Bloomberg Admits Allowing Reporters to Snoop on Users

"Reporters at Bloomberg News were trained to use a function on the company's financial data terminals that allowed them to view subscribers' contact information and, in some cases, monitor login activity in order to advance news coverage," the New York Timesreports.

"More than 315,000 Bloomberg subscribers worldwide use the terminals for instant market news, trading information and communication. Reporters at Bloomberg News, a separate division from the terminal business, were nonetheless told to use the terminals to get an edge in the competitive world of financial journalism where every second counts."

Bloomberg News editor-in-chief Matthew Winkler apologized in a column today.

NFL Draft ratings rise on ESPN, NFL Network

Viewership for the NFL Draft rose 4 percent on ESPN and 23 percent on NFL Network, according to a Sports Illustrated report.

Ratings on NFL Network, which averaged 930,000 viewers during the three days, surged in part due to last year's decision by Time Warner Cable to carry the network. NFLN is now in more than 70 million homes.

ESPN averaged 3,035,000 for its three days of coverage. Perhaps due to a lack of star power atop the draft, first-round viewership on ESPN dropped 7 percent, from last year's 6.6 million to 6.2 million. That still outpaced the 6 million viewers who watched the first round in 2011.

Commissioner Roger Goodell's decision to move the draft to prime time in 2010 has boosted ratings. In 2009, 6.3 million viewers watched the first round. This year's first round drew 7.7 million viewers, third-most ever but behind last year's 8.1 million.

New Orleans was ESPN's top metered market for the three-day draft, followed by Birmingham, Kansas City, Buffalo, Dayton, Jacksonville, Pittsburgh, Milwaukee, Cincinnati and Nashville, according to SI.

Minnesota poised to become 12th state to adopt same-sex marriage

(Reuters) - The Minnesota Senate is expected to give final approval on Monday to a bill that would make the state the 12th in the United States to allow same-sex couples to marry and only the second in the Midwest.

Leaders in the Senate, where Democrats hold a 39-28 majority, have said they believe they have the support to approve a bill legalizing gay marriage. They set a vote for Monday on the measure that members of the state House approved last week.

Democratic Governor Mark Dayton has said he would sign the bill, which would make Minnesota the third state this month to legalize gay marriage after Rhode Island and Delaware. The law would take effect August 1.

Minnesota would join Iowa as the only other Midwestern state to permit gay marriage and the first to do so through legislation. Iowa has permitted same-sex marriage since 2009 under a state Supreme Court order.

The Minnesota House had been expected to be the bigger hurdle, but representatives voted 75-59 on Thursday to approve a bill with some Republican support.

The measure has at least one Republican sponsor in the Senate.

Senator Scott Dibble, the bill's architect, has said the stronger-than-expected vote from representatives was very encouraging and urged same-sex marriage supporters to continue active lobbying for the bill right up to Monday's vote.

Hundreds of supporters and opponents of the proposal to legalize same-sex marriage demonstrated at the Capitol on Thursday. A similar atmosphere was expected on Monday.

The vote on Thursday was a sharp reversal for Minnesota's legislature. Two years ago, Republicans controlled both chambers and bypassed the governor to put forward a ballot measure that would have made the state's current ban on gay marriage part of the state constitution.

Minnesota voters in November rejected that measure and also voted in Democratic majorities in both the state House and Senate, setting the legislature on the path toward Monday's vote.

Republican Senator Warren Limmer, a sponsor of the proposed amendment two years ago, has said the legislation will change how businesses work, clergy speak from the pulpit and school curriculums are shaped.

"Prior to the marriage amendment (vote) in November, many people were warning that this day would come," Limmer said in an interview last week.

Opponents of the bill have questioned whether the rights of religious groups and individuals who believe marriage should be only between one man and one woman would be protected. They also questioned the speed with which the measure was being approved.

Over several years, voters in more than two dozen states approved state constitutional provisions that define marriage as a union between a man and a woman. But in the past year, gay rights advocates won a series of victories.

In November, Maine, Maryland and Washington state became the first states to approve same-sex marriage at the ballot box.

Same-sex marriage is also legal in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Vermont and New Hampshire. The District of Columbia also has legalized same-sex marriage.

Illinois state senators approved a bill in February, but the measure has not been voted on in the full House.

Future of house where Ohio victims held debated

Associated Press/Tony Dejak, File - FILE - In this Tuesday, May 7, 2013 file photo, members of the FBI evidence response team carry out the front screen door from the house where three women were held captive, in Cleveland. Cleveland officials are trying to keep the house intact until the trial of the women's suspected abductor is concluded. 

 An imposing, 10-foot privacy fence will soon guard the home of Cleveland rape and kidnapping suspect Ariel Castro, with windows and doors boarded shut to keep people out of the place that police say was once meant only to keep people in.

The run-down house has become a two-story piece of evidence in the abduction and imprisonment case of three women, butneighbors who remain shaken by the horrors alleged inside want it torn down and erased from the landscape of Seymour Avenue.

"The girls that was in that house, when they ride by there, if they ever ride by there again, they won't have to see that, to remind them or maybe scare them," said Johnny Wright, 54, who can see the back of the house from his front door. "What they went through, I don't think any human being should ever been through that."

The house and what becomes of it will be a daily talking point for the Seymour community, as city officials deal with the irony of keeping the dreaded site of the women's imprisonment safe while neighbors almost uniformly want it torn down.

The issue isn't a simple one.

First and foremost, it's evidence against Castro, who investigators say kept the women in chains in a basement before eventually allowing them to live under close control upstairs. The 6-year-old daughter of one victim, Amanda Berry, was also freed; DNA tests showed Castro was her father, a dark twist on years of captivity during which Castro is also alleged to have induced multiple miscarriages in one of the women by repeatedly punching her belly.

The nondescript white house with a red-and-white tile roof sits on a street of other boarded-up houses, victims of the foreclosure crisis which hit the city hard. The house has thousands of dollars in unpaid tax liens, which would have to be sorted out as the city attempts to control the property. County records show it was built in 1890 and updated in 1950. Forty-two years later, Castro bought it for $12,000.

Workers over the weekend began boarding up windows and doors and erecting a metal fence around the house.

The plywood and fence have a two-fold purpose, said Councilman Brian Cummins: preserving the scene as evidence and protecting it from the threats already circulating on the streets to burn it down in a stroke of vigilante justice.

It's a decision for neighbors and also for the women, said Cummins, whose ward encompasses the property and who is in close contact with police and city officials about the situation.

"The issue is how do we respect the wishes of the survivors in this case and it's too premature to know what their wishes would be," Cummins said Saturday.

There's precedent for tearing down scenes of terrible crimes.

In 2011, Cleveland tore down a house on the city's east side where 11 women were killed over several years by a serial murderer now on Ohio's death row.

But first it served as evidence against Anthony Sowell: in June 2011, jurors walked through the house wearing face masks to ward off the smell of decay as Sowell's trial got under way.

That house also had to be protected before trial from people furious at Sowell's crime.

As with the Sowell house, both prosecutors and the defense will want Castro's home still standing until the trial ends, said Michael Benza, criminal law professor at Cleveland's Case Western Reserve University.

"The prosecutors are going to want to preserve it so they can take jurors into it to view, and the defense would want it preserved so at least they could do their own investigation," Benza said.

It's unlikely the house would be needed once the trial ends; typically only evidence like weapons or fingerprints are preserved for appeals, he said.

Almost 30 years ago in Chicago, the vacant house where John Wayne Gacy killed at least 33 teenage boys and young men was demolished.

More recently, a panel in Connecticut voted Friday to tear down Sandy Hook Elementary School where 20 first-graders and six educators were gunned down in December and build a new school on the same site.

Demolition isn't always the answer. Columbine High School, site of a 1999 school shooting that killed 12 students and a teacher, replaced the library where most of the killing happened with a new library. Chardon High School in northeastern Ohio, where three teens were killed in February, repainted the cafeteria where the shooting happened and put in new tables.

Evidence is crucial in such cases and can be an issue when considering demolition.

Last year in Connecticut, parents of three girls killed in a 2011 Christmas morning fire served notice they planned to sue the city of Stamford, accusing officials of intentionally destroying evidence when they demolished the shoreline home a day after the fire.

Victims' wishes aren't always responded to when it comes to such crime scenes. Cinemark reopened a theater in Aurora, Colo., earlier this year that was the site of 12 people killed in a July shooting.

Relatives of several of the victims rejected an invitation to attend its planned reopening, calling it a "disgusting offer" that came at a terrible time — right after the first Christmas without their loved ones.

Betsy Medina, a nurse's aide who lives behind Castro's house with her three children and her fiance, says tearing it down would spare the three women having to see it again.

Elsie Cintron, who lives three houses down from the house, rejected any idea of keeping it up.

"It'd be a horrifying thing for anybody to go through there thinking something else might happen with the house still standing," she said. "It could be boarded up, locked up — don't mean somebody can't get in from the back and do something else."

Pastor Horst Hoyer, who leads the nearby Immanuel Lutheran Church, said he took comfort in knowing the women would have heard the bells of his nearby church during their captivity. He agrees with neighbors, calling it "a house of shame."

He said the bells of his church, which once rang to call parishioners to worship, are the only good memory he can have of what happened just down the street.

"They served a real purpose," he said Saturday. "I'm sure they must have given those good ladies hope and what day of week it is and what holiday it is, and were the one thing Mr. Castro couldn't stop going into that house — those sounds."

Using The Pill To Alter Menstruation Cycles

A surprisingly large number of women 18 or older choose to delay or skip monthly menstruation by deviating from the instructions of birth-control pills and other hormonal contraceptives, a team of University of Oregon researchers and others found in a study of female students at the university. 

Most women who alter bleeding cycles do so for convenience rather than to avoid menstrual symptoms, and many learn about the option from nonmedical sources, according to research by the university's Department of Human Physiology, Portland-based Oregon Health and Sciences University and Eastern Michigan University. The study is published in Contraception, the official journal of the Association of Reproductive Health Professionals and the Society of Family Planning. 

"These findings emphasize the need for health care providers to carefully interview combined hormonal contraceptive users on how they are using their method - for example, many women may be skipping pills to extend their cycles," said researcher Christopher Minson, a humanphysiology professor at the University of Oregon. "With a greater understanding of the issues, health care providers may be able to more effectively engage in conversations with college-aged women and educate them about available options." 

As research indicates that reducing the occurrence of menstruation is safe and can even be beneficial, women are increasingly using hormonal contraceptives to alter bleeding cycles. But there has been a lack of information concerning why women do so and from whom they receive information regarding this option. 

In a survey of undergraduate and graduate students, 17 percent reported altering their scheduled bleeding pattern by deviating from the instructions of hormonal contraceptives, which include birth-control pills, vaginal contraceptive rings and transdermal contraceptive patches. 

Half of these women reported that they did so for convenience or scheduling purposes. Others cited personal preference (28.9 percent) or reducing menstrual symptoms (16.7 percent) as reasons they altered menstruation patterns. 

Among the women who delayed or skipped a scheduled bleeding for convenience or personal choice, a comparatively large number - 53 percent - indicated the knowledge was obtained from nonmedical sources, such as a family member or friend, researchers said. 

The survey also provides new insights on the factors that influence a woman's decision whether to alter bleeding schedules. Asians have a 7 percent lower probability of altering hormonal cycles and women who exercise regularly have a 5 percent lower probability of doing so; another characteristic that decreased the likelihood of the practice was preference for a monthly cycle. 

"We found that it is possible to identify some of the specific characteristics of women in a college population who may be more or less likely to practice scheduled bleeding manipulation," said Dr. Paul Kaplan, of the University Health Center and Oregon Health and Sciences University. "This study provides information about the motives, beliefs and influences relating to this practice." 

In a finding that surprised researchers, women who said they would prefer no menstrual periods were less likely to alter their cycles than those who would prefer one per year. A woman who would prefer one cycle per year had a 17 percent higher probability of modifying her hormonal contraceptive regimen than one who preferred a menstrual period every three months or never. 

This suggests that health care providers could improve education of the hormonalcontraception regimen best-suited to a patient's needs and desires, researchers said. 

From an estimated 11,900 survey-linked emails sent to female university students, 1,719 (14.4 percent) initial responses were received and 1,374 (79.9 percent of respondents) indicated that they had used a combined hormonal contraceptive during the last six months.

The Giggler’ — a story by James Grady about students at a D.C. school

Here is an original short story that author and screenwriterJames Grady wrote for students at McKinley Technology High School in the District. During a visit to the school as part of thePEN/Faulkner Foundation’s Writers in Schools program, a student asked him to write a story about the kids in the book club there — and he did. You can read a story about how this story came about in the post above.

 The Giggler

by

James Hock

(“Copyright James Grady”)

            Nobody knew the truth about the first dead kid that Thursday noon as uniform-shirted 11th and 12th graders straggled into McKinley Tech High School’s third floor library for book club.  The sun shone through the library’s tall windows of blue sky with a linear purity uncommon there in Washington, D.C., where all light normally bounces off white marble monuments to America’s hopes and history.

As he entered the library and saw only their group, Marcus who’d never said anything to that gone guy now said to everyone:  “Did you hear Bleu’s dead?”

“Not Liss Gardens Bleu!” said Jasmine who insisted you call her Jazz.

“No, fool,” said Tango:  “The other Bleu.”

“I didn’t even know there was another one,” said Jazz.

Tango hooked his backpack over a chair, said:  “Maybe that’s why he done it.”

“Who done what?” said almost old enough to vote Brandon, nailing the heart of every day even as he prayed no one knew his own done what’s included engineering elaborate structures out of the hidden-under-his-bed box of childhood Legos.

“The other Bleu,” said Tango who never talked about his Mom.  “Killed himself.”

“No he didn’t,” said Rasheda with a glaze in her brown eyes.  She had long mirror black hair, fake gold hoop earrings, a soft smile that soared her parents’ hearts and scared them sleepless — and suddenly that noon, she knew:  “The Giggler got him.”

The body count for book club totaled 22 teenagers.  Rasheda, Briana, Jazz, Marcus, Juana, Brandon, Tango and Malik.  Shakwia, Fayo and another Brandon.  Leslie, Arnasha, Victoria, Kyra, Jennifer and Jhoana.  And Jamal, who didn’t know about thesame name jazz genius born the same year as his great grandfather, when lynching Black people seemed easy and they didn’t dare dream of being president like the man this high school was named for, a stalwart stern white face from Ohio who Wall Street spent $3 million to elect in 1896 and who never knew his crazed assassin.  Mercedes, Shaniqua, and Chidinma were in the library for book club, too.  So was Tshala.

But not the librarian/faculty sponsor for their club, Mrs. Ariana Jones.

‘Having her baby, thought glaze eyed Rasheda.  And how can I know that?  Smell new baby?  I’m the last damn virgin in the whole wide world!

The library’s solid door waited beyond the club’s meeting place rectangle made from blond wood tables, all the way past the librarian’s deserted curved desk and beyond shelves holding books full of what grown-ups say we should read.

None of those high schoolers heard the library door close.

None of them heard the door lock.

Or noticed the steel doorknob quiver as outside in the empty hall, Mrs. Jones tried but couldn’t open that portal.  A contraction hit her — 22 minutes apart.  Odd: 22 kids, 22 minutes.  But still time to tell her kids she’d cancelled the author scheduled to talk today.  Tell them she’s going to have her baby two weeks early, but no need to worry.  Alarm anyone.  Excite the gun-toting cops downstairs at the front door metal detectors. School Emergency vibrations inhibit learning.  Besides, there was time, lots of time.

But the locked door wouldn’t let her into the library.

Where 22 kids chose chairs around the rectangle of pushed-together tables.  The rectangle’s hollow heart made the high school students all face each other.

“Who’s the Giggler?” said Malik who hated that everyone abbreviated his name to ‘Likand who with every breath fell further into the eternal gravity of Rasheda.  Why can’t she just see me, really see me, and why are her eyes glazed?

“The Giggler’s who did Bleu.”  His own words made Marcus blink:  Say what?

“That Bleu didn’t run with people.”  Jazz fronted that she knew crews but secretly knew she didn’t.  “Sure not anybody who’d shoot him.”

“He shot himself,” said Briana.  Like I doomed myself by my own secret.  

“He didn’t shoot himself,” said Tango.  “The Giggler got him.”

Rasheda nodded.  Jazz caught that as a signal from her best friend:  Why is inside my head laughing that we’re best friends?  Just like she thought Rasheda signaled, Jazz left a seat empty between them so…YES! ‘Lik grabbed that chair, telling himself that sitting next to Rasheda meant something because everything means something, so cosmically, if he’s sitting beside her…Sure, he heard snickering in his head, so what?  He didn’t know that Rasheda’s smile meant she was happy that now Jazz had another chance to hook ‘Lik who Rasheda treasured as the best ever guy friend.

Everyone else tried to obey life’s invisible rules of who sits where with whom as they claimed chairs around the tables’ hollow rectangle.

“That Giggler,” said Brandon.  “He’ some gangster?”

“No,” said Rasheda.  “He’s…..”

‘Lik caught knowing like a virus:  “The Giggler’s what this is all about.”

“This is crazy!” Juana yelled past her fear that everyone kept judging her.  “The Giggler is a just character in the story we had to read by that writer who’s coming today!”

Briana’s head shook.  “I know about the Giggler.  And I didn’t read that story.”

‘Lik blinked.  “The Giggler isn’t in that story.  Not in words.  That story is about people who work the Capital dome.  They wear suits for uniforms instead of maroon or white or gray shirts like us.  They think they know what’s going on, that they’re making it all happen, but they’re just like us.”

Juana, who didn’t dare admit that she wanted to be a lawyer because this was the best D.C. public high school she’d ever test into but everyone else in the school was a math or science star, said:  “So every place is just like here?”

“Quick before we get made to forget!” said ‘Lik.  “Who knows the Giggler?”

Some fast, some slow, everyone nervous, 22 high school teenagers in the capital city of an atom bomb superpower all raised a hand that said I do.

“What’s going on?” said Tango.  Now they’re all staring at me!

Outside in the hall, contractions now came every18 minutes.  A wave of oh-oh surfed Mrs. Jones.  Her quivering legs demanded all her energy to not fall on her baby belly. My cell phone.  In my purse.  In my purse locked in my desk in the library.

The locked-her-out library.

“What happens in the story where the Giggler ain’t?” said Tango.  I never say `ain’t’ and now I can’t stop them from ragging on me for that, too, plus my mother!    

“Some political guy and a woman who’s doing wrong fall in love and they both get nailed when he tries to make everything right,” answered Marcus.

Thinking:  I should have talked to Bleu.  Not my fault.  Is it my fault?  My fault!

“And there’s no Giggler in that story,” said Brandon. “Not even the word giggle.”

Tango’s head throbbed.  Stop!  Gotta make it…them…stop!

“Being giggled at sets you on fire,” whispered Juana.

Tango burned:  Show them.

Outside in the hall, suddenly it was 17 minutes between contractions.

“That’s how he got Bleu,” said Rasheda.  “The Giggler kept coming at him, all day, all night, nothing else Bleu could hear or see or believe and The Giggler….”

“Put the gun in his hand and pulled the trigger,” said ‘Lik.

“How do we know that?” said Juana, who wore a bracelet for her church.

“That’s not the big question,” said Brandon.

Tango saw blue sky filling a nearby tall window three stories above city cement.

The coolest sound is busting glass.

Your name will live forever! screamed inside Tango’s skull.

Brandon said:  “The big question is, what’s the Giggler going to do now that we know about him?”

“Nobody sees the Giggler,” said Briana.  Please please please nobody see me!

“Not even in the mirror,” said Marcus.  “That’s where he hides.”

Did I see me showing in the mirror?  Briana couldn’t be sure.  Only five weeks since she crossed that street because of a them, not a him. Not like Jazz who everyone –

With a blink, Briana realized:  Everyone only knows what they think they know.

Like she thought she knew his eyes, how they saw you as someone special.  Those eyes pulled her heart.  Made her mouth dry.  But only after she’d crossed that street did she realize he saw her eyes as only mirrors for himself, not reflectors of the two of them together.  But she’d already crossed that street to here, now, doomed to where her brain like a computer monitor screen gone mad kept flashing LATE!

A+ student Briana whose idea on how to cure cancer held valid even after days of internet surfing medical journals tried to picture raising a child while raising herself.

Couldn’t as she heard ‘Lik say:  “None of us would have believed about the Giggler if we hadn’t talked about him.”

“When people know your game, you gotta protect your flame.”  Brandon shook his head.  “When did I start talking fake Go-Go?”

“It’s not you,” said Jazz.  “It’s him.”

“He can’t let us out of here,” said Marcus.

Tango’s pounding heart roared:  Do it!  Do it now!  Get out of here!

“No!” said Briana.  “He wants us to go out there!”

“And be alone,” said ‘Lik.  “All alone.”

“Ahhh!”  Tango lunged toward the tall window.

Busting glass and a vision of breaking out free into blue sky –

Marcus grabbed the leaping boy’s maroon shirt.

Tango crashed to the library’s tiled floor, pulled Marcus with him.  Classmates swarmed them.  Grabbed Tango, lifted that limp 17-year-old back onto his chair.

“What was that!” yelled Briana. “What were you doing?”

“He was gonna let me fly,” muttered Tango.

“He was making you like Bleu,” countered ‘Lik.  “Forever gone.”

Instinct or inertia or inevitability settled them all back in their chairs facing each other around the hollow rectangle of tables.

“But we beat him!”  said Juana.

“This time,” said Rasheda.

“Why is he doing this to us?” said Tango and they knew he was back with them.

“Because we’ll tell people about him, “ said ‘Lik.  “We’ll tell them even if they’ll think we’re crazy, playing some kind of high school nonsense, that Bleu and Tango’s suicides drove us nuts or that we came in here and smoked weed.”

Marcus said:  “We’re trapped.”

“If we stay here,” said Rasheda, “we know who the Giggler is, but he’ll work on us to do something that will wreck our lives, something so people won’t believe us.  Start us fighting or…I don’t know, he doesn’t know yet.  He’s a nimble _________.”

“If we bust out,” said ‘Lik, “he’ll come after us one at a time when we’re alone.

“We all end up alone,” said Rasheda.  “Even if we get married.”

Get married! thought ‘Lik.  She thinks about getting married, too!

Outside in the hall a vision of her husband flashed through Mrs. Jones as a contraction hit and her eyes hit her watch:  No!  They’re coming faster!  She pressed her spine against blue lockers that framed the locked library door.

Inside the library of trapped teenagers, Briana said:  “How come the Giggler can’t let anybody know he’s real?”

“Because then maybe people will figure their own way to deal with him,” said Tango.  “Then maybe he…Poof, like smoke.  Gone.”

“There’ll always be a Giggler,” said ‘Lik.

“But if he’s smoke instead of fire,” said Rasheda, “he’s not that much.”

“Whatever that’d mean,” said Marcus, “it scares the Giggler.”

“And he can’t let us put him at risk,” said Juana.  “So he’s gotta do us.”

“Or we gotta do him,” said ‘Lik.

Silence rolled through the library.

BAFTA TV Awards 2013 – Full Winners List

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts have announced the winners of their annual TV awards earlier this evening. The results saw a wide variety of series being honored. Check out the full roster of winners below, via EntertaintmentWise:

Leading Actor
Ben Whishaw – Richard II (The Hollow Crown)

Leading Actress
Sheridan Smith – Mrs Biggs

Supporting Actor
Simon Russell Beale – Henry IV Part 2 (The Hollow Crown)

Supporting Actress
Olivia Colman – Accused (Mo’s Story)

Entertainment Programme
Graham Norton for The Graham Norton Show

Entertainment Performance
Alan Carr – Alan Carr: Chatty Man

Female Performance in a Comedy Programme
Olivia Colman for Twenty Twelve

Male Performance in a Comedy Programme
Steve Coogan for Welcome To The Places Of My Life

Single Drama
Murder

Mini-Series
Room At The Top

Drama Series
Last Tango In Halifax

Soap and Continuing Drama
EastEnders

International
Girls

Factual Series
Our War

Specialist Factual
All In The Best Possible Taste with Grayson Perry

Single Documentary
7/7: One Day In London

Features
The Great British Bake Off

Reality and Constructed Factual
Made In Chelsea

Current Affairs
The Shame Of The Catholic Church (This World)

News Coverage
Hillsborough – The Truth At Last (Granada Reports)

Sport and Live Event
The London 2012 Paralympic Games

Comedy Programme
The Revolution Will Be Televised

Situation Comedy
Twenty Twelve

Radio Times Audience Award (voted for by members of the public)
Game of Thrones

Special Award
Clare Balding

BAFTA Fellowship
Michael Palin

Gatsby Glitters, But Fails to Outshine Iron Man

Baz Luhrmann's glitzy adaptation of The Great Gatsby had a strong $51.1 million opening weekend, but it wasn't enough to knock franchise favorite Iron Man 3 off the top box office spot—the Robert Downey Jr blockbuster pulled $72.5 million in its second weekend, says the Hollywood Reporter. Less dazzling was the performance of the Tyler Perry-backedPeeples, which had an opening weekend of only $4.9 million, putting it in the No. 4 position. Rounding out the top 5: Pain and Gain at No. 3 ($41.6 million) and 42 at No. 5 ($4.7 million).

Nawaz Sharif stages comeback in landmark Pakistan election

Sharif stages comeback in landmark Pakistan election

 

(Reuters) - Toppled in a 1999 coup, jailed and exiled, Nawaz Sharif has made a triumphant election comeback and on Sunday was heading for a third term as Pakistan's prime minister. 
The polls were a landmark, marking the first time one elected government was to replace another in a country vulnerable to military takeovers. 
But Saturday's vote failed to realize the hopes of many that dynastic politics would end after years of misrule and corruption in the strategic U.S. ally. 
Sharif, 63, a wealthy steel magnate from the pivotal Punjab province, held off a challenge from former cricket star Imran Khan who had hoped to break decades of dominance by Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) and the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), led by the Bhutto family. 
Khan's Tehrik-i-Insaf (PTI) put up a strong fight and he is likely to remain a force in politics. 
"Nawaz's victory says two things about Pakistan: one, the people of Pakistan prefer the comfort of status quo over the uncertainty of revolutions; and two, all roads to the center go through Punjab, and in Punjab, people are right-leaning and conservative," said senior journalist Nusrat Javeed. 
"Still, for a party that only really arrived on the political scene in a serious way two years ago, PTI's performance was remarkable, to say the least." 
Sharif declared victory in a jubilant speech to supporters. On Sunday, television channels said results so far showed that the PML-N had captured 84 seats of the 272 National Assembly seats that were contested. 
The PTI had secured 19 seats while the PPP, which led the government for the past five years, won 11. 
Sharif, a religious conservative, has said the army, which has ruled the country for more than half of its turbulent history, should stay out of politics. 
But he will have to work with Pakistan's generals, who set foreign and security policy and manage the nuclear-armed country's difficult relationship with the United States as NATO troops withdraw from neighboring Afghanistan in 2014. 
Sharif also believes Pakistan should reconsider its support for the U.S. war on Islamist militancy, which has earned the country billions of dollars in aid. 
Despite pre-poll violence and attacks on Saturday that killed at least 17 people, millions turned out to vote. 
Sharif's party may not have enough seats to rule on its own and may be forced into a coalition, which could make it difficult to push reforms needed to revive the economy. 
Sharif, who advocates free-market economics, is likely to pursue privatization and deregulation to revive flagging growth. He has said Pakistan should stand on its own two feet but may need to seek a another bailout from the International Monetary Fund to avoid a balance of payments crisis. 
Sharif will have to ease widespread discontent over endemic corruption, chronic power cuts and crumbling infrastructure. He has described Pakistan as a "mess". 
Cricketing hero Khan in the end did not have the momentum needed to trip up Sharif despite his popularity among urban youths, many of whom were voting for the first time in an election that saw a robust turnout of 60 percent. 
They had rallied behind Khan's calls for an end to graft and a halt to U.S. drone strikes against suspected militants on Pakistani soil, widely seen as a violation of sovereignty. 
BLOODY ELECTION DAY 
A string of bomb blasts marred election day, with one attack on a party office in the southern city of Karachi killing 11 people and wounding about 40. 
Pakistan's Taliban, who are close to al Qaeda, have killed more than 125 people in election-related violence since April. The group, which is fighting to topple the government, regards the poll as un-Islamic. 

Despite Pakistan's history of coups, the army stayed out of politics during the five years of the last government and threw its support behind Saturday's election. 
However, some fear the military could step back in if there were a repeat of the incompetence and corruption that frustrated many Pakistanis during the last government. 
Sharif, who was toppled in a 1999 bloodless coup by former army chief Pervez Musharraf, may take steps to improve ties with Pakistan's arch-enemy, India. Efforts to boost trade between the neighbors have stalled due to suspicion on both sides. 
If Sharif is forced into a coalition, he may look to Islamist parties to cobble together a majority in parliament. 

On top of the 272 contested seats, a further 70 - most reserved for women and members of non-Muslim minorities - are allocated to parties on the basis of their performance in the constituencies. To have a majority of the total of 342, the government would need 172 seats. 
(Additional reporting by Mehreen Zahra-Malik and Katharine Houreld in ISLAMABAD, Gul Yousafzai in QUETTA, Mubasher Bukhari in LAHORE and Jibran Ahmed in PESHAWAR; Editing by Nick Macfie)