Elmo actor Kevin Clash resigns amid sex allegation

NEW YORK (AP) — Elmo puppeteer Kevin Clash has resigned from "Sesame Street" in the wake of an allegation that he had sex with an underage youth.

In its statement Tuesday, Sesame Workshop said "the controversy surrounding Kevin's personal life has become a distraction that none of us want," leading Clash to conclude "that he can no longer be effective in his job."

"This is a sad day for Sesame Street," the company said.

In a statement of his own, Clash said "personal matters have diverted attention away from the important work Sesame Street is doing and I cannot allow it to go on any longer. I am deeply sorry to be leaving and am looking forward to resolving these personal matters privately."

As the announcement was made, a lawsuit was being filed in federal court in New York charging Clash with sexual abuse of a second youth. The lawsuit alleges that Cecil Singleton, then 15 and now an adult, was persuaded by Clash to meet for sexual encounters.

The lawsuit seeks damages in excess of $5 million.

Clash, who had been on "Sesame Street" for 28 years, created the high-pitched voice and child-like persona for Elmo, a furry, red Muppet that became one of the most popular characters on the show and one of the company's most lucrative properties. Sesame Workshop produces "Sesame Street" in New York.

Clash's exit followed a tumultuous week that began on Nov. 12 with a statement from the company that Clash had requested a leave of absence following the charge by a man in his early 20s that he had had a relationship with Clash when he was 16.

Clash denied the charge from that man, who has not been publicly identified, calling it "false and defamatory."

Clash, the 52-year-old divorced father of a grown daughter, acknowledged that he is gay in that statement.

Sesame Workshop, which said it was first contacted by the accuser in June, said it had launched an investigation that included meeting with the accuser twice and meeting with Clash. Its investigation found the charge of underage conduct to be unsubstantiated.

The next day Clash's accuser recanted his charge, describing his sexual relationship with Clash as adult and consensual. Clash responded that he was "relieved that this painful allegation has been put to rest."

In addition to his marquee role as Elmo, Clash had served as the show's senior Muppet coordinator and Muppet captain. He won 23 daytime Emmy awards and one prime-time Emmy.

In 2006, he published an autobiography, "My Life as a Furry Red Monster," and was the subject of the 2011 documentary "Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey."

Though it remained unclear who might take over for Clash performing as Elmo, other "Sesame Street" puppeteers have been trained to serve as his stand-in, Sesame Workshop said.

"Elmo is bigger than any one person," the company said last week.

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Responding to Illnesses Manifesting Amid Recovery From Storm

Nicole Bengiveno/The New York Times

Dr. Aaron Gardener, center, attended to a patient at an ad hoc medical unit in Long Beach, N.Y. Many people have coughs, rashes and other ailments.

Day and night, victims of Hurricane Sandy have been streaming into ad hoc emergency rooms and relief centers, like the MASH-type medical unit on an athletic field in Long Beach, and the warming tent in the Rockaways the size of a small high school gym.

They complain of rashes, asthma and coughing. They need tetanus shots because — house-proud and armed with survivalist instincts — they have been ripping out waterlogged boards and getting poked by rusty nails. Those with back pain from sifting through debris receive muscle relaxants; those with chest pain from overexertion are hooked up to cardiac monitors.

“I’ve been coughing,” said Gabriel McAuley, 46, who has been working 16-hour days gutting homes and hauling debris in the Rockaways since the storm hit. “I’ve never felt a cough like that before. It’s deeper down.”

It is impossible to say how many people have been sickened by what Hurricane Sandy left behind: mold from damp drywall; spills from oil tanks; sewage from floodwater and unflushable toilets; tons upon tons of debris and dust. But interviews with hurricane victims, recovery workers, health officials and medical experts over the last week reveal that some of the illnesses that they feared would occur, based on the toxic substances unleashed by the storm and the experience of other disasters, notably Hurricane Katrina, have begun to manifest themselves.

Emergency rooms and poison control centers have reported cases of carbon monoxide exposure — and in New Jersey, several deaths have been attributed to it — from the misuse of generators to provide power and stoves to provide heat.

In Livingston, N.J., the Burn Center at St. Barnabas Medical Center had 16 burn cases over about six days, three times as many as usual, from people trying to dispel the cold and darkness with boiling water, gasoline, candles and lighter fluid.

Raw sewage spilled into homes in Baldwin and East Rockaway, in Nassau County, when a sewage plant shut down because of the surge and the system could not handle the backup. Sewage also spilled from a huge plant in Newark. “We tried to limit our presence in the house because the stink was horrible,” said Jennifer Ayres, 34, of Baldwin, who has been staying temporarily in West Hempstead. She said that she felt ill for several days, that her son had a scratchy throat, and that her mother, who lives in the house, had difficulty breathing, all problems she attributed to the two days they spent inside their house cleaning up last week. “I had stomach problems. I felt itchy beyond itchy on my face.”

Coughing — locally known as the Rockaway cough — is a common symptom that health officials said could come from mold, or from the haze of dust and sand kicked up by the storm and demolitions. The air in the Rockaways is so full of particles that the traffic police wear masks — though many recovery workers do not, worrying people who recall the fallout of another disaster.

“It’s just like 9/11,” said Kathy Smilardi, sitting inside the skeleton of her gutted home in Broad Channel, wrapped in a white puffy jacket, her breath visible in the afternoon cold. “Everyone runs in to clean up, and they’re not wearing masks. Are we going to wait 20 years to figure out that people are dying?”

Health officials and experts say the risks are real, but are cautioning against hysteria. Some coughing could be due to cold, damp weather. Lasting health effects from mold, dust and other environmental hazards generally require long-term, continuous exposure, they said. And the short-term effects can be mitigated by taking precautions like wearing masks, gloves and boots and removing mold-infested wallboard. “The reality is that cleaning up both muck and sewage and spills and removing walls and reconstruction and dealing with debris all do in fact pose concerns,” Daniel Kass, New York City’s deputy commissioner for environmental health, said Friday. “Are they vast or uncontrollable? No. But they depend on people doing work correctly and taking basic precautions.”

The Katrina cough was found to be temporary, said Roy J. Rando, a professor at Tulane’s School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. Felicia Rabito, an epidemiologist at the school, said that healthy children exposed to mold after Hurricane Katrina showed no lasting respiratory symptoms when they moved back to new or renovated homes.

Immediately after Hurricane Katrina, lead levels in New Orleans’s soil dropped after the top layers of dirt, where lead from paint and gasoline can accumulate, were washed away. But in the two years afterward, soil testing found extremely high lead levels, Dr. Rabito said, which she theorized came from renovating old homes. “That’s a cautionary tale,” she said. Lead in soil can be tracked into homes and pose a health hazard to children playing inside or outside.

Though at least one outbreak of norovirus, a contagious gastrointestinal virus, occurred in a Brooklyn high school that was used as a shelter, New York and New Jersey health officials said they had not seen any significant spike in respiratory or gastrointestinal diseases related to the storm.

In Broad Channel, most homes on Noel Road, where Ms. Smilardi lives, have outdoor oil tanks that were overturned by the storm. The innards of many homes, built when asbestos was used, lie spilled among major and minor roads.

Ominous red spots covered both sides of Paul Nowinski’s burly torso. After the storm, Mr. Nowinski, a musician, waded into the basement of his childhood home on Beach 146th Street in the Rockaways to try to salvage records, books and instruments. He was up to his chest in water, which he thinks might have been contaminated with sewage. He said that he did not know the cause of the red marks; and that he had been too busy “schlepping” to go to the doctor.

Angela Macropoulos contributed reporting.

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HP reports massive $8.8-billion charge; shares plummet

Hewlett-Packard Co. reported a hefty $8.8-billion charge in its fourth quarter, largely due to serious accounting problems stemming from its 2011 purchase of a British software maker.

The Palo Alto company released its earnings Tuesday and revealed that it had to take a massive charge to align the accounting value of Autonomy Corp., which it bought for $10 million last year, with its real value.

The writedown, combined with a soft quarter overall for struggling HP, caused shares to plunge in morning trading. The company's stock was down $1.44, or 10.8%, to $11.86 at 9:20 a.m. PST.

"The majority of this impairment charge is linked to serious accounting improprieties, disclosure failures and outright misrepresentations at Autonomy Corp. plc that occurred prior to HP's acquisition of Autonomy and the associated impact of those improprieties, failures and misrepresentations on the expected future financial performance of the Autonomy business over the long term," HP said in a statement. "The balance of the impairment charge is linked to the recent trading value of HP stock."

HP Chief Executive Meg Whitman said the company began to realize something was amiss after Autonomy founder and Chief Executive Mike Lynch left on May 23, according to the Associated Press. A senior Autonomy executive then volunteered information about the accounting improprieties, which led to an internal investigation.

The case has been referred to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the UK's Serious Fraud Office, the AP said, citing Whitman. HP will also try to recoup some of what it paid for Autonomy through lawsuits.

Autonomy is a software company that helps organizations understand the meaning in information, according to the firm's website: "A pioneer in its industry, Autonomy's unique meaning-based technology is able to make sense of and process unstructured, 'human information,' and draw real business value from that meaning."

Autonomy was founded in 1996 and has more than 65,000 customers worldwide.

HP's fourth-quarter revenue was $30 billion, down 7% from the same quarter in 2011 and down 4% when adjusted for the effects of currency. The company reported a loss of $6.9 billion, or $3.49 a share, compared with a profit of $200 million, or 12 cents, a year earlier.

Across business categories, personal systems revenue was down 14% year-over-year; printing revenue declined 5%; services revenue fell 6% and enterprise servers, storage and networking dropped 9%.

Software revenue, however, grew 14% year over year, including the results of Autonomy.

For the first quarter of fiscal 2013, HP estimated earnings per share to be in the range of 34 to 37 cents.

ALSO:

HP to cut 27,000 jobs by 2014

Stocks mostly flat, HP taking a hit

Can CEO Meg Whitman turn around HP?

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Existing-home sales and builder confidence rise

WASHINGTON -- The housing market recovery showed signs it is continuing to strengthen as sales of existing homes increased 2.1% in October from the previous month and a measure of home-builder confidence jumped in November to its highest level since 2006.

Sales of existing homes rose to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.79 million last month, up from a downwardly revised 4.69 million rate in September, that National Assn. of Realtors reported Monday. Sales were up 10.9% in October from a year earlier.

Stronger demand helped push up the median home price nationwide to $178,600 in October, an increase of 11.1% from a year earlier, the group said. It was the eighth-straight month to show a year-over-year increase, the first time that's happened since 2005-2006.

Fewer houses on the market also helped drive price increases. There were 2.14 million existing homes for sale in October, down 1.4% from September. That translates to a 5.4-month supply at the current sales rate, the lowest level since February 2006.

Sales by distressed homeowners still accounted for a large chunk of activity. Foreclosures and short sales made up 24% of October's sales. That was the same level as in September, but down from 28% a year earlier.

Superstorm Sandy had some negative impact on sales, the group said.

The Northeast, which was hit hard by the storm, was the only region to show a decrease in sales in October from the previous month. Sales were down 1.7% there, while they increased 1.8% in the Midwest, 2.1% in the South and 4.4% in the West.

"Home sales continue to trend up and most October transactions were completed by the time the storm hit, but the growing demand with limited inventory is pressuring home prices in much of the country," said Lawrence Yun, chief economist at the Realtors group. 

He expected more of an impact in the Northeast in coming months.

The improving housing market led to a boost in builder confidence, according to a measure released Monday.

The National Assn. of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index rose five points in November to 46 from the previous month. It was the seventh straight monthly increase, lifting the index to its highest level since May 2006, before the crash of the subprime housing market.

The index remained below 50, indicating that builders who view sales conditions as poor still outnumber those who view them as good. But the index is up sharply from its 19 reading a year ago, the home builders group said.

“Builders are reporting increasing demand for new homes as inventories of foreclosed and distressed properties begin to shrink in markets across the country,” said Barry Rutenberg, a home builder from Gainesville, Fla., and chairman of the builders' group.

“In view of the tightening supply and other improving conditions, many potential buyers who were on the fence are now motivated to move forward with a purchase in order to take advantage of today’s favorable prices and interest rates,” he said. 

ALSO:

FHA's reserves fall into the red

California home sales pop in October

Most aid from mortgage settlement in state going to short sales

Follow Jim Puzzanghera on Twitter and Google+.

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Justin Bieber gets love at American Music Awards

Justin Bieber may be Canadian, but he was the all-American boy at Sunday night's American Music Awards.

The pop singer dominated the awards show, winning three trophies, including artist of the year. His mom joined him onstage as he collected the award, beating out Rihanna, Maroon 5, Katy Perry and Drake.

"I wanted to thank you for always believing in me," Bieber said, looking to his mom.

The 18-year-old also won the honor in 2010. He said it's "hard growing up with everyone watching me" and asked that people continue to believe in him.

But the teenager who brought his mom as a date also got in some grinding with Nicki Minaj — who shared the stage with him and took home two awards — and a kiss on the neck from presenter Jenny McCarthy.

"Wow. I feel violated right now," he said, laughing.

"I did grab his butt," McCarthy said backstage. "I couldn't help it. He was just so delicious. So little. I wanted to tear his head off and eat it."

Another collaboration was the night's most colorful performance: Korean rapper PSY and MC Hammer. Hammer joined the buzzed-about pop star for his viral hit "Gangnam Style." PSY rocked traditional "Hammer" pants as they danced to his jam and to Hammer's "Too Legit to Quit."

Minaj, who wore three different wigs and four outfits throughout the night, repeated her AMAs wins from last year, picking up trophies for favorite rap/hip-hop artist and album for "Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded." She was in an all-white get-up, including fur coat and pink hair when she performed her new song "Freedom." The scene was ghostly and snowy, as a choir — also in white — joined her onstage. One background singer stole the performance, belting semi-high notes as Minaj looked on.

Usher kicked off the three-hour ABC-televised show with green laser lights beaming onstage as he performed a medley of songs, including "Numb," ''Climax" and "Can't Stop, Won't Stop," which featured a smoky floor and a number of backup dancers, as Usher jammed in all black, with the exception of his red shoes. He won favorite soul/R&B male artist.

His protege Bieber won favorite pop/rock male artist in the first award handed out and gave a shout-out to those who didn't think he would last on the music scene.

"I want to say this is for all the haters who thought I was just here for one or two years. I feel like I'm going to be here for a very long time," he said.

He also won favorite pop/rock album for his platinum-selling third album, "Believe." He gave a stripped down, acoustic performance of "As Long As You Love Me," then transitioned to the dance-heavy "Beauty and a Beat," where Minaj joined him onstage, grinding with the teen for a few seconds.

Swift won her fifth consecutive award for favorite country female artist.

"This is unreal. I want to thank the fans. You guys are the ones who voted on this," she said.

Swift gave a masquerade-themed performance of the pop song "I Knew You Were Trouble." She sang onstage in a light dress while dancers wore mostly black. But then she changed into a red corset and black skirt, matching their dark mood. She even danced and sang on the floor as lights flickered throughout the performance.

Dick Clark, who created the AMAs, was remembered by Ryan Seacrest and an upbeat performance by Stevie Wonder.

"What a producer he was," said Seacrest, as Wonder sang his hits, including "My Cherie Amour."

Carly Rae Jepsen, who performed early in the night, won favorite new artist.

"I am floored. Wow," she said, thanking Bieber and his manager, Scooter Braun.

Party girl Ke$ha was glammed up on the red carpet, rocking long, flowy blonde hair and a light pink dress. She switched to her normal attire when she performed her hit single "Die Young." It was tribal, with shirtless dancers in skin-tight pants, silver hair and skeleton-painted faces, who also played the drums. Ke$ha was pants-less, rocking knee-high boots and rolling on the floor as she finished up the song.

Minaj and Christina Aguilera were blonde bombshells, too: Minaj's hair was busy and full of volume and she sported a neon strapless gown to accept her first award. Aguilera wore a blonde bob in a purple dress that matched her eyeshadow.

Aguilera performed a medley of material from her new album and joined Pitbull onstage.

Kelly Clarkson also hit the stage, making a nod to her "American Idol" roots with a number on her dress and three judges looking on as she sang "Miss Independent." Then she went into "Since U Been Gone," ''Stronger" and "Catch My Breath."

Fellow "Idol" winner Carrie Underwood won best favorite country album and performed, hitting the right notes while singing "Two Black Cadillacs." She talked about singing competition shows backstage.

"These people that go on these shows are so talented, you know? And I would love to see if so many of the other artists that are out there today would go back and try out for these shows, because they might get their behinds kicked by some of the contestants," she said.

Luke Bryan won favorite country male artist and Lady Antebellum favorite country group.

American Music Awards nominees were selected based on sales and airplay, and fans chose the winners by voting online. At this award show, even the stars were fans: Pink said on the red carpet that she'd like to collaborate with Lauryn Hill. Cyndi Lauper said her musical playlist includes Pink and Minaj. Boy band The Wanted said they were excited to see PSY and Colbie Caillat wanted to watch No Doubt.

"What makes the American Music Awards special is the fans choose the winning artists," said Chester Bennington of Linkin Park, who won favorite alternative rock artist and performed "Burn It Down," as Brandy sang along and Gwen Stefani, Usher and Phillip Phillips bobbed their heads.

David Guetta won the show's first-ever electronic dance music award. Non-televised awards went to Katy Perry for pop/rock female artist, Beyonce for soul/R&B female artist, Adele for adult contemporary artist and Shakira for Latin artist.

Along with Rihanna, Minaj was the top nominee with four nominations.

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ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Co.

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AP Entertainment Writer Sandy Cohen contributed to this report from Los Angeles.

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Follow Mesfin Fekadu on Twitter at http://twitter.com/MusicMesfin

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Teenage Boys, Worried About Body Image, Take Health Risks

Béatrice de Géa for The New York Times

David Abusheikh at a gym in Brooklyn. He goes six days a week and says he uses protein supplements to help build muscle.

It is not just girls these days who are consumed by an unattainable body image.

Take David Abusheikh. At age 15, he started lifting weights for two hours a day, six days a week. Now that he is a senior at Fort Hamilton High School in Brooklyn, he has been adding protein bars and shakes to his diet to put on muscle without gaining fat.

“I didn’t used to be into supplements,” said Mr. Abusheikh, 18, who plans on a career in engineering, “but I wanted something that would help me get bigger a little faster.”

Pediatricians are starting to sound alarm bells about boys who take unhealthy measures to try to achieve Charles Atlas bodies that only genetics can truly confer. Whether it is long hours in the gym, allowances blown on expensive supplements or even risky experiments with illegal steroids, the price American boys are willing to pay for the perfect body appears to be on the rise.

In a study to be published on Monday in the journal Pediatrics, more than 40 percent of boys in middle school and high school said they regularly exercised with the goal of increasing muscle mass. Thirty-eight percent said they used protein supplements, and nearly 6 percent said they had experimented with steroids.

Over all, 90 percent of the 1,307 boys in the survey — who lived in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, but typify what doctors say is a national phenomenon — said they exercised at least occasionally to add muscle.

“There has been a striking change in attitudes toward male body image in the last 30 years,” said Dr. Harrison Pope, a psychiatry professor at Harvard who studies bodybuilding culture and was not involved in the study. The portrayal of men as fat-free and chiseled “is dramatically more prevalent in society than it was a generation ago,” he said.

While college-age men have long been interested in bodybuilding, pediatricians say they have been surprised to find that now even middle school boys are so absorbed with building muscles. And their youth adds an element of risk.

Just as girls who count every calorie in an effort to be thin may do themselves more harm than good, boys who chase an illusory image of manhood may end up stunting their development, doctors say, particularly when they turn to supplements — or, worse, steroids — to supercharge their results.

“The problem with supplements is they’re not regulated like drugs, so it’s very hard to know what’s in them,” said Dr. Shalender Bhasin, a professor of medicine at Boston University School of Medicine. Some contain anabolic steroids, and even high-quality protein supplements might be dangerous in large amounts, or if taken to replace meals, he said. “These things just haven’t been studied very well,” he said.

Anabolic steroids pose a special danger to developing bodies, Dr. Bhasin said. Steroids “stop testosterone production in men,” he said, leading to terrible withdrawal problems when still-growing boys try to stop taking them. Still, the constant association of steroids with elite athletes like Lance Armstrong and Barry Bonds perpetuates the notion that they can be managed successfully.

Online, in bodybuilding forums for teenagers, boys barely out of puberty share weight-lifting regimens and body fat percentages, and judge one another’s progress. On Tumblr and Facebook, teenagers post images of ripped athletes under the heading “fitspo” or “fitspiraton,” which are short for “fitness inspiration.” The tags are spinoffs of “thinspo” and “thinspiration” pictures and videos, which have been banned from many sites for promoting anorexia.

“Lifted b4 school today felt good but was weak as hell,” wrote one boy who said he was 15 and from Tallahassee, Fla., on a message board on Bodybuilding.com in September, saying he bench-pressed 245 pounds. “Barely got it.”

Many of these boys probably see themselves in Mike Sorrentino, “The Situation” from the “Jersey Shore” series on MTV, or the Adam Sackler character, on the HBO series “Girls,” who rarely wears a shirt or takes a break from his crunches.

Mr. Abusheikh, for instance, has a Facebook page full of photos of himself shirtless or showing off his six-pack abs. At his high school, participation in the annual bodybuilding competition hit an all-time high of 30 students this year.

“They ask us about everything,” said Peter Rivera, a physical education teacher at Fort Hamilton High School who helps oversee the competition. “How do I lose weight? How do I gain muscle? How many times a week should I work out?” Some boys want to be stronger for sports, Mr. Rivera said, but others “want to change their body type.”

Compared with a sedentary lifestyle of video games and TV, an obsession with working out may not quite qualify as a health hazard. And instructors like Mr. Rivera say most boys are eager for advice on the healthiest, drug-free ways to get in shape.

With so little known about supplements, it can be difficult, particularly for teenagers, to make wise decisions.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: November 19, 2012

An earlier version of this article gave an incorrect nationality for the soccer player Cristiano Ronaldo. He is Portuguese, not Brazilian. Because of an editing error, it misstated the number of boys included in the survey. The researchers interviewed 2,793 boys and girls, not 2,800 boys. It also described incorrectly the title of Dr. Shalender Bhasin. He is a professor of medicine at Boston University School of Medicine, not at the Boston Medical Center.

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$26 billion in aid given under mortgage settlement, banks say

WASHINGTON -- The country's largest mortgage servicers said they had provided $26.1 billion in relief to struggling homeowners through September, half through short sales, as part of a national settlement of foreclosure problems, the deal's monitor reported Monday.

The aid has gone to more than 300,000 borrowers from March 1 to Sept. 30, for an average of about $84,385 per person, according to the Office of Mortgage Settlement Oversight, which was set up to monitor the progress of the banks.

The servicers covered by the settlement -- Bank of America Corp., JPMorgan Chase & Co., Wells Fargo & Co., Citigroup Inc. and Ally Financial Inc.-- reported completing $21.9 billion in relief to homeowners through short sales, and reduced monthly payments on first and second mortgages.

In addition, the banks said they had $4.2 billion in assistance in trial programs, the report said.

But those figures have yet to be confirmed by the settlement's monitor, former North Carolina banking commissioner Joseph A. Smith Jr.

“The relief the banks have reported is encouraging,” he said. “But it is important to remember that no obligations will be met until I have reviewed, confirmed and credited them."

The payments are part of a complex, $25-billion agreement reached in February to settle federal and state foreclosure abuse investigations.

But the amount of reported homeowner relief doesn't mean banks have fulfilled their requirement. Banks get less than a dollar's worth of credit for each dollar of relief.

The credits vary. For example, each dollar forgiven in a short sale is worth a 45-cent credit if the bank owns the loan and 20 cents if investors hold it. Under the settlement, 60% of relief must come through principal reductions that keep people in their homes.

The national monitor has not yet calculated the credits for the banks' reported relief.

But so far, half of the aid nationally -- 50.2% -- has been in the form of forgiven mortgage balances through short sales.

The figure is higher in California. About 68% of the $8.4 billion in relief extended to the state's homeowners has been through short sales, according to UC Irvine law professor Katherine Porter, who was appointed by the California attorney general's office to monitor the deal.

The national report had somewhat different figures. It reported $8.9 billion in relief for California homeowners, with about 66% of that in short sales. It could not immediately be determined why the figures were different.

ALSO:

Existing-home sales and builder confidence rise

Most aid from mortgage settlement in state going to short sales

Mortgage settlement with banks starts to ease foreclosure crisis

 
Follow Jim Puzzanghera on Twitter and Google+.

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A young shooting victim wrestles with his fears

After the nightmares started, Davien Graham avoided his bicycle.

In his dreams, he pedaled his silver BMX bike through his neighborhood, heard gunfire and died.

If I stay off my bike, I'll be safe, he thought.

He placed it in a backyard shed, where it sat for months. But Jan. 12, 2008, dawned so spectacular that Davien decided to risk it.

He ate Cap'n Crunch Berries cereal, grabbed the bike and rode a half-mile west to Calvary Grace, a Southern Baptist church that was his haven.

Davien lived with an unemployed aunt and uncle, a former Crip, and five other kids in a cramped four-bedroom house in Monrovia, about 20 miles east of Los Angeles.

Yet as a 16-year-old junior at Monrovia High School, Davien earned A's and B's, played JV football and volunteered with the video club. He cleaned the church on Saturdays for minimum wage.

If I live right, God will protect me.

That afternoon, sweaty from cleaning, Davien reached for his wallet to buy a snack — only to realize he had forgotten it at home.

After returning to his house, he caught his reflection in the front window. He was 6 feet 2 and wiry. His skinny chest was beginning to broaden. He was trying to add weight to his 160-pound frame in time for varsity football tryouts.

He showered, told his aunt he would be right back and again jumped on his bike, size-14 Nike Jordans churning, heading for a convenience store near the church.

At the store, he bought Arizona fruit punch and lime chili Lay's potato chips. He recognized a kindergarten-age Latino boy and bought him Twinkies.

Davien pedaled down the empty sidewalk along Peck Road. He could hear kids playing basketball nearby. As he neared the church, a car passed, going in the opposite direction. He barely noticed.

He heard car tires crunching on asphalt behind him. He glanced back, expecting a friend.

Instead he heard: "Hey, fool."

The gun was gray. It had a slide. Davien recognized that much from watching the Military Channel.

Behind the barrel, he saw forearms braced to fire and the face of a Latino man, a former classmate.

The gunman shouted, "Dirt Rock!," cursing a local black gang, the Duroc Crips.

Davien's mind raced: Don't panic. Watch the barrel. Duck.

Suddenly, he was falling. Then he was on the ground, looking up at the church steeple and the cross.

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Summary: A look at the 4 new Kindle Fire models

Amazon.com Inc. started shipping a large-screen version of its Kindle Fire tablet computer on Thursday, ahead of schedule. Here is a look at the new Fires announced in September:

— Kindle Fire, with 7-inch screen, 1024 by 600 pixels. $ 159, with 8 gigabytes of storage. Weighs 14.1 ounces. Battery life of 8.5 hours. Started shipping Sept. 14.

— Kindle Fire HD, with 7-inch screen, 1280 by 800 pixels. $ 199 with 16 GB of storage or $ 249 with 32 GB of storage. Weighs 13.9 ounces. Battery life of 11 hours. Started shipping Sept. 14.

— Kindle Fire HD 8.9″, with 8.9-inch screen, 1920 by 1200 pixels. $ 299 with 16 GB of storage or $ 369 with 32 GB of storage. Weighs 20 ounces. Battery life of 10 hours. Started shipping Thursday.

— Kindle Fire HD 8.9″ 4G LTE Wireless, with 8.9-inch screen, 1920 by 1200 pixels. $ 499 with 32 GB of storage or $ 599 with 64 GB of storage. Can connect to AT&T Inc.‘s 4G LTE wireless network. Weighs 20 ounces. Battery life of 10 hours. Will start shipping Tuesday.

Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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The Neediest Cases: Emerging From a Bleak Life to Become Fabulous Phil

For years, Phillip Johnson was caught in what seemed like an endless trench of bad luck. He was fired from a job, experienced intensifying psychological problems, lost his apartment and spent time in homeless shelters. At one point, he was hospitalized after overdosing on an antipsychotic drug.

“I had a rough road,” he said.

Since his hospital stay two years ago, and despite setbacks, Mr. Johnson, 27, has been getting his life on track. At Brooklyn Community Services, where he goes for daily counseling and therapy, everybody knows him as Fabulous Phil.

“Phillip is a light, the way he evokes happiness in other people,” his former caseworker, Teresa O’Brien, said. “Phillip’s character led directly to his nickname.”

About six months ago, with Ms. O’Brien’s help, Mr. Johnson started an event: Fabulous Phil Friday Dance Party Fridays.

One recent afternoon at the agency, 30 clients and a few counselors were eating cake, drinking soft drinks and juice, and grooving for 45 minutes to Jay-Z and Drake pulsating from a boom box.

Mr. Johnson’s voice rose with excitement when he talked about the party. Clients and counselors, he said, “enjoy themselves.”

“They connect more; they communicate more,” he continued. “Everybody is celebrating and laughing.”

The leadership Mr. Johnson now displays seems to be a far cry from the excruciatingly introverted person he was.

As an only child living with his single mother in public housing in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, he said, he tended to isolate himself. “A lot of kids my age would say, ‘Come outside,’ but I would always stay in my room,” he said. He occupied himself by writing comic books or reading them, his favorites being Batman and Spiderman because, he said, “they were heroes who saved the day.”

After graduating from high school in 2003, he worked odd jobs until 2006, when he took a full-time position at a food court at La Guardia Airport, where he helped to clean up. The steady paycheck allowed him to leave his mother’s apartment and rent a room in Queens.

But the depression and bleak moods that had shadowed him throughout middle and high school asserted themselves.

“My thinking got confused,” he said. “Racing thoughts through my mind. Disorganized thoughts. I had a hard time focusing on one thing.”

In 2008, after two years on the job, Mr. Johnson was fired for loud and inappropriate behavior, and for being “unpredictable,” he said. The boss said he needed counseling. He moved back in with his mother, and in 2009 entered a program at an outpatient addiction treatment service, Bridge Back to Life. It was there, he said, that he received a diagnosis of schizophrenia and help with his depression and marijuana use.

But one evening in May 2010, he had a bout with insomnia.

He realized the antipsychotic medication he had been prescribed, Risperdal, made him feel tired, he said, so he took 12 of the pills, rather than his usual dosage of two pills twice a day. When 12 did not work, he took 6 more.

“The next morning when I woke up, it was hard for me to breathe,” he said.

He called an ambulance, which took to Woodhull Hospital. He was released after about a month.

Not long after, he returned to his mother’s apartment, but by February 2011, they both decided he should leave, and he relocated to a homeless shelter in East New York, where, he said, eight other people were crammed into his cubicle and there were “bedbugs, people lying in your bed, breaking into your locker to steal your stuff.”

In late spring 2011, he found a room for rent in Manhattan, but by Thanksgiving he was hospitalized again. Another stint in a shelter followed in April, when his building was sold.

Finally, in July, Mr. Johnson moved to supported housing on Staten Island, where he lives with a roommate. His monthly $900 Social Security disability check is sent to the residence, which deducts $600 for rent and gives him $175 in spending money; he has breakfast and lunch at the Brooklyn agency. To assist Mr. Johnson with unexpected expenses, a grant of $550 through The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund went to buy him a bed and pay a Medicare prescription plan fee for three months.

“I was so happy I have a bed to sleep on,” he said about the replacement for an air mattress. “When I have a long day, I have a bed to lay in, and I feel good about that.”

Mr. Johnson’s goals include getting his driver’s license — “I already have a learner’s permit,” he said, proudly — finishing his program at the agency, and then entering an apprenticeship program to become a plumber, carpenter or mechanic.

But seeing how his peers have benefited from Fabulous Phil Fridays has made him vow to remain involved with people dealing with mental illnesses or substance abuse.

He was asked at the party: Might he be like the comic-book heroes he loves? A smile spread across his face. He seemed to think so.

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