Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announces Graph Search at company headquarters today.
(Credit: James Martin/CNET)
We didn't a get a Facebook phone, but Graph Search, the social network's beta tool for instant access to people, photos, places, and interests embedded within 1 trillion connections, has equally significant implications -- or maybe it doesn't.
Graph Search, available today in limited release, is Facebook search with context. A bigger search bar offers members a way to type in their natural language queries and find photos from their past, restaurants their friends have visited, music and movies their buddies like, or even potential dates, would-be pals, job recruits, or media sources. When Facebook doesn't have the answer, Bing will fill in the blanks with regular Web results.
"Graph Search enhances Facebook's functionality and makes it more useful to users," Rebecca Lieb, digital advertising and media analyst at Altimeter Group, told CNET. "There's a bit of a LinkedIn dimension -- find people in X city who work for X corporation -- but with strong natural language search capabilities for ease of use."
Forrester analyst Nate Elliott, in a phone interview with CNET, said disdainfully that Tuesday's press announcement amounted to basic hygiene.
"For them to call this big news feels like a bad joke ... They're taking an unacceptably bad part of the service and making it usable," he said, adding that Facebook has merely exited 1995 and now has a product actually suited for the 2000s.
Elliott was adamant that analysts and members of the media looking to find reasons to call the reveal a big deal were "desperately trying to find use cases for a tool without a use case in mind." He specifically cautioned against concluding that Graph Search would have any real impact on Yelp, Foursquare, and others in the social recommendations space.
Friends, Elliott said, help you decide what you're going to explore, but you turn to other sources of information to determine if you want to frequent a restaurant or watch a movie. "I don't see a lot of overlap between [Graph Search] and the behaviors people engage in on Google and Yelp."
On the opposite side of the fence are a number of industry pundits who truly believe that Graph Search will have a massive impact on Facebook's bottom line.
"Search, on the face of it, looks like a more minor announcement, but it has tremendous potential impact to users," Altimeter industry analyst Susan Etlinger told CNET in a phone interview.
Etlinger argued that Graph Search will be Facebook's instrument for growth -- that is, the tool that keeps members active as the social network reaches its maximum capacity. "The number of people in the world is finite," she said. "The engine of growth is sharing."
Her colleague Lieb also challenged Elliott's theory of recommendation irrelevance. "As search develops, it could disrupt the business models of social platforms such as Yelp, Foursquare, or Google Local, which help consumers find things such as movies, restaurants, and services based on friends' recommendations."
Julien Blin, an analyst covering consumer electronics and mobile broadband for Infonetics, took the argument a step further. He told CNET that Graph Search could become a major threat to Google and Amazon once it becomes available on mobile phones and incorporates the Facebook Gifts product.
"We could imagine a case where a Facebook user is searching for 'friends who bought shoes in San Francisco.' Then [Graph Search] would pull up a list of shoe stores with comments and reviews from friends," he said. "The Facebook user would have the option to click on the Facebook 'Want' button to buy the items, or even gift the item to other users via Facebook Gifts. This type of service would compete directly with Amazon."
For now, all arguments about the implications of Graph Search on Facebook's business are entirely theoretical. The social network has admittedly launched an extremely beta, Web- and English-only product to a few hundred thousand people. The product isn't even capable of searching Facebook posts or Open Graph actions like song listens, which makes it only partially usable to the members who have it and of no immediate value to brands or advertisers wanting to derive more intelligence about members' interests and relationships.
We won't go so far as to call Graph Search a joke, but Elliott's point about this release being basic site hygiene seems more and more apropos the more we think about it.
"Right now you can't find anything on Facebook, no matter how much you search for it," Elliott said.
Should we be applauding the release of a piece of software that seems long overdue? That's for you to decide.
That's the recommendation being urged by federal health officials, local doctors and most experts who are commenting on this year's flu epidemic. But what exactly is in the flu vaccine, what forms does it come in, and why should we get vaccinated if there's still a chance we can get sick?
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Flu hits epidemic levels
Last week, the flu reached "epidemic levels," with 7.3 percent of all U.S. deaths caused by flu and pneumonia. Government estimates show 47 states are reporting widespread illness -- meaning at least 50 percent of its counties or subregions are reporting infections -- and high activity of influenza-like illness has been reported in 24 states and New York City. Officials expressed hope the flu may have peaked in some regions, but noted the severity of flu season is unpredictable.
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Calif. stockpiles flu vaccine to prevent epidemic
That's why people are being urged to get the flu vaccine, which the government calls the best way to prevent flu.
A new flu vaccine is developed every year in an attempt to provide the best chances to reduce risk of getting the flu or spreading the illness to others. So even for those who feel they won't get sick from the flu, experts note they should still get vaccinated because they may pass flu on to other people who are more at risk, such as young children, the elderly or persons with other medical conditions that weaken immunity.
The vaccines protect against infection and illness caused by the three influenza viruses -- or strains -- that a panel selects each year based on research that indicates which will be most common this season.
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Flu vaccine: Does it work?
This year's vaccine contains two influenza A strains and one influenza B strain, Dr. William Schaffner, the chair of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University who was immediate-past president of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases, told CBSNews.com Tuesday. The A strains include an H1N1 strain similar to the one that caused a 2009 "swine flu" pandemic and a new H3N2 strain that is actually the strain that is causing most of the damage now, according to Schaffner, who served on the CDC panel that helped pick which strains would go into this year's vaccine.
"So that was a bull's-eye hit," he said.
The influenza B strain included in the vaccine is similar to a 2010 strain, but Schaffner said there is typically more than one B strain "smoldering" during flu season. While this vaccine targets one of them, he said, there's another strain out there causing about 6 to 8 percent of the disease, and this year's vaccine won't protect flu caused by that virus.
However, just because you get vaccinated doesn't mean you'll evade the flu.
A recent CDC study found this year's vaccine is about 62 percent effective, meaning it will prevent disease completely 62 percent of the time, according to Schaffner.
"It means that the glass is more than half full," he said. "It's not a perfect vaccine, but a good vaccine."
Even when the flu vaccine does not prevent a person from getting sick, it can lead to milder illness or prevent complications including pneumonia and even death.
Once vaccinated, the body takes about two weeks to develop flu-fighting antibodies, meaning people are still at risk for flu after they get the vaccine. That's why experts recommend vaccination early in the fall before flu season -- which typically peaks in late January or February -- gets under way. The vaccine's protection lasts through the spring, according to the CDC, so people need to get it every year. People who already got vaccinated this fall should not try to get another flu shot amid the reports of a flu epidemic.
There are two types of flu vaccines available for Americans, according to the CDC: the "flu shot" and the nasal spray vaccine. A flu shot contains a killed flu virus that is given with a needle, typically in the arm. All people ages 6 months and older, including healthy people, those with chronic medical conditions and pregnant women are recommended to get a flu shot.
This year, there are three different types of flu shots available. A regular flu shot approved for people ages 6 months and older, a high-dose flu shot designed for people 65 and older (the higher dose is meant to give the elderly better protection because immunity weakens with age) and an intradermal flu shot approved for people 18 to 64 years of age that is injected into the skin, rather than the muscle as is typical for the other shot formulations. The latter shot has a needle 90 percent smaller than those used for typical flu shots, and may cause redness but not the soreness that may accompany the regular flu shot's deeper muscle injections.
As for FluMist nasal sprays, these vaccines are made with live, weakened flu viruses that enter the body by being pumped through the nose. The viruses in the nasal spray vaccine do not actually cause the flu even though they are "live," because they are designed to only work in cooler temperatures of the nose and not warmer areas like the lungs. This vaccine is approved for use in healthy people ages 2 through 49 who are not pregnant and don't suffer from egg allergies or other chronic medical conditions. Schaffner noted children sometimes prefer these vaccines because doctors don't have to bring out needles; some adults prefer the sprays for that same reason, he said.
Generally, people who should not get vaccinated include those who are allergic to chicken eggs or have had a severe reaction to influenza vaccination in the past, children younger than 6 months of age and people who are already sick with a fever, who should wait to recover before they are vaccinated. People with Guillain-Barr? Syndrome, a severe illness that could lead to muscle weakness and paralysis, should also speak to a doctor to help decide whether to take the vaccine.
Some critics have taken issue with the vaccine being only 62 percent effective, or the fact that many people who have taken it are still getting sick.
Dr. Adam Stracher, director of the primary care division of the Weill Cornell Physician Organization at Weill Cornell Medical College, told CBSNews.com that the vaccine is safe, and a much better option than not getting any vaccine.
"While it may not be 100 percent effective, even in those patients who get the flu after getting the flu vaccine, they tend to have a milder illness than patients who haven't gotten the flu vaccine," he said.
Stracher adds that despite some common fears it's impossible to get the actual flu from the vaccine because it's only made of a component of the virus, but people can feel aches or a low-grade fever following vaccination as a response to a foreign protein being injected into the body.
Schaffner adds that less than 1 percent of people get a fever from the shot, and the nasal spray vaccine may lead to a runny nose or sore throat, but none of these things are considered a serious flu infection. He was blunt when assessing the common fears that the flu shot can cause the flu:
"That's malarkey," he said.
Improvements to the vaccine may also be on the horizon to improve future formulations.
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Widespread flu found in 47 states
CDC officials have discussed some potential improvements coming down the pike, including a quadrivalent vaccine that protects against four flu strains instead of three, and new cell-based flu vaccines, Flucelvax, which recently became FDA-approved in November.
The traditional method to create a vaccine involves virus samples being injected into specialized chicken eggs which are then incubated. Egg fluids are later harvested and purified into the vaccine. The new technology involves small amounts of virus which is placed into fermenting tanks with nutrients and animal cells. The virus is then deactivated, purified and put into vaccine vials, a method officials believe is faster than egg-based production and could speed up manufacturing in the event of a pandemic.
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Report: Flu vaccine production slow, outdated
In December, Dr. Michael Osterholm, an infectious disease specialist who has studied medical records and flu studies dating back to the 1930s, told CBS News correspondent Elaine Quijano that growing viruses in chicken eggs is slow, inexact and outdated.
"If we don't change our current vaccines, we will have some protection, but we will in two ways miss two very important goals: one, protecting old people at the highest risk of death and two, when the next pandemic emerges, we will miss the opportunity to protect against pandemic," he said at the time. Despite his concerns, he recommended people get the vaccine because it's safe, and some protection is better than none.
Schaffner also mentioned that doctors are investigating "universal" flu vaccines that would be capable of preventing all flu strains that people would only need to get once every 10 years. Dr. Francis Collins, chief of the National Institutes of Health, confirmed the vaccine's development in Dec. 2011.
However, until then, people should get the current vaccine which is safe, said Schaffner, who paraphrased Voltaire for his message:
"Waiting for perfection is the greatest enemy of the current good," he said.
The CDC noted during a conference call last week that there are spot shortages of this year's vaccine based on some reports it has received. The agency's website directs people to the HealthMap Vaccine Finder where people can plug in their zip code. Users are also asked to report any vaccine shortages they may experience through this website or tweet @vaccinefinder on Twitter with the hashtag #vaxshortage.
How you search Facebook is about to change. In fact, just the act of searching Facebook is probably about to start.
Facebook is trying to give Google a run for its money, with a new product called "Graph Search." It turns some of the personal information people have shared on Facebook into a powerful searchable database.
For the social network's 170 million users in the U.S., it's bound to change the way people interact with their Facebook friends. It also could mean lots more time wasted at work.
Facebook allowed ABC News "Nightline" behind the scenes ahead of today's product launch, an event shrouded in secrecy and rife with speculation. Company officials had sent out a tantalizingly vague invitation: "Come and see what we're building."
IMAGES: Screenshots of Graph Search and the offices where it was built
CEO Mark Zuckerberg has long wanted to develop a social search engine, even hinting back in September that one might be in the works. The new feature gives users the ability to easily search across the network and their friends' information. Company officials say they believe it has the potential to transform the way people use Facebook.
Graph Search: What Is It? Until now, the search bar you saw when you logged in to your Facebook page wasn't very powerful. You could only search for Timelines -- your friends' pages, other peoples' public pages and business or product pages.
But now, after close to a year and a half of development, the new "Graph Search" will allow you to search and discover more about your friends and other information that's been put on the world's largest social site.
Inside the Crucial 24 Hours Before Facebook's Graph Search Launch: Watch Tonight at 12:35 a.m. on ABC News "Nightline"
The new tool, available only to a limited set of U.S. users at first, turns key information that nearly a billion people have shared on the site -- including photos, places, and things they "like" -- into a searchable database tailored to your individual social network.
The new tool allows you to search across your friends' Timelines, without having to go to each of their Timeline pages to find out if they like a specific place or thing.
"I can just type in a short, simple phrase, like friends who like soccer and live nearby," Facebook product manager Kate O'Neill, told ABC News "Nightline" in an exclusive behind-the-scenes interview. "And now I'm getting the exact group of people that I'm looking for, so I can play soccer and ask them if they want to kick the ball around with me after work." O'Neill was able to narrow down the search in a demonstration only to show women.
MORE: Guide to Facebook's New Privacy Settings
The tool can search your friends' publicly shared interests, photos, places and connections. O'Neill showed ABC News how you can search for different musical artists and see which of your friends like them. She also showed how you can search a company and see which of your friends, or friends of your friends, work there. Additionally, you can search for photos of a specific place -- like Big Sur -- and the Graph Search will return images your friends might have taken of the location.
Right now, you can't search for things that were shared in a Timeline post or an event. However, O'Neill confirmed that this would be added to Graph Search later.
Privacy and Opting Out The new product raises obvious privacy questions. Will personal information now pop up in the Graph Search, even if you never wanted to share it? How about those photos you never wanted to have on Facebook in the first place, or the ones you thought you were sharing only with your close friends?
"[Privacy] is something, of course, we care a lot about, and so from the very beginning we made it so that you can only search for the things that you can already see on Facebook," Tom Stocky, one of the lead Graph Search senior engineers, told "Nightline."
Stocky also pointed ABC News to Facebook's recent privacy tool changes, which allow you better to see what personal information your friends and others can see on Facebook. O'Neill showed the new Activity Log tools as well as the photo "untag" tool, which lets you contact others who might have a photo of you posted that you'd wish they'd take down.
When asked if users can opt out of the new search in general, Stocky said that they can choose to change the privacy settings on each of their pieces of content.
BAMAKO/DUBAI (Reuters) - France will end its intervention in Mali only once stability has returned to the West African country, French President Francois Hollande said on Tuesday, raising the prospects of a costly, drawn-out operation against al Qaeda-linked rebels.
Paris has poured hundreds of soldiers into Mali and carried out air raids since Friday in the northern half of the country, which Western and regional states fear could become a base for attacks by Islamist militants in Africa and Europe.
Thousands of African troops are due to take over the offensive but regional armies are scrambling to accelerate the operation - initially not expected for months and brought forward by France's bombing campaign aimed at stopping a rebel advance on a strategic town last week.
"We have one goal. To ensure that when we leave, when we end our intervention, Mali is safe, has legitimate authorities, an electoral process and there are no more terrorists threatening its territory," Hollande told a news conference during a visit to the United Arab Emirates.
Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, accompanying Hollande, said the offensive against the Malian rebels could take some time, and the current French level of involvement could last weeks. Elections, however, would take months to organize.
French aircraft earlier hit rebels with fresh air strikes and a column of dozens of French armored vehicles rumbled into the dusty riverside capital of Bamako overnight, bringing to about 750 the number of French troops in Mali.
Paris has said it plans to deploy 2,500 soldiers in its former colony to bolster the Malian army and work with the intervention force provided by West African states.
West African defense chiefs met in Bamako on Tuesday to approve plans for speeding up the deployment of 3,300 regional troops, foreseen in a United Nations-backed intervention plan to be led by Africans.
Nigeria pledged to deploy soldiers within 24 hours and Belgium said it was sending transport planes and helicopters to help, but West Africa's armies need time to become operational.
Mali's north, a vast and inhospitable area of desert and rugged mountains the size of Texas, was seized last year by an Islamist alliance combining al Qaeda's north African wing AQIM with splinter group MUJWA and the home-grown Ansar Dine rebels.
Any delay in following up on the French air bombardments of Islamist bases and fuel depots with a ground offensive could allow the insurgents to slip away into the desert and mountains, regroup and counter-attack.
The rebels, who French officials say are mobile and well-armed, have shown they can hit back, dislodging government forces from Diabaly, 350 km (220 miles) from Bamako on Monday.
Residents said the town was still under Islamist control on Tuesday despite a number of air strikes that shook houses.
An eye witness near Segou, to the south, told Reuters he had seen 20 French Special Forces soldiers driving toward Diabaly.
Malians have largely welcomed the French intervention, having seen their army suffer a series of defeats by the rebels.
"With the arrival of the French, we have started to see the situation on the front evolve in our favor," said Aba Sanare, a resident of Bamako.
QUESTIONS OVER READINESS
Aboudou Toure Cheaka, a senior regional official in Bamako, said the West African troops would be on the ground in a week.
The original timetable for the 3,300-strong U.N.-sanctioned African force - to be backed by western logistics, money and intelligence services - did not initially foresee full deployment before September due to logistical constraints.
Senegal, Burkina Faso, Niger, Nigeria and Guinea have all offered troops. Col. Mohammed Yerima, spokesman for Nigeria's defense ministry, said the first 190 soldiers would be dispatched within 24 hours.
But Nigeria, which is due to lead the mission, has already cautioned that even if some troops arrive in Mali soon, their training and equipping will take more time.
Sub-Saharan Africa's top oil producer, which already has peacekeepers in Sudan's Darfur and is fighting a bloody and difficult insurgency at home against Islamist sect Boko Haram, could struggle to deliver on its troop commitment of 900 men.
One senior government adviser in Nigeria said the Mali deployment was stretching the country's military.
"The whole thing's a mess. We don't have any troops with experience of those extreme conditions, even of how to keep all that sand from ruining your equipment. And we're facing battle-hardened guys who live in those dunes," the adviser said, asking not to be named because of the sensitivity of the subject.
FRENCH LINING UP SUPPORT
France, which has repeatedly said it has abandoned its role as the policeman of its former African colonies, said on Monday that the U.S., Canada, Denmark and Germany had also offered logistical support.
Fabius has said Gulf Arab states would help the Mali campaign while Belgium said on Tuesday it would send two C130 transport planes and two medical helicopters to Mali following a request from Paris.
A meeting of donors for the operation was expected to be held in Addis Ababa at the end of January.
Security experts have warned that the multinational intervention in Mali, couched in terms of a campaign by governments against "terrorism", could provoke a jihadist backlash against France and the West, and African allies.
U.S. officials have warned of links between AQIM, Boko Haram in Nigeria and al Shabaab Islamic militants fighting in Somalia.
Al Shabaab, which foiled a French effort at the weekend to rescue a French secret agent it was holding hostage, urged Muslims around the world to rise up against what it called "Christian" attacks against Islam.
"Our brothers in Mali, show patience and tolerance and you will win. War planes never liberate a land," Sheikh Ali Mohamud Rage, al Shabaab's spokesman, said on a rebel-run website.
U.S. officials said Washington was sharing information with French forces in Mali and considering providing logistics, surveillance and airlift capability.
"We have made a commitment that al Qaeda is not going to find any place to hide," U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told reporters as he began a visit to Europe. Panetta later said the U.S. had no plans to send troops to Mali.
"I don't know what the French endgame is for this. What is their goal? It reminds me of our initial move into Afghanistan," a U.S. military source told Reuters.
"Air strikes are fine. But pretty soon you run out of easy targets. Then what do you do? What do you do when they head up into the mountains?"
(Additional reporting by Elizabeth Pineau and Raissa Kasolowsky in Abu Dhabi; Felix Onuah in Abuja and Tim Cocks in Lagos; Abdi Sheikh in Mogadishu; Michelle Nichols Louis Charbonneau at the United Nations; Richard Valdmanis in Dakar; Joe Bavier in Abidjan; Jan Vermeylen in Brussels; Writing by Pascal Fletcher and David Lewis; editing by Richard Valdmanis and Giles Elgood)
LONDON: Iconic British music retailer HMV announced on Monday that it will appoint an administrator, raising fears of more than 4,000 job losses.
Audit and consulting firm Deloitte will manage the struggling chain, the last major music retailer on the British high-street, as it seeks to attract possible buyers.
"The board regrets to announce that it has been unable to reach a position where it feels able to continue to trade outside of insolvency protection," said a statement issued Monday.
Administration is the process whereby a troubled company calls upon independent expert financial help in an attempt to remain operational.
HMV added that the board "understand that it is the intention of the administrators, once appointed, to continue to trade whilst they seek a purchaser for the business".
The 92-year-old institution employs around 4,350 staff, but has struggled to meet the challenge of online retailing and digital downloading and has been teetering on the brink for many months.
"The problem they have is their core product categories are disappearing, and that's a very hard thing to fight," said analyst Kate Calvert of Seymour Pierce brokers.
The company, which also operates in Ireland, Hong Kong and Singapore, announced in December that it was in danger of breaching bank loan arrangements, and its shares on the London Stock Exchange were suspended on Monday.
It has huge debts and last month reported sales were down 13.5 per cent, leading to a crash in the share price that left the company valued at just over £5 million.
It launched a huge, month-long sale on Saturday offering 25 per cent off a huge range of products to boost sales, but even that was not enough to keep the administrators from the door.
The first HMV store opened on London's Oxford Street in 1921 under the ownership of the Gramophone Company, which endowed it with its legendary trademark, the image of a dog listening to a gramophone -- His Master's Voice.
It became part of music history in 1962 when Brian Epstein cut a demo for The Beatles in the shop studio, which led to the Fab Four signing with EMI, the record label that owned HMV until 1996.
It is the latest British retailer to fall into administration.
Photography chain Jessops announced last week it had called in outside help, while retail chain Comet collapsed into administration late last year and shut its doors for the last time in December.
- Internet activist Aaron Swartz, 26, committed suicide. He faced $4 million in fines and 50 years in prison for chargest hat he stole millions of academic papers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and from JSTOR. In the wake of his death, MIT is conducting an investigation of the school's role in the events before he took his life. Researchers have paid tribute to Swartz by posting links to copyright-protected papers on Twitter, to honor his campaign for open access to documents on the Internet.
- Samsung's Galaxy S smartphones have crossed the 100 million sales mark. The first model launched in May 2010.
- Apple is cutting back on screen orders for the iPhone 5, possibly due to weak demand, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal.
- Marketing agencies are seeing the iPhone slipping in popularity with teenager opinion surveys, according to Forbes.
- Audiobooks.com is ending its unlimited subscription plan of $25 a month. Instead, it's moving to a plan similar to Audible, where $15 a month gets you one audio book, and $23 offers two books for the month.
Watch CNET Update in the video above, or subscribe to the podcast via the links below.
AUSTIN, Texas Lance Armstrong apologized to the staff at his Livestrong cancer foundation before heading to an interview with Oprah Winfrey, a person with direct knowledge of the meeting told The Associated Press.
The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the discussion was private.
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Lance Armstrong to "speak candidly" to Oprah Winfrey
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Lance Armstrong
Stripped last year of his seven Tour de France titles because of doping charges, Armstrong addressed the staff Monday and said, "I'm sorry." The person said the disgraced cyclist choked up and several employees cried during the session.
The person also said Armstrong apologized for letting the staff down and putting Livestrong at risk but he did not make a direct confession to the group about using banned drugs. He said he would try to restore the foundation's reputation, and urged the group to continue fighting for the charity's mission of helping cancer patients and their families.
After the meeting, Armstrong, his legal team and close advisers gathered at a downtown Austin hotel for the interview.
The cyclist will make a limited confession to Winfrey about his role as the head of a long-running scheme to dominate the Tour with the aid of performance-enhancing drugs, a person with knowledge of the situation has told the AP.
Winfrey and her crew had earlier said they would film the interview, to be broadcast Thursday, at his home but the location apparently changed to a hotel. Local and international news crews staked out positions in front of the cyclist's Spanish-style villa before dawn, hoping to catch a glimpse of Winfrey or Armstrong.
Armstrong still managed to slip away for a run Monday morning despite the crowds gathering outside his house. He returned home by cutting through a neighbor's yard and hopping a fence.
During a jog on Sunday, Armstrong talked to the AP for a few minutes saying, "I'm calm, I'm at ease and ready to speak candidly." He declined to go into specifics.
Armstrong lost all seven Tour titles following a voluminous U.S. Anti-Doping Agency report that portrayed him as a ruthless competitor, willing to go to any lengths to win the prestigious race. USADA chief executive Travis Tygart labeled the doping regimen allegedly carried out by the U.S. Postal Service team that Armstrong once led, "The most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program that sport has ever seen."
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Anti-doping chief: Armstrong bullied witnesses
In a recent "60 Minutes Sports" interview, Tygart described Armstrong and his team of doctors, coaches and riders as similar to a "Mafia" that kept their secret for years and intimidated riders into silently following their illegal methods.
Yet Armstrong looked like just another runner getting in his roadwork when he talked to the AP, wearing a red jersey and black shorts, sunglasses and a white baseball cap pulled down to his eyes. Leaning into a reporter's car on the shoulder of a busy Austin road, he seemed unfazed by the attention and the news crews that made stops at his home. He cracked a few jokes about all the reporters vying for his attention, then added, "but now I want to finish my run," and took off down the road.
The interview with Winfrey will be Armstrong's first public response to the USADA report. Armstrong is not expected to provide a detailed account about his involvement, nor address in depth many of the specific allegations in the more than 1,000-page USADA report.
In a text to the AP on Saturday, Armstrong said: "I told her (Winfrey) to go wherever she wants and I'll answer the questions directly, honestly and candidly. That's all I can say."
After a federal investigation of the cyclist was dropped without charges being brought last year, USADA stepped in with an investigation of its own. The agency deposed 11 former teammates and accused Armstrong of masterminding a complex and brazen drug program that included steroids, blood boosters and a range of other performance-enhancers.
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Lance Armstrong offered donation to USADA during investigation
Once all the information was out and his reputation shattered, Armstrong defiantly tweeted a picture of himself on a couch at home with all seven of the yellow leader's jerseys on display in frames behind him. But the preponderance of evidence in the USADA report and pending legal challenges on several fronts apparently forced him to change tactics after more a decade of denials.
He still faces legal problems.
Former teammate Floyd Landis, who was stripped of the 2006 Tour de France title for doping, has filed a federal whistle-blower lawsuit that accused Armstrong of defrauding the U.S. Postal Service. The Justice Department has yet to decide whether it will join the suit as a plaintiff.
The London-based Sunday Times also is suing Armstrong to recover about $500,000 it paid him to settle a libel lawsuit. On Sunday, the newspaper took out a full-page ad in the Chicago Tribune, offering Winfrey suggestions for what questions to ask Armstrong. Dallas-based SCA Promotions, which tried to deny Armstrong a promised bonus for a Tour de France win, has threatened to bring yet another lawsuit seeking to recover more than $7.5 million an arbitration panel awarded the cyclist in that dispute.
The lawsuit most likely to be influenced by a confession might be the Sunday Times case. Potential perjury charges stemming from Armstrong's sworn testimony in the 2005 arbitration fight would not apply because of the statute of limitations. Armstrong was not deposed during the federal investigation that was closed last year.
Many of his sponsors dropped Armstrong after the damning USADA report — at the cost of tens of millions of dollars — and soon after, he left the board of Livestrong, which he founded in 1997. Armstrong is still said to be worth about $100 million.
Livestrong might be one reason Armstrong has decided to come forward with an apology and limited confession. The charity supports cancer patients and still faces an image problem because of its association with Armstrong. He also may be hoping a confession would allow him to return to competition in the elite triathlon or running events he participated in after his cycling career.
World Anti-Doping Code rules state his lifetime ban cannot be reduced to less than eight years. WADA and U.S. Anti-Doping officials could agree to reduce the ban further depending on what information Armstrong provides and his level of cooperation.
Lance Armstrong apologized today to the Livestrong staff ahead of his interview with Oprah Winfrey, a foundation official said.
The disgraced cyclist gathered with about 100 Livestrong Foundation staffers at their Austin, Texas, headquarters for a meeting that included social workers who deal directly with patients as part of the group's mission to support cancer victims.
Armstrong's "sincere and heartfelt apology" generated lots of tears, spokeswoman Katherine McLane said, adding that he "took responsibility" for the trouble he has caused the foundation.
McLane declined to say whether Armstrong's comments included an admission of doping, just that the cyclist wanted the staff to hear from him in person rather than rely on second-hand accounts.
Armstrong then took questions from the staff.
Armstrong's story has never changed. In front of cameras, microphones, fans, sponsors, cancer survivors -- even under oath -- Lance Armstrong hasn't just denied ever using performance enhancing drugs, he has done so in an indignant, even threatening way.
Riccardo S. Savi/Getty Images|Ray Tamarra/Getty Images
Lance Armstrong Doping Charges: Secret Tapes Watch Video
Lance Armstrong's Winfrey Interview: Expected to Admit to Doping Watch Video
Today, sources tell ABC News, will be different. Today Armstrong is expected to rewrite his own, now infamous story, to Winfrey. So what should she ask? There are enough questions to fill a book, but here's our shot at five, for starters, all based on the belief that his first words will be an admission. Feel free to comment and add your own.
1) Witnesses have told the U.S. Anti Doping Agency that after recovering from cancer, you increased your use of performance enhancing drugs, but swore off one of them—Human Growth Hormone—specifically noting your cancer as a reason to avoid it. Do you believe your cancer may have been caused by performance enhancing drug use?
2) Some people seem able to forgive or rationalize the use of performance enhancing drugs, but what troubles them is the vicious cover-up. Why did you feel it necessary to go beyond denials, to attack and even threaten and file legal claims against those who accused you of drug use, even to the point of causing serious harm to people's lives and reputations?
3) In 1996, while recovering from cancer, your former close friend Frankie Andreu and his wife Betsy say they were in the hospital room when you told doctors you'd used several different performance enhancing drugs during your career. They testified under oath about this, but you always denied it and vilified them. This caused the Andreus great harm. Did it happen?
4) What do you tell your kids?
5) Up until today, everything you've said and done—even that picture on twitter of you and your yellow jerseys—has said to the world that you're not sorry, and that you're the real winner of seven Tours. Aren't you just coming forward now to help yourself, rather than to come clean or set the record straight?
Whatever the answers, a small army of lawyers and even criminal investigators will be listening closely. Will Armstrong's interview be the start of his redemption or the beginning of even bigger problems?
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syria's civil war is unleashing a "staggering humanitarian crisis" on the Middle East as hundreds of thousands of refugees flee violence including gang rape, an international aid agency said on Monday.
Opposition activists said an air strike on rebel-held territory southwest of Damascus killed 20 people, including women and children, adding to the more than 60,000 people estimated to have been killed in the 21-month-old conflict.
Over 600,000 Syrians have fled abroad - many to neighboring Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan - as violence has spread and international efforts to find a political solution have sagged.
Refugees interviewed by the International Rescue Committee (IRC) cited sexual violence as a major reason they fled the country, the New York-based organization said in a 23-page report on the crisis published on Monday.
Gang rapes often happened in front of family members and women had been kidnapped, raped, tortured and killed, it said.
"After decades of working in war and disaster zones, the IRC knows that women and girls suffer physical and sexual violence in every conflict. Syria is no exception," the group added.
Rebels and government forces have both been accused of human rights abuses during the conflict, which began with peaceful protests against President Bashar al-Assad in March 2011.
The unrest turned violent after government forces fired on demonstrators and has since become a full-scale civil war.
Fierce winter weather has worsened the plight of hundreds of thousands of refugees. The IRC urged donors to step up planning and funding in the expectation that more Syrians will flee.
"Nearly two years into Syria's civil war, the region faces a staggering humanitarian disaster," the IRC report said.
AIR POWER
Despite advancing in Syria's north and east and winning support from regional powers like Turkey and Saudi Arabia, the Syrian rebels have been unable to break a military stalemate with government forces elsewhere.
They have struggled to counter government air power in particular, making it hard for them to take and hold territory crucial to Assad's grip on power, including major cities.
An activist in Moadamiyeh, a rebel-held town southwest of Damascus, said an air strike there killed 20 people on Monday.
Activist video footage showed images of the limp body of a boy being pulled out from broken concrete, his back covered in dust and his front in blood.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group, said at least 13 people had died in the air raid but the toll was likely to rise.
Syrian state television said "terrorists" - its word for rebels - had fired a mortar from the Damascus suburb of Daraya on a civilian building in Moadamiyeh, killing women and children.
The reports could not be independently verified because of government restrictions on independent media in Syria.
Syrian warplanes also bombarded the strategic Taftanaz air base that rebels seized last week, the Observatory said.
In another sign of escalating bloodshed, Human Rights Watch said it had evidence that government forces had used multi-barrel rocket launchers to deliver Egyptian-made cluster munitions in recent attacks.
"Syria is escalating and expanding its use of cluster munitions, despite international condemnation of its embrace of this banned weapon," it said.
DEADLOCK
Syria's rising death toll has brought international intervention no closer. The United States and Russia have been deadlocked over how to resolve the crisis.
Moscow - which has continued to back its long-standing ally and arms client Assad - urged the opposition on Sunday to make its own proposals in response to a speech by Assad a week ago.
The speech, which offered no concessions, was criticized by the United Nations and United States. Syrian rebels described it as a renewed declaration of war.
Talks between Russia and the United States in Geneva on Friday failed to produce a breakthrough.
As diplomatic efforts have stalled, the conflict has continued to draw in Syria's neighbors.
A mortar round apparently fired from Syria crashed in a field in Turkey overnight close to a refugee camp housing thousands of Syrians along the border, Turkish state media said.
NATO troops have begun deploying Patriot defense missiles in Turkey against a potential attack from its southern neighbor. The missiles are expected to be operational by the end of the month. Turkey is a strong supporter of the Syrian rebels.
NATO said Syrian government forces had launched a short-range, Scud-style ballistic missile on Sunday, bringing to more than 20 the number launched in the past month.
The missiles, apparently fired against opposition targets, landed in Syrian territory, mostly in northern Syria, a NATO spokeswoman said in Brussels, but some of the missiles landed "quite close" to the Turkish frontier.
(Additional reporting by Laila Bassam in Beirut and Adrian Croft in Brussels; Writing by Alexander Dziadosz; Editing by Mark Heinrich)
ALLAHABAD: Hundreds of thousands of pilgrims led by naked ash-covered holy men begin entering the sacred river Ganges on Monday at the start of the world's biggest religious festival.
The Kumbh Mela in the Indian town of Allahabad will see up to 100 million Hindus gather over the next 55 days to take a ritual bath in the holy waters, believed to cleanse sins and bestow blessings.
At dawn on Monday at a time chosen by astrologers as auspicious, hundreds of gurus, some brandishing swords and tridents, will run into the swirling and freezing waters for the first bath, signalling the start of events.
Assorted holymen, seers and self-proclaimed saints from all over the country have assembled for a colourful spectacle that offers a rare glimpse of the dizzying variety of Indian spiritualism.
"Our biggest wish is that there is peace and that people should look after each other," one Naga Sadhu, a devout, fierce and famously nude sect of followers of the Hindu god Shiva, told AFP.
For most, however, attending the Kumbh Mela is a religious holiday enjoyed in an almost carnival atmosphere, where prayers and blessings are offered and sought alongside family or friends camping together at the vast festival site.
"You feel somewhat connected to somebody who is there above, and that's what it's all about," Mayank Pandey, a 35-year-old computer science professor, explained to AFP.
The Kumbh Mela takes place every 12 years in Allahabad in northern Uttar Pradesh state, with smaller but similar events every three years in other locations around India.
It has its origins in Hindu mythology, which tells how a few drops of the nectar of immortality fell on the four places that host the festival -- Allahabad, Nasik, Ujjain and Haridwar.
For men like Ram Krishna Verma, a 42-year-old farmer from the state of Chattisgarh who has travelled 700 kilometres, it is a time of religious duty as he has come to scatter the ashes of his late mother.
"She died two months ago," he told AFP. "This is the final resting place."
The "Mother Ganges" is worshipped as a god and is seen as both the giver and taker of life. Most devotees dunk their heads under the water, some drink it and others bottle it and take it home as a gift.
"Those who are poor will become rich and those who don't have children will get children," explained Bhim Sen, a 61-year-old farmer from southern India. "I pray to the Ganges that my wishes will become fulfilled."
Police expect 250,000 people on Monday with 20 million anticipated on February 15, the most auspicious day. Overall, organisers are counting on about 100 million coming, the same number as in 2001.
The management of the festival requires a monumental effort -- and a budget of 16 trillion rupees (US$290 million) -- but officials say everything is in place for a safe and successful event.
Top state police officer Arun Kumar said the biggest concern was crowd control and the 12,000 officers on duty would be monitoring to guard against stampedes -- a frequent and deadly occurrence at Indian religious festivals.
"We will be measuring the pressures in the crowd," Kumar, who is in charge of law and order, told AFP on Sunday. "We are totally prepared to handle this Mela."
Organisers have set up 35,000 toilets, 14 medical centres, 22,000 street lights, 150 kilometres of temporary roads, 18 bridges, and new sewage facilities.
Nearly 7,000 buses as well as hundreds of special trains are expected to ferry people to and from Allahabad where the heavily polluted Yamuna river flows into the equally dirty Ganges.
Despite its important role in Hinduism, the Ganges is tainted by industry and the settlements along its banks, which quickly turn the clear waters from the Himalayas into a murky, frothy brown downstream.
Local authorities have cracked down on untreated effluent from nearby factories and new drainage facilities in Allahabad have cut the immediate flow of raw sewage.
