Ex-’Price is Right’ model gets $8.5M in damages

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The producers of “The Price is Right” owe a former model on the show more than $ 7.7 million in punitive damages for discriminating against her after a pregnancy, a jury determined Wednesday.

The judgment came one day after the panel determined the game show’s producers discriminated against Brandi Cochran. They awarded her nearly $ 777,000 in actual damages.

Cochran, 41, said she was rejected when she tried to return to work in early 2010 after taking maternity leave. The jury agreed and determined that FremantleMedia North America and The Price is Right Productions owed her more than $ 8.5 million in all.

“I’m humbled. I’m shocked,” Cochran said after the jury announced its verdict. “I’m happy that justice was served today not only for women in the entertainment industry, but women in the workplace.”

FremantleMedia said it was standing by its previous statement, which said it expected to be “fully vindicated” after an appeal.

“We believe the verdict in this case was the result of a flawed process in which the court, among other things, refused to allow the jury to hear and consider that 40 percent of our models have been pregnant,” and further “important” evidence, FremantleMedia said.

In their defense, producers said they were satisfied with the five models working on the show at the time Cochran sought to return.

Several other former models have sued the series and its longtime host, Bob Barker, who retired in 2007.

Most of the cases involving “Barker’s Beauties” — the nickname given the gown-wearing women who presented prizes to contestants — ended with out-of-court settlements.

Comedian-actor Drew Carey followed Barker as the show’s host.

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Anthony McCartney can be reached at http://twitter.com/mccartneyAP .

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Thanksgiving Day parade offers respite for storm victims

GENEVA (Reuters) - Kris Kristofferson -- Oxford scholar, athlete, U.S. Army helicopter pilot, country music composer, one-time roustabout, film actor, singer, lover of women, three times a husband and father of eight -- seems ready to meet his maker. At least, that was the clear impression he left with an audience of middle-aged-and-upwards fans at a concert in Geneva this week, a message underscored by his 28th and latest album, "Feeling Mortal" and its coffin-dark cover. ...

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Ivory Coast: New prime minister named

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast (AP) — President Alassane Ouattara has tapped Foreign Minister Daniel Kablan Duncan to serve as prime minister in a new government one week after the surprise dissolution of cabinet.

The appointment of Duncan, a member of the PDCI party of former President Henri Konan Bedie, was announced at a press conference Wednesday by Amadou Gon Coulibaly, general secretary of the presidency.

Ouattara dissolved the cabinet last week over a feud between his political party and the PDCI over proposed changes to the country’s marriage law.

The PDCI supported Ouattara in the November 2010 runoff election in exchange for the prime minister’s post, helping him defeat incumbent President Laurent Gbagbo. Gbagbo’s refusal to cede office led to five months of violence that claimed at least 3,000 lives before Ouattara’s forces won.

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Facebook to share data with Instagram, loosen email rules

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Facebook Inc is proposing to combine user data with that of recently acquired photo-sharing service Instagram, and will loosen restrictions on emails between members of the social network.

Facebook also said on Wednesday it is proposing to scrap a 4-year old process that can allow the social network’s roughly 1 billion users to vote on changes to its policies and terms of services.

Facebook said it may share information between its own service and other businesses or affiliates that Facebook owns to “help provide, understand, and improve our services and their own services.”

One of Facebook’s most significant affiliate businesses is Instagram, a photo-sharing service for smartphone users that Facebook acquired in October for roughly $ 715 million.

The change could open the door for Facebook to build unified profiles of its users that include people’s personal data from its social network and from Instagram, similar to recent moves by Google Inc. In January, Google said it would combine users’ personal information from its various Web services – such as search, email and the Google+ social network – to provide a more customized experience.

Google’s unified data policy raised concerns among some privacy advocates and regulators, who said it was an invasion of people’s privacy. A group of 36 U.S. state attorney generals also warned in a letter to Google that consolidating so much personal information in one place could put people at greater risk from hackers and identity thieves.

Facebook also wants to loosen the restrictions on how members of the social network can contact other members using the Facebook email system.

Facebook said it wanted to eliminate a setting for users to control who can contact them. The company said it planned to replace the “Who can send you Facebook messages” setting with new filters for managing incoming messages.

Asked whether such a change could leave Facebook users exposed to a flood of unwanted, spam-like messages, Facebook spokesman Andrew Noyes said that the company carefully monitors user interaction and feedback to find ways to enhance the user experience.

“We are working on updates to Facebook Messages and have made this change in our Data Use Policy in order to allow for improvements to the product,” Noyes said.

Facebook’s changes come as the world’s largest social networking company with roughly 1 billion users has experienced a sharp slowdown in revenue growth. The company generates the bulk of its revenue from advertising on its website.

The changes are open to public comment for the next seven days. If the proposed changes generate more than 7,000 public comments, Facebook’s current terms of service automatically trigger a vote by users to approve the changes. But the vote is only binding if at least 30 percent of users take part, and two prior votes never reached that threshold.

Facebook has said in that past that it was rethinking the voting system and on Wednesday Facebook moved to eliminate the vote entirely, noting that it hasn’t functioned as intended and is no longer suited to its current situation as a large publicly traded company subject to oversight by various regulatory agencies.

“We found that the voting mechanism, which is triggered by a specific number of comments, actually resulted in a system that incentivized the quantity of comments over their quality,” Elliot Schrage, Facebook’s vice president of communications, public policy and marketing, said in a blog post on Wednesday.

Instead of the vote, Facebook will look for other forms of user feedback on changes, such as an “Ask the Chief Privacy Officer” question-and-answer forum on its website as well as live webcasts about privacy, safety and security.

Facebook, Google and other online companies have faced increasing scrutiny and enforcement from privacy regulators as consumers entrust ever-increasing amounts of information about their personal lives to Web services.

In April, Facebook settled privacy charges with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission that it had deceived consumers and forced them to share more personal information than they intended. Under the settlement, Facebook is required to get user consent for certain changes to its privacy settings and is subject to 20 years of independent audits.

(Reporting By Alexei Oreskovic; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)

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In “Middle of Nowhere,” Cast Found Black Characters Beyond the Stereotypes

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – When the black actors in “Middle of Nowhere” read the film’s script, they were shocked to find they could actually relate to the characters.

Director Ava DuVernay‘s depiction of a Compton woman struggling while her husband is incarcerated resonated with her cast of actors.

Before joining the cast, actor David Oyelowo had been shooting “Lincoln,” in which he plays Union Army soldier Ira Clark. He said “Middle of Nowhere” delves deeper into black people’s lives in a way that emphasizes normality.

He hinted that, while he was grateful to see black characters depicted in the Civil War-set Steven Spielberg film, the characters seemed to be an afterthought compared to the movie’s light-skinned titans, particularly when compared to “Middle of Nowhere.”

“You don’t see the people suffering under the weight of not having the 13th Amendment – there’s only so much you can do in two hours – and that’s the movie,” he said. “In ‘Lincoln,’ the roles you see: A butler, you see Sally Field’s handmaiden, so to speak, and you see me, myself, a soldier fighting for his country.”

“Middle of Nowhere” stars Emayatzy Corinealdi, a relative unknown in Hollywood, as Ruby. When her husband is jailed for gun smuggling, Ruby is forced to drop out of medical school to pay his legal fees. After he is denied parole, she finds herself on an existential journey trying to piece together a life for herself while maintaining her relationship with her incarcerated husband.

“We’re still a bit trapped in what the industry considers to be who we are and what our lives look like,” actress Lorraine Toussaint, who plays Ruby’s mother, told the audience at the Landmark Theatre Tuesday night at TheWrap’s Annual Screening Series. “Most stereotypical characters that I’ve played or see in film, I don’t know anyone in my life like those people.

“I don’t know gang-bangers, I don’t know people that run from the police,” she added. “I don’t know people that are in trouble all the time.”

DuVernay said she boiled months of research – interviewing the wives of felons, often at support groups or during visits to a penitentiary – into a screenplay and that she then raised $ 200,000 to turn it into a film.

“As I started to really examine what life is like in Compton where I grew up and really think about the texture of the lives of women who live there, incarceration kept coming up,” DuVernay told TheWrap’s editor-in-chief Sharon Waxman, who moderated a Q&A after the film’s screening.

“It’s radical to see black people being normal,” DuVernay said as she discussed what she sees as Hollywood‘s penchant for exaggerated black stereotypes.

Knowing that studio executives would likely challenge her choice of actors or try to market the movie as a “black” film, as opposed to just a film about black people, DuVernay fell back on more than a decade of experience in publicity and set up her own distribution company.

After snubbing Universal Pictures – Oyelowo accidentally let the studio’s name slip, for which DuVernay quickly apologized: “Sorry Universal! Does anyone have a camera on? Don’t tweet that” – she founded African-American Film Festival Releasing Movement.

“I started a distribution company because there wasn’t a distribution company interested in films about the interior lives of black women,” she said, drawing applause.

“Middle of Nowhere,” the winner of the Sundance Director’s Prize, opened on October 12. It has so far shown on 60 screens.

When, during the Q&A, one audience member asked whether DuVernay considered a more multi-ethnic cast – it’s largely black, save for what the director called the “token” Sharon Lawrence, the actress best known for “NYPD Blue,” who plays an attorney – or chose a black cast for marketing purposes, Oyelowo quickly jumped in.

“Can you imagine a studio saying, ‘hey, we should put a bunch of black people in it as a marketing tool?’” he said, laughing. “That’ll be the day. You should run a studio, my friend.”

Oyelowo exuded a particular excitement about the film. He was introduced to the script on a flight to Vancouver. The passenger seated beside him asked him for advice on investing in a movie. In the course of their conversation, Oyelowo invited the man, who ultimately helped finance “Middle of Nowhere,” to send him a copy of DuVernay‘s screenplay.

Reading the script on the way back to Los Angeles, he said he couldn’t resist visibly gesticulating with joy at how good, how real, the characters were. “Most black characters I read felt cartoonish to me,” he said. But this was something different.”

He phoned DuVernay, who said he had already been on her shortlist, and got the job.

And in a year when films like “Middle of Nowhere,” “Lincoln” and Quentin Tarantino’s “Django Unchained” – about a freed slave exacting revenge on the slavers that captured his wife – he’s proud of the direction Hollywood is going.

“I’m happy to see you all here,” Oyelowo said, surveying an audience dotted with people of many ethnicities. “It wasn’t always this way.”

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Hamas-Israel ceasefire takes hold but mistrust runs deep

CAIRO/GAZA (Reuters) - A ceasefire between Israel and Gaza's Hamas rulers took hold on Thursday after eight days of conflict, although deep mistrust on both sides cast doubt on how long the Egyptian-sponsored deal can last.

Even after the ceasefire came into force late on Wednesday, a dozen rockets from the Gaza Strip landed in Israel, all in open areas, a police spokesman said. In Gaza, witnesses reported an explosion shortly after the truce took effect at 9 p.m (1900 GMT), but there were no casualties and the cause was unclear.

The deal prevented, at least for the moment, an Israeli ground invasion of the Palestinian enclave following bombing and rocket fire which killed five Israelis and 162 Gazans, including 37 children.

But trust was in short supply. The exiled leader of Hamas, Khaled Meshaal, said his Islamist movement would respect the truce if Israel did, but would respond to any violations. "If Israel complies, we are compliant. If it does not comply, our hands are on the trigger," he told a news conference in Cairo.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had agreed to "exhaust this opportunity for an extended truce", but told his people a tougher approach might be required in the future.

Both sides quickly began offering differing interpretations of the ceasefire, brokered by Egypt's new Islamist government and backed by the United States, highlighting the many actual or potential areas of discord.

If it holds, the truce will give 1.7 million Gazans respite from days of ferocious air strikes and halt rocket salvoes from militants that unnerved a million people in southern Israel and reached Tel Aviv and Jerusalem for the first time.

"Allahu akbar, (God is greatest), dear people of Gaza you won," blared mosque loudspeakers in Gaza as the truce took effect. "You have broken the arrogance of the Jews."

Fifteen minutes later, wild celebratory gunfire echoed across the darkened streets, which gradually filled with crowds waving Palestinian flags. Ululating women leaned out of windows and fireworks lit up the sky.

Meshaal thanked Egypt for mediating and praised Iran for providing Gazans with financing and arms. "We have come out of this battle with our heads up high," he said, adding that Israel had been defeated and failed in its "adventure".

Some Israelis staged protests against the deal, notably in the southern town of Kiryat Malachi, where three people were killed by a Gaza rocket during the conflict, army radio said.

Netanyahu said he was willing to give the truce a chance but held open the possibility of reopening the conflict. "I know there are citizens expecting a more severe military action, and perhaps we shall need to do so," he said.

The Israeli leader, who faces a parliamentary election in January, delivered a similar message earlier in a telephone call with U.S. President Barack Obama, his office said.

"AN OPEN PRISON"

According to a text of the agreement seen by Reuters, both sides should halt all hostilities, with Israel desisting from incursions and targeting of individuals, while all Palestinian factions should cease rocket fire and cross-border attacks.

The deal also provides for easing Israeli restrictions on Gaza's residents, who live in what British Prime Minister David Cameron has called an "open prison".

The text said procedures for implementing this would be "dealt with after 24 hours from the start of the ceasefire".

Israeli sources said Israel would not lift a blockade of the enclave it enforced after Hamas, which rejects the Jewish state's right to exist, won a Palestinian election in 2006.

However, Meshaal said the deal covered the opening of all of the territory's border crossings. "The document stipulates the opening of the crossings, all the crossings, and not just Rafah," he said. Israel controls all of Gaza's crossings apart from the Rafah post with Egypt.

Hamas lost its top military commander to an Israeli strike in the conflict and suffered serious hits to its infrastructure and weaponry, but has emerged with its reputation both in the Arab world and at home stronger.

Israel can take comfort from the fact it dealt painful blows to its enemy, which will take many months to recover, and showed that it can defend itself from a barrage of missiles.

"No one is under the illusion that this is going to be an everlasting ceasefire. It is clear to everyone it will only be temporary," said Michael Herzog, a former chief of staff at the Israeli ministry of defence.

"But there is a chance that it could hold for a significant period of time, if all goes well," he told Reuters.

Egypt, an important U.S. ally now under Islamist leadership, took centre stage in diplomacy to halt the bloodshed. Cairo has walked a fine line between its sympathies for Hamas, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood to which President Mohamed Mursi belongs, and its need to preserve its 1979 peace treaty with Israel and its ties with Washington, its main aid donor.

Announcing the agreement in Cairo, Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohamed Kamel Amr said mediation had "resulted in understandings to cease fire, restore calm and halt the bloodshed".

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, standing beside Amr, thanked Mursi for peace efforts that showed "responsibility, leadership" in the region.

The Gaza conflict erupted in a Middle East already shaken by last year's Arab uprisings that toppled several veteran U.S.-backed leaders, including Egypt's Hosni Mubarak, and by a civil war in Syria, where President Bashar al-Assad is fighting for survival.

In his call with Netanyahu, Obama in turn repeated U.S. commitment to Israel's security and promised to seek funds for a joint missile defence program, the White House said.

BUS BOMBING

The ceasefire was forged despite a bus bomb explosion that wounded 15 Israelis in Tel Aviv earlier in the day and despite more Israeli air strikes that killed 10 Gazans. It was the first serious bombing in Israel's commercial capital since 2006.

Israel, the United States and the European Union all classify Hamas as a terrorist organization. It seized the Gaza Strip from the Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in 2007 in a brief but bloody war with his Fatah movement.

"This is a critical moment for the region," Clinton said. "Egypt's new government is assuming the responsibility and leadership that has long made this country a cornerstone for regional stability and peace."

In Amman, U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon urged both sides to stick to their ceasefire pledges. "There may be challenges implementing this agreement," he said, urging "maximum restraint".

(Additional reporting by Noah Browning in Gaza, Ori Lewis, Allyn Fisher-Ilan and Crispian Balmer in Jerusalem, Yasmine Saleh, Shaimaa Fayed and Tom Perry in Cairo, Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman and Margaret Chadbourn in Washington; Writing by Alistair Lyon and David Stamp; Editing by Louise Ireland)

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AP Exclusive: Syrian rebels seize base, arms trove

BASE OF THE 46TH REGIMENT, Syria (AP) — After a nearly two-month siege, Syrian rebels overwhelmed a large military base in the north of the country and made off with tanks, armored vehicles and truckloads of munitions that rebel leaders say will give them a boost in the fight against President Bashar Assad‘s army.

The rebel capture of the base of the Syrian army’s 46th Regiment is a sharp blow to the government’s efforts to roll back rebels gains and shows a rising level of organization among opposition forces.

More important than the base’s fall, however, are the weapons the rebels found inside.

At a rebel base where the much of the haul was taken after the weekend victory, rebel fighters unloaded half a dozen large trucks piled high with green boxes full of mortars, artillery shells, rockets and rifles taken from the base. Parked nearby were five tanks, two armored vehicles, two rocket launchers and two heavy-caliber artillery cannons.

Around 20 Syrian soldiers captured in the battle were put to work carrying munitions boxes, barefoot and stripped to the waist. Rebels refused to let reporters talk to them or see where they were being held.

“There has never been a battle before with this much booty,” said Gen. Ahmad al-Faj of the rebels Joint Command, a grouping of rebel brigades that was involved in the siege. Speaking on Monday at the rebel base, set up in a former customs office at Syria’s Bab al-Hawa border crossing with Turkey, he said the haul would be distributed among the brigades.

For months, Syria’s rebels have gradually been destroying government checkpoints and taking over towns in the northern provinces of Idlib and Aleppo along the Turkish border.

Rebel fighters say that weapons seized in such battles have been essential to their transformation from ragtag brigades into forces capable of challenging Assad’s professional army. Cross-border arms smuggling from Turkey and Iraq has also played a role, although the most common complaint among rebel fighters is that they lack ammunition and heavy weapons, munitions and anti-aircraft weapons to fight Assad’s air force.

It is unclear how many government bases the rebels have overrun during the 20-month conflict, mostly because they rarely try to hold captured facilities. Staying in the captured bases would make them sitting ducks for regime airstrikes.

“Their strategy is to hit and run,” said Elias Hanna, a retired Lebanese army general and Beirut-based strategic analyst. “They’re trying to hurt the regime where it hurts by bisecting and compartmentalizing Syria in order to dilute the regime’s power.”

The 46th Regiment was a major pillar of the government’s force near the northern city of Aleppo, Syria’s economic hub, and its fall cuts a major supply line to the regime’s army, Hanna said. Government forces have been battling rebels for months over control of Aleppo.

“It’s a tactical turning point that may lead to a strategic shift,” he said.

At the 46th Regiment’s base, about 25 kilometers (15 miles) west of Aleppo, the main three-story command building showed signs of the battle — its walls punctured apparently from rebel rocket attacks. The smaller barracks buildings scattered around the compound, about 2.6 square kilometers (1 square mile) in size, had been looted, with mattresses overturned. A number of buildings had been torched.

Reporters from The Associated Press who visited the base late Monday saw no trace of the government troops who had been defending it — other than the dead bodies of seven soldiers.

Two of them, in camouflage uniforms, lay outside the command building. One of them was missing his head, apparently blown off in an explosion.

The rest were in a nearby clinic. Four dead soldiers were on stretchers set on the floor, one with a large gash in his arm, another with what appeared to be a large shrapnel hole in the back of his head. The last lay on a gurney in another room, his arms and legs bandaged, a bullet hole in his cheek and a splatter of blood on the wall and ceiling behind him as if he had been shot where he lay.

It could not be determined how or when the soldiers had been killed.

The final assault that took the base came after more than 50 days of siege that left the soldiers inside demoralized, according to fighters who took part.

Working together and communicating by radio, a number of different rebels groups divided up the area surrounding the base and each cut the regime’s supply lines, said Abdullah Qadi, a rebel field commander. Over the course of the siege, dozens of soldiers defected, some telling the rebels that those inside were short of food, Qadi said.

The rebels decided to attack Saturday afternoon when they felt the soldiers inside were weak and the rebels had enough ammunition to finish the battle, Qadi said. The battle was over by nightfall on Sunday. Seven rebel fighters were killed in the battle, said al-Faj of the rebels’ Joint Command. Other rebel leaders gave similar numbers.

It remains unclear how many soldiers remained in the base when the rebels launched their attack and what happened to them.

Al-Faj said all soldiers inside were either killed or captured. He said he didn’t know how many were killed, but that the rebels had taken about 50 prisoners, all of whom would be tried in a rebel court. Aside from the 20 prisoners seen at the rebel’s Bab al-Hawa base, the AP was unable to see any other captured soldiers.

The Syrian government does not respond to requests for comment on military affairs and said nothing about the base’s capture. It says the rebels are terrorists backed by foreign powers that seek to destroy the country.

Disorganization has plagued the Syrian opposition since the start of the anti-Assad uprising in March 2011, with exile groups pleading for international help even when they have no control over those fighting inside of Syria.

A newly formed Syrian opposition coalition received a boost Tuesday, when Britain officially recognized it as the sole representative of the Syrian people.

The National Coalition of the Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces was formed in the Gulf nation of Qatar on Oct. 11 under pressure from the United States for a stronger, more united opposition body to serve as a counterweight to more extremist forces.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague said Tuesday the body’s members gave assurances to be a “moderate political force committed to democracy” and that the West must “support them and deny space to extremist groups.”

The United States and the European Union have both spoken well of the body but stopped short of offering it full recognition.

Key to the body’s success will be its ability to build ties with the disparate rebel groups fighting inside Syria. Many rebel leaders say they don’t recognize the new body, and a group of extremist Islamist factions on Monday rejected it, announcing that they had formed an “Islamic state” in Aleppo.

Anti-regime activists say nearly 40,000 people have been killed since Syria’s crisis started 20 months ago.

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Associated Press write Elizabeth Kennedy contributed reporting from Beirut, Lebanon.

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One Direction’s 2nd CD hits No. 1, sells 540,000

NEW YORK (AP) — One Direction‘s “Take Me Home” is the taking the boys to the top of the charts — and to new heights.

The group’s sophomore album has sold 540,000 in its first week, according to Nielsen SoundScan. It’s the year’s third-highest debut behind Taylor Swift‘s “Red,” which sold 1.2 million units its first week earlier this month, and Mumford & Sons’ “Babel,” which sold more than 600,000 albums in September in its debut week.

“We just want to say a massive thanks to all the fans who have supported us,” band member Harry Styles, 18, said in an interview Tuesday from London. “We can send tweets and thank them, but 140 characters is never going be enough to say how much it means.”

The album also debuted at No. 1 in the United Kingdom this week and is No. 1 in more than 30 countries, Columbia Records said Wednesday. The fivesome’s debut, “Up All Night,” came in at No. 2 in the United Kingdom last year; it was just released in March in America, where it hit No. 1 and has achieved platinum status.

“We were a little bit nervous about how people were going to take it,” 19-year-old Niall Horan said of the new album during tour rehearsals. “Everyone gets that second album syndrome.”

They say though they’re excited, they won’t be celebrating too much: “We’re finishing rehearsing soon and we’re going home to bed.”

One Direction, who placed third on the U.K. version of “The X Factor” in 2010, is signed to Simon Cowell’s Syco label imprint. In just a year, the band has become worldwide sensations, thanks to its feverish fans. They released a book and have a 3D movie planned. They also made the cut for Barbara Walters’ most fascinating people of 2012 list, which includes New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and U.S. gold medalist Gabby Douglas.

One Direction says those experiences have helped the group mature.

“We’ve been working hard. We’re starting to grow up,” Horan said. “We’re still young, but we’ve passed the initial teenage years. …We’ve grown up quite quick in the job we have to do and we became a lot more independent.”

The group — which includes Zayn Malik, Liam Payne and Louis Tomlinson — will launch a worldwide tour in February. They hope to work with Katy Perry and are still trying to adjust to the celebrity and fame that has taken over their lives.

“I can see how it gets to people. I guess it’s quite easy to get wrapped up in it all,” Styles said. “We do the same things every other lad our age does. We go out, we have fun, we meet girls and stuff like that. Sometimes it gets written about, which, yeah, we think about it and it’s absolutely crazy. It’s still a bit weird thinking that that’s the way it is.”

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Online:

http://www.onedirectionmusic.com/us/home/

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Gaza shakes, Israelis killed as Clinton seeks truce

GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli air strikes shook the Gaza Strip and Palestinian rockets struck across the border as U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton held talks in Jerusalem in the early hours of Wednesday, seeking a truce that can hold back Israel's ground troops.

Egypt's new Islamist government is mediating talks and had floated hopes for a ceasefire by late Tuesday between Israel and Hamas, the Islamist movement controlling Gaza. However, by the time Clinton met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, it was clear there would be more argument, and more violence, first.

Hamas leaders in Cairo accused the Jewish state of failing to respond to proposals and said an announcement on holding fire would not come before daylight on Wednesday. Israel Radio quoted an Israeli official saying a truce was held up due to "a last-minute delay in the understandings between Hamas and Israel."

An initial halt to attacks may, however, not see the sides stand their forces down from battle stations immediately. Clinton, who flies to Cairo to see Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi later on Wednesday, spoke of a deal "in the days ahead."

Like most Western powers, Washington shuns Hamas as an obstacle to peace and has blamed it for the Gaza conflagration. A U.N. Security Council statement condemning the conflict was blocked on Tuesday by the United States, which complained that it "failed to address the root cause," the Palestinian rockets.

As Clinton arrived in Israel after nightfall, Israel was stepping up its bombardment from air and sea. At one point munitions slammed into Gaza at a rate of one every 10 minutes.

Gazan rocket fire waned overnight but resumed before dawn on Wednesday with six launches, Israel said. No one was hurt.

After seven days of hostilities that have killed over 130 Palestinians and five Israelis, both sides are looking for more than a return to the sporadic calm that has prevailed across the blockaded enclave since Israel ended a much more devastating air and ground offensive four years ago.

ELECTION

Netanyahu, who faces an election in two months that he is, for now, favored to win, told Clinton he wanted a "long-term" solution. Failing that, Netanyahu made clear, he stood ready to step up the military campaign to silence Hamas' rockets.

Hamas for its part is exploring the opportunities that last year's Arab Spring has given it to enjoy favor from the new Islamist governments of states once ruled by U.S. proteges, and from Sunni Gulf powers keen to woo it away from Shi'ite Iran. It has used longer-range missiles, some sent by Tehran, and hopes to eclipse Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Hamas has spoken of an easing of Israel's blockade on the 40-km (25-mile) slice of Mediterranean coast that is home to 1.7 million people. It may count on some sympathy from Mursi, though Egypt's first freely elected leader, whose Muslim Brotherhood inspired Hamas' founders, has been careful to stick by the 1979 peace deal with Israel struck by Cairo's former military rulers.

Clinton, who broke off from an Asian tour with President Barack Obama and assured Netanyahu of "rock-solid" U.S. support for Israel's security, spoke of seeking a "durable outcome" and of Egypt's "responsibility" for promoting peace.

She repeated international calls for the kind of lasting, negotiated, comprehensive Israeli-Palestinian settlement that has eluded the two peoples for decades - something neither of the two warring parties seems seriously to be anticipating.

"In the days ahead, the United States will work with our partners here in Israel and across the region toward an outcome that bolsters security for the people of Israel, improves conditions for the people of Gaza and moves toward a comprehensive peace for all people of the region," Clinton said.

"It is essential to de-escalate the situation in Gaza. The rocket attacks from terrorist organizations inside Gaza on Israeli cities and towns must end and a broader calm restored," she said.

"SELF-DEFENCE"

Netanyahu, who has appeared in no immediate rush to repeat the invasion of winter 2008-09 in which over 1,400 Palestinians died, said: "If there is a possibility of achieving a long-term solution to this problem with diplomatic means, we prefer that.

"But if not, I'm sure you understand that Israel will have to take whatever action is necessary to defend its people."

As Israeli aircraft have carried out hundreds of strikes on rocket stores, launchpads and suspected Hamas command posts since assassinating the head of its military wing a week ago. Tens of thousands of Israeli soldiers have been preparing tanks and infantry units for a possible invasion.

During the night, explosions again rocked the city of Gaza and other parts of the Strip, while rockets from the enclave, some essentially home-made, others Iranian-designed and smuggled through tunnels from Egypt, landed in southern Israel.

One reached as far as Rishon Lezion, near Tel Aviv, on Tuesday, the latest to jar Israel's metropolis, long untroubled by Palestinian attacks. Another rocket fell close to Jerusalem, the holy city claimed by both sides in the conflict.

Medical officials in Gaza said 31 Palestinians were killed on Tuesday. An Israeli soldier and a civilian died when rockets exploded near the Gaza frontier, police and the army said.

Gaza medical officials say 138 people have died in Israeli strikes, mostly civilians, including 34 children. In all, five Israelis have died, including three civilians killed last week.

AMMUNITION STORES

Obama, whose relations with the hawkish Netanyahu have long been strained, has said he wants a diplomatic solution, rather than a possible Israeli ground operation in the densely populated territory, home to 1.7 million Palestinians.

Israel's military said it targeted overnight more than 100 sites in Gaza, including rocket launchers, tunnels and the Ministry of Internal Security, used by Hamas as a command center. Israeli police said more than 150 rockets had been fired from Gaza by Tuesday evening.

"No country would tolerate rocket attacks against its cities and against its civilians," Netanyahu said with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who arrived in Jerusalem from talks in Cairo, at his side. "Israel cannot tolerate such attacks."

Critics have accused Israel of using disproportionate force that has killed civilians. Israel accuses Hamas of putting Gaza's people in harm's way by siting rockets among them.

Media groups have criticized attacks on Gaza media facilities. On Tuesday, three local journalists died in air strikes on their vehicles.

A building housing AFP's bureau was bombed. The French news agency said its staff were unhurt. Israel's military said it had been targeting a Hamas intelligence centre in the tower.

Hamas executed six Palestinians accused of spying for Israel, who a security source quoted by Hamas Aqsa radio said had been "caught red-handed" with "filming equipment to take footage of positions." The radio said they had been shot.

Militants on a motorcycle dragged the body of one of the men through the streets.

A delegation of nine Arab ministers, led by the Egyptian foreign minister, visited Gaza in a further signal of heightened Arab solidarity with the Palestinians.

(Additional reporting by Cairo bureau; Writing by Alastair Macdonald; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

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Turbulence on Cuba-Italy flight leaves 30 bruised

ROME (AP) — An airliner flying from Havana to Milan abruptly plunged some 1,000 meters (3,300 feet) when it hit unusually strong turbulence over the Atlantic on Monday, terrifying passengers and leaving some 30 people aboard with bruises and scrapes, airline officials said.

The flight continued to Milan’s Malpensa airport after the plane’s captain determined that it suffered no structural damage and two passengers who are physicians found no serious injuries, Giulio Buzzi, head of the pilots division at Neos Air, told Sky TG24 TV.

The ANSA news agency quoted bruised passenger Edoardo De Lucchi as saying meals were being served when suddenly there was “10 seconds of terror.” He recounted how plates went flying and some passengers not wearing seatbelts bounced about.

Buzzi had said that the drop measured some 3,000 meters (10,000 feet) in a cloudless sky. But Milan daily’s Corriere della Sera’s web site, quoting Neos official Davide Martini, later reported that the plane first bounced up some 500 meters (1,650 feet), then dropped some 1,000 meters (3,300 feet) to some 500 meters (1,650 feet) below the original altitude.

Europe News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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