Who Received Oprah's 'Favorite Things' This Year?

Stylewatch
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11/19/2012 at 04:00 PM ET

Courtesy O, The Oprah Magazine

Last year we were slightly sad, feeling deprived of the wild screams and uncontrollable tears usually seen during Oprah Winfrey‘s “Favorite Things” episode. Her daytime talk show had just ended, and we were left with a magazine spread that, while beautiful, didn’t give us the same effect.

But Sunday night the show was back on Winfrey’s OWN Network, honoring hardworking military spouses and gifting them with the goodies the media maven just loved.

“There’s nobody in the world more deserving of a day like you’re about to have,” Winfrey told the group before the gifting began. She honored them for “the work and the sacrifice and the love and the care and the vision that you hold … for every life you touch.”

So what were the goods? See the entire list of 50-plus finds on oprah.com, but highlights included the Octane Fitness Q37ci Elliptical Trainer (introduced to Winfrey by her trainer, Bob Greene), the Tory Burch “Michelle” tote (it “started calling to me,” Winfrey said of the first time she saw it), a $5,000 Bose HD TV, a Tempur-Cloud Supreme Mattress Winfrey swears by, slick Michael Kors Glam Studded High Tops, a Nespresso Lattissima machine and much, much more.

“There’s nothing that I love more than sharing what I love with other people,” Winfrey said. “It’s just so darn fun for me.”

But the most fun moment of the episode came at the end, of course, when Winfrey surprised each of the spouses with a five-night, all-expenses paid trip for two to Fiji’s Namale Resort & Spa. Winfrey was working on the premise that “many people here never had a honeymoon,” she explained, and wanted to give them the rest and relaxation they deserved. Catch the memorable moment here.

For a chance to score all of the swag seen on the “Favorite Things” special (re-airing this Friday, Nov. 23 at 9 p.m. ET on OWN), grab the December issue of O, The Oprah Magazine and visit oprah.com/12days.

–Kate Hogan

PHOTOS: SHOP HOLLYWOOD’S HOTTEST SHOES — FOR LESS!

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New push for most in US to get at least 1 HIV test

WASHINGTON (AP) — There's a new push to make testing for the AIDS virus as common as cholesterol checks.

Americans ages 15 to 64 should get an HIV test at least once — not just people considered at high risk for the virus, an independent panel that sets screening guidelines proposed Monday.

The draft guidelines from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force are the latest recommendations that aim to make HIV screening simply a routine part of a check-up, something a doctor can order with as little fuss as a cholesterol test or a mammogram. Since 2006, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also has pushed for widespread, routine HIV screening.

Yet not nearly enough people have heeded that call: Of the more than 1.1 million Americans living with HIV, nearly 1 in 5 — almost 240,000 people — don't know it. Not only is their own health at risk without treatment, they could unwittingly be spreading the virus to others.

The updated guidelines will bring this long-simmering issue before doctors and their patients again — emphasizing that public health experts agree on how important it is to test even people who don't think they're at risk, because they could be.

"It allows you to say, 'This is a recommended test that we believe everybody should have. We're not singling you out in any way,'" said task force member Dr. Douglas Owens, of Stanford University and the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System.

And if finalized, the task force guidelines could extend the number of people eligible for an HIV screening without a copay in their doctor's office, as part of free preventive care under the Obama administration's health care law. Under the task force's previous guidelines, only people at increased risk for HIV — which includes gay and bisexual men and injecting drug users — were eligible for that no-copay screening.

There are a number of ways to get tested. If you're having blood drawn for other exams, the doctor can merely add HIV to the list, no extra pokes or swabs needed. Today's rapid tests can cost less than $20 and require just rubbing a swab over the gums, with results ready in as little as 20 minutes. Last summer, the government approved a do-it-yourself at-home version that's selling for about $40.

Free testing is available through various community programs around the country, including a CDC pilot program in drugstores in 24 cities and rural sites.

Monday's proposal also recommends:

—Testing people older and younger than 15-64 if they are at increased risk of HIV infection,

—People at very high risk for HIV infection should be tested at least annually.

—It's not clear how often to retest people at somewhat increased risk, but perhaps every three to five years.

—Women should be tested during each pregnancy, something the task force has long recommended.

The draft guidelines are open for public comment through Dec. 17.

Most of the 50,000 new HIV infections in the U.S. every year are among gay and bisexual men, followed by heterosexual black women.

"We are not doing as well in America with HIV testing as we would like," Dr. Jonathan Mermin, CDC's HIV prevention chief, said Monday.

The CDC recommends at least one routine test for everyone ages 13 to 64, starting two years younger than the task force recommended. That small difference aside, CDC data suggests fewer than half of adults under 65 have been tested.

"It can sometimes be awkward to ask your doctor for an HIV test," Mermin said — the reason making it routine during any health care encounter could help.

But even though nearly three-fourths of gay and bisexual men with undiagnosed HIV had visited some sort of health provider in the previous year, 48 percent weren't tested for HIV, a recent CDC survey found. Emergency rooms are considered a good spot to catch the undiagnosed, after their illnesses and injuries have been treated, but Mermin said only about 2 percent of ER patients known to be at increased risk were tested while there.

Mermin calls that "a tragedy. It's a missed opportunity."

___

Online:

Task force recommendation: http://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org

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Budget talk optimism spurs Wall Street rally

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks bounced higher for a second consecutive session on Monday as investors were encouraged by the early atmosphere surrounding talks to tackle the nation's fiscal crunch.

Stronger-than-expected earnings from Lowe's and Tyson Foods, as well as encouraging housing data, also contributed to the market's advance. Tyson and Lowe's were the top two percentage gainers on the S&P 500.

The S&P 500 is up more than 2 percent in the last two sessions as rhetoric from legislators over the weekend suggests a deal could be reached to stave off the looming "fiscal cliff," a series of tax and spending changes that will begin to take effect in the new year. The two sides are still far apart in negotiations, however.

The benchmark S&P index had fallen 5.3 percent between Election Day and Friday's rebound, as investors took the opportunity to sell stocks - including some of the year's best performers - just in case Washington cannot come to an agreement and taxes on dividends and capital gains rise in 2013.

"Everyone is quietly breathing a sigh of relief, because frankly, we are no longer looking over the edge of a cliff, we are looking at an opportunity to step back and recalibrate," said Peter Kenny, managing director at Knight Capital in Jersey City, New Jersey.

However, the rebound could be a short-lived reprieve from the sharp declines and market volatility could still rise, depending on progress in negotiations. A number of sectors were considered oversold on a technical basis - suggesting a buying opportunity.

"There is no question, what lit the fuse was constructive conversation, constructive talking points out of Washington that has done far more to help the market than anything else - the backdrop is the oversold" market, Kenny said.

Monday's advance marked the biggest percentage gain for the S&P 500 since November 6, when the European Central Bank announced a new bond-buying program aimed at containing the region's debt crisis.

Shares of Lowe's Cos Inc , the world's No. 2 home improvement chain, jumped 6.2 percent to $33.96 to hit a 52-week high after the company reported higher-than-expected quarterly profit and raised its full-year sales forecast.

Home improvement chains tend to benefit as housing strengthens. U.S. home resales unexpectedly increased in October, while separate data showed homebuilder sentiment rose to its highest level in over six years in November.

The PHLX Housing Index <.hgx> rose 1.8 percent.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> gained 207.65 points, or 1.65 percent, at 12,795.96. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was up 27.01 points, or 1.99 percent, at 1,386.89. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was up 62.94 points, or 2.21 percent, at 2,916.07.

The S&P edged above its 200-day moving average at around 1,382, which has acted as a resistance level since a drop below the technically significant mark on November 8.

Tyson Foods Inc beat expectations and gave an upbeat forecast, sending its stock up 10.9 percent to $18.72.

Intel shares edged higher, up 0.3 percent to $20.25 after the company said its chief executive will retire in May.

Commodities prices surged, boosting shares of resource companies. Freeport-McMoRan rose 4.1 percent to $38.28, while U.S. Steel rose 5.3 percent to $21.15. The S&P materials sector <.gspm> advanced 2.9 percent as the best performing of the 10 major S&P sectors.

Volume was light and is expected to remain so throughout the Thanksgiving Day holiday-shortened trading week, with about 6.14 billion shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange, NYSE MKT and Nasdaq, below the daily average of 6.49 billion.

Advancing stocks outnumbered declines on the NYSE by 2,678 to 350, while on the Nasdaq, advancers beat decliners 1,949 to 521.

(Reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Dan Grebler)

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Israeli air strike kills 11 civilians in Gaza: Hamas

GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) - An Israeli missile killed at least 11 Palestinian civilians including four children in Gaza on Sunday, medical officials said, apparently an attack on a top militant that brought a three-storey home crashing down.

International pressure for a ceasefire seemed certain to mount in response to the deadliest single incident in five days of Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel and Israeli air strikes on the Gaza Strip.

Egypt has taken the lead in trying to broker a ceasefire and Israeli media said a delegation from Israel had been to Cairo for talks on ending the fighting, although a government spokesman declined to comment on the matter.

Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi met Hamas political leader Khaled Meshaal and Islamic Jihad's head Ramadan Shallah as part of the mediation efforts, but a presidency statement did not say if they were conclusive.

Izzat Risheq, a close aide to Meshaal, wrote in a Facebook message that Hamas would agree to a ceasefire only after Israel "stops its aggression, ends its policy of targeted assassinations and lifts the blockade of Gaza".

Listing Israel's terms for ceasing fire, Moshe Yaalon, a deputy to the prime minister, wrote on Twitter: "If there is quiet in the south and no rockets and missiles are fired at Israel's citizens, nor terrorist attacks engineered from the Gaza Strip, we will not attack."

Gaza health officials said 72 Palestinians , 21 of them children and several women have been killed in Gaza since Israel's offensive began. Hundreds have been wounded.

Israel gave off signs of a possible ground invasion of the Hamas-run enclave as the next stage in its offensive, billed as a bid to stop Palestinian rocket fire into the Jewish state. It also spelt out its conditions for a truce.

U.S. President Barack Obama said that while Israel had a right to defend itself against the salvoes, it would be "preferable" to avoid a military thrust into the Gaza Strip, a narrow, densely populated coastal territory. Such an assault would risk high casualties and an international outcry.

A spokesman for the Hamas-run Interior Ministry said 11 people, all of them civilians, were killed when an Israeli missile flattened the home of the Dalu family. Medics said four women and four children were among the dead.

Israel's chief military spokesman said Yihia Abayah, a senior commander of rocket operations in the Gaza Strip, had been the target.

The spokesman, Yoav Mordechai, told Israel's Channel 2 television he did not know whether Abayah was killed, "but the outcome was that there were civilian casualties". He made no direct mention of the destroyed dwelling.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said earlier that he had assured world leaders that Israel was doing its utmost to avoid causing civilian casualties in the military showdown with Hamas.

"The massacre of the Dalu family will not pass without punishment," Hamas's armed wing said in a statement.

VIOLENCE

In other air raids on Sunday, two Gaza City media buildings were hit, witnesses said. Eight journalists were wounded and facilities belonging to Hamas's Al-Aqsa TV as well as Britain's Sky News were damaged.

An employee of the Beirut-based al Quds television station lost his leg in the attack, local medics said.

The Israeli military said the strike targeted a rooftop "transmission antenna used by Hamas to carry out terror activity", and that journalists in the building had effectively been used as human shields by Gaza's rulers.

For their part, Gaza militants launched dozens of rockets into Israel and targeted its commercial capital, Tel Aviv, for a fourth day, once in the morning and another after dark.

Israel's "Iron Dome" missile shield shot down all three rockets, but falling debris from the daytime interception hit a car, which caught fire. Its driver was not hurt.

In scenes recalling Israel's 2008-2009 winter invasion of Gaza, tanks, artillery and infantry massed in field encampments along the sandy, fenced-off border. Military convoys moved on roads in the area newly closed to civilian traffic.

Netanyahu said Israel was ready to widen its offensive.

"We are exacting a heavy price from Hamas and the terrorist organizations and the Israel Defence Forces are prepared for a significant expansion of the operation," he said at a cabinet meeting, giving no further details.

The Israeli military said 544 rockets fired from Gaza have hit Israel since Wednesday, killing three civilians and wounding dozens. Some 302 were intercepted and 99 failed to reach Israel and landed inside the Gaza Strip, it added.

Israel's declared goal is to deplete Gaza arsenals and force the Islamist Hamas to stop rocket fire that has bedeviled Israeli border towns for years and is now displaying greater range, putting Tel Aviv and Jerusalem in the crosshairs.

Israel withdrew settlers from Gaza in 2005 and two years later Hamas took control of the impoverished enclave, which the Israelis have kept under blockade.

OBAMA CAUTIONS AGAINST GROUND CAMPAIGN

At a news conference during a visit to the Thai capital Bangkok, Obama said Israel has "every right to expect that it does not have missiles fired into its territory".

He added: "If this can be accomplished without a ramping up of military activity in Gaza that is preferable. That's not just preferable for the people of Gaza, it's also preferable for Israelis because if Israeli troops are in Gaza they're much more at risk of incurring fatalities or being wounded," he said.

Obama said he had been in regular contact with Egyptian and Turkish leaders - to secure their mediation in bringing about a halt to rocket barrages by Hamas and other Islamist militants.

"We're going to have to see what kind of progress we can make in the next 24, 36, 48 hours," he added.

Diplomatic efforts continued on Sunday when French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius met Israeli officials and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank.

"It is absolutely necessary that we move urgently towards a ceasefire, and that's where France can be useful," Fabius told French television, adding that war must be avoided.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will be in Egypt on Monday for talks with Mursi, the foreign ministry in Cairo said. U.N. diplomats earlier said Ban was expected in Israel and Egypt this week to push for an end to the fighting.

Israel's operation has so far drawn Western support for what U.S. and European leaders have called its right to self-defence, but there was also a growing number of appeals from them to seek an end to the hostilities.

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American Music Awards: Watch the Red Carpet Live!

11/18/2012 at 05:00 PM EST

Video streaming by Ustream

The 40th Anniversary American Music Awards is on tonight, but before stars like Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift take to the stage, celebs will be strutting their stuff on the red carpet – and PEOPLE will bring you live coverage.

Watch the above stream at 5 p.m. ET/2 p.m. PT for live footage from the Coca-Cola Red Carpet LIVE show.

For this year's special 40th anniversary AMAs ceremony, stars from Carrie Underwood to Nicki Minaj to Linkin Park will perform. Plus, Stevie Wonder will offer up a tribute to late radio legend Dick Clark.

Among the special performances, Bieber and Minaj will take the stage together, as will Ludacris, Chris Brown, and Swizz Beatz.

Catch all the coverage of the carpet live on People.com before the show airs tonight on ABC at 8 p.m.

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EU drug regulator OKs Novartis' meningitis B shot

LONDON (AP) — Europe's top drug regulator has recommended approval for the first vaccine against meningitis B, made by Novartis AG.

There are five types of bacterial meningitis. While vaccines exist to protect against the other four, none has previously been licensed for type B meningitis. In Europe, type B is the most common, causing 3,000 to 5,000 cases every year.

Meningitis mainly affects infants and children. It kills about 8 percent of patients and leaves others with lifelong consequences such as brain damage.

In a statement on Friday, Andrin Oswald of Novartis said he is "proud of the major advance" the company has made in developing its vaccine Bexsero. It is aimed at children over two months of age, and Novartis is hoping countries will include the shot among the routine ones for childhood diseases such as measles.

Novartis said the immunization has had side effects such as fever and redness at the injection site.

Recommendations from the European Medicines Agency are usually adopted by the European Commission. Novartis also is seeking to test the vaccine in the U.S.

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Israel hits Hamas buildings, shoots down Tel Aviv-bound rocket

GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli aircraft bombed Hamas government buildings in Gaza, and the "Iron Dome" defense system shot down a Tel Aviv-bound rocket on Saturday as Israel geared up for a possible ground invasion.

Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist group that runs the Gaza Strip, said Israeli missiles wrecked the office building of Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh - where he had met on Friday with the Egyptian prime minister - and struck a police headquarters.

Along the Tel Aviv beachfront, volleyball games came to an abrupt halt and people crouched as sirens sounded. Two interceptor rockets streaked into the sky. A flash and an explosion followed as Iron Dome, deployed only hours earlier near the city, destroyed the incoming projectile in mid-air.

With Israeli tanks and artillery positioned along the Gaza border and no end in sight to hostilities now in their fourth day, Tunisia's foreign minister travelled to the enclave in a show of Arab solidarity.

In Cairo, a presidential source said Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi would hold four-way talks with the Qatari emir, the prime minister of Turkey and Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal in the Egyptian capital on Saturday to discuss the Gaza crisis.

Egypt has been working to reinstate calm between Israel and Hamas after an informal ceasefire brokered by Cairo unraveled over the past few weeks. Meshaal, who lives in exile, has already held a round of talks with Egyptian security officials.

Officials in Gaza said 43 Palestinians, nearly half of them civilians including eight children, had been killed since Israel began its air strikes. Three Israeli civilians were killed by a rocket on Thursday.

Israel unleashed its massive air campaign on Wednesday with the declared goal of deterring Hamas from launching rockets that have plagued its southern communities for years.

The Israeli army said it had zeroed in on a number of government buildings during the night, including Haniyeh's office, the Hamas Interior Ministry and a police compound.

Taher al-Nono, a spokesman for the Hamas government, held a news conference near the rubble of the prime minister's office and pledged: "We will declare victory from here."

Hamas's armed wing claimed responsibility for Saturday's rocket attack on Tel Aviv, the third against the city since Wednesday. It said it fired an Iranian-designed Fajr-5 at the coastal metropolis, some 70 km (43 miles) north of Gaza.

"Well that wasn't such a big deal," said one woman, who had watched the interception while clinging for protection to the trunk of a baby palm tree on a traffic island.

In the Israeli Mediterranean port of Ashdod, a rocket ripped into several balconies. Police said five people were hurt.

Among those killed in airstrikes on Gaza on Saturday were at least four suspected militants riding on motorcycles.

Israel's operation has drawn Western support for what U.S. and European leaders have called Israel's right to self-defense, along with appeals to avoid civilian casualties.

Hamas, shunned by the West over its refusal to recognize Israel, says its cross-border attacks have come in response to Israeli strikes against Palestinian fighters in Gaza.

RESERVIST CALL-UP

At a late night session on Friday, Israeli cabinet ministers decided to more than double the current reserve troop quota set for the Gaza offensive to 75,000, political sources said, in a signal Israel was edging closer to an invasion.

Around 16,000 reservists have already been called up.

Asked by reporters whether a ground operation was possible, Major-General Tal Russo, commander of the Israeli forces on the Gaza frontier, said: "Definitely."

"We have a plan ... it will take time. We need to have patience. It won't be a day or two," he added.

A possible move into the densely populated Gaza Strip and the risk of major casualties it brings would be a significant gamble for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, favorite to win a January national election.

Hamas fighters are no match for the Israeli military. The last Gaza war, involving a three-week long Israeli air blitz and ground invasion over the New Year period of 2008-09, killed over 1,400 Palestinians, mostly civilians. Thirteen Israelis died.

But the Gaza conflagration has stirred the pot of a Middle East already boiling from two years of Arab revolution and a civil war in Syria that threatens to spread beyond its borders.

"Israel should understand that many things have changed and that lots of water has run in the Arab river," Tunisian Foreign Minister Rafik Abdesslem said as he surveyed the wreckage from a bomb-blast site in central Gaza.

One major change has been the election of an Islamist government in Cairo that is allied with Hamas, potentially narrowing Israel's manoeuvering room in confronting the Palestinian group. Israel and Egypt made peace in 1979.

"DE-ESCALATION"

Netanyahu spoke late on Friday with U.S. President Barack Obama for the second time since the offensive began, the prime minister's office said in a statement.

"(Netanyahu) expressed his deep appreciation for the U.S. position that Israel has a right to defend itself and thanked him for American aid in purchasing Iron Dome batteries," the statement added.

The two leaders have had a testy relationship and have been at odds over how to curb Iran's nuclear program.

A White House official said on Saturday Obama called Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan to discuss how the two countries could help bring an end to the Gaza conflict.

Ben Rhodes, White House deputy national security adviser, told reporters that Washington "wants the same thing as the Israelis want", an end to rocket attacks from Gaza. He said the United States is emphasizing diplomacy and "de-escalation".

In Berlin, a spokesman for German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she had spoken to Netanyahu and Egypt's Mursi, stressing to the Israeli leader that Israel had a right to self-defense and that a ceasefire must be agreed as soon as possible to avoid more bloodshed.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is expected to visit Israel and Egypt next week to push for an end to the fighting in Gaza, U.N. diplomats said on Friday.

The Israeli military said 492 rockets fired from Gaza have hit Israel since the operation began. Iron Dome intercepted another 245.

In Jerusalem, targeted by a Palestinian rocket on Friday for the first time in 42 years, there was little outward sign on the Jewish Sabbath that the attack had any impact on the usually placid pace of life in the holy city.

Some families in Gaza have abandoned their homes - some of them damaged and others situated near potential Israeli targets - and packed into the houses of friends and relatives.

(Additional reporting by Dan Williams and Douglas Hamilton in Tel Aviv, Allyn Fisher-Ilan in Jerusalem, Jeff Mason aboard Air Force One, Writing by Jeffrey Heller; editing by Crispian Balmer)

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Nintendo seeks to shake up gaming again with Wii U

LOS ANGELES (AP) — It can scan zombies, replace a TV remote, open a window into virtual worlds and shoot ninja stars across a living room. It’s the Wii U GamePad, the 10-by-5-inch touchscreen controller for the successor to the Wii out Sunday, and if you ask the brains behind the “Super Mario Bros.” about it, they say it’s going to change the way video games are made and played.

“You can’t manufacture buzz,” said Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime. “You can’t manufacture word of mouth. All we can do is to provide the product and the games to foster some sparks that hopefully enable that to happen. We think we have that with Wii U.”

Much like the iPad, the curvaceous GamePad features a touchscreen that can be manipulated with the simple tap or swipe of a finger, but it’s surrounded by the kinds of buttons, bumpers, thumbsticks and triggers that are traditionally found on a modern-day game controller. There’s also a camera, stylus, microphone, headphone jack and speakers.

While the Wii U can employ its predecessor’s motion-control remotes with a sensor bar that similarly detects them in front of the TV, the console’s focus on two-screen experiences makes it feel more like a high-definition, living-room rendition of the Nintendo DS and 3DS, the Japanese gaming giant’s dual-screen hand-held devices, than the original Wii.

“It’s a second screen like a tablet or a cellphone, but it’s different,” said Mark Bolas, professor of interactive media at the University of Southern California. “In addition to providing more information, the GamePad is also a second viewpoint into a virtual world. Nintendo is letting you turn away from the TV screen to see what’s happening with the GamePad.”

The touchscreen controller can also serve as a makeshift TV remote control and online video aggregator for services like Netflix and Amazon Instant Video. (Nintendo cheekily calls it TVii and announced Friday that it won’t be available until December.) Some games have the ability to flip-flop between the TV screen and the GamePad screen, allowing for non-gaming use of the TV.

There are limitations to the GamePad: it won’t work after it’s been moved 25 feet away from the Wii U console; it lasts about three to five hours after charging; and while its touchscreen is intuitive as those that have come before it, the GamePad is not quite as simple to use as the Wii controllers that had everyone bowling in their living rooms.

“Is the GamePad more complex than the Wii Remote was six years ago? Certainly,” said Fils-Aime. “On the other hand, I believe consumers will easily grasp the GamePad and what we’re trying to do with the varied experiences we’ll have not only at launch but over the next number of years in this system’s life.”

The abilities of the GamePad are most notably showcased by Nintendo Co. in the amusement park-themed mini-game collection “Nintendo Land,” which comes with the deluxe edition of the console. “Nintendo Land” turns the GamePad into several different tools, such as the dashboard of a spaceship or the ultimate advantage in a game of hide-and-seek.

In other titles, the controller mostly eliminates the need to pause the action to study a map in order to figure out where to go next or scour an inventory for just the right weapon. That can all be achieved simultaneously on the GamePad screen, which is best illustrated among the launch titles in Ubisoft’s survival action game “ZombiU.”

The GamePad acts as a high-tech scanner in “ZombiU” that can analyze a player’s surroundings in a version of London overrun by zombies. It pumps up the terror by drawing players’ attention away from the horrors lurking around them.

Will gamers who’ve grown up with their eyes glued to the TV and hands gripped on a controller adapt to glimpsing at another screen? The Wii U edition of “Call of Duty: Black Ops II,” for example, invites players to customize their arsenal on the fly on the GamePad, as well as engage in multiplayer matches without needing to split the TV in half.

Nintendo expects 50 games will be available for the Wii U by March 2013. There will be 23 games released alongside the console when it debuts Sunday, including the platformer “New Super Mario Bros. U,” karaoke game “Sing Party,” an “armored edition” of “Batman: Arkham City” and the Mickey Mouse adventure “Disney Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two.”

“New consoles come along and nobody exploits their full capabilities for the first two to three years,” said Warren Spector, creative director at “Epic Mickey 2″ developer Junction Point Studios. “It’s only after you’ve had two or three projects that you fully understand what the hardware is capable of doing. We’re going to be experimenting with it more.”

Fils-Aime said he’s already envisioning ways that developers will innovate with future games. He pointed to some of the console’s features that aren’t on display in the launch line-up, such as the ability to play with two GamePads at once or utilize the console’s near-field communication technology to interact with other gadgets in the room.

“I think that developers and consumers are ready for new experiences,” said Fils-Aime. “More than anything else, I think that’s what is driving excitement for Wii U. They’ve experienced what this generation has to offer. They’re ready for something new.”

___

Online:

http://www.nintendo.com/wiiu

___

Follow AP Entertainment Writer Derrik J. Lang on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/derrikjlang.

Gaming News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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President Obama Perfects the McKayla Maroney Scowl

By Kristen Mascia

11/17/2012 at 01:45 PM EST

Pete Souza/The White House/Getty

Heads up, America: the President is not impressed.

During the U.S. women's gymnastics team's visit to the White House on Thursday, president Barack Obama posed with McKayla Maroney, pulling the apathetic expression that made Maroney an Internet sensation during the Summer Games in London.

Afterwards, the gold medalist, 16 – who's been mimicked by everyone from Maria Menounos to, perhaps inadvertently, Prince William – seemed uncharacteristically, well, impressed.

She Tweeted: "Did I just do the Not Impressed face with the President?"

For those who don't recall, the scowl that sparked a thousand memes originated after Maroney's faulty landing during the individual women's gymnastics vault event in London.

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EU drug regulator OKs Novartis' meningitis B shot

LONDON (AP) — Europe's top drug regulator has recommended approval for the first vaccine against meningitis B, made by Novartis AG.

There are five types of bacterial meningitis. While vaccines exist to protect against the other four, none has previously been licensed for type B meningitis. In Europe, type B is the most common, causing 3,000 to 5,000 cases every year.

Meningitis mainly affects infants and children. It kills about 8 percent of patients and leaves others with lifelong consequences such as brain damage.

In a statement on Friday, Andrin Oswald of Novartis said he is "proud of the major advance" the company has made in developing its vaccine Bexsero. It is aimed at children over two months of age, and Novartis is hoping countries will include the shot among the routine ones for childhood diseases such as measles.

Novartis said the immunization has had side effects such as fever and redness at the injection site.

Recommendations from the European Medicines Agency are usually adopted by the European Commission. Novartis also is seeking to test the vaccine in the U.S.

Read More..