Heartwarming moments defy chill at Rose Parade

PASADENA, Calif. (AP) — A couple who became husband and wife on the “Love Float,” a surprise reunion between a returning soldier and his little boy, and a grand marshal famed globally for her chimpanzee research were among the highlights of the 124th Rose Parade on Tuesday.

The parade’s spectacular 42 floral floats brightened an otherwise cloudy New Year’s morning and boosted the spirits of a chilled crowd estimated at some 700,000 spectators lining the 5-mile route.

“The only way that you’re going to experience the Rose Parade is to be here in person,” said Los Angeles resident Gineen Alcantara-Nakama, who camped out Monday night to save front row sidewalk spots.

“Growing up, I watched it on television, but it’s not the same — the smell, the atmosphere, smelling the flowers as they come down the street. And the energy. It’s like being with family all night long.”

Spectators rose to a standing ovation when Army Sgt. First Class Eric Pazz, who was riding on the Natural Balance Pet Foods float along with other service members, got off the float and walked over to his surprised wife Miriam and 4-year-old son Eric Jr., who came running out of the stands into the arms of his 32-year-old father.

Miriam Pazz had been told she had won a contest to attend the parade and did not know her husband, who is deployed in Afghanistan, would be there. A native of Clio, Mich., Pazz is a highly decorated soldier who has also served in Iraq. The family, who currently lives in Germany, climbed aboard the float for the rest of the route.

Cheers also went up for a Chesapeake, Va., couple who tied the knot aboard Farmers Insurance “Love Float.”

Gerald Sapienza and Nicole Angelillo were high school classmates who reconnected 10 years later and won the parade wedding over three other couples in a nationwide contest. They received a trip to Pasadena, a wedding gown, tuxedo, rings, marriage license fees, Rose Bowl game tickets and hair and makeup for the bride.

The parade’s theme this year was “Oh the Places You’ll Go!” named in honor of the Dr. Seuss book. It served as a fitting slogan for grand marshal British primatologist Jane Goodall, who has spent much of her life in Tanzania studying chimpanzees.

Goodall chose conservation as her message for the parade

“My dream for this New Year’s Day is for everyone to think of the places we can all go if we work together to make our world a better place,” said Goodall, 78.

“Every journey starts with a step and I am pleased to see the Tournament of Roses continue to take steps toward not only celebrating beauty and imagination, but also a cleaner environment.”

This year’s parade also saw the first-ever float entered by the Defense Department.

The $ 247,000 military float was a replica of the Korean War Veterans Memorial in Washington to commemorate the veterans from that conflict.

The float that scooped up the parade’s grand “Sweepstakes” prize for the most beautiful floral presentation and design was “Dreaming in Paradise” by fruit and vegetable producer Dole.

According to parade rules, every inch of the floats must be covered with flowers or plant material, most of it applied by volunteers in the last weeks of December.

Besides floats, the parade also featured 23 marching bands and 21 equestrian units from around the world.

Banda El Salvador, a 200-plus member marching band and folkloric dance troupe, played sassy Latin rhythms and paid homage to their Central American country by dressing in the national colors of blue and white and shouting “Arriba El Salvador!”

The Aguiluchos band from Puebla, Mexico, earned cheers for their fancy footwork and vaquero rope tricks. Colorful dancers from Costa Rica and South Korea were other crowd pleasers.

Die-hard parade fans staked out their spots overnight or in pre-dawn hours with folding chairs, hammocks and portable barbeque grills despite frosty temperatures.

Emergency personnel received a number of cold-weather exposure calls, police department spokeswoman Lisa Derderian told City News Service.

As of 8 a.m. Tuesday, police had made a total of 22 arrests along the parade route since 6 p.m. Monday, said police Lt. Rick Aversan. All but one arrest were for suspected public intoxication. The other was for suspected possession of burglary tools that could have been used to break into cars, police said.

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Drug Makers Losing a Bid to Foil Generic Painkillers

Public officials have long urged makers of powerful painkillers to do more to make the medications harder to crush and abuse. But now that some companies have done so, they want something in return — a ban on generic versions of the drugs they make that do not have such tamper-resistant designs. 

Stuart Isett for The New York Times

Purdue Pharma’s OxyContin

Purdue Pharma LP

Tablets of OxyContin have been made more resistant to abuse. At left, a tablet crushed into powder. Right, a reformulated tablet does not easily turn into powder when it is crushed.

In coming months, generic drug producers are expected to introduce cheaper versions of OxyContin and Opana, two long-acting narcotic painkillers, or opioids, that are widely abused.

But in hopes of delaying the move to generics, the makers of the brand name drugs, Purdue Pharma and Endo Pharmaceuticals, have introduced versions that are more resistant to crushing or melting, techniques abusers use to release the pills’ narcotic payloads.

The two drug makers, which say they are motivated not by profit but by public safety, have also been waging a multifront political and legal war to block sales of generics that are not tamper-resistant.

The companies argue that the older designs will feed street demand for strong painkillers, drugs that are involved in more than 15,000 overdose-related deaths a year. While some experts say the new tamper-resistant products are not a cure-all for the abuse problem, others say they represent an important step forward.

“I think it would be a shame if the government would allow generics to come in without any tamper-resistant properties,” said Dr. Lynn R. Webster, a specialist in Salt Lake City who has consulted with companies developing such safeguards. Over the last year, Purdue Pharma and Endo have backed legislation in Congress that would require many opioids to be tamper-resistant, and lobbied in favor of similar state laws.

They have also urged the Food and Drug Administration to give their tamper-resistant designs a stamp of safety approval that other manufacturers would have to match. The agency does not currently differentiate between drugs that have abuse-resistant qualities and those that do not.

Thus far, the companies’ efforts have failed. In mid-December, a federal judge threw out a lawsuit by Endo that would have blocked the F.D.A. from allowing generic versions of its drug, Opana, to go on sale in January. A recent effort by some doctors and local officials in Canada to deter sales of generic versions of OxyContin there fell flat. While companies like Purdue Pharma insist the public’s health is their main concern, others note that producers introduced tamper-resistant versions of their products just as the drugs were about to lose patent protection. In court papers filed in response to Endo’s lawsuit, the F.D.A. described the company’s action as a “thinly veiled attempt to maintain its market share and block generic competition.”

An F.D.A. official, Dr. Douglas C. Throckmorton, said the agency expected to issue guidance this month that would lay out the types of scientific data that drug producers would have to submit to support a claim that an opioid’s design or formulation helped to deter its abuse.

Companies are developing a variety of methods to do that. The new OxyContin pill turns into a gummy mass when an abuser crushes it, and the Opana pill is designed to break into large pieces when manipulated. Other methods include pills that contain a second drug reversing the opioid’s narcotic effects if taken inappropriately.

“We understand the value in developing appropriate abuse-resistant technology and we want to find a way of incentivizing that,” said Dr. Throckmorton, the F.D.A.’s deputy director for regulatory programs. “But we also understand the value of generics for patients.”

A study published in 2012 in a medical journal, The Journal of Pain, found that the percentage of people treated at drug-abuse clinics who reported abusing OxyContin fell significantly since the introduction of the tamper-resistant version.

Some of those abusers said they had switched to other long-acting opioids that were easier to abuse like Opana — before its reformulation — or to illicit drugs like heroin, according to the study, which was financed by Purdue Pharma.

But the generic versions of OxyContin and Opana are expected to be significantly cheaper than the tamper-resistant versions of those drugs. At time of introduction in late 2010, the price of the new version of OxyContin was about $6 per 40 milligram tablet, the same then as the price that was not tamper-resistant. Since then, the price of the new version has risen to about $6.80 for that strength tablet. Opana costs about the same amount for a pill of the same pain-killing strength.

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Square Feet: Commercial Real Estate Web Sites Increase in Popularity

In terms of marketing tone, the commercial real estate industry has long played the quiet cousin to the brasher residential business. While apartments are routinely sold using splashy, multifaceted ad campaigns, commercial brokers and developers have favored lower-key, brochure-based approaches.

But the two branches of the family may be growing closer. In recent months, the marketing teams for some New York office buildings have decided to get the word out by deploying the type of stylish Web sites once used only by luxury condominiums.

Unlike the Web sites of office buildings past, which tended to be bare-bones and buried deep within a landlord’s corporate home page, this new crop stands alone and crackles with animation, exuberant language and videos.

And by publicizing details like where telecom cables enter the building, these sites add transparency to a business that can seem clubby and secretive.

“Lunches with brokers is an old-school way of getting your message out,” said Grant Greenspan, a broker and principal at the Kaufman Organization, a landlord that has set up Web sites for two of its buildings, 100-104 Fifth Avenue and 550 Seventh Avenue. But, he added, “it’s only as good as the group of brokers who you perceive to have the clients.”

By introducing buildings to the public online to generate demand, Mr. Greenspan said, “you get clients going to their brokers and saying, ‘Why aren’t you showing me this building?’ ”

The site for 100-104 Fifth Avenue, a pair of joined, early-20th-century buildings near Union Square that Kaufman co-owns with Invesco Real Estate, was also useful in chronicling the $15 million renovation that occurred after the development team bought the property out of bankruptcy in 2010 for $94 million.

The renovation, which took two years, included adding a fire safety system and six elevators and redesigning a pair of lobbies. All of this is described in a colorful, animated timeline on the Web site, 100-104fifth.com, as are the specifics about those telecom cables.

The Kaufman Organization credited the site with helping to fill the 270,000-square-foot building quickly. It is at 98 percent occupancy today, up from 60 percent when the landlord bought it.

According to Mr. Greenspan, all six tenants signed there since 2010 said the site had played a major role in piquing their interest. Those tenants include Yelp, the online review business; Apple’s iAd, an advertising network; and Net-a-Porter, a women’s apparel retailer. They pay rents ranging from $45 to $60 per square foot, Kaufman said.

Similarly, at 550 Seventh Avenue, which Kaufman recently began managing for Adler Group, a new Web site is being used to rebrand the 12-story building in the garment district, where fashion tenants have historically held sway.

The Web site, 550seventhave.com, may surprise property owners who tend to be tight-lipped about their tenants. It shows the directory in the building’s lobby, revealing that Lilly Pulitzer, Donna Karan International and Oscar de la Renta have offices inside.

The site, introduced in October, is already paying off. An 11,000-square-foot space on the 10th floor is expected to be leased this month to a software company, Mr. Greenspan said, adding that the $30,000 cost of making both sites, plus the hours logged by a full-time worker, had been worth every penny.

If Web sites “facilitate renting the spaces 60 or 90 days sooner, they make all the sense in the world,” he said.

Some major New York landlords, like the Chetrit Group, have no online presence. And even when Web sites do exist, they can be a bit stolid, offering little more than the year the building was completed, its architect and its total square footage, as with the General Motors Building, owned by Boston Properties. Brokers say that when a high-rise has existed for years and is one of Manhattan’s prized addresses as well, it may not have to promote itself online.

A new office building must do more, especially when it hasn’t even come out of the ground yet. In those cases, a Web site is essential to allow tenants to visualize their future home, said Christopher V. Albanese, president of the Albanese Organization, a Long Island-based developer. These sites tend to be extremely eye-catching and could easily be mistaken for ones intended to sell multimillion-dollar condos.

In November, the Albanese Organization unveiled 510w22.com, for 510 West 22nd Street, a planned 170,000-square-foot office building in West Chelsea. The centerpiece of the artful Web site is a four-minute video narrated by the architect Rick Cook, which brims with dramatic music and soaring shots of the adjacent High Line.

Creating such a Hollywood-caliber product, which includes renderings that normally would not have been commissioned, doubled the building’s marketing budget — “but without it, tenants might think that this was just some ordinary building, and it really isn’t,” Mr. Albanese said.

Also, financing for the $150 million project cannot be secured until the building is 30 percent leased, he said, making a dynamic marketing tool all the more important.

Though online videos for commercial real estate are not widespread, they are gaining in popularity.

The Web site for 7 Bryant Park, a 28-story office building that Hines is developing on Avenue of the Americas, features a two-minute video. A piano tinkles; the camera swoops.

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Jerry Brown readjusts his stand on the environment vs. business

SACRAMENTO — When Gov. Jerry Brown spoke to a crowd of beaming environmentalists and renewable energy advocates at the launch of a solar farm last year, he turned heads by praising another form of fuel: oil.

It was a surprising pivot from the man credited with helping to usher in the modern environmental movement as California's governor nearly four decades ago.

Back then, Brown enacted the nation's first energy-efficiency standards, signed strict anti-smog laws and blocked offshore drilling. But in his return engagement as California's chief executive, he has eased key regulations for oil companies, capped wildfire liability for timber companies and relaxed the state's landmark environmental law.

That strain of pragmatism has run throughout Brown's current governorship — and flummoxed many allies — and nowhere is it more apparent than on the issue of the environment.

As the state forges ahead with an ambitious program to combat global warming by penalizing major polluters, Brown has said he also wants to unshackle development and create jobs by overhauling California's signature environmental law. And although he signed legislation requiring the state to get a third of its power from renewable energy sources, he is supporting the oil industry's push for more drilling.

Brown's spokesman, Gil Duran, compared the approach to that of President Obama, who has touted what he calls an "all of the above" energy strategy.

"You have to pursue renewable energy — and California is leading the way — but you also have to have balance and common sense," Duran said.

Business leaders say Brown's moves are those of a chief executive who knows how to spur growth in a sluggish economy. Oil companies, timber firms and other business interests typically friendly to Republicans rewarded the Democratic governor's efforts by donating millions of dollars to his successful fall campaign to raise taxes.

Environmentalists say Brown's actions undercut his own efforts to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions over the next decade and imperil the state's standing as a leader on climate change.

"He likes renewable energy. We think that's great," said Kathryn Phillips, director of Sierra Club California. "But it makes no sense for somebody who cares as much about greenhouse gas reduction as he does to be bending to the will of the oil industry or bending to the will of a private massive clear-cutter."

In 2011, when the oil industry complained that environmental scrutiny had slowed the permitting of drilling projects, the governor fired his top two regulators and appointed replacements who agreed to speed approvals. He said the regulators had needlessly held up routine permits, and the projects represented jobs and revenue.

Brown also pushed hard for legislation to limit the legal liability of timber companies in cases of wildfires caused by their practices.

Echoing the timber industry's concerns, the administration said the bill would prevent prosecutors from seeking "excessive damages" — payouts several times larger than the value of the damaged land. Federal authorities said the measure could make it more difficult to secure money to pay for recovery from destructive blazes.

In a nod to conservationists, the bill Brown ultimately signed also imposed a 1% tax on lumber sales to fund restoration efforts and oversight of the industry.

"He's balancing the practical needs of California with his philosophy on finding alternative sources of energy," said Allan Zaremberg, president of the California Chamber of Commerce. "Whether you agree with him or not, he's trying to find that balance."

Activists and industry both are preparing for key fights this year.

Hoping to boost the state's economy, Brown has signaled his desire to loosen the California Environmental Quality Act — the same law he used as attorney general to pressure cities and counties to comply with the global warming law.

The measure requires developers to go through a lengthy public process detailing their projects' potential environmental effects and how those would be mitigated. Business groups have long complained that activists, labor unions — even corporate competitors — abuse the law by filing frivolous lawsuits to delay and kill development.

In 2011 Brown heard their call and signed bills to help a football stadium proposed for downtown Los Angeles and other major projects avoid drawn-out CEQA litigation. "There are too many damn regulations," he said at a signing ceremony.

Brown, who as Oakland mayor tried to have the city's downtown exempted from CEQA, wants to further limit environmental challenges to projects such as California's high-speed rail system.

"CEQA is the safety net for the air we breathe and the water we drink," said Kassie Siegel, a lawyer for the Center for Biological Diversity. "If CEQA exemptions are a way for people to make a quick buck, we'll all regret them in the end."

Environmental groups and the energy industry are also concerned about the administration's proposed rules for hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," a controversial drilling process that could help unlock billions of barrels of oil buried deep in California shale.

Although recently drafted regulations would require energy companies to disclose for the first time what chemicals they pump underground to break apart rock and release crude, the proposed rules would also allow firms to claim trade secrets and withhold information they consider proprietary.

Environmentalists and public health advocates have raised safety questions over the hundreds of chemicals that are typically used — many of them known carcinogens. And they fear the trade-secret provision could undermine the presumed intent of the regulations: disclosure.

Oil companies say the technology is safe and argue that such a clause is necessary to protect their competitive advantage.

Speaking to reporters after the November election, Brown said his actions would be guided by a simple question: "Do we have the right rules in place?"

"We are going to calibrate our regulations," he said, "to ensure that they encourage jobs as well as protect other aspects of public interest such as environment, health and good working conditions."

michael.mishak@latimes.com

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Movers roundup: Facebook, Best Buy

Among the stock activity stories for Monday, Dec. 31, from AP Business News:

— Shares of Facebook Inc. rose after an analyst said advertising spending was picking up on the Internet social network and raised his rating on its stock.

— Shares of Best Buy Co. rose on light volume as the struggling electronics retailer closed out a rocky year.

— Shares of Duff & Phelps Corp. rose on news that the company had agreed to be acquired.

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Is Tom Cruise still a go-to action hero? Hollywood, “Jack Reacher” say yes

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Given his age and the tough year he’s had in the tabloids, is Tom Cruise still a go-to guy when Hollywood is looking for an action hero?

The answer is yes, based on the performance of his current movie, Paramount‘s “Jack Reacher.” It’s taken in $ 45 million in the 10 days since opening with $ 15.6 million in a very crowded and competitive holiday market. Its second week was a solid $ 14 million, and it’s added $ 22 million from overseas.

Holiday movies tend to have legs and “Reacher” has yet to roll out in the majority of major foreign territories, so both of those numbers, particularly the international, will be growing. All signs point to it surpassing $ 200 million at the worldwide box office. That’s not a blockbuster figure, and Paramount is staying mum on a sequel, but with a $ 60 million budget, “Jack Reacher” will make money for Paramount.

There were questions coming in. With his divorce from Katie Holmes and subsequent custody battle, Cruise is carrying plenty of public relations baggage. His foray earlier this year into musicals with “Rock of Ages” was critically applauded but proved a box-office dud. That’s on top of his well-known support for Scientology.

He’s 50 now, which might be the new 40 in the real world, but is starting to get on in years in the realm of action heroes. Daniel Craig is 44. Jeremy Renner is 41. We are a long way from “Top Gun” – that was 1986 – so it probably won’t be too, too long until “The Expendables” franchise comes calling for Cruise.

But in the meantime, “Reacher” is going to be profitable for Paramount and Cruise’s portrayal of the tough, ex-military drifter has drawn critical kudos, so there’s a bit of momentum now. And it’s clear from his upcoming schedule that Hollywood is still convinced he can carry an action film.

Next for Cruise will be two sci-fi movies: Universal’s “Oblivion” is due in April and “All You Need is Kill” is set for March 2014 from Warner Bros. After that, there’s a potential “Van Helsing” remake at Universal and “Mission: Impossible 5″ is on Paramount‘s 2015 slate.

His recent track record at the box office, particularly when you look at his performance in the action genre, suggests the studios are making a pretty good bet.

“Rock of Ages” may have crumpled, but “Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol” was a huge hit for Paramount, taking in nearly $ 700 million worldwide in 2011. “Knight & Day,” from Fox in 2010, and “Valkyrie,” from United Artists in 2008, both made over $ 200 million worldwide.

Supporting roles in “Tropic Thunder” and “Lions for Lambs” preceded those, but those came on the heels of two Paramount movies: “Mission Impossible 3,” which made nearly $ 400 million worldwide in 2006, and “War of the Worlds,” which did $ 592 million in the previous year.

The bottom line: Hollywood is still convinced you can still take Tom Cruise, movie action hero, to the bank.

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Letters: Recovery After Trauma

To the Editor:

Re “A New Focus on the ‘Post’ in Post-Traumatic Stress” (Mind, Dec. 25): Social contexts are well-established predictors of adjustment following trauma. Sexual abuse survivors who are believed and supported following an abuse disclosure fare better than those who are not, and returning veterans’ social support predicts P.T.S.D. over and above the extent of military trauma exposure. Interpersonal traumas cause greater psychological scars than do noninterpersonal traumas like accidents or disasters, with the worst outcomes linked to trauma perpetrated by someone to whom the victim was close.

Rachel Goldsmith

New York

The writer is a clinical psychologist.

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On the Road: With Demand Dropping, Airlines Focus on Fees

IN a move being watched by competitors, American Airlines is experimenting with a new pricing option that eliminates the potential penalty fee for changing flights for customers who pay a little extra for a basic coach ticket.

The initiative is arguably counterintuitive because domestic airlines have been piling up money in recent years from all sorts of fees — baggage fees and the change-penalty fees among them — on top of the base fares.

American’s new coach fare options are “another example of how we’re building toward a new, innovative and more modern airline,” said Rob Friedman, the vice president for marketing at the airline, which is about to emerge from bankruptcy court protection and is in talks with US Airways.

Oddly, while American moves to incorporate some stand-alone fees into some base fares, a process known as bundling a fare, Southwest Airlines seems to be going in the other direction. Southwest, which has long bragged about having simple fare structures that don’t include fees for things like changing tickets or checking bags, recently announced plans to increase its dependence on fees, a process known as unbundling.

It all adds up to more complexities on the chalkboard of airline fee and fare formulas.

The changes by American and Southwest suggest that domestic airlines in general are looking more closely at ways to experiment with revenue, especially from business travelers, as a new year begins with indications that demand is dropping.

In November, most airlines in the United States reported small declines in passenger demand and in load factors, the number of available seats filled by paying customers. Southwest, for example, reported that its revenue passenger-miles, a standard measure of demand, were off 3.3 percent compared with November 2011.

On Monday, the airline forecaster Michael Boyd, of the Boyd Group International, summed up his predictions for 2013 this way: “No traffic growth. Fewer flights. Less capacity.” Airlines, he added, will focus more “on revenue growth, not traffic volume.”

American’s new fare strategy encompasses two basic changes, both of which include some fees in coach fares. One is Choice Essential, which costs $68 extra for a round-trip domestic fare but eliminates the $150 penalty fee for ticket changes after purchase. It also drops the $25 fee for the first checked bag and gives the buyer “priority boarding.” (We’ll address the laughable scrum that airlines’ “priority boarding” has become in a future column.)

Another option, Choice Plus, costs $88 extra and adds penalty-free same-day standby change options, while also eliminating the change penalty. And it includes what American calls a free “premium beverage” (beer, wine, cocktail), and a 50 percent bonus on frequent-flier mileage awards, as well as priority boarding.

American’s lowest nonrefundable coach fare structure, which it now calls Choice, remains unchanged. That is, checked-bag fees and $150 penalty fees for making a reservations change remain in effect, while customers continue to have “the flexibility to purchase additional products à la carte,” as American put it.

The American penalty fee changes are aimed mostly at business travelers, the customers most likely to occasionally change plans after a ticket is purchased. Southwest’s recently announced fare and policy changes include a penalty fee on tickets that are not used and not canceled before flight time.

Southwest has long been valued by many business travelers for not charging a penalty fee to rebook a ticket, and that has not changed. Southwest said it was merely adding a “no-show fee” for customers using the cheapest fares who rebook “tickets that are not flown and not canceled by our passengers prior to a flight,” Robert E. Jordan, Southwest’s chief commercial officer, said at a recent meeting with airline stock market analysts.

But in describing initiatives that are certain to interest Southwest’s intensely loyal customer base once the details are announced early in 2013, Mr. Jordan also said, “We are increasing our ancillary fees” in general, without providing specifics. He said that Southwest hoped to raise an additional $100 million this year from new fees.

There is no indication that Southwest is considering revising its policies on basic rebooking or allowing the first two bags to be checked free. Still, an increasing reliance on fees will probably start to redefine the Southwest flying culture. For example, Mr. Jordan said, “we are testing a new revenue stream enabled by selling open and premium boarding positions, so that’s the A1 to A15 position, and selling those open positions at the gate.” Southwest also plans to increase its “EarlyBird” priority boarding fee to $12.50 from $10.

Airlines have come to depend mightily on revenue from fees. In 2011, domestic airlines raised $2.4 billion in change-penalty fees, up from $915.2 million in 2007, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, an agency of the Transportation Department.

And there is even more money in fees for checked bags. In 2007, a year before most airlines other than Southwest began charging for most checked bags on coach fares, domestic carriers raised a mere $464.3 million from such charges. Last year, the total was $3.4 billion.

E-mail: jsharkey@nytimes.com

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Venezuela's Hugo Chavez said to suffer 'complications'

CARACAS, Venezuela — Hugo Chavez has suffered "new complications" after his cancer surgery in Cuba, his vice president said Sunday, describing the Venezuelan leader's condition as delicate.

Vice President Nicolas Maduro did not give details about the complications, which he said came amid a respiratory infection. Maduro spoke in a televised address from Cuba.

Maduro arrived Saturday in Havana on a sudden trip to visit Chavez. He said Sunday that he had met with Chavez and he "referred to these complications."

"Thanks to his physical and spiritual strength, Comandante Chavez is facing this difficult situation," Maduro said, reading from a prepared statement.

"The president gave us precise instructions so that, after finishing the visit, we would tell the [Venezuelan] people about his current health condition," Maduro said. "President Chavez's state of health continues to be delicate, with complications that are being attended to, in a process not without risks."

The vice president spoke with a solemn expression alongside Chavez's eldest daughter, Rosa, and son-in-law, Jorge Arreaza, as well as Atty. Gen. Cilia Flores.

Maduro said he had met several times with Chavez's medical team and relatives. He said he would remain in Havana "for the coming hours" but didn't specify how long.

The Venezuelan leader has not been seen or heard from since undergoing his fourth cancer-related surgery Dec. 11, and government officials have said he might not return in time for his scheduled Jan. 10 inauguration for a new six-year term. If he were to die before being sworn in, a special election would be held to replace him.

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UK “X Factor” winner regains top chart spot

LONDON (Reuters) – James Arthur, winner of this year’s British version of the “X Factor” TV talent show, saw his debut single climb back to number one in the British pop charts on Sunday.

Arthur’s “Impossible” shot straight to the top earlier this month but was overtaken last week by a tribute song to the victims of the 1989 Hillsborough football stadium disaster, “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother”, a version of the ballad that was a worldwide hit for The Hollies.

That song has now slipped to fifth position, according to the Official Charts Company listings.

“Scream and Shout” by will.i.am, featuring Britney Spears, stayed at two while Psy’s monster video hit “Gangnam Style” was up three places to third.

In the album charts, British singer Emeli Sande stayed top with “Our Version Of Events”, with Olly Murs‘ “Right Place, Right Time” unchanged at two.

Rihanna was up three places to third with “Unapologetic”.

(Reporting by Stephen Addison; Editing by Alison Williams)

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