'Two and a Half Men' actor not expected on set

NEW YORK (AP) — The teenage actor who stars in "Two and a Half Men" and called the CBS comedy "filth" may have some time before he faces the show's producers.

Angus T. Jones wasn't expected at rehearsal Tuesday because he is not going to be in the episode they are filming, according to a person close to the show who spoke on condition of anonymity because producers were not commenting publicly.

Jones, 19, has been on the show, which used to feature bad-boy actor Charlie Sheen and remains heavy with sexual innuendo, since he was 10 but says in a video posted online by a Christian church that he doesn't want to be on it anymore.

"Please stop watching it," Jones said. "Please stop filling your head with filth."

The person familiar with the production schedule said Jones does not appear in either of the two episodes filming before the end of the year, so he wouldn't be expected back at work until after the New Year.

His character has been largely absent because he has joined the Army.

CBS and producer Warner Bros. Television have not commented.

In a radio broadcast, "The Voice of Prophecy," recorded for the Seventh-day Adventist Church on Jones' birthday in October, he described his religious path. He has been attending a Seventh-day Adventist Church in the Los Angeles area.

Jones said he felt drawn to God after a tough time in his life when his parents were going through a divorce and he experimented with drugs.

"I never drank," he said. "That was one thing God protected me from, and I'm still a virgin. God protected me from those things."

Jones said that "it's very weird that I'm on a television show, especially now that I am trying to walk with God. My television show has nothing to do with God and doesn't want anything to do with God."

Jones said that he had no plans to get out of his contract, which reportedly pays him $350,000 an episode.

"Two and a Half Men" survived a wild publicity ride less than two years ago, when Sheen was fired for his drug use and publicly complained about the network and the show's creator, Chuck Lorre.

Jones plays Jake, the son of Jon Cryer's uptight divorced chiropractor character, Alan, and the nephew of Sheen's hedonistic philandering music jingle writer, Charlie. Sheen was replaced by Ashton Kutcher, who plays billionaire Walden.

In the video posted by Forerunner Chronicles in Seale, Ala., Jones describes a search for a spiritual home. He says the type of entertainment he's involved in adversely affects the brain and "there's no playing around when it comes to eternity."

"You cannot be a true God-fearing person and be on a television show like that," he said. "I know I can't. I'm not OK with what I'm learning, what the Bible says, and being on that television show."

The show was moved from Monday to Thursday this season, and its average viewership has dropped from 20 million an episode to 14.5 million, although last year's numbers were somewhat inflated by the intense interest in Kutcher's debut. It is the third most popular comedy on television behind CBS's "The Big Bang Theory" and ABC's "Modern Family."

The actors on "Two and a Half Men" have contracts that run through the end of the season.

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Global Update: Investing in Eyeglasses for Poor Would Boost International Economy

BSIP/UIG Via Getty Images

Eliminating the worldwide shortage of eyeglasses could cost up to $28 billion, but would add more than $200 billion to the global economy, according to a study published last month in the Bulletin of the World Health Organization.

The $28 billion would cover the cost of training 65,000 optometrists and equipping clinics where they could prescribe eyeglasses, which can now be mass-produced for as little as $2 a pair. The study was done by scientists from Australia and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

The authors assumed that 703 million people worldwide have uncorrected nearsightedness or farsightedness severe enough to impair their work, and that 80 percent of them could be helped with off-the-rack glasses, which would need to be replaced every five years.

The biggest productivity savings from better vision would not be in very poor regions like Africa but in moderately poor countries where more people have factory jobs or trades like driving or running a sewing machine.

Without the equivalent of reading glasses, “lots of skilled crafts become very difficult after age 40 or 45,” said Kevin Frick, a Johns Hopkins health policy economist and study co-author. “You don’t want to be swinging a hammer if you can’t see the nail.”

If millions of schoolchildren who need glasses got them, the return on investment could be even greater, he said, but that would be in the future and was not calculated in this study.

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Stocks falter with no signs of progress on budget

There was some good economic news on Tuesday - including that a measure of consumer confidence was up. But worries over the "fiscal cliffs" pushed stocks down in value. (Associated Press / November 27, 2012)

Associated Press

November 27, 2012, 1:24 p.m.

Stocks are closing lower on Wall Street following indications that little progress is being made in Washington in talks over how to narrow the U.S. government's budget deficit.

The Dow Jones industrial average lost 89 points to end at 12,878 Tuesday.

The Dow was little changed around midday but turned lower in mid-afternoon trading after Harry Reid, the Senate's majority leader, expressed frustration with how the talks were going.

Other indexes also closed lower after moving indecisively for much of the day.

The Standard & Poor's 500 index lost seven points to end at 1,399 and the Nasdaq composite fell nine points to 2,968.

Falling stocks outnumbered rising ones by a small margin on the New York Stock Exchange. Volume was lower than the recent average at 3.3 billion shares.

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Congress returns as 'fiscal cliff' talks slow

WASHINGTON – Congress returned in a lame duck session with no signs of quick compromise to prevent a tax hike for most Americans early next year.

Talks between the White House and Republican leaders in the House continued behind closed doors. Current tax rates expire Dec. 31.

Emboldened by his re-election, President Obama took his case for raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans to the public on Monday. He warned that the threat of higher taxes on middle-class Americans could dampen the Christmas shopping season.

"The President has called on Congress to take action and stop holding the middle class and our economy hostage over a disagreement on tax cuts for households with incomes over $250,000 per year," the White House said in a statement.

Quiz: How much do you know about the fiscal cliff?

The White House got a boost from billionaire investor Warren Buffett, who said the wealthy – himself included – should pay more. Noting the nation’s growing gap in income disparity, Buffett dismissed the Republican argument that tax hikes would hamper investments.

“In recent years, my gang has been leaving the middle class in the dust,” Buffett said. “So let’s forget about the rich and ultrarich going on strike and stuffing their ample funds under their mattresses if — gasp — capital gains rates and ordinary income rates are increased.”

Key Republicans, including House Speaker John A. Boehner, have signaled they are willing to put new tax revenues on the table, creating the outlines of a possible deal. Several Republican lawmakers used the Sunday talk shows to distance themselves from their party’s anti-tax pledge, publicly breaking with conservative stalwart Grover Norquist, although they insisted any agreement must include spending cuts.

A so-called grand bargain of tax hikes and spending cuts has eluded Washington in the past, but both political parties are wary of rattling the financial markets and sparking a crisis in consumer spending. Wall Street has signaled a bold deficit-reduction plan is needed to prevent a credit downgrade.

PHOTOS: 2016 presidential possibilities

No talks between the president and congressional leaders have been scheduled. The parties had agreed to meet this week to put the framework of a two-part deal on the table.

If Republicans continue to fight higher tax rates for the wealthy, Boehner will face pressure to propose an alternative way to raise new revenue – either by closing individual loopholes or capping deductions in a way that produces new money.

“Congressional and White House staff continue to work to find common ground that is consistent with the ‘balanced approach’ the White House says it wants – with significant spending cuts, and without job-killing small business tax hikes,” said a senior House leadership aide.

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Lisa.Mascaro@latimes.com

CParsons@latimes.com

Twitter: @LisaMascaroinDC

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ChannelAdvisor says eBay sales up 57 percent early on Cyber Monday

(Reuters) – ChannelAdvisor said client sales on eBay Inc‘s online marketplace jumped 57 percent from a year before early on Cyber Monday.

The sales growth rate was five times higher than during the same period last year, said ChannelAdvisor, which helps merchants sell more on websites including Amazon.com Inc and eBay.com.

Client sales on Amazon.com were up 52 percent during the first part of Cyber Monday, ChannelAdvisor also reported.

(Reporting By Alistair Barr; Editing by Gerald E. McCormick)

Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Actor: CBS comedy 'Two and a Half Men' is 'filth'

NEW YORK (AP) — The teenage actor who plays the half in the hit CBS comedy "Two and a Half Men" says it's "filth" and through a video posted by a Christian church has urged viewers not to watch it.

Nineteen-year-old Angus T. Jones has been on the show since he was 10 but says he doesn't want to be on it. He says, "Please stop watching it. Please stop filling your head with filth."

The video was posted by the Forerunner Christian Church in California, where Jones says he went to meet his spiritual needs.

Show producer Warner Bros. Television has no comment. CBS hasn't responded to a request for comment left Monday.

The show stars Jon Cryer as Jones' uptight dad and originally featured Charlie Sheen as his hedonistic philandering uncle, but Sheen was replaced by Ashton Kutcher.

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Amid Hurricane Sandy, a Race to Get a Liver Transplant

It was the best possible news, at the worst possible time.

The phone call from the hospital brought the message that Dolores and Vin Dreeland had long hoped for, ever since their daughter Natalia, 4, had been put on the waiting list for a liver transplant. The time had come.

They bundled her into the car for the 50-mile trip from their home in Long Valley, N.J., to NewYork-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital in Manhattan. But it soon seemed that this chance to save Natalia’s life might be just out of reach.

The date was Sunday, Oct. 28, and Hurricane Sandy, the worst storm to hit the East Coast in decades, was bearing down on New York. Airports and bridges would soon close, but the donated organ was in Nevada, five hours away. The time window in which a plane carrying the liver would be able to land in the region was rapidly closing.

In a hospital room, Natalia watched cartoons. Her parents watched the clock, and the weather. “Our anxiety was through the roof,” Mrs. Dreeland said. “It just made your stomach into knots.”

The Dreelands, who are in their 60s, became Natalia’s foster parents in 2008 when she was 7 months old, and adopted her just before she turned 2. They have another adopted daughter, Dorothy Jane, who is 17.

Natalia is a “smart little cookie” who loves school and dressing up Alice, her favorite doll, her mother said. At age 3, Natalia used the word “discombobulated” correctly, Mr. Dreeland said.

Natalia’s health problems date back several years. Her gallbladder was taken out in 2010, and about half her liver was removed in 2011. The underlying problem was a rare disease, Langerhans cell histiocytosis. It causes a tremendous overgrowth of a type of cell in the immune system and can damage organs. Drugs can sometimes keep it in check, but they did not work for Natalia.

In her case, the disease struck the bile ducts, which led to progressive liver damage. “She would have eventually gone into liver failure,” said Dr. Nadia Ovchinsky, a pediatric liver transplant specialist at NewYork-Presbyterian. “And she demonstrated some signs of early liver failure.”

The only hope was a transplant.

Dr. Tomoaki Kato, Natalia’s surgeon, knew that the liver in Nevada was a perfect match for Natalia in the two criteria that matter most: blood type and size. The deceased donor was 2 years old, and though Natalia is nearly 5, she is small for her age. Scar tissue from her previous operations would have made it very difficult to fit a larger organ into her abdomen.

Though Dr. Kato had considered transplanting part of an adult liver into Natalia, a complete organ from a child would be far better for her. But healthy organs from small children do not often become available, Dr. Kato said. This was a rare opportunity, and he was determined to seize it.

But as the day wore on, the odds for Natalia grew slimmer. The operation in Nevada to remove the liver was delayed several times.

At many hospitals, surgery to remove donor organs is done at the end of the day, after all regularly scheduled operations. The Nevada hospital had a busy surgical schedule that day, made worse by a trauma case that took priority.

At the hospital in New York, Tod Brown, an organ procurement coordinator, had alerted a charter air carrier that a flight from Nevada might be needed. That company in turn contacted West Coast carriers to pick up the donated liver and fly it to New York.

Initially, two carriers agreed, but then backed out. Several other charter companies also declined.

Mr. Brown told Dr. Kato that they might have to decline the organ. Dr. Kato, soft-spoken but relentless, said, “Find somebody who can fly.”

Dr. Kato used to work in Miami, where pilots found ways to bypass hurricanes to deliver organs. Even during Hurricane Katrina, his hospital performed transplants.

“I asked the transplant coordinators to just keep pushing,” he said.

Mr. Brown said, “Dr. Kato knew he was going to get that organ, one way or another.”

As the trajectory of the storm became clearer, one of the West Coast charter companies agreed to attempt the flight. The plan was to land at the airport in Teterboro, N.J. The backup was Newark airport, and the second backup was Albany, from where an ambulance would finish the trip.

The timing was critical: organs deteriorate outside the body, and ideally a liver should be transplanted within 12 hours of being removed.

Early Monday, as the storm whirled offshore, the plane landed at Teterboro. Soon a nurse rushed to tell the Dreelands that she had just seen an ambulance with lights and sirens screech up to the hospital. Someone had jumped out carrying a container.

At about 5 a.m., the couple kissed Natalia and saw her wheeled off to the operating room.

Three weeks later, she is back home, on the mend. The complicated regimen of drugs that transplant patients need is tough on a child, but she is getting through it, her father said.

Recently, Mr. Dreeland said, he found himself weeping uncontrollably during a church service for the family of the child who had died. “Their child gave my child life,” he said.

Though only time will tell, because the histiocytosis appeared limited to Natalia’s bile ducts and had not affected other organs, her doctors say there is a good chance that the transplant has cured her.

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Stocks end lower after a strong week

Wall Street came back to work after the Thanksgiving weekend and faced leftover worries about the “fiscal cliff” and the European debt crisis. Stocks retreated after one of their best weeks of the year.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell 42.31 points to 12,967.37. The Standard & Poor's 500 index declined 2.86 to 1,406.29. And the Nasdaq composite index managed a 9.93-point increase to 2,976.78.

Utility stocks rose the most, while telecommunications companies fell the most.

The major U.S. economic reports were not due until later in the week, leaving investors to rehash the European debt crisis and talks in Washington over the “cliff” of tax increases and government spending cuts set to take effect Jan. 1.

“The themes seem about as recycled as Thanksgiving turkey,” David Kelly, chief global strategist at JPMorgan Funds, wrote in a note to clients.

He expected a better read on the economy later this week, with reports on consumer confidence on Tuesday and unemployment claims and third-quarter economic growth on Thursday.

Scott Carmack, co-portfolio manager at Leader Capital in Portland, Ore., said the decline Monday was all but inevitable after last week, when the Dow climbed 3.3 percent because of encouraging signs from Washington and good economic news overseas.

That made Monday a good day to cash out on last week's gains, Carmack said, especially because traders aren't sure how the fiscal cliff will affect the market for the rest of the year.

“Monday is a good day to take profits,” Carmack said. “No one was in on Friday, so they're doing it Monday.”

The National Retail Federation reported that 247 million shoppers visited stores and shopping websites during the long Thanksgiving weekend, up 9 percent from a year ago. They spent an average of $423, up 6 percent.

Some worry that the momentum won't last, and that deep discounting will hurt stores. Macy's fell $1.87, or 4.5 percent, to $39.86. Saks dropped 29 cents, or 2.8 percent, to $10.23. Target declined $1.71, or 2.6 percent ,to $62.77.

Abercrombie & Fitch was an exception, rising 21 cents to $44.61.

The cliff cast a pall. A government report released Monday warned that a sudden increase in taxes would crimp the spending of middle class families next year, and some analysts wondered whether families would curb spending before the year is over.

The report, by President Barack Obama's National Economic Council and his Council of Economic Advisers, estimated that a married couple earning between $50,000 and $85,000 with two children would see a $2,200 increase in their taxes.

In Europe, leaders of European Union countries tried to reach a deal to lend more money to debt-crippled Greece. The ministers have failed twice in the last two weeks to reach an agreement to release (euro) 44 billion, or $56.8 billion.

In the U.S., though, “Most of these uncertainties have been with us for quite some time,” Sam Stovall, chief equity strategist at S&P Capital IQ, wrote in a note Monday, “and are now regarded by many as annoyances to resolve rather than obstacles to fear.”

In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note fell 2 percentage points to 1.66 percent from late Friday.

In other stock trading:

— McGraw-Hill announced it would sell its education unit to a private equity firm. The company's stock rose 20 cents, or 0.4 percent, to $51.89.

— Facebook stock jumped $1.94, or 8.1 percent, to $25.94 after a Bernstein analyst upgraded his rating of the company, predicting it will beat revenue expectations for the near future.

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Graham, King depart from Norquist's anti-tax pledge

Americans for Tax Reform president Grover Norquist explains his anti-tax pledge.

By Morgan Little

November 25, 2012, 12:24 p.m.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on Sunday joined the ranks of Republican lawmakers stepping away from Grover Norquist’s famous anti-tax pledge, offering to cut his support for the pledge – with a catch.

“I will violate the pledge for the good of the country only if Democrats will do entitlement reform,” he said on ABC’s “This Week,” adding that “the only pledge we should be making to each other is to avoid being Greece.”

Graham specified that although he agrees with Norquist's stand against raising tax rates and not raising taxes for wealthy Americans, he disagrees with him on deduction caps and buying down debt.

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Photos: 2016 presidential possibilities

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Graham was accompanied by Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), who said that “the world has changed,” and sticking to the pledge was a non-starter.

PHOTOS: 2016 presidential possibilities

“If I were in Congress in 1941, I would have signed a declaration of war against Japan. I’m not going to attack Japan today,” he said, asserting that pledges should apply only to the era in which they are signed.

Nonetheless, King remained confident that House Speaker John A. Boehner would do “everything he can to avoid raising tax rates” during negotiations with Democrats.

Norquist’s “Taxpayer Protection Pledge” has been a calling card for Republicans, and a sticking point for Democrats, since its inception in 1986. It calls for the signer to oppose “any and all efforts” to increase tax rates, and to oppose the reduction or elimination of deductions or credits, unless those reductions are met with tax-rate cutbacks.

Graham and King joined Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), who said Wednesday that “I care more about my country than I do about a 20-year-old pledge.”

Chambliss, speaking with Georgia television station WMAZ-TV Channel 13, said he’s ready to “let the political consequences take care of themselves,” setting the stage for Graham and King’s remarks Sunday.

Norquist responded to Chambliss, stating that “his promise is to the people of Georgia."

PHOTOS: President Obama’s past

Norquist also brought attention to a letter Chambliss signed in 2011, promising not to vote for tax increases.

“If he plans to vote for higher taxes to pay for Obama-sized government, he should address the people of Georgia and let them know that he plans to break his promise to them,” Norquist said in a statement, the principles of which also apply to Graham's and King’s comments.

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Saudi telco regulator suspends Mobily prepaid sim sales

(Reuters) – Saudi Arabia‘s No.2 telecom operator Etihad Etisalat Co (Mobily) has been suspended from selling pre-paid sim cards by the industry regulator, the firm said in a statement to the kingdom’s bourse on Sunday.

Mobily’s sales of pre-paid, or pay-as-you-go, sim cards will remain halted until the company “fully meets the prepaid service provisioning requirements,” the telco said in the statement.

These requirements include a September order from regulator, Communication and Information Technology Commission (CITC). This states all pre-paid sim users must enter a personal identification number when recharging their accounts and that this number must be the same as the one registered with their mobile operator when the sim card was bought, according to a statement on the CITC website.

This measure is designed to ensure customer account details are kept up to date, the CITC said.

Mobily said the financial impact of the CITC’s decision would be “insignificant”, claiming data, corporate and postpaid revenues would meet its main growth drivers.

The firm, which competes with Saudi Telecom Co (STC) and Zain Saudi, reported a 23 percent rise in third-quarter profit in October, beating forecasts.

Prepaid mobile subscriptions are typically more popular among middle and lower income groups, with telecom operators pushing customers to shift to monthly contracts that include a data allowance.

Customers on monthly, or postpaid, contracts are also less likely to switch provider, but the bulk of customers remain on pre-paid accounts.

Mobily shares were trading down 1.4 percent at 0820 GMT on the Saudi bourse.

(Reporting by Matt Smith; Editing by Dinesh Nair)

Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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