Airlines’ On-Time Performance Rises

Rich Addicks for The New York Times

Delta Air Lines employees monitor ground traffic from a tower at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.

ATLANTA — Next time you dawdle at the duty-free store or an airport bar, thinking you have a few more minutes until your flight is set to go, know this: the plane’s doors might have already closed.

Rich Addicks for The New York Times

A customer checking her bag. Delta installed bag check-in computers on boarding ramps.

There is a lot to complain about in air travel, particularly during the holiday season, with seats and overhead bins filled to capacity and the airlines charging fees for everything from a few inches of extra leg room to a bite to eat. But there is a nugget of good news. The number of flights leaving, and arriving, on time has improved significantly in recent years.

That is partly the result of the airlines flying fewer flights. But it is also because some airlines are focusing more on getting their planes out of the gate on schedule.

“There has been a lot of focus on improving performance across the industry,” said Peter McDonald, United’s chief operations officer. With carry-on space at a premium, he said passengers are also eager to board early. “There’s not a lot of hanging out at the bar until the last minute anymore.”

John Fechushak, Delta Air Lines’ director of operations in Atlanta, compared the daily task to “putting together a puzzle with different pieces every day.”

Here is a sampling of what Delta, for instance, looks at each day for each flight. How many minutes did it take for a plane to reach its gate after landing? Was the cabin door opened within three minutes? How soon were bags loaded in the hold? Did boarding start 35 minutes before takeoff? Were the cabin doors closed three minutes ahead of schedule?

So far this year, 83 percent of all flights took off within 15 minutes of schedule, the highest level since 2003, according to the Department of Transportation, which compiled figures through September. But that average belies a wide range of airline performances.

Hawaiian Airlines, helped by good weather for much of the year, topped the rankings, with 95 percent of flights leaving on time. At US Airways, 89 percent of departures were on time in that period, while Delta had 87 percent.

The biggest laggard this year has been United, which is struggling with its merger with Continental Airlines. The carrier has had three major computer problems this year, including two that crashed the airline’s passenger reservation system, stranding thousands of travelers and causing significant delays and cancellations. Its on-time departure rate, as a result, was 76 percent this year, the industry’s lowest.

American Airlines, which is going through bankruptcy proceedings and has been dealing with contentious labor relations, has also performed poorly. It delayed or canceled hundreds of flights in recent months after pilots called in sick or reported more mechanical problems. The airline also canceled scores of flight after seats were improperly bolted on some of its planes. As a result, nearly 40 percent of American’s flights were late in September.

Government statistics, however, do not provide the full picture: smaller carriers, like ExpressJet and SkyWest Airlines, which operate regional flights for Delta, United and US Airways, generally have lower on-time performance than their partners.

On-time statistics also vary widely by month, with the worst months in August and January, when summer storms, holiday travel or winter weather cause more disruptions. There are also single events that throw off the airlines: statistics, for instance, will be skewed for October by Hurricane Sandy, which shut down air travel through much of the East Coast and caused more than 19,000 flight cancellations.

Carriers have strong incentives to get planes out on time. Airlines now operate schedules that leave little wiggle room. Airplanes typically fly to several places every day, so any delayed flights, especially early in the day, can cascade through the system like falling dominoes and bedevil flight planners all day. Airlines often have to burn more fuel to try to make up for lost time, or make new arrangements for passengers who miss connections.

Airlines have long padded flight times to make up for congestion at airports or delays caused by air traffic controllers. Even so, passengers still expect their flight to take off and land at the time printed on their ticket.

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Israel, Hamas keep up attacks as talks continue in Egypt

GAZA CITY — As negotiators worked on a tenuous cease-fire deal, Israel and Hamas pounded each other for a sixth day and anger rose in the Gaza Strip over the increasing number of casualties.

Hopes for a truce grew Monday night when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened Cabinet members to discuss the details of what was said to be a multiphase, multiyear cease-fire agreement.

Officials in Egypt, where the talks were underway, expressed cautious optimism. Arab League leaders and United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who was visiting the region, were trying to help negotiate a deal. The White House said President Obama, who is visiting Asia, called Netanyahu and Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi on Monday.

Israel is seeking assurances from Egypt that Hamas will halt rocket fire into Israel and not be allowed to rebuild the weapon caches that Israel has destroyed in recent days. Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, wants an end to the land and sea blockade that has crippled its economy, and to targeted killings of its leaders by Israel.

Any sort of agreement must overcome huge obstacles. Israel views Hamas as a terrorist organization and the Islamist militant group refuses to recognize Israel's right to exist.

Even if the two don't alter those stances, any internationally endorsed truce would usher in a new phase in their relationship. Previously Israel and Hamas have refused direct negotiations, occasionally reaching informal agreements brokered through intermediaries, such as last year's deal to release captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.

There are sizable risks for both sides, but also opportunities, said Doron Avital, a lawmaker with Israel's centrist Kadima party and a former commander of an elite military unit.

Hamas would win some of the international legitimacy it craves, but it would also need to moderate its behavior, just as the Palestine Liberation Organization did after signing the Oslo peace accords in 1993.

"It might elevate the status of Hamas, but that will also mean that Hamas will have to play realpolitik," Avital said. "It can't stay a terrorist organization forever. There's an interesting potential here."

Heated comments by Hamas political chief Khaled Meshaal during a Cairo news conference Monday underscored the level of animosity. He called Netanyahu a "child killer" and "murderer."

"It is Netanyahu who asked for a truce," Meshaal said. "Gazans don't even want a truce."

For Israel, besides gaining an end to rocket attacks from Gaza, a deal might start the process of encouraging Hamas to become more moderate. And if Egypt guarantees an agreement, it would be directly invested in keeping Hamas unarmed.

With no cease-fire in place, Israel has massed soldiers and armor along the Gaza border in preparation for a possible invasion. But ground fighting would almost certainly lead to more Israeli and Palestinian casualties, and voices on both sides have cautioned against it.

Some said the negotiations may have led to an uptick in violence in recent days, as each side attempts to intimidate the other before a truce is called.

Palestinian casualties were relatively low in the first days of the conflict, but have increased as Israel's air campaign hit targets in more populated areas. On Monday, Israel attacked the Sharouk communications building in Gaza City where it said four senior members of the Islamic Jihad militant group were meeting.

Among the dead was Ramez Harb, a Palestinian journalist. Israel said he was a legitimate target because he served in the information department of Islamic Jihad.

Hamas' Health Ministry said 107 people had been killed in Gaza, including more than two dozen children. At least 850 people had been wounded.

Three Israelis have died in the barrage of rockets from Gaza and a dozen have been wounded, including three on Monday. An additional 135 rockets were fired Monday, pushing the total over the last week to more than 1,000. Hamas has fired rockets at Tel Aviv and Jerusalem for the first time.

The White House said Obama, in his conversation with Morsi, emphasized that the rocket fire into Israel must end.

In a somber sign of the climbing death toll, hundreds of Gazans crowded around the Shifa Hospital morgue Monday morning in a familiar ritual: collecting the bodies of loved ones.

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A Google-a-Day Puzzle for Nov. 20

Our good friends at Google run a daily puzzle challenge and asked us to help get them out to the geeky masses. Each day’s puzzle will task your googling skills a little more, leading you to Google mastery. Each morning at 12:01 a.m. Eastern time you’ll see a new puzzle posted here.

SPOILER WARNING:
We leave the comments on so people can work together to find the answer. As such, if you want to figure it out all by yourself, DON’T READ THE COMMENTS!

Also, with the knowledge that because others may publish their answers before you do, if you want to be able to search for information without accidentally seeing the answer somewhere, you can use the Google-a-Day site’s search tool, which will automatically filter out published answers, to give you a spoiler-free experience.

And now, without further ado, we give you…

TODAY’S PUZZLE:

Note: Ad-blocking software may prevent display of the puzzle widget.

Ken is a husband and father from the San Francisco Bay Area, where he works as a civil engineer. He also wrote the NYT bestselling book "Geek Dad: Awesomely Geeky Projects for Dads and Kids to Share."

Read more by Ken Denmead

Follow @fitzwillie and @wiredgeekdad on Twitter.

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International Emmys honor Lear, Alda, South American shows

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Television legend Norman Lear and veteran actor Alan Alda received special honors at the International Emmy Awards on Monday, while programming from South America dominated the competition, with Argentina and Brazil each winning two Emmys.

Lear, best known as creator of the ground-breaking 1970s hit comedy “All in the Family,” which premiered during a time of social upheaval and tackled issues such as race and women’s rights, said “the world will, and needs to, come together through the arts” as he accepted the honor.

The producer and writer received a special 40th anniversary Founders Award from the International Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, as did Alda, star of the long-running Korean-war set comedy, M*A*S*H* about doctors on the front lines.

Alda paid tribute to “the men and women in the hospital tents,” referring to real-life medical personnel who struggle to treat war injured, who he noted usually go unmentioned at award shows.

“Glee” creator Ryan Murphy received the annual International Founders Award, which was presented by Oscar-winner Jessica Lange, a star of his current series “American Horror Story.”

Argentina won both acting categories, with honors going to actress Cristina Banegas for the dramatic series “Television x La Inclusion,” in which she plays the mother of an ailing child waging battle with health insurers; while Dario Grandinetti picked up the best actor award for his performance as a racist taxi driver in the same series.

It marked the first time both honors were won by actors from the same program.

Brazil scored wins for comedy series for “The Invisible Woman,” while “The Illusionist” was named outstanding telenovela.

In bestowing its prizes, the Emmys, which honor television produced outside the United States, extended their reach after years of domination and even sweeps by the United Kingdom, which this year won two, for best TV movie or miniseries “Black Mirror” and best documentary “Terry Pratchett: Choosing to Die.”

France, Germany and Australia each won one Emmy.

France took the best drama series prize for “Braquo season 2,” while Germany’s “Song of War” won for outstanding arts programming. The Australian franchise of the adventure competition “The Amazing Race” won the award for non-scripted, or reality, television.

The International Emmy directorate award went to Korean Broadcasting System president and CEO Dr. Kim In-Kyu.

Presenters at the ceremony, hosted by recently retired talk show host Regis Philbin, also included Victor Garber, Donnie Wahlberg, Cheyenne Jackson, Telenovela actress Edith González, German TV personalities Joko and Klaas and Indian actress Prerna Wanvari.

(Editing by Chris Michaud and Todd Eastham)

TV News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Global Update: Meningitis Vaccine Gets Longer Window Without Refrigeration

In what may prove to be a major advance for Africa’s “meningitis belt,” regulatory authorities have decided that a new meningitis vaccine could be stored without refrigeration for up to four days.

The announcement was made last week at a conference in Atlanta of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. While a few days may seem trivial, the hardest part of protecting poor countries is often keeping a vaccine cold while moving it from electrified cities to villages with no power. In antipolio drives, for example, the freezers, generators and fuel needed to make ice for the shoulder bags of vaccinators can cost more than the vaccine.

The new vaccine, MenAfriVac, made in India for 50 cents a dose, was introduced in 2010. In bad years, epidemics during the hot harmattan winds have killed as many as 25,000 Africans and disabled 50,000 more. In Chad this year, vaccination drove down cases to near zero in districts where it was used, while others nearby had serious outbreaks.

Experts decided that the vaccine is safe for four days as long as it stays below 104 degrees.

While temperatures get higher than that in Africa, said Dr. Godwin Enwere, medical director for the Meningitis Vaccine Project, teams normally get the vaccine out of coolers at dawn, drive to villages and finish before the day heats up. Other experts said it should be kept in the shade and monitored with colored paper “dots” that darken after hours in the heat.

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Election, Storm and Shaky Economy Affect Holiday Shopping

Many retailers have more than the usual riding on sales beginning this Thanksgiving weekend.

The presidential election pushed holiday shopping later than usual because some toy and game makers held off on their big introductions for maximum attention. The aftereffects of Hurricane Sandy have included logistics problems and merchandise delivery delays. And some retailers, trying to keep inventory lean during uncertain economic times, have given themselves little room for error: shipments of holiday toys, for instance, are down 13 percent this year, to the lowest level since 2007, according to the global trade research firm Panjiva.

All of that makes for a particularly strange holiday season, retailers and analysts say.

“The election sucks all of the oxygen out of the room in terms of attention,” said Eric Hirshberg, the chief executive of Activision Publishing, the video game company. “A lot of the best media inventory goes to the candidates. It gets more expensive because there’s this premium demand from the candidates.”

Hasbro is adding more shades of its Furby toy through the end of the year, and Mattel last week introduced a new Monster High video game. Last year, Activision introduced its big Call of Duty release in early November. This year, though, it did not release Call of Duty: Black Ops II until Nov. 13.

“We were also worried that if we released Call of Duty before the election, no one would show up to vote,” Mr. Hirshberg said. (He was speaking facetiously, but given that the game’s retail sales were more than $500 million in the first 24 hours after it made its debut, he may have a point.)

And while retailers were expecting the election to delay some shopping, they were not expecting a storm. RetailNext, which tracks shopper traffic, said that store visits and sales in the Northeast were down about 25 percent during the storm and afterward.

Major retailers have said the election and Hurricane Sandy affected sales. Saks and Target said the beginning of November was choppy, and Macy’s said that the storm seemed to have pushed sales later into the season.

“Some of it is lost, most is postponed,” Karen M. Hoguet, Macy’s chief financial officer, said of demand. “It’s a question of timing.” And Kohl’s chief executive, Kevin Mansell, said the company typically experienced sales slowdowns pre-election and postelection, “and then the business kind of accelerates.”

The late introductions and delayed shopping put toy companies, in particular, in a difficult position: they were under pressure to make hit toys, largely via preorders and layaway, months before people would actually be buying them. Retailers and toy companies started trying to gauge demand early, looking for preliminary data on which items were unpopular and which ones were stars.

Walmart started layaway a month earlier this year versus last year, and Toys “R” Us also started holiday layaway earlier, giving the stores a jump on things. Amazon and other e-commerce sites are promoting tools like preorders, wish lists and gift registries — anything that can give them a sense of what people will buy as the Christmas season churns on.

Preorders are “an important tool to gauge customer demand, and get some feedback from our customers earlier in the process,” said John Alteio, director of toys and games for Amazon. Product introductions later in the year “can be challenging in the toy industry, so we have to draw some comparisons when we can and make the best estimate.”

Paul Solomon, co-chief executive of Moose Toys, which makes Micro Chargers and The Trash Pack, said preorders and layaway were becoming increasingly important. “It’s giving us a good read, early, as to how things are performing, and it’s even more crucial now to make a lot of noise about the brand earlier than in previous years,” he said.

“Preorders are kind of a cottage industry for games like Call of Duty,” Mr. Hirshberg, the Activision chief, said. The company began promoting the game in March, when it ran spots during the NBA playoffs.

In May, it released an ad featuring Oliver North, the national security aide at the heart of the Iran-contra affair and a consultant on the game, talking about the future of warfare. It accepted preorders starting in May. Through the summer, Activision revealed different facets of the game at various conferences, and this month it began running international television, outdoor, digital and mobile ads.

“There’s not a clean math equation that says this many preorders equals this many sales, but it’s confidence-building for us in terms of orders, in terms of production,” Mr. Hirshberg said.

John Barbour, the chief executive of LeapFrog, learned the value of early promotion after last year, when the children’s tablet LeapPad1 became a surprise hit. “It was very hard for me to gauge how successful it would be. Everyone took their best shots,” he said. By November and December, the LeapPad was selling out, and Mr. Barbour had to pay a premium to source tablet screens, and paid for airplanes to fly in extra inventory.

This year, he focused on early promotions that would translate into preorders and layaway, so toy retailers could accurately adjust their orders in time for the holidays. A good response early on means not just bigger orders from retailers, he said, but also more promotional support and more shelf space: it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

“For retailers, it’s phenomenal. It brings demand forward, and they get a better read on what they’re going to need,” he said. When the LeapPad2 became available for preorders in August, it sold as much in two days of preorders as it did in its first week on sale last year, Mr. Barbour said.

He is being careful not to get too jubilant, though. “The penalties for having too much inventory are greater than the penalties for being a little bit short,” he said.

Still, some brands were ignoring the strange events of this holiday season and proceeding as usual. Stephen Bebis, the chief executive of Brookstone, said some products were becoming available in the final months of the year, but that was because of production delays, not strategy.

“People are still going to have to buy gifts for Christmas no matter who’s the president,” he said.

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Israeli strike kills 9 members of Gaza family

GAZA CITY — An Israeli airstrike Sunday killed at least nine members of the same family — mostly women and children — in the deadliest single attack and worst civilian tragedy since the fighting in the Gaza Strip began last week.

Though Israel has expressed pride over its five-day military campaign for limiting civilian casualties, the strike against the Dalu home in Gaza City was likely to test the limits of international support it has received in the battle to stop militants from firing rockets at Israeli cities.

Yet despite immediate condemnation by Hamas, the militant group that controls Gaza, the tragedy did not appear to derail cease-fire negotiations underway in Cairo, where Israeli and Palestinian representatives are meeting. In fact, the high civilian death toll from Sunday's attack only increased the international pressure on both sides to end hostilities, coming on a day both President Obama and British officials raised concerns about the conflict expanding into a ground war.

Israeli military officials said they were targeting a Hamas militant in his home, but provided no further information. The Dalu family was believed to have links to Hamas' military wing and had been targeted by Israel before.

But there were conflicting reports about whether the strike killed the home's owner, Jamal Dalu, or his son Mohamed. Hamas' Health Ministry put the death toll at 11, which may include two neighbors. More than 20 people were injured.

On its website, the military wing of Hamas said that the attack on the family "will not go unpunished" and that the group had begun firing rockets at Israel in response. By Sunday night, Gaza militants had fired 114 rockets at southern Israel during the day, hitting buildings in Beersheba, Sderot and Ashdod. Five people were injured by shrapnel from a rocket in Ofakim, near the Gaza border.

The Israeli missile strike was so strong it destroyed the Dalu family's three-story building, blowing out windows blocks away and sending a charred mattress flying into the street.

For hours panicked neighbors and rescue workers clung to hope of finding survivors. While a bulldozer pulled apart pieces of the collapsed walls, volunteers in orange vests scrambled over the wreckage and searched for signs of life.

In a grim, heart-wrenching scene that played out over 90 minutes, the bodies of four children were pulled out one after another.

Each time they found a body, some of the men would yell excitedly and wave their hands at the bulldozer's driver to stop digging, while others would climb down to retrieve the child. As mobs of onlookers chanted "God is great," a rescue worker would race toward a waiting ambulance with a limp, dust-covered child.

"This is a massacre," shouted a distraught Nasser Dalu, 56, a cousin and neighbor, as he watched his relatives being pulled from debris. "What did these children do?"

Israel Defense Forces said it has launched more than 1,000 airstrikes over the last five days, mostly targeting weapons caches and military compounds, in an attempt to put an end to rocket and mortar attacks on communities in southern Israel.

It expanded its targets to include the homes of Hamas leaders; Gaza officials said 17 homes were attacked on Sunday alone. About the same time that the Dalu house was hit, Israel said it targeted Yiyhe Abia, the head of Hamas' rocket-firing squad, in his home nearby.

Sunday's airstrikes brought the death toll in Gaza to 69 people since Wednesday, including at least 24 civilians, hospital officials said. More than 660 Palestinians have been wounded.

Three Israelis were killed when a projectile fired from Gaza hit their apartment complex Thursday.

The strike on the Dalu home inflamed much of Arab world and within hours "aldalumassacre" had become a Twitter hashtag. Some compared the attack to the 2009 shelling of the Samouni house, when 21 members of the family were killed during the previous Israeli assault on Gaza.

The Dalu strike came at a delicate time in the Gaza conflict, as Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi has been trying to broker a long-term truce between Israel and Hamas. Despite the heated rhetoric and escalating violence, talks continued behind the scenes Sunday night, Hamas officials said.

Without an agreement soon, many fear Israel will launch a ground invasion. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his Cabinet on Sunday that Israel is "prepared for a significant expansion of the operation."

At a news conference in Bangkok, Thailand, Obama urged both sides to resolve their differences "without further escalation of violence in the region."

While repeating his previous statements that Israel has a right to press for an end to attacks on its people, Obama said, "If that can be accomplished without a ramping-up of military activity in Gaza, that's 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."

British Foreign Secretary William Hague shared Obama's concerns, telling Sky News television that "a ground invasion of Gaza would lose Israel a lot of the international support and sympathy that they have in this situation."

In addition to hitting the homes of Hamas officials, Israel expanded its targets to include buildings used by communications services, leaving several journalists injured early Sunday.

A 1:30 a.m. strike against one building destroyed the 11-floor offices of Al Quds television, a Hamas-affiliated network. Several journalists were seriously wounded, including one whose leg had to be amputated, witnesses said.

Cameraman Mohamed Akhras, 23, said he was working the night shift in case of any breaking stories and had just fallen asleep when the blast buried him and a colleague under furniture and debris.

"Israel targeted us because we are revealing the truth about their crimes," Akhras said, half his face dotted with small shrapnel cuts.

Israeli military officials defended the attacks against the Al Quds site and another Hamas-run communications facility, saying they were trying to destroy rooftop antennas used by militants to communicate.

edmund.sanders@latimes.com

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A Google-a-Day Puzzle for Nov. 19

Our good friends at Google run a daily puzzle challenge and asked us to help get them out to the geeky masses. Each day’s puzzle will task your googling skills a little more, leading you to Google mastery. Each morning at 12:01 a.m. Eastern time you’ll see a new puzzle posted here.

SPOILER WARNING:
We leave the comments on so people can work together to find the answer. As such, if you want to figure it out all by yourself, DON’T READ THE COMMENTS!

Also, with the knowledge that because others may publish their answers before you do, if you want to be able to search for information without accidentally seeing the answer somewhere, you can use the Google-a-Day site’s search tool, which will automatically filter out published answers, to give you a spoiler-free experience.

And now, without further ado, we give you…

TODAY’S PUZZLE:

Note: Ad-blocking software may prevent display of the puzzle widget.

Ken is a husband and father from the San Francisco Bay Area, where he works as a civil engineer. He also wrote the NYT bestselling book "Geek Dad: Awesomely Geeky Projects for Dads and Kids to Share."

Read more by Ken Denmead

Follow @fitzwillie and @wiredgeekdad on Twitter.

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Justin Bieber dominates at American Music Awards

America proved its Bieber Fever was strong: The teen singer dominated the American Music Awards on Sunday night.

Bieber‘s wins included the show’s top award, artist of the year. His mom joined him onstage as he collected the trophy, 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.

Bieber and Nicki Minaj performed together — and separately — at the AMAs, and were both multiple winners.

But 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.”

Bieber won favorite pop/rock male artist in the first award handed out at Sunday’s show 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.

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.

As Bieber won his second award, he was kissed on the neck by Jenny McCarthy, who presented the award.

“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.”

Bieber‘s red and black outfit seemed to be the night’s theme, as Taylor Swift and Usher wore similar ensembles.

Usher kicked off the three-hour 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.

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.” It’s worth noting that “Idol” judge Randy Jackson introduced Clarkson, the first-ever winner of the show. He also advised people to donate through Red Cross for Superstorm Sandy victims.

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.

___

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

___

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

___

Online:

http://beta.abc.go.com/shows/american-music-awards

Entertainment News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Daniel Stern, Who Studied Babies’ World, Dies at 78

Dr. Daniel Stern, a psychiatrist who increased the understanding of early human development by scrutinizing the most minute interactions between mothers and babies, died on Nov. 12 in Geneva. He was 78.

The cause was heart failure, said his wife, Dr. Nadia Bruschweiler Stern.

Dr. Stern was noted for his often poetic language in describing how children respond to their world — how they feel, think and see. He wrote one of his half-dozen books in the form of a diary by a baby. In another book, he told how mothers differ psychologically from women who do not have children. He coined the term “motherese” to describe a form of communication in which mothers are able to read even the slightest of babies’ emotional signals.

Dr. Stern, who did much of his research at what is now Weill Cornell Medical College and at the University of Geneva, drew inspiration from Jay S. Rosenblatt’s work with kittens at the American Museum of Natural History in the 1950s. Dr. Rosenblatt discovered that when he removed kittens from their cage, they made their way to a specific nipple of their mother’s even when they were as young as one day old. That finding demonstrated that learning occurs naturally at an exceptionally early age in a way staged experiments had not.

Dr. Stern videotaped babies from birth through their early years, and then studied the tapes second by second to analyze interactions between mother and child. He challenged the Freudian idea that babies go through defined critical phases, like oral and anal. Rather, he said, their development is continuous, with each phase layered on top of the previous one. The interactions are punctuated by intervals, sometimes only a few seconds long, of rest, solitude and reflection. As this process goes on, they develop a sense that other people can and will share in their feelings, and in that way develop a sense of self.

These interactions can underpin emotional episodes that occur years in the future. Citing one example in a 1990 interview with The Boston Globe, Dr. Stern told of a 13-month-old who grabbed for an electric plug. His alarmed mother, who moments before had been silent and loving, suddenly turned angry and sour. Two years later, the child heard a fairy tale about a wicked witch.

“He’s been prepared for that witch for years,” Dr. Stern said. “He’s already seen someone he loves turn into something evil. It’s perfectly believable for him. He maps right into it.”

Dr. Stern described such phenomena in 1985 in “The Interpersonal World of the Infant,” which the noted psychologist Stanley Spiegel, in an interview in The New York Times, called “the book of the decade in its influence on psychoanalytic theory.”

In recent years, Dr. Stern ventured beyond childhood development to examine the psychology of how people thought about time. In one experiment, he interviewed people in depth about a single brief moment at breakfast and found that it took them a full hour to describe all that went through their minds in 30 seconds. This resulted in the 2004 book “The Present Moment: In Psychotherapy and Everyday Life,” which called for people to appreciate every moment of experience and discussed the nature of memory.

In 2010, he published “Forms of Vitality: Exploring Dynamic Experience in Psychology, the Arts, Psychotherapy and Development,” which used new understandings of neuroscience to explain human empathy.

Dr. Stern, who wrote hundreds of scientific articles, also painted, wrote poetry and had friendships with important artists. He gave Jerome Robbins, the choreographer, the title for his “Dances at a Gathering.” His friend Robert Wilson, the avant-garde director and playwright, said Dr. Stern’s slow-motion baby films helped inspire his seven-hour “silent opera,” “Deafman Glance.”

“So many things are going on, and the baby is picking them up,” Mr. Wilson said.

Daniel Norman Stern was born in Manhattan on Aug. 16, 1934. He graduated from Harvard and completed his medical degree at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. After conducting psychopharmacology research at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., he did his residency in psychiatry at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. He later trained as a psychoanalyst at the Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research at Columbia.

Dr. Stern is survived by his wife, a physician who collaborated on much of his research; two sons, Michael and Adrien; three daughters, Maria, Kaia and Alice Stern; a sister, Ronnie Chalif; and 12 grandchildren.

Dr. Stern pointed out how the evolution of the human body bolstered mother-child interaction. He noted that the distance between the eyes of a baby at the breast and the mother’s eyes is about 10 inches, exactly the distance for the sharpest focus and clearest vision for a young infant.

“Her smile exerts its natural evocative powers in him and breathes a vitality into him,” he wrote. “It makes him resonate with the animation she feels and shows. His joy rises. Her smile pulls it out of him.”

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