Acer’s $99 Android tablet might not launch in the U.S.

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Jack Klugman, famed for TV role on “The Odd Couple,” dead at 90

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Emmy-winning actor Jack Klugman, a versatile, raspy-voiced mainstay of U.S. television during the 1970s and early ’80s through his starring roles in “The Odd Couple” and “Quincy, M.E.,” died on Monday at the age of 90.

Klugman, whose pairing with Tony Randall on “The Odd Couple” created one of television’s most memorable duos, died at his home in the Woodland Hills section of Los Angeles following a period of declining health, according to his son, Adam Klugman.

“He went very suddenly and peacefully … he was there one minute and gone the next,” the actor’s son told Reuters, adding that the elder Klugman had “been in convalescent mode for awhile.”

He said his father had lost his ability to walk and spent much of his time in bed. His wife of four and a half years, Peggy Crosby, former daughter-in-law of the late singer Bing Crosby, was with him when he died, his son said.

In addition to his TV success, Klugman enjoyed a healthy career on the stage as well as in movies and made successful forays into horse breeding and political activism. Not even the loss of a vocal cord to cancer in 1989 could silence him for long.

Klugman gained fame for playing slovenly sports writer Oscar Madison in the sitcom “The Odd Couple” – a role he also had played on Broadway – and then as a crusading coroner in the crime drama “Quincy, M.E.“

“The Odd Couple,” based on Neil Simon’s play about two disparate divorced men forced to share an apartment, ran for five years on the ABC network, starting in 1970, but was never a hit during that time. Only through reruns did Klugman and co-star Randall, who played neat-freak Felix Unger, leave their mark as one of U.S. television’s great sitcom teams.

“We had wonderful respect for one another, we liked working together but we never became friends,” Klugman told the Miami Herald in 2005. “I think that was on account of me. I was withdrawn. I never let anybody get too close.”

It was not until Klugman’s cancer surgery, following years of heavy smoking and throat problems, that a friendship developed with Randall. Klugman had no voice and was glumly resigned to the end of his acting career, but with Randall’s encouragement, he returned to the stage.

They resurrected their “Odd Couple” roles in a 1993 TV movie, and Klugman paid tribute to Randall, who died in 2004, in the memoir “Tony and Me: A Story of Friendship.”

“Quincy, M.E.,” which ran on NBC from 1976 to 1983, saw Klugman assume a heavy behind-the-scenes role. He recalled that he spent 20 hours a day working on the series, and he twice sued its producer, Universal Studios, for a share of the net profits he claimed were owed to him.

LOVE OF HORSES

Horses were perhaps Klugman’s first love – both as a keen gambler starting in his teens and later as a breeder. One of his horses, Jaklin Klugman, finished third in the 1980 Kentucky Derby and earned millions as a stud.

Born Jacob Joachim Klugman on April 27, 1922, he grew up in a tough Philadelphia neighborhood. In 1945 a loan shark was after him due to gambling losses so he fled to Pittsburgh, where he studied drama at Carnegie Tech and worked several jobs to settle his debts.

Two years later in New York, Klugman appeared opposite Henry Fonda in the national stage production of “Mr. Roberts.” In 1960, Klugman received a Tony nomination for his supporting role in the musical “Gypsy.”

In Hollywood, Klugman had notable supporting roles in such films as “12 Angry Men” (1957), “Days of Wine and Roses” (1962) and “Goodbye, Columbus” (1969).

He won the first of three Emmys in 1964 for an appearance on the legal drama “The Defenders.” Klugman and Randall each received Emmy nominations for each of the “Odd Couple” seasons, with Klugman winning in 1971 and 1973 and Randall in 1975.

Klugman also earned four Emmy nominations for NBC’s “Quincy, M.E.” His character, who stepped out of his role as medical examiner to solve murders that flummoxed the Los Angeles police, never had a first name.

Klugman is survived by Crosby, his second wife, whom he married in 2008 after a 20-year courtship; and two sons, Adam and David, from his first marriage to late “Match Game” panelist Brett Somers. Klugman and Somers were separated for more than 30 years of their 54-year marriage, which ended with her death in 2007.

(Reporting by Piya Sinha-Roy; additional reporting and writing by Dean Goodman; Editing by Steve Gorman and Paul Simao)

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Venezuela’s Chavez improving after surgery: officials

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is improving after a cancer operation in Cuba and has started exercising, officials said on Monday, amid doubts over whether the former soldier is in good enough health to continue governing.

Vice President Nicolas Maduro said he had spoken by phone with Chavez, who was walking and doing exercises as part of his treatment.

“We’ve gotten the best present we could get this Christmas: a phone call from our commander president,” Maduro said on state television.

Information Minister Ernesto Villegas said earlier in the day that Chavez had “shown a slight improvement in his condition,” without providing details.

Chavez has not been heard from in two weeks following a fourth operation for an unspecified type of cancer in the pelvic region. The government has said he suffered post-operatory complications including unexpected bleeding and a lung infection, but offered few details about his actual condition.

His death, or even his resignation for health reasons, would upend the politics of the South American OPEC nation where his personalized brand of oil-financed socialism has made him a hero to the poor but a pariah to critics who call him a dictator.

His allies are now openly discussing the possibility that he may not be back in time to be sworn in for his third six-year term on the constitutionally mandated date of January 10.

Opposition leaders say a delay to his taking power would be another signal that Chavez is not in condition to govern and that fresh elections should be called to choose his replacement.

They believe they have a better shot against Maduro, Chavez’s anointed successor, than against the charismatic president who for 14 years has been nearly invincible at the ballot box.

But a constitutional dispute over succession could lead to a messy transition toward a post-Chavez era.

Maduro has become the government’s main figurehead in the president’s absence. His speeches have mimicked Chavez’s bombastic style that mixes historical references with acid insults of adversaries.

Opposition leader Henrique Capriles, who lost to Chavez in the October presidential vote, slammed Maduro in an interview published on Sunday for failing to seek dialogue with the opposition at a time of political uncertainty.

“Maduro is not the one that won the elections, nor is he the leader,” Capriles told the local El Universal newspaper. “Because Chavez is absent, this is precisely the time that (Maduro) needs help from people (in the opposition camp).”

Chavez has vastly expanded presidential powers and built a near-cult following among millions of poor Venezuelans, who love his feisty language and social welfare projects.

The opposition is smarting from this month’s governors elections in which Chavez allies won 20 of 23 states. They are trying to keep attention focused on day-to-day problems from rampant crime to power outages.

(Reporting by Brian Ellsworth; Editing by Sandra Maler)

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For a Great Stocking Stuffer, Give a Kid a Vaccine

If you are looking for the perfect present to give kids this holiday season, what about immunity from a range of deadly communicable diseases? It is cheap and widely available at any good pediatricians’ office or vaccination clinic. Even so, this wonderful present is spurned by a growing number of parents in America and Europe.

A big reason that more children than ever will be around to enjoy the holiday season worldwide this year is because vaccination rates for a range of diseases have shot up over the last few decades. In the case of measles, the World Health Organization suggests 16 percent of infants were vaccinated against the disease in 1980 compared with 85 percent in 2010. The results speak for themselves: In 1980, measles killed 2.6 million people a year; that number was down to 139,000 in 2010. And that’s thanks not least to the efforts of the Global Alliance for Vaccines & Immunizations, which buys vaccines at bulk and sells them on to developing countries using a sliding price scale that depends on the country’s income. GAVI has helped improve vaccination rates significantly even in some of the world’s most challenging countries. Yemen, for example, started a rotavarius vaccination campaign with GAVI support in 2012.

But for all that Western aid has helped in increasing global coverage, vaccination rates are going the opposite direction in the West itself. Amanda Glassman and colleagues at the Center for Global Development developed a measure of global performance looking at the sustained level of vaccination against diphtheria, whooping cough, and tetanus (the DPT shot) over the 1980-2010 period. On that ranking, the U.S. came in No. 24 behind countries that include Slovakia, Hungary, and Albania. France ranked No. 31, and the U.K. No. 91—behind Gambia and Eritrea.

Unvaccinated kids are concentrated within those countries, which considerably increases the risk of outbreaks. A lot of rich Californians with kids in private schools have managed to clump together with enough like-minded fellow thinkers to create large reservoirs of unvaccinated kids. The opt-out rate in private schools in the state doubled from 2004 to 2011. There are now 110 private schools across California where more than half of the kids skipped some or all vaccinations, and 247 private schools saw vaccination rates below 90 percent, the threshold critical to minimizing the potential for disease outbreak.

Declining vaccination rates have had the inevitable result. In 2011, according to health economist Victoria Fan, France had more than 14,000 cases of measles—the highest since 2000 and considerably more than the total number of cases in all of the Americas that year. Latin America eliminated measles in 2002, but because of dropping vaccination coverage in the North, the U.S. is importing measles cases from Europe and threatens to reexport them to South America. The U.S. has also seen outbreaks of meningitis despite the availability of an infant vaccine since 1987. And in the first nine months of 2012, the U.S. suffered more cases of whooping cough than it had in decades, with 25,000 cases and 13 deaths.

Parents who don’t vaccinate risk their own children’s lives—but also those of newborns too young for vaccination, kids of other vaccine-deniers, and older people for whom vaccines have proven ineffective. And they slow efforts to wipe out diseases completely, so that no one has to go to the bother and expense of getting the vaccines that these selfish, misguided, or ignorant parents are already leaving on the shelf. Think smallpox—it killed 300 million-plus people last century, but no one is vaccinated against it today because a global campaign succeeded in wiping it out.

Insanely, in a country that mandates car seats for all kids, parents in 20 states, including California, are allowed to opt out of vaccination programs for “philosophical reasons.” And the situation is the same across much of Europe.  Whereas a child out of a car seat who gets involved in a crash is only a danger to herself, an unvaccinated kid is a danger to others. The public policy case for mandating vaccination is far stronger than that for car seats.

Meanwhile, no child whose parents have shown the practical love of turning up at the clinic and no vaccine worker who has braved the struggle to set up that clinic should be thwarted for lack of a few dollars to finance the vaccines. (For an example of that bravery, look no further than the eight polio vaccination workers murdered last week in Pakistan, where the Taliban has opposed the campaign.)

So if you’ve already got your kids vaccinated, why not help a kid in another country get his or her full set? Donate to child vaccination efforts through Unicef or such groups as the Lions and Rotary clubs that have been longtime supporters of global vaccination efforts. Meanwhile, if you haven’t got your own kids vaccinated, here’s hoping an elf repeatedly whacks you with the lump of coal in your stocking until you repent.

Kenny is a fellow at the Center for Global Development and the New America Foundation.

Businessweek.com — Top News

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Saudi website editor could face death for apostasy-rights group

RIYADH (Reuters) – The editor of a Saudi Arabian website could be sentenced to death after a judge cited him for apostasy and moved his case to a higher court, the monitoring group Human Rights Watch said on Saturday.

Raif Badawi, who started the Free Saudi Liberals website to discuss the role of religion in Saudi Arabia, was arrested in June, Human Rights Watch said.

Badawi had initially been charged with the less serious offence of insulting Islam through electronic channels, but at a December 17 hearing a judge referred him to a more senior court and recommended he be tried for apostasy, the monitoring group said.

Apostasy, the act of changing religious affiliation, carries an automatic death sentence in Saudi Arabia, along with crimes including blasphemy.

Badawi’s website included articles that were critical of senior religious figures, the monitoring group said.

A spokesman for Saudi Arabia’s Justice Ministry was not available to comment.

The world’s top oil exporter follows the strict Wahhabi school of Islam and applies Islamic law, or sharia.

Judges base their decisions on their own interpretation of religious law rather than on a written legal code or on precedent.

King Abdullah, Saudi Arabia’s ruler, has pushed for reforms to the legal system, including improved training for judges and the introduction of precedent to standardize verdicts and make courts more transparent.

However, Saudi lawyers say that conservatives in the Justice Ministry and the judiciary have resisted implementing many of the changes that he announced in 2007. (Reporting By Angus McDowall; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

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Bethenny Frankel and husband of 2 years separating

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Bethenny Frankel and husband Jason Hoppy are separating.

The 42-year-old TV personality, chef, author and entrepreneur told The Associated Press Sunday that the split brings her “great sadness.”

“This was an extremely difficult decision that as a woman and a mother, I have to accept as the best choice for our family,” Frankel said. “We have love and respect for one another and will continue to amicably co-parent our daughter who is and will always remain our first priority. This is an immensely painful and heartbreaking time for us.”

Frankel and Hoppy were married in 2010 and have a daughter, Bryn, who was born that same year. The couple’s courtship and marriage were documented in two reality series, “Bethenny Getting Married?” and “Bethenny Ever After…” Frankel gained fame as a star of “The Real Housewives of New York City.” Since her stint on the Bravo show, she has written four books, released a fitness video and founded her Skinnygirl line of cocktails, shapewear and nutritional supplements.

She launched a talk show, “Bethenny,” over the summer that is set to air nationally on Fox stations in 2013.

___

AP Entertainment Writer Sandy Cohen is on Twitter: www.twitter.com/APSandy .

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Few tests done at toxic sites after superstorm

OLD BRIDGE, N.J. (AP) — For more than a month, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has said that the recent superstorm didn’t cause significant problems at any of the 247 Superfund toxic waste sites it’s monitoring in New York and New Jersey.

But in many cases, no actual tests of soil or water are being conducted, just visual inspections.

The EPA conducted a handful of tests right after the storm, but couldn’t provide details or locations of any recent testing when asked last week. New Jersey officials point out that federally designated Superfund sites are EPA’s responsibility.

The 1980 Superfund law gave EPA the power to order cleanups of abandoned, spilled and illegally dumped hazardous wastes that threaten human health or the environment. The sites can involve long-term or short-term cleanups.

Jeff Tittel, executive director of the Sierra Club in New Jersey, says officials haven’t done enough to ensure there is no contamination from Superfund sites. He’s worried toxins could leach into groundwater and the ocean.

“It’s really serious and I think the EPA and the state of New Jersey have not done due diligence to make sure these sites have not created problems,” Tittel said.

The EPA said last month that none of the Superfund sites it monitors in New York or New Jersey sustained significant damage, but that it has done follow-up sampling at the Gowanus Canal site in Brooklyn, the Newtown Creek site on the border of Queens and Brooklyn, and the Raritan Bay Slag site, all of which flooded during the storm.

But last week, EPA spokeswoman Stacy Kika didn’t respond to questions about whether any soil or water tests have been done at the other 243 Superfund sites. The agency hasn’t said exactly how many of the sites flooded.

“Currently, we do not believe that any sites were impacted in ways that would pose a threat to nearby communities,” EPA said in a statement.

Politicians have been asking similar questions, too. On Nov. 29, U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., wrote to the EPA to ask for “an additional assessment” of Sandy’s impact on Superfund sites in the state.

Elevated levels of lead, antimony, arsenic and copper have been found at the Raritan Bay Slag site, a Superfund site since 2009. Blast furnaces dumped lead at the site in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and lead slag was also used there to construct a seawall and jetty.

The EPA found lead levels as high as 142,000 parts per million were found at Raritan Bay in 2007. Natural soil levels for lead range from 50 to 400 parts per million.

The EPA took four samples from the site after Superstorm Sandy: two from a fenced-off beach area and two from a nearby public playground. One of the beach samples tested above the recreational limit for lead. In early November, the EPA said it was taking additional samples “to get a more detailed picture of how the material might have shifted” and will “take appropriate steps to prevent public exposure” at the site, according to a bulletin posted on its website. But six weeks later, the agency couldn’t provide more details of what has been found.

The Newtown Creek site, with pesticides, metals, PCBs and volatile organic compounds, and the Gowanus Canal site, heavily contaminated with PCBs, heavy metals, volatile organics and coal tar wastes, were added to the Superfund list in 2010.

Some say the lead at the Raritan Bay site can disperse easily.

Gabriel Fillippeli, director of the Center for Urban Health at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, said lead tends to stay in the soil once it is deposited but can be moved around by stormwaters or winds. Arsenic, which has been found in the surface water at the site, can leach into the water table, Fillippeli said.

“My concern is twofold. One is, a storm like that surely moved some of that material physically to other places, I would think,” Fillippeli said. “If they don’t cap that or seal it or clean it up, arsenic will continue to make its way slowly into groundwater and lead will be distributed around the neighborhood.”

The lack of testing has left some residents with lingering worries.

The Raritan Bay Slag site sits on the beach overlooking a placid harbor with a view of Staten Island. On a recent foggy morning, workers were hauling out debris, and some nearby residents wondered whether the superstorm increased or spread the amount of pollution at the site.

“I think it brought a lot of crud in from what’s out there,” said Elise Pelletier, whose small bungalow sits on a hill overlooking the Raritan Bay Slag site. “You don’t know what came in from the water.” Her street did not flood because it is up high, but she worries about a park below where people go fishing and walk their dogs. She would like to see more testing done.

Thomas Burke, an associate dean at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, says both federal and state officials generally have a good handle on the major Superfund sites, which often use caps and walls to contain pollution.

“They are designed to hold up,” Burke said of such structures, but added that “you always have to be concerned that an unusual event can spread things around in the environment.” Burke noted that the storm brought in a “tremendous amount” of water, raising the possibility that groundwater plumes could have changed.

“There really have to be evaluations” of communities near the Superfund sites, he said. “It’s important to take a look.”

Officials in both New York and New Jersey note they’ve also been monitoring less toxic sites known as brownfields and haven’t found major problems. The New York DEC said in a statement that brownfields in that state “were not significantly impacted” and that they don’t plan further tests for storm impacts.

Larry Ragonese, a spokesman for the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, said the agency has done visual inspections of major brownfield sites and also alerted towns and cities to be on the lookout for problems. Ragonese said they just aren’t getting calls voicing such concerns.

Back at the Raritan Bay slag site, some residents want more information. And they want the toxic soil, which has sat here for years, out.

Pat Churchill, who was walking her dog in the park along the water, said she’s still worried.

“There are unanswered questions. You can’t tell me this is all contained. It has to move around,” Churchill said.

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Hurting Spaniards celebrate Christmas lottery wins

MADRID (AP) — Winners of Spain‘s cherished Christmas lottery — the world’s richest — celebrated Saturday in more than a dozen locations where the top lucky tickets were sold, a moment of uplift for a country enduring another brutal year of economic hardship.

The lottery sprinkled a treasure chest of €2.5 billion ($ 3.3 billion) in prize money around the country. Champagne corks popped and festive cheer broke out in 15 towns or cities where tickets yielding the maximum prize of €400,000 ($ 530,000), known as “El Gordo” (“The Fat One,)” had been bought.

A total of €520 million ($ 687 million) was won in the eastern Madrid suburb of Alcala de Henares alone. Among the top-prize winners were 50 former workers at metal parts factory Cametal who had formed a pool to buy tickets. Their company had filed for bankruptcy and ceased paying wages five months ago.

“I’m bursting with joy, I haven’t fully taken it in yet,” said local resident Josefina Ortega. “When others win you think to yourself it’ll never happen to you, but it has.”

Unlike lotteries that generate a few big winners, Spain’s version — now celebrating its 200th anniversary — has always shared the wealth more evenly instead of concentrating on vast jackpots, so thousands of tickets yield some kind of return.

Almost all of Spain’s 46 million inhabitants traditionally watch at least some part of the live TV coverage showing school children singing out winning numbers for the lottery

It is so popular that frequently three €20 ($ 26) tickets are sold for every Spaniard and many consider lottery day as the unofficial kickoff of the holiday season.

Before Spain’s property-led economic boom collapsed in 2008 ticket buyers often yearned to win so they could buy a small apartment by the beach or a new car. Now people said they needed money just to get by, or to avoid being evicted from their homes.

Though ticket sales were down 8.3 percent on last year, according to the National Lottery, in the days preceding the draw hundreds of people lined up to buy tickets outside outlets that have sold winning tickets before.

Dolores Perez and Teresa Palacio, two lottery outlet workers in north Madrid who sold a top-prize ticket celebrated with sparkling wine as curious neighbors gathered. The fortunate winner had yet to make an appearance.

“I had never sold a Christmas ‘Gordo’ before; I almost thought it didn’t exist,” said Perez, smiling broadly. “I’m so happy, I’ve worked here for 30 years and never before sold a ‘Gordo,’ until now.”

Since so many people chip in to buy tickets in groups, top prizes frequently end up being handed out in the same small town or in one city neighborhood.

Last year’s top winning number hit for 1,800 tickets in the northern town of Granen, population 2,000. Townspeople shared about €700 million ($ 925 million), and the rest of the €1.8 billion ($ 2.4 billion) was doled out in smaller prizes around Spain.

Spain holds another big lottery Jan. 6 to mark the Feast of the Epiphany. It is known as “El Nino” (The Child), in reference to the baby Jesus.

But the crisis will hit El Nino and all lotteries going forward. Until now, lottery winnings have been free from taxation, but now prizes above €2,000 ($ 2,640) will be liable to a 20 percent tax in 2013.

The government has imposed stinging austerity measures this year in a bid to prevent Spain from asking for a full-blown bailout like those granted to Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Cyprus. Spain’s unemployment stands at 25 percent and its economy is sinking into a double-dip recession.

___

Associated Press correspondent Alan Clendenning in Madrid contributed to this report.

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3-day trip becomes 3-week ordeal for 2 Jamaicans

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — It was supposed to be a three-day fishing trip at most. It turned into a three-week ordeal, drifting under an intense sun for hundreds of miles in the Caribbean in a small boat with a broken motor.

The two Jamaican fishermen survived by eating raw fish they caught and drinking water from melted ice they had brought to preserve their catch. The Colombian navy finally plucked them from the sea a week ago and delivered them home Saturday after treating them for severe dehydration, malnutrition and hypothermia.

Everton Gregory, 54, and John Sobah, 58, recounted their story in a telephone interview from Jamaica, while the boat owner and the men’s employer also provided details.

The men set off from Jamaica’s southeastern coast on Nov. 20. The water was glassy, the wind was calm and their boat was laden with 14 buckets of ice, 16 gallons of water and several bags of cereal, bread and fruit.

They headed to Finger Bank, a nearby sand spit 8-miles-long (13-kilometers) that is known for its abundance of fish like wahoo, tuna and mahi mahi. The owner of the 28-foot (8-meter) boat said she usually joins them on fishing trips, but she couldn’t go that afternoon.

After spending a couple of days around Finger Bank, the two men set off for home with their catch. But the boat’s engine soon died. The water was too deep to use the anchor and the current too strong to use the oars, so the boat slowly drifted away from Jamaica.

At first, the men got by on sipping the water and eating the food they brought with them. But days turned into weeks, and they began to eat the fish they had caught and drink the melted ice that had kept it fresh.

Gregory and Sobah kept eating raw fish and used a tarp to try to collect water, but the rain clouds remained at a distance.

Back home, friends and family called police and used their own boats to search the area where the men were last seen. The two fishermen work for the Florida-based nonprofit group Food for the Poor, which chartered a plane to search along Jamaica’s coast.

Marva Espuet, the owner of the boat, said she knew she had packed it with more food and water than needed for a three-day trip, but the thought provided little relief.

“If I had gone, there would have been two boats going,” said the 52-year-old woman, a longtime friend of both fishermen.

With searches proving fruitless, Sobah’s niece grew frantic, recalled Nakhle Hado, a fishing manager for Food for the Poor who helped lead the search. She “begged me that she wanted John back for Christmas,” Hado said.

Hado said some people believed the two men would never be found, but he and others didn’t give up. “My gut was telling me that they were still alive,” he said.

Hado said he had trained Gregory and Sobah on how to survive at sea.

“In case something happens, they don’t have to think twice. They know how to react,” he said. “It’s very important, their mental state.”

Gregory and Sobah finally ran out of fresh water and went several days without drink. A healthy human being can die from dehydration anywhere from three to five days without water.

Then on Dec. 12, a Colombian navy helicopter patrolling off the coast of that South American country spotted the men near Lack of Sleep cay, more than 500 miles (800 kilometers) from where they started. It took two days for a navy vessel to reach them because of bad weather. The men were hospitalized for several days at the Colombian island of San Andres before boarding a plane back home to Jamaica.

“It feels good,” Sobah told the AP in a brief phone interview after arriving.

Gregory said he had lost hope, but Sobah tried to keep him positive that they would be rescued. “I just had that belief,” Sobah said. “I believe in the Creator.”

Yet it is Gregory who plans to keep fishing despite the ordeal because he needs the job.

Sobah said he’s done. “I’m not going to go fishing again. No way.”

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North Korea’s first video game: A boring version of ‘Crazy Taxi’ that nitpicks your bad driving

In theory, a driving game set in North Korea could be fun — it could revolve around delivering kidnapped movie stars from the airport to Dear Leader’s headquarters, for instance. In reality, though, it looks as though playing a driving game set in North Korea is about as much fun as actually living in North Korea. Business Insider’s Gus Lubin has posted his first impressions of “Welcome to Pyongyang,” an online game that’s “produced by Nosotek, a western IT company based in North Korea,” and he’s found that it’s pretty lame.

[More from BGR: Years after cashing out, MySpace cofounder mocks people who work for a living]

The goal of the game is to drive around the North Korean capital of Pyongyang and become familiar with all the great tourist attractions it has to offer. But unlike action-driving classics such as Crazy Taxi and the Grand Theft Auto series, Welcome to Pyongyang is annoyingly authoritarian and won’t put up with you crashing into cars or mowing down civilians. To make matters worse, the game doesn’t even give you the satisfaction dying at the hands of bloody-minded authorities if you break the rules too often — rather, it sends out a fascistic meter maid to simply tell you that you have been “stopped for bad driving.” We’re not sure what the actual penalty is for reckless is in North Korea, but we get the feeling it’s more severe than getting nitpicked by an annoying digital character.

This article was originally published by BGR

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