually start going up in the runup to Christmas, in late November, and stay up well into February.

Along the way, sometime in early January, they subtly change to adapt to the season.

Santa Clauses morph into Chinese money gods, snowflakes and stars change into symbols of fortune and happiness, and Chinese characters wishing good luck and wealth for the coming year replace the “Merry Christmas” wishes that were up in December.

The start of the Year of the Snake on Feb. 10 is now just weeks away, and so the changeover has now been completed on most of the city’s buildings. A few readers have asked me to explain – so here’s an update, with pictures. Can you spot the difference?

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No sympathy for Armstrong on social media

LONDON (Reuters) – Lance Armstrong’s televised doping confession has done nothing to restore his shattered reputation, a study of responses posted to the Twitter social media site showed.

“What was particularly noticeable in our analysis of the Armstrong revelation was the sheer lack of sympathy out there,” said Charlie Dundas of sports market research company Repucom.

“The tone of the discussion around the Oprah Winfrey interview highlighted the level of disappointment and anger that exists. It’s clear the public are far from ready to forgive Lance Armstrong,” he added.

In the interview, Armstrong admitted to using performance-enhancing drugs on his way to his seven Tour de France titles. The Texan also said he hoped a lifetime ban would one day be lifted to allow him to compete in events like marathons.

The Armstrong interview generated 1.9 million Twitter posts between January 14-20, Repucom said. America accounted for more than a quarter of these, with Australia the second most active nation on the site.

(Writing by Keith Weir, editing by Mark Meadows)

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Vera Wang Reveals Details of Michelle Kwan's Wedding Dress

By Cynthia Wang

01/21/2013 at 07:00 PM EST

Michelle Kwan and Clay Pell

Courtesy of Caitlin Maloney

Although she was a singles figure skater throughout her successful career, Michelle Kwan did have one steadfast partner on the ice – fashion designer Vera Wang.

"I wore so many skating dresses designed by her, whole skating shows and everything," Kwan, 32, tells PEOPLE. "I have a long relationship with her."

And that made picking a wedding dress designer a fairly easy decision.

For Kwan's Rhode Island nuptials on Jan. 19 to Clay Pell, 31, Wang put plenty of consideration into her creation.

"She is marrying someone whose family has a political history, and Michelle is living and working in Washington, D.C.," the designer says. "[The dress] had to have a certain dignity and a certain classicism, and I think it was a lot about a new way of looking at tradition."

So Wang created an ivory, strapless mermaid gown for Kwan, made with layers of silk organza and featuring lace appliqué.

"The fact that it's got an inordinate amount of handwork in terms of lace is really a tribute to the art of hand-piecing lace," Wang says. "There is a princess-slash-queenly level of sophistication and quiet without sacrificing a lot of detail."

To complement the formal wedding gown, Kwan asked Wang what she thought of designing a second dress for the reception. "She said, 'Yeah, I got it,' " Kwan says. "She said, 'First dance, yes, and then you've got to change into something else.' "

Her history with the skater was not lost on Wang. "I'm really very honored and very thrilled that a, Michelle has found the love of her life and b, that I am the one to dress her for that special day just as I did for world championships, national championships, and Olympics," she said. "It's just the ongoing saga of our friendship."

For more on Kwan's wedding, including photos and details from the ceremony, pick up a copy of next week's PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday

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