About 350 die in Philippine typhoon, 400 missing

Dec 5, 2012 – 9:18 PM

NEW BATAAN, Philippines (AP) A powerful typhoon that washed away emergency shelters, a military camp and possibly entire families in the southern Philippines has killed almost 350 people with nearly 400 missing, authorities said Thursday.

More bodies were retrieved from hardest-hit Compostela Valley and Davao Oriental provinces and six others impacted by Tuesday's storm, the Office of Civil Defense reported.

At least 200 of the victims died in Compostela Valley alone, including 78 villagers and soldiers who perished in a flash flood that swamped two emergency shelters and a military camp.

"Entire families may have been washed away," said Interior Secretary Mar Roxas, who visited New Bataan on Wednesday. The farming town of 45,000 people was a muddy wasteland of collapsed houses and coconut and banana trees felled by ferocious winds.

Bodies of victims were laid on the ground for viewing by people searching for missing relatives. Some were badly mangled after being dragged by raging floodwaters over rocks and other debris. A man sprayed insecticide on the remains to keep away swarms of flies.

A father wept when he found the body of his child after lifting a plastic cover. A mother, meanwhile, went away in tears, unable to find her missing children. "I have three children," she said repeatedly, flashing three fingers before a TV cameraman.

Two men carried the mud-caked body of an unidentified girl that was covered with coconut leaves on a makeshift stretcher made from a blanket and wooden poles.

Dionisia Requinto, 43, felt lucky to have survived with her husband and their eight children after swirling flood waters surrounded their home. She said they escaped and made their way up a hill to safety, bracing themselves against boulders and fallen trees as they climbed.

"The water rose so fast," she told The Associated Press. "It was horrible. I thought it was going to be our end."

In nearby Davao Oriental, the coastal province first struck by Typhoon Bopha as it blew from the Pacific Ocean, at least 115 people perished, mostly in three towns so battered that it was hard to find any buildings with roofs remaining, provincial officer Freddie Bendulo and other officials said.

"We had a problem where to take the evacuees. All the evacuation centers have lost their roofs," Davao Oriental Gov. Corazon Malanyaon said.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies issued an urgent appeal for $4.8 million to help people directly affected by the typhoon.

The sun shined brightly for most of the day Wednesday, prompting residents to lay their soaked clothes, books and other belongings out on roadsides to dry and revealing the extent of the damage to farmland. Thousands of banana trees in one Compostela Valley plantation were toppled by the wind, the young bananas still wrapped in blue plastic covers.

But as night fell, however, rain started pouring again over New Bataan, triggering panic among some residents who feared a repeat of the previous day's flash floods. Some carried whatever belongings they could as they hurried to nearby towns or higher ground.

After slamming into Davao Oriental and Compostela Valley, Bopha roared quickly across the southern Mindanao and central regions, knocking out power in two entire provinces, triggering landslides and leaving houses and plantations damaged. More than 170,000 fled to evacuation centers.

On Thursday, the typhoon was over the South China Sea west of Palawan province. It was blowing northwestward and could be headed to Vietnam or southern China, according to government forecasters.

The deaths came despite efforts by President Benigno Aquino III's government to force residents out of high-risk communities as the typhoon approached.

Some 20 typhoons and storms lash the northern and central Philippines each year, but they rarely hit the vast southern Mindanao region where sprawling export banana plantations have been planted over the decades because it seldom experiences strong winds that could blow down the trees.

A rare storm in the south last December killed more than 1,200 people and left many more homeless.

The United States extended its condolences and offered to help its Asian ally deal with the typhoon's devastation. It praised government efforts to minimize the deaths and damage.

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Associated Press writers Jim Gomez, Teresa Cerojano and Oliver Teves in Manila contributed to this report.
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Social Security fast-tracks rare-disease claims

8:18 PM

WASHINGTON (AP) In an effort to ease the burden of being stricken with a debilitating condition, the Social Security Administration is expanding a program that fast-tracks disability claims by people who get serious illnesses such as cancer, early-onset Alzheimer's and Lou Gehrig's disease claims that could take months or years to approve in the past.

While providing faster benefits, the program also is designed to ease the workload of an agency that has been swamped by disability claims since the economic recession a few years ago.

Disability claims are up by more than 20 percent from 2008. The Compassionate Allowances program approves many claims for a select group of conditions within a few days, Social Security Commissioner Michael Astrue said. The program is being expanded Thursday to include a total of 200 diseases and conditions.

Many of the conditions are rare; all of them are so serious that people who suffer from them easily meet the government's definition of being disabled, Astrue said. With proper documentation, these are relatively easy cases for the agency to decide, too easy to put through the usual time-consuming process that other applicants face, he said.

"Why for someone who is going to die within 15 months do we need 15 years of medical records?" Astrue said in an interview. "If somebody's got a confirmed diagnosis of ALS, you know that in essence, it's not only a disability, it's a death sentence, and there is no use in burdening them with paperwork."

High demand during the sour economy has made it difficult for Social Security to reduce disability claims backlogs and wait times for decisions. About 3.2 million people have applied for disability benefits this year, up from 2.6 million in 2008, the agency said.

Disability claims usually increase when the economy is bad because people who managed to work even though they had a disability lose their jobs and apply for benefits. Others who have disabilities may not qualify for benefits but apply anyway because they are unemployed and have nowhere else to turn.

Two-thirds of initial applications are rejected, according to the agency. If your benefit claim is rejected, you can appeal to an administrative law judge but the hearing process takes an average of 354 days to get a decision. In 2008, it took an average of 509 days, according to agency statistics.

Judge Randy Frye, president of the Association of Administrative Law Judges, said judges have been working hard to reduce backlogs while some decide more than 500 cases a year. But, Frye said, his group was not consulted on the Compassionate Allowances program.

"We want claimants that are worthy of the benefits, that meet the definitional standard for disability, to be paid as quickly as possible," said Frye, who is an administrative law judge in Charlotte, N.C. "On the other hand, I think we are not interested in seeing programs designed to simply pay down the backlog. Whether this is that kind of program or not, I don't know."

Social Security's standard is to award benefits to people who cannot work because they have a medical condition that is expected to last at least one year or result in death.

More than 56 million people get Social Security benefits. Nearly 11 million beneficiaries are disabled workers, spouses and children. Benefits for disabled workers average $1,112 a month, or about $13,300 a year.

The Compassionate Allowances program is designed to render decisions in 10 days to 15 days. It was started in 2008, about a year after the agency did an internal review of how it handled initial applications from people with a handful of serious but rare conditions.

In about 40 percent of the cases studied, the agency mishandled the claim, either rejecting valid claims or taking too long to approve them, Astrue said. Among the conditions studied was ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, a debilitating condition that causes people to lose muscle strength and coordination, eventually making it impossible to do routine tasks such as walking up steps, standing or even swallowing.

Since the Compassionate Allowances program was started, 200,000 people have received expedited benefits, Astrue said. On Thursday, the agency is scheduled to announce that it is adding 35 more diseases and conditions to the program, bringing the total to 200.

The program includes some well-known conditions, including many kinds of cancer such as acute leukemia, adult non-Hodgkin lymphoma and advanced breast cancer that has spread to other parts of the body.

Others are more obscure, such as Alpers disease, a progressive neurologic disorder that begins during childhood, type 2 Gaucher disease, an inherited disorder in which the body accumulates harmful quantities of certain fats, and Menkes disease, a genetic disorder that affects the development of hair, brain, bones, liver and arteries.

"Some of the (conditions) aren't killing you, some of them are just keeping you to the point where you can't physically work," said Peter Saltonstall, president and CEO of the National Organization for Rare Disorders. "But you're still alive and breathing, and in that case you need to buy groceries, you need to be able to support yourself in some fashion. And so this is a program that helped solve that problem."

Robert Egge, vice president of public policy for the Alzheimer's Association, said the program is a godsend for people who have just received diagnoses that promise to be extraordinarily difficult for patients and their families.

"This is difficult for anybody to negotiate," Egge said of the disability claims process. "But by the nature of the disease it can often be especially difficult for this community, as they are dealing with not only a terrible diagnosis but then the nature of the disease makes it very hard to go through this year-by-year process of getting the benefits they are entitled to under the law."

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Follow Stephen Ohlemacher on Twitter: http://twitter.com/stephenatap
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At 450 pounds, Ohio killer fights execution

7:48 PM

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) At about 450 pounds, Ohio death row inmate Ronald Post is so fat that his executioners won't be able to find veins in his arms or legs for the lethal injection, and he might even break the death chamber gurney, his lawyers say.

If the state is forced to use a backup method that involves injecting the drugs directly into muscle, the process could require multiple doses over several hours or even days and result in a grueling and painful end, they say.

Post, who gained close to 200 pounds on death row, is trying to stave off execution Jan. 16 for the 1983 killing of a motel clerk during a robbery, arguing that because of his obesity, an attempt to put him to death would amount to cruel and unusual punishment.

State officials say Post, 53, can be humanely executed under both Ohio's usual method and the untested backup procedure. The warden at the prison where the death chamber is situated even tested the gurney by piling 540 pounds of weights on it for two hours.

Post has not presented "sufficient evidence demonstrating that his obesity or other physical conditions will present a substantial risk that his execution cannot be conducted in a humane and dignified manner," Assistant Attorney General Charles Wille said in court papers.

A federal judge in Columbus will hold a hearing on Post's claim later this month.

Post's case is not without precedent: In 1994, a federal judge in Washington state ruled that convicted killer Mitchell Rupe, at more than 400 pounds, was too heavy to be hanged because he might be decapitated. After numerous court rulings and a third trial, Rupe was sentenced to life in prison, where he died in 2006.

If Post manages to stop his execution because of his weight, the legal precedent may not be far-reaching, because of the very small number of death row inmates who are that obese, said Deborah Denno, a Fordham University law professor and expert on lethal injection. And she said it is unlikely prisoners would begin stuffing themselves to try to fend off execution.

Richard Dieter, executive director of the Washington-based Death Penalty Information Center, which opposes capital punishment, predicted states will find a way around obesity claims by adjusting their execution procedures, perhaps by changing the drug or the dosage.

"Inmates probably will recognize that that's a thin straw to hang your hopes on," he said.

In 2007, it took Ohio executioners about two hours to insert IVs into the veins of condemned killer Christopher Newton, who weighed about 265 pounds.

At 6-foot-2, Post weighed 260 pounds around the time he was moved to death row in 1985. His weight has gone up and down behind bars, and at one time he lost 150 pounds through dieting, his lawyers say.

But knee and back problems have made it difficult to exercise, his lawyers say. They also say Post's request for gastric bypass surgery was denied, he has been told not to walk because he might fall, and severe depression has contributed to his inability to control how much he eats.

The Ohio prison system would not comment on how Post gained so much weight behind bars. They said meals are served in reasonable portions and seconds are not allowed, and they provided copies of prison menus that list healthier options such as low-fat milk, vegetarian patties and mixed vegetables.

Inmates can buy sweet and salty snacks from the commissary.

A doctor who examined Post for the defense said Post does not have accessible veins in his arms, hands or legs.

"Given his unique physical and medical condition there is a substantial risk that any attempt to execute him will result in serious physical and psychological pain to him, as well as an execution involving a torturous and lingering death," Post's attorneys argue in court papers.

His lawyers have indicated they would fight any attempt by the state to employ a third possible procedure: the "cut-down" method, in which executioners cut into the condemned man's arms to find a vein. Ohio's execution policies don't call for such an approach, and it is unclear if the state can go ahead with such a procedure without court approval.

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Andrew Welsh-Huggins can be reached at http://twitter.com/awhcolumbus.
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Obama and Boehner discuss fiscal cliff by phone

6:48 PM

WASHINGTON (AP) For the first time in days, President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner spoke by phone Wednesday about the "fiscal cliff" that threatens to knock the economy into recession, raising the prospect of fresh negotiations to prevent tax increases and spending cuts set to kick in with the new year.

Officials provided no details of the conversation, which came on the same day the president, hewing to a hard line, publicly warned congressional Republicans not to inject the threat of a government default into the already complex issue.

"It's not a game I will play," Obama told a group of business leaders as Republicans struggled to find their footing in talks with a recently re-elected president and unified congressional Democrats.

Among the Republicans, Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma became the latest to break ranks and say he could support Obama's demand for an increase in tax rates at upper incomes as part of a comprehensive plan to cut federal deficits.

Across the Capitol, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said Republicans want to "sit down with the president. We want to talk specifics." He noted that the GOP had made a compromise offer earlier in the week and the White House had rejected it.

Officials said after the talk between Obama and Boehner, R-Ohio, there was no immediate plan for a resumption of negotiations to avert the cliff. At the same time, they said that for the first time in a few days, at least one top presidential aide had been in touch with Republicans by email on the subject.

Each side has been declaring that the crisis can be averted if the other will give ground.

"We can probably solve this in about a week, it's not that tough," Obama said in lunchtime remarks to the Business Roundtable.

It has been several days since either the president or congressional Democrats signaled any interest in negotiations that both sides say are essential to a compromise. Presidential aides have even encouraged speculation that Obama is willing to let the economy go over the "fiscal cliff" if necessary and gamble that the public blames Republicans for any fallout.



Eventually, Democrats acknowledge, there will be compromise talks, possibly quite soon, toward an agreement that raises revenues, reins in Medicare and other government benefit programs, and perhaps raises the government's $16.4 trillion borrowing limit.

For now, the demonstration of presidential inflexibility appears designed to show that, unlike two years ago, Obama will refuse to sign legislation extending top-rate tax cuts and also to allow public and private pressure to build on the Republican leadership.

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner underscored the president's determination when he told CNBC the administration was "absolutely" prepared to have the economy go over the so-called cliff if its terms aren't met. "The size of the problem is so large that it can't be solved without rates going up," he said.

So far, the GOP has offered to support non-specified increases to raise tax revenues by $800 billion over a decade but has rejected Obama's demand to let the top income tax rate rise from 35 percent to 39.6 percent.

To buttress their case, Republican officials in Congress pointed to numerous proposals that Obama has previously advanced that could generate the same amount of revenue he is seeking without raising rates. The list includes limiting the tax deductions taken by upper-income taxpayers, raising taxes on the oil and gas industry and curbing or eliminating the deductibility of tax-exempt bonds.

Separately, in a bit of political theater, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell urged Democrats to allow a vote on Obama's current plan, which calls for a $1.6 trillion tax increase over a decade, in an attempt to show it lacks support.

The majority leader, Democratic Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, refused.

The "fiscal cliff," with its year-end deadline, refers to increases that would affect every worker who pays federal income tax, as well as spending cuts that would begin to bite defense and domestic programs alike. Economists in and out of government say the combination carries the risk of a new recession, at a time the economy is still struggling to recover fully from the worst slowdown in decades.

Obama delivered his latest warning at the meeting of the Business Roundtable a few blocks from the White House.

He said he was aware of reports that Republicans may be willing to agree to higher tax rates on the wealthy, then seek to extract spending cuts from the White House in exchange for raising the government's borrowing limit.

"That is a bad strategy for America, it's a bad strategy for your businesses and it's not a game that I will play," Obama said, recalling the "catastrophe that happened in August of 2011."

That was a reference to a partisan standoff that led the Treasury to the brink of the nation's first-ever default and prompted Standard & Poor's to reduce the rating for government bonds.

Avoiding that crisis led directly to the current standoff, since part of the compromise then was to set in motion the spending cuts that Obama and Congress are now trying to avoid.

Coburn, a conservative rebel within the GOP ranks, made it clear months ago he was ready to support higher tax revenue as part of an overall deal to restrain government spending programs.

In an interview on MSNBC, he went one step further.

"I don't really care which way we do it," he said. "Actually, I would rather see the rates go up than do it the other way because it gives us greater chance to reform the tax code and broaden the base in the future."

Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., taunted members of the House GOP leadership. They are "like generals, hunkered away in a bunker, who don't realize that their army in the field has already laid down its arms," he said.

A handful of other Republicans in both houses have said in recent days they could support raising the top tax rates. In the House, conservatives say they suspect House Speaker John Boehner let it be known he wouldn't mind the discussion, even though he made a case in a closed-door meeting of the rank and file last week that raising rates would be worse for the economy than raising revenue by closing tax loopholes.

House Republicans opened the week by proposing a deficit reduction plan that includes raising $800 billion in higher revenue and curtailing cost-of-living increases for Social Security and other government benefit programs as part of a plan to cut deficits by $2.2 trillion over a decade.

In addition, they recommended raising the age of eligibility for Medicare beginning in a decade, a step that generates no savings in the next 10 years but makes longer-term changes that would strengthen the program's financial foundation.

The White House ridiculed that plan as "magic beans and fairy dust," saying taxes must rise on families earning $250,000 or more to generate enough revenue to deal with the nation's fiscal crisis.

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Associated Press writers Jim Kuhnhenn and Andrew Taylor contributed to this story.
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Philippines hopes for survivors as strongest typhoon kills 325

6:18 PM

NEW BATAAN, Philippines (Reuters) - Dozens of soldiers and rescue workers pulled out bodies from mud-drenched debris after the strongest typhoon this year killed at least 325 people in the southern Philippines, with hundreds still missing.

Hundreds of residents left homeless in Compostela Valley, the worst hit province decimated by flash flooding and destructive winds, were being evacuated by trucks to crowded shelters in town centers on Thursday.

Typhoon Bopha, with central winds of 115 kph (75 mph) and gusts of up to 145 kph (93 mph), was moving west-northwest of the central Philippines and was expected to be over the South China Sea on Friday.

Based on tallies from the national disaster agency, 325 people were killed and 379 were missing after Bopha triggered landslides and floods along the coast and in farming and mining towns inland in the southern Mindanao region.

The death toll could rise further, with local government officials reporting higher numbers of missing and dead.

About 20 typhoons hit the Philippines every year, often causing death and destruction. Almost exactly a year ago, Typhoon Washi killed 1,500 people in Mindanao.

Arturo "Arthur" Uy, governor of Compostela Valley, said latest estimates show 200 died and almost 600 remained missing in his province. Official tally by the disaster agency show 184 died and 356 missing in Compostela Valley.

Uy said search and rescue operations were continuing, particularly in far-flung areas in New Bataan town, where a three-year old child was plucked from under a crumpled house on Wednesday, more than 24 hours after the typhoon hit land. The child's mother and a sibling are missing.

"I believe we can rescue more people," Uy said.

"This is the first time a typhoon with signal number 3 crossed our province. We evacuated people from riverbanks and shorelines. But the floods and strong winds battered not just the riverbanks but also places where residents where supposed to be safe."

Uy said a village hall, health center and covered court in New Bataan, where residents took shelter ahead of the typhoon, were completely washed away by floods and mud.

Hundreds of thousands of people remained in shelters in more than a dozen provinces in the southern Philippines, as officials appealed for food, water and clothing.

Some residents in Compostela Valley started repairing their houses, while housewives washed mud-drenched clothes and used fallen trees for cooking in makeshift stoves outside homes.

(Additional reporting by Rosemarie Francisco and Manny Mogato)
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Wonders in Space: #1 Mars Rover

5:48 PM

On the rocky surface of neighboring Mars, the car-sized robotic Mars rover, aptly named Curiosity (a name given by a 15-year-old through a contest), made a picture-perfect landing in a crater on Aug. 6. In control of the project was Bobak Ferdowsi, whose not-so-nerdy looks, smart smile, and mohawk hairdo helped him become the new face of NASA. The University of Washington and MIT graduate sparked interest on Yahoo! Search and social media sites, and received a galaxy of marriage proposals. "I sort of thought this week was just going to be dealing with the emotions of landing," Ferdowsi told Wired during the first week Curiosity was on the Martian surface. "But to find out late Sunday, early Monday morning that all of the sudden people were really interested in me, that was totally surreal."

Curiosity, though, was irresistible. The rover beamed spectacular images from about 60 million miles away, delighting astronomical fans who have relied upon the Hubble Space Telescope to deliver images of an elusive universe. It inched its way along the sandy Martian surface, checking out rocks and soil, and once in a while leaving its laser mark on the planet.
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Egypt descends into political turmoil

5:18 PM

CAIRO (AP) Supporters and opponents of Egyptian leader Mohammed Morsi fought with rocks, firebombs and sticks outside the presidential palace in Cairo on Wednesday in large-scale clashes that marked the worst violence of a deepening crisis over the disputed constitution.

Egypt's Health Ministry said 126 people were wounded in the clashes that were still raging hours after nightfall.

Three of Morsi's aides resigned in protest of his handling of the crisis. With two aides who had quit earlier, now five of his panel of 17 advisers have left their jobs since the problems began.

Mohamed ElBaradei, a leading opposition advocate of reform and democracy, said Morsi's rule was "no different" from that of former President Hosni Mubarak, whose authoritarian regime was toppled in an uprising nearly two years ago.

"In fact, it is perhaps even worse," the Nobel Peace Laureate told a news conference after he accused the president's supporters of a "vicious and deliberate" attack on peaceful demonstrators.

The opposition is demanding Morsi rescind decrees giving him nearly unrestricted powers and shelve a disputed draft constitution that the president's Islamist allies passed hurriedly last week.

The dueling demonstrations and violence are part of a political crisis that has left the country divided into two camps: Islamists versus an opposition made up of youth groups, liberal parties and large sectors of the public. Both sides have dug in their heels, signaling a protracted standoff.

The latest clashes began when thousands of Islamist supporters of Morsi descended on the area around the palace where some 300 of his opponents were staging a sit-in. The Islamists, members of Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood group, chased the protesters away from their base outside the palace's main gate and tore down their tents.

The protesters scattered in side streets where they chanted anti-Morsi slogans. After a lull in fighting, hundreds of young Morsi opponents arrived at the scene and immediately began throwing firebombs at the president's backers, who responded with rocks.

"I voted for Morsi to get rid of Hosni Mubarak. I now regret it," Nadia el-Shafie yelled at the Brotherhood supporters from a side street. "God is greater than you. Don't think this power or authority will add anything to you. God made this revolution, not you," said the tearful el-Shafie as she was led away from the crowd of Islamists.

By nightfall, there were about 10,000 Islamists outside the palace. They set up metal barricades to keep traffic off a stretch of road that runs parallel to the palace in Cairo's upscale Heliopolis district. Some of them appeared to plan staging their own sit-in.

"May God protect Egypt and its president," read a banner hoisted on a truck that came with the Islamists. Atop, a man using a loudspeaker recited verses from the Quran.

"We came to support the president. We feel there is a legitimacy that someone is trying to rob," said engineer Rabi Mohammed, a Brotherhood supporter. "People are rejecting democratic principles using thuggery."

At least 100,000 opposition supporters rallied outside the palace on Tuesday and smaller protests were staged by the opposition elsewhere in Cairo and across much of Egypt. It was the latest of a series of mass protests against the president

Buoyed by the massive turnout on Tuesday, the mostly secular opposition held a series of meetings late Tuesday and Wednesday to decide on next steps in the standoff that began Nov. 22 with Morsi's decrees that placed him above oversight of any kind.

It escalated after the president's allies who dominated the constitution-writing assembly hurriedly pushed through the draft constitution without participation of representatives of liberals, minority Christians and women.

While calling for more mass rallies is the obvious course of action, activists said opposition leaders also were discussing whether to campaign for a "no" vote in a Dec. 15 constitutional referendum or to call for a boycott.

Brotherhood leaders have been calling on the opposition to enter a dialogue with the Islamist leader. But the opposition contends that a dialogue is pointless unless the president first rescinds his decrees and shelves the draft charter.

Vice President Mahmoud Mekki called for a dialogue between the president and the opposition to reach a "consensus" on the disputed articles of the constitution and put their agreement in a document that would be discussed by the next parliament. But he said the referendum must go ahead and that he was making his "initiative" in a personal capacity not on behalf of Morsi. He put the number of clauses in disputes at 15, out of a total of 234.

Speaking to reporters, ElBaradei said there would be no dialogue unless Morsi rescinded his decrees and shelved the constitution draft. Asked to comment on Mekki's offer, he said: "With all due respect, we don't deal with personal initiatives. If there is a genuine desire for dialogue, the offer must come from President Morsi."

The charter has been criticized for not protecting the rights of women and minority groups, and many journalists see it as restricting freedom of expression. Critics also say it empowers Islamic religious clerics by giving them a say over legislation, while some articles were seen as tailored to get rid of the Islamists' enemies.

If the referendum goes ahead as scheduled and the draft constitution is adopted, elections for parliament's lawmaking lower chamber will be held in February.

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AP reporters Maggie Michael and Sarah El Deeb contributed to this report.
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Typhoon kills at least 283, hundreds missing, in Philippines

4:18 PM

NEW BATAAN, Philippines (Reuters) - Blocked roads and severed communications in the southern Philippines frustrated rescuers on Wednesday as teams searched for hundreds of people missing after the strongest typhoon this year killed at least 283 people.

Typhoon Bopha, with central winds of 120 kph (75 mph) and gusts of up to 150 kph (93 mph), battered beach resorts and dive spots on Palawan island on Wednesday but it was weakening as it moved west.

Hardest hit was the southern island of Mindanao, where Bopha made landfall on Tuesday. It triggered landslides and floods along the coast and in farming and mining towns inland.

Interior Minister Manuel Roxas said 300 people were missing.

"Entire families were washed away," Roxas, who inspected the disaster zone, told reporters.

Most affected areas were cut off by destroyed roads and collapsed bridges and army search-and-rescue teams were being flown in by helicopter.

Power was cut and communications were down.

According to tallies provided by the military and disaster agency officials, 283 people were killed.

Thousands of people were in shelters and officials appealed for food, water and clothing. Dozens of domestic flights were suspended on Wednesday.

The governor of the worst-hit province, Compostela Valley, in Mindanao said waves of water and mud came crashing down mountains and swept through schools, town halls and clinics where huddled residents had sought shelter.

The death toll in the province stood at 160. In nearby Davao Oriental province, where Bopha made landfall, 110 people were killed.

"The waters came so suddenly and unexpectedly, and the winds were so fierce," the Compostela Valley governor, Arthur Uy, told Reuters by telephone.

He said irrigation reservoirs on top of mountains had given way sending large volumes of water down to the valleys. Torrential rain often triggers landslides down slopes stripped of their forest cover.

Damage to agriculture and infrastructure in the province was extensive, Uy said.

STUNNED

Corn farmer Jerry Pampusa, 42, and his pregnant wife were marooned in their hut but survived.

"We were very scared," Pampusa said. "We felt we were on an island because there was water everywhere."

Another survivor, Francisco Alduisa, said dozens of women and children who had taken shelter in a village centre, had been swept away.

"We found some of the bodies about 10 km (6 miles) away," Alduisa told Reuters. The only building left standing in his village was the school.

Another survivor, Julius Julian Rebucas, said his mother and brother disappeared in a flash flood.

"I no longer have a family," a stunned Rebucas said.

An army commander said two dozen people had been pulled from the mud in one area and were being treated in hospital.

About 20 typhoons hit the Philippines every year, often causing death and destruction.

Almost exactly a year ago, Typhoon Washi killed 1,500 people in Mindanao. ($1 = 40.87 Philippine pesos)

(This story fixes spelling of names in byline and 16th, 17th paragraphs)

(Additional Reporting by Rosemarie Francisco and Manny Mogato; Editing by Robert Birsel)
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Jack Abramoff and Tom DeLay meet for first time in years

3:48 PM

Jack Abramoff (Charles Dharapak/AP)

Jack Abramoff and Tom DeLay, Washington titans turned convicted felons, have plenty to catch up on.

Abramoff, one of Washington's most infamous lobbyists, and DeLay, the former House majority leader, were spotted lunching together at Sushi Taro in Washington, D.C.,the Washington Post reported on Wednesday.

Abramoff's representative Tim Bueler confirmed the meeting to Yahoo News, emailing that the lunch wasn't about business:

Abramoff and DeLay are old friends and had not seen each other in years. They were delighted to have a chance to catch up on personal and family matters, and that was it.

Abramoff and DeLay's friendship became public when questions arose about their overseas trips as well as their shared money trail.

Abramoff served three-and-a-half years in prison for corruption, including the bribing of public officials. He has since become an anti-corruption advocate, a radio host and author. DeLay was convicted of money laundering and has kept a lower profile.
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Obsessions: #1 iPhone 5

2:15 PM

What preoccupied the online attention in 2012? Here are the top 10 obsessions that, as ranked by their search volume and percentage, spiked compared with 2011 on Yahoo!. Apple fans queued up once again, this time for the iPhone 5 "the thinnest, lightest, fastest iPhone" since, well, the last one. Pre-orders sold out in an houror 20 times faster than the previous version.

As was the case with previous versions, fans camped out at Apple Stores around the world to get their fingers on the device. During the third quarter, the company sold 26.9 million iPhones. And some tech experts say Apple, buoyed by the iPhone 5, could sell 50 million during the last three months of the year.

But the rollout wasn't entirely smooth. A week after launch, Apple CEO Tim Cook apologized after users complained about the phone's unreliable map app, which replaced popular Google Maps from previous iterations. "We strive to make world-class products that deliver the best experience possible to our customers," Cook wrote. "With the launch of our new Maps last week, we fell short on this commitment."
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