U.S. judge approves settlement in BP class action suit

(Reuters) - A U.S. judge on Friday gave final approval to BP Plc's settlement with individuals and businesses who lost money and property in the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
The order only addressed the settlement of economic and property damage claims, not a separate medical benefits settlement for cleanup workers and others who say the spill made them sick.
BP has estimated that it will pay $7.8 billion to settle more than 100,000 claims in the class action litigation.
U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier initially approved the deal in May, but held a "fairness hearing" in November to weigh objections from about 13,000 claimants challenging the settlement to resolve some of BP's liability for the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history.
London-based BP's Macondo well spewed 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico over a period of 87 days. The torrent fouled shorelines from Texas to Alabama and eclipsed the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska in severity.
Lawyers for some affected parties had objected to the deal, reached in March between BP and lawyers representing plaintiffs ranging from restaurateurs, hoteliers, and oyster men who lost money from the spill. They argued that some claimants would be underpaid or unfairly excluded.
But in a 125-page order approving the settlement, Barbier called the deal "fair, reasonable and adequate," citing the low number of class members who objected or opted out.
BP welcomed the approval order in a statement, adding that the settlement resolves the majority of economic and property damage claims stemming from the accident.
"Today's decision by the Court is another important step forward for BP in meeting its commitment to economic and environmental restoration efforts in the Gulf and in eliminating legal risk facing the company," BP said.
Separate from the class action claims, BP has been locked in a year-long legal battle with the U.S. government and Gulf Coast states to settle billions of dollars in civil and criminal liability from the explosion.
In a settlement with the U.S. government announced last month, BP agreed to pay $4.5 billion in penalties and plead guilty to felony misconduct. The government also indicted the two highest-ranking BP supervisors aboard the Deepwater Horizon rig during the disaster, charging them with 23 criminal counts including manslaughter.
The class action case is In Re: Oil Spill by the Oil Rig "Deepwater Horizon" in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20, 2010, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, No. 10-2179.

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Senators write Sony, criticize 'Zero Dark Thirty'

WASHINGTON (AP) — The movie "Zero Dark Thirty" is misleading and "grossly inaccurate" in its suggestion that torture produced the tip that led the U.S. military to find terrorist leader Osama bin Laden, three senators said Wednesday in a letter to the head of Sony Pictures Entertainment.

The filmmakers dispute that interpretation and encourage people to see their movie, already considered a top Oscar contender, before characterizing it.

The members of the Senate Intelligence committee — Dianne Feinstein, Carl Levin and John McCain — insisted that Sony and its president and CEO, Michael Lynton, had an obligation to alter the movie and make clear that torture in the hunt for bin Laden was fiction and not based on fact.

"We are fans of many of your movies, and we understand the special role that movies play in our lives, but the fundamental problem is that people who see 'Zero Dark Thirty' will believe that the events it portrays are facts," the three senators wrote. "The film therefore has the potential to shape American public opinion in a disturbing and misleading manner."

McCain has insisted that the waterboarding of al-Qaida's No. 3 leader, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, did not provide information that led to the bin Laden's compound in Pakistan.

Last year, McCain asked then-CIA Director Leon Panetta for the facts, and he said the hunt for bin Laden did not begin with fresh information from Mohammed. In fact, the name of bin Laden's courier, Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, came from a detainee held in another country.

Feinstein, who heads the Intelligence committee, backed up McCain's assessment that waterboarding of Mohammed did not produce the tip that led to bin Laden.

In their letter to Sony, the lawmakers said the "use of torture in the fight against terrorism did severe damage to America's values and standing that cannot be justified or expunged. It remains a stain on our national conscience. We cannot afford to go back to these dark times, and with the release of 'Zero Dark Thirty,' the filmmakers and your production studio are perpetuating the myth that torture is effective. You have a social and moral obligation to get the facts right."

Director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal said in a statement from Sony that they depicted "a variety of controversial practices and intelligence methods that were used in the name of finding bin Laden."

Bigelow and Boal, who won Oscars for "The Hurt Locker," said the new film showed that no single method was responsible in the successful manhunt for bin Laden, and no single scene in isolation captures the total effort the movie dramatizes.

McCain said he watched the movie Monday night after receiving a copy.

"Zero Dark Thirty" is opening in New York and Los Angeles this week. It opens across the country next month.

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Arnold Schwarzenegger's "Ten" to kick off 2014

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Open Road Films will release Arnold Schwarzenegger's action thriller "Ten" nationwide on January 24, 2014, the company announced on Wednesday.

Directed by David Ayer ("End of Watch"), the former governor leads an elite DEA task force that takes on the world's deadliest drug cartels.

When the team executes a high-stakes raid on a cartel safe house, they think their work is done until, one-by-one, the 10 members start to be eliminated.

The film also stars Joe Manganiello, Sam Worthington, Harold Perrineau, Terrence Howard, Max Martini, Josh Holloway, Olivia Williams and Mireille Enos.

The original "Ten" screenplay is by Skip Woods ("X-Men Origins: Wolverine"). Bill Block, Paul Hanson, Joe Roth, Palak Patel and Al Ruddy produced the film.

Financing was by QED International.

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'Zero Dark Thirty' Is Now Officially Wrong About Torture

We already knew that Zero Dark Thirty messed up a couple of details about the bin Laden raid, but now, some senators would like the filmmakers to know they're straight up "incorrect." More specifically, Senators Diane Feinstein, Carl Levin and John McCain wrote in a letter addressed to Michael Lynton, chairman and CEO of Sony Pictures, that "Zero Dark Thirty is factually inaccurate, and we believe that you have an obligation to state that the role of torture in the hunt for Usama Bin Laden is not based on the facts, but rather part of the film's fictional narrative." They go on to say that the film encourages the minority of Americans who favor torture as an intelligence gathering technique. "This is false," the letter reads. "We know that cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment of prisoners is an unreliable and highly ineffective means of gathering intelligence."

RELATED: Members of Congress Mull Over Looking at Bin Laden's Death Photo

This is hardly the cut-and-dry issue the senators make it out to be, though. Ever since the initial details of what Glenn Greenwald called a White House "propaganda film," critics and pundits alike have been jousting over the scenes that depict torture. Mother Jones's Adam Serwer said as much as the senators' letter does about the film's potential for changing Americans' mind about torture. That is, if they think torture helped us find bin Laden, they'll probably think torture is a good thing. Greenwald said in a separate column that the film propagandizes the public to favorably view clear war crimes by the US government, based on pure falsehoods." (He loves the "p" word.) Critics of the critics said that torture happened, the film is fiction and, furthermore, most Americans haven't even seen the film, so who are we to say what they'll think. You can read more about these issues in our handy guide to the Zero Dark Thirty debate.

RELATED: Legislation Congress Wants After Bin Laden's Death

On a pretty fundamental level, though, Wednesday evening's letter is a pretty assertive gesture from the senators. And it's a gesture that Sony Pictures probably ought to respond to, especially in light of other developments in the Zero Dark Thirty controversy, like that tricky situation in which the Pentagon leaked sensitive information to the filmmakers. The rest of us are free to continue arguing about whether or not the torture in the film is warranted and even whether or not the government is lying when they say that torture didn't provide any clues about bin Laden's location. (The senators do provide a lot of evidence for their claim, however.) Zero Dark Thirty's filmmakers, however, now have to work within the reality that is an official letter from the Senate. Their film is now officially factually inaccurate. It should blend in nicely with the rest of the world's films that are "based on first-hand accounts of actual events." 

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China's airing of 'V for Vendetta' stuns viewers

BEIJING (AP) — Television audiences across China watched an anarchist antihero rebel against a totalitarian government and persuade the people to rule themselves. Soon the Internet was crackling with quotes of "V for Vendetta's" famous line: "People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people."

The airing of the movie Friday night on China Central Television stunned viewers and raised hopes that China is loosening censorship.

"V for Vendetta" never appeared in Chinese theaters, but it is unclear whether it was ever banned. An article on the Communist Party's People's Daily website says it was previously prohibited from broadcast, but the spokesman for the agency that approves movies said he was not aware of any ban.

Some commentators and bloggers think the broadcast could be CCTV producers pushing the envelope of censorship, or another sign that the ruling Communist Party's newly installed leader, Xi Jinping, is serious about reform.

"Oh God, CCTV unexpectedly put out 'V for Vendetta.' I had always believed that film was banned in China!" media commentator Shen Chen wrote on the popular Twitter-like Sina Weibo service, where he has over 350,000 followers.

Zhang Ming, a supervisor at a real estate company, asked on Weibo: "For the first time CCTV-6 aired 'V for Vendetta,' what to think, is the reform being deepened?"

The 2005 movie, based on a comic book, is set in an imagined future Britain with a fascist government. The protagonist wears a mask of Guy Fawkes, the 17th-century English rebel who tried to blow up Parliament. The mask has become a revolutionary symbol for young protesters in mostly Western countries, and it also has a cult-like status in China as pirated DVDs are widely available. Some people have used the image of the mask as their profile pictures on Chinese social media sites.

Beijing-based rights activist Hu Jia wrote on Twitter, which is not accessible to most Chinese because of government Internet controls: "This great film couldn't be any more appropriate for our current situation. Dictators, prisons, secret police, media control, riots, getting rid of 'heretics' ... fear, evasion, challenging lies, overcoming fear, resistance, overthrowing tyranny ... China's dictators and its citizens also have this relationship."

China's authoritarian government strictly controls print media, television and radio. Censors also monitor social media sites including Weibo. Programs have to be approved by the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, but people with knowledge of the industry say CCTV, the only company with a nationwide broadcast license, is entitled to make its own censorship decisions when showing a foreign movie.

"It is already broadcast. It is no big deal," said a woman who answered the phone at movie channel CCTV-6. "We also didn't anticipate such a big reaction."

The woman, who only gave her surname, Yang, said she would pass on questions to her supervisor, which weren't answered.

The spokesman for the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television said he had noticed the online reaction to the broadcast. "I've not heard of any ban on this movie," Wu Baoan said Thursday.

The film is available on video-on-demand platforms in China, where movie content also needs to be approved by authorities.

A political scientist at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences who used to work for CCTV said the film might have approval, or it could have been CCTV's own decision to broadcast it.

"Every media outlet knows there is a ceiling above their head," said Liu Shanying. "Sometimes we will work under the ceiling and avoid touching it. But sometimes we have a few brave ones who want to reach that ceiling and even express their discontent over the censor system.

"It is very possible that CCTV decided by itself" to broadcast the film, Liu said. If so, he added, it would have been "due to a gut feeling that China's film censorship will be loosened or reformed."

"V for Vendetta" was released in the United States in 2005 and around the world in 2006. China has a yearly quota on the numbers of foreign movies that can be imported on a revenue share basis, making it tough to get distribution approval. Other movies that failed to reach Chinese screens in 2006 include "Brokeback Mountain" and "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest." Chinese moviegoers that year were able to see "Mission: Impossible III" with Tom Cruise and "The Painted Veil," which was filmed in China and set in a Chinese village.

Warner Brothers, which produced and distributed "V for Vendetta," declined to comment.

China doesn't have a classification system, so all movies shown at its cinemas are open to adults and children of any age. A filmmaker and Beijing Film Academy professor, Xie Fei, published an open letter on Sina Weibo on Saturday calling for authorities to replace the movie censorship system that dates from the 1950s with a ratings system.

The airing of "V for Vendetta" raised some hopes about possible changes under Xi, who was publicly named China's new leader last month. He has already announced a trimmed-down style of leadership, calling on officials to reduce waste and unnecessary meetings and pomp. His reforms are aimed at pleasing a public long frustrated by local corruption.

State media say they have reduced reports on officials' trips as part of this drive. The official Xinhua News Agency warned this week that media outlets should "learn to play professionally in today's information age as an increasingly picky audience is constantly" putting them under scrutiny.

An American business consultant and author with high-level Chinese contacts said there is no less commitment to one-party rule in China, so any media reforms will only go so far.

"You can't have a totally free media as we would have in the West and still maintain the integrity of a one-party system," said Robert Lawrence Kuhn, who wrote the book "How China's Leaders Think." He said he thinks restrictions are being eased, "but it has to be limited."

The new leadership has to tread carefully, Kuhn said, because in the age of the Internet, talk about reforms won't be forgotten.

"High expectations, if they are not fulfilled, will create a worse situation," he said.

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2012 London Film Awards Announces Winners

"Beauty and the Breast" directed by Liliana Komorowska wins the London Film Awards’ top prize, the Gold Lion Award and Grand Jury Prize. “Womble” directed by Robert Pirouet wins the competition’s Special Jury Award.

London, UK (PRWEB) December 20, 2012
Jury Prizes and top award-winners of the 2012 London Film Awards were announced December 17th, 2012. The London Film Awards is London’s premiere film awards body which celebrates and awards the work of independent film's best and brightest contemporary filmmakers and screenwriters spanning the globe. The Official Jury selected one exclusive Gold Lion Award Winner for each official competition category, the awards’ highest and most esteemed honors. A full list of the 2012 winners can be found at the competition’s official website, http://www.londonfilmawards.com.

“Our 2012 competition marks an incredible year for the London Film Awards. LFA received submissions representing some of the world’s most talented filmmakers. After careful consideration, we have distilled the very best of this year’s entries,” said Joey Paulos, Executive Director of the London Film Awards. “We are honored to celebrate the talent and commitment of each of these accomplished artists.”

The Grand Jury Prize was presented to Beauty and the Breast directed by Liliana Komorowska (Canada).


Synopsis: A first-time documentary filmmaker offers a compelling insight into the devastating reality of breast cancer, as seen through the eyes of several female patients helping demystify the deadly disease while painting poignant and often humorous intimate.

The Special Jury Prize was presented to Womble directed by Robert Pirouet (United Kingdom).


Synopsis: Years have passed and what's changed? Jim Labey sits waiting in the corridor of his old school waiting for a job interview. The problem? The other side of the desk is Piers Mourant, an old classmate of Jim's...and Pier's remembers everything!

The Best Feature Film was presented to Pechorin directed by Roman Khrushch (Russia).


Synopsis: Based on the Russian classic Mikhail Lermontov novel “The Hero of Our Time”. All events shown as they are reflected in the mind of the dying hero, as a series of irrevocable mistakes and interpreted anew: it is either reconsideration or repentance.

The Best Short Film was presented to Dissarray directed by Chandradeep Das (India).


Synopsis: A day in the life of an obsessed loner whose immaturity and emotional isolation lead to dynamic imbalances in his life, driving him even to a point where he considers killing the girl.

The Best Animated Film was presented to Seasons directed by Haowei Hu (USA).


Synopsis: Seasons, is a surreal motion graphics animation based on the changing seasons. Beginning with spring, the richly hued illustrations in this work come alive as they transform in color and rhythmic tempo to reveal the full seasonal spectrum.

The Best Documentary Short was presented to Ian Wright / Nothing to Something directed by Marcel Beckford (United Kingdom).


Synopsis: This detailed account documents the rise of a young black boy from the harder side of South East London, who rose through all adversity to become the highest scoring player for Arsenal Football Club.

The Best Screenplay was presented to One of These Things is Not Like the Others directed by Adam Wilson (USA).


Synopsis: Josh, a NYC grad student, surprises his southern conservative family at Thanksgiving when he brings home his African-American boyfriend.

The Best Experimental Film was presented to The Color of Time directed by Anthony Szulc (USA).


Synopsis: The Color of Time, a collaboration between painter/sculptor Carol Brown Goldberg and filmmaker Anthony Szulc is an 11 minute 'Documoir' exploration of color, memory, art, history, family, poetry, and human imagination.

The Best British Film was presented to Turn a Blind Eye directed by Harold Salakianathan (United Kingdom).


Synopsis: A city trader incriminates himself amidst the protests against the global financial crisis.

The Best Director was presented to Aurelia directed by Victor Ghizaru (Canada).


Synopsis: Aurelia embarks on a journey to find her father. Cut off from the world, she naïvely discovers simple things that marvel her infant spirit. A peaceful story about self-discovery, taking place in the empty fields of a forgotten land.

The Cinematic Vision Award was presented to Ghost Track directed by Fabrizio Rossetti (Spain).


Synopsis: Isabel is a cleaner who dreams of being a singer. She owns an Ipod, within which there are six women, each of whom, like Isabel, represent a musical note. Each woman is the protagonist of a different story connected to the path Isabel must take.

The Best Web Video was presented to Ian Wright / Nothing to Something directed by Marcel Beckford (United Kingdom).


Synopsis: This detailed account documents the rise of a young black boy from the harder side of South East London, who rose through all adversity to become the highest scoring player for Arsenal Football Club.

The Best Comedic Film was presented to Womble directed by Robert Pirouet (United Kingdom).


Synopsis: Years have passed and what's changed? Jim Labey sits waiting in the corridor of his old school waiting for a job interview. The problem? The other side of the desk is Piers Mourant, an old classmate of Jim's, and Pier's remembers everything.

The Best First-Time Director was presented to Beauty and the Breast directed by Liliana Komorowska (Canada).


Synopsis: A first-time documentary filmmaker offers a compelling insight into the devastating reality of breast cancer, as seen through the eyes of several female patients helping demystify the deadly disease while painting poignant and often humorous intimate

Feature Screenplay Competition Winners

Grand Prize Winner was awarded to Russian Cross written by Brian Moniz.

Second Place Screenplay was awarded to Safewood written by Zoe Mavroudi.

Third Place Screenplay was awarded to Seeing Red written by Sundae Jahant-Osborn.

Fourth Place Screenplay was awarded to Smilers written by Mike McGeever.

Fifth Place Screenplay was awarded to Crater written by Luke Pimental.

Short Screenplay Competition Winners

First Place Screenplay was awarded to El Jardinero written by Stefano Valentini.

Second Place Screenplay was awarded to Path written by Michael Wright.

Third Place Screenplay was awarded to GodsStorm written by Loren Sterman.

The Best Stage Play was presented to The City of Burning Bridges written by Ivana Jajalo.

The Best First-Time Screenwriter was presented to Sea Fever written by Neasa Hardiman.

The Best Television Pilot was presented to Grey Matters written by Ian Longacre.

About the London Film Awards:


As a distinguished international film competition, the London Film Awards celebrates and awards independent film's best and brightest talent spanning the globe. The London Film Awards places an emphasis on exclusivity and recognizes and awards only the most finely produced films and screenplays with honors. The Grand Prize Winners of each official competition category, as determined by our Official Jury, each receive the coveted Gold Lion Award as commemoration of their exemplary achievements. Additionally, the London Film Awards offers various Special Achievement Awards for standout productions.

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Antibiotics in pregnancy tied to asthma in children: study

(Reuters) - Children whose mothers took antibiotics while they were pregnant were slightly more likely than other children to develop asthma, according to a Danish study.

The results don't prove that antibiotics caused the higher asthma risk, but they support a current theory that the body's own "friendly" bacteria have a role in whether a child develops asthma, and antibiotics can disrupt those beneficial bugs.

"We speculate that mothers' use of antibiotics changes the balance of natural bacteria, which is transmitted to the newborn, and that such unbalance bacteria in early life impact on the immune maturation in the newborn," said Hans Bisgaard, one of the study's authors and a professor at the University of Copenhagen.

Previous research has linked antibiotics taken during infancy to a higher risk of asthma, although some researchers have disputed those findings.

To look for effects starting at an even earlier point, Bisgaard and his colleagues gathered information from a Danish national birth database of more than 30,000 children born between 1997 and 2003, and followed for five years.

They found that about 7,300 of the children, or nearly one quarter, were exposed to antibiotics while their mothers were pregnant. Among them, just over three percent, 238 children, were hospitalized for asthma by age five.

The study, which appeared in The Journal of Pediatrics, found that by contrast, about 2.5 percent, or 581 of some 23,000 children whose mothers didn't take antibiotics, were hospitalized with asthma.

After taking into account other asthma risk factors, Bisgaard's team calculated that the children who had been exposed to antibiotics were 17 percent more likely to be hospitalized for asthma.

Similarly, these children were also 18 percent more likely to have been given a prescription for an asthma medication than children whose mothers did not take antibiotics when they were pregnant.

His team also looked at a smaller group of 411 children who were at higher risk for asthma because their mothers had the condition. They found that these children were twice as likely as their peers to develop asthma too if their mothers took antibiotics during the third trimester of pregnancy.

Others said that it was possible that something besides the antibiotics was responsible, such as the illness the drugs were prescribed for.

"This study, it doesn't tell us whether it's the antibiotic use or whether it's the infection. That's one thing we can't decipher," said Anita Kozryskyj, a professor at the University of Alberta who also studies the antibiotics-asthma link but wasn't involved in the new study.

The results don't suggest that women should avoid antibiotics since some infections can be quite dangerous to a fetus, she said, adding that Bisgaard's study suggests that the development of asthma might start before birth, something researchers hadn't studied very closely.

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Extra prenatal choline doesn't help kids' brains

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Taking extra choline during pregnancy does not improve babies' language and memory skills, according to a new study.

"I think eating the recommended amount of choline, which is just about a half of a gram a day for pregnant women, would probably do you well," Dr. Steven Zeisel, the senior author of the study and a professor at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, told Reuters Health. "Going to high levels doesn't always give you improvement."

The results contrast with earlier studies in animals showing that a choline boost in utero improves rodents' performance on memory tasks. Companies claim that choline pills support "brain health," along with the health of other organs, and sell choline supplements over the counter for about $9 for 100 250-milligram capsules.

Choline is an essential nutrient found in meat, eggs and milk, and during pregnancy and breastfeeding, large amounts of choline are delivered to the baby through the mother. Zeisel said it's possible that the women in the study who didn't take a choline pill were getting enough from their diet.

Earlier studies have found that pregnant women with very low levels of choline in their diet have a higher chance of delivering a baby with a birth defect (see Reuters Health report of September 25, 2009). And adults who eat a choline-rich diet perform better on memory tests (see Reuters Health report of November 23, 2011: http://reut.rs/swPWp3).

To see if adding extra choline during pregnancy can offer any benefits to babies, Zeisel and his colleagues asked 99 pregnant women to take six pills every day, beginning when they were 18 weeks pregnant and continuing until three months after the baby was born.

Fifty of the moms received fake pills containing corn oil, while 49 received pills with 833 milligrams (mg) of phosphatidylcholine, a form of choline.

The phosphatidylcholine pills added up to 750 mg of choline each day, the equivalent of 170 percent of the recommended level for pregnant women and 140 percent of the recommended daily amount for breastfeeding moms.

When the children were 10 and 12 months old, Zeisel's team gave them a battery of tests to measure short and long term memory, language skills and general development.

There were no differences between the two groups on any of the tests, the team reports in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

TRACKED LONG ENOUGH?

Marie Caudill, a professor at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, who was not involved in the current research, said the study was well conducted, but she offered a number of reasons that might explain the discrepancy between the animal studies and the current findings.

One possibility is that the babies were not tracked long enough to see any differences in their abilities.

"The animal studies demonstrated (that) supplementing the maternal diet with extra choline during pregnancy resulted in lasting beneficial effects on cognitive functioning in the adult offspring and prevented age-related cognitive decline," Caudill told Reuters Health by email.

Additionally, the type of choline used - phosphatidylcholine - might be less effective than choline itself. (Zeisel's group chose not to use choline because it can result in a fishy body odor.)

In addition, the tests may not be "sufficiently challenging," Caudill added.

Zeisel agreed that perhaps as children age and start to perform more complex mental processing, it might be easier to measure if a child has a deficit or a strength.

For now, he said, there's no reason to use supplements during pregnancy to get extra choline, and women should refer to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's recommendations for how much choline they should get from their diet.

Zeisel and his colleagues are developing studies in Gambia, where dietary choline levels are known to be low, to see if supplementation there might make a bigger difference than in a region where choline intake appears to be sufficient.

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Europe mulls banning 'boxes' for abandoned babies

BERLIN (AP) — German pastor Gabriele Stangl says she will never forget the harrowing confession she heard in 1999. A woman said she had been brutally raped, got pregnant and had a baby. Then she killed it and buried it in the woods near Berlin.

Stangl wanted to do something to help women in such desperate situations. So the following year, she convinced Berlin's Waldfriede Hospital to create the city's first so-called "baby box." The box is actually a warm incubator that can be opened from an outside wall of a hospital where a desperate parent can anonymously leave an unwanted infant.

A small flap opens into the box, equipped with a motion detector. An alarm goes off in the hospital to alert staff two minutes after a baby is left.

"The mother has enough time to leave without anyone seeing her," Stangl said. "The important thing is that her baby is now in a safe place."

Baby boxes are a revival of the medieval "foundling wheels," where unwanted infants were left in revolving church doors. In recent years, there has been an increase in these contraptions — also called hatches, windows or slots in some countries — and at least 11 European nations now have them, according to United Nations figures. They are technically illegal, but mostly operate in a gray zone as authorities turn a blind eye.

But they have drawn the attention of human rights advocates who think they are bad for the children and merely avoid dealing with the problems that lead to child abandonment. At a meeting last month, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child said baby boxes should be banned and is pushing that agenda to the European Parliament.

There are nearly 100 baby boxes in Germany. Poland and the Czech Republic each have more than 40 while Italy, Lithuania, Russia and Slovakia have about 10 each. There are two in Switzerland, one in Belgium and one being planned in the Netherlands.

In the last decade, hundreds of babies have been abandoned this way; it's estimated one or two infants are typically left at each location every year, though exact figures aren't available.

"They are a bad message for society," said Maria Herczog, a Hungarian child psychologist on the U.N. committee. "These boxes violate children's rights and also the rights of parents to get help from the state to raise their families," she said.

"Instead of providing help and addressing some of the social problems and poverty behind these situations, we're telling people they can just leave their baby and run away."

She said the practice encourages women to have children without getting medical care. "It's paradoxical that it's OK for women to give up their babies by putting them in a box, but if they were to have them in a hospital and walk away, that's a crime," Herczog said. She said the committee is now discussing the issue with the European Parliament and is also asking countries which allow the practice to shut them down.

Herczog also said it's wrong to assume only mothers are abandoning these children and that sometimes they may be forced into giving up children they might otherwise have kept. "We have data to show that in some cases it's pimps, a male relative or someone who's exploiting the woman," she said.

In some countries — Australia, Canada and Britain — it is illegal to abandon an infant anywhere. Yet, in the U.S. there are "safe haven" laws that allow parents to anonymously give up an infant in a secure place like a hospital or police department. A handful of other countries including Japan and Slovakia have similar provisions.

Countries that support this anonymous abandonment method contend they save lives. In a letter responding to U.N. concerns, more than two dozen Czech politicians said they "strongly disagreed" with the proposed ban. "The primary aim of baby hatches, which (have) already saved hundreds of newborns, is to protect their right to life and protect their human rights," the letter said.

However, limited academic surveys suggest this hasn't reduced the murder of infants. There are about 30 to 60 infanticides in Germany every year, a number that has been relatively unchanged for years, even after the arrival of baby boxes. That's similar to the per capita rate in Britain where there is no such option.

Across Germany, there is considerable public support for the boxes, particularly after several high-profile cases of infanticide, including the grisly discovery several years ago of the decomposed remains of nine infants stuffed into flower pots in Brandenburg.

Officials at several facilities with baby boxes say biological parents sometimes name the infant being abandoned. "The girl is called Sarah," read one note left with a baby in Lubeck, Germany in 2003. "I have many problems and a life with Sarah is just not possible," the letter said.

The secretive nature also means few restrictions on who gets dropped off, even though the boxes are intended for newborns. Friederike Garbe, who oversees a baby box in Lubeck, found two young boys crying there last November. "One was about four months old and his brother was already sitting up," she said. The older boy was about 15 months old and could say "Mama."

Still, Germany's health ministry is considering other options. "We want to replace the necessity for the baby boxes by implementing a rule to allow women to give birth anonymously that will allow them to give up the child for adoption," said Christopher Steegmans, a ministry spokesman.

Austria, France, and Italy allow women to give birth anonymously and leave the baby in the hospital to be adopted. Germany and Britain sometimes allow this under certain circumstances even though it is technically illegal. Eleven other nations grant women a "concealed delivery" that hides their identities when they give birth to their babies, who are then given up for adoption. But the women are supposed to leave their name and contact information for official records that may be given one day to the children if they request it after age 18.

For German couple Andy and Astrid, an abandoned infant in a baby box near the city of Fulda ended their two-year wait to adopt a child nearly a decade ago.

"We were told about him on a Sunday and then visited him the next day in the hospital," said Astrid, a 37-year-old teacher, who along with her husband, agreed to talk with The Associated Press if their last names were not used to protect the identity of their child. The couple quietly snapped a few photos of the baby boy they later named Jan. He weighed just over 7 pounds when he was placed in the baby box, wrapped in two small towels.

When Jan started asking questions about where he came from around age 2, his parents explained another woman had given birth to him. They showed him the photos taken at the hospital, introduced him to the nurses there and showed him the baby box where he had been left.

Earlier this year, the couple began the procedure to adopt a second child, a boy whose mother gave birth anonymously so she could give him up for adoption.

Astrid said Jan, now 8, loves football, tractors and anything to do with the farming that he sees daily in their rural community. She said it's not so important for her and her husband to know who his biological parents are.

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Bounce houses a party hit but kids' injuries soar

CHICAGO (AP) — They may be a big hit at kids' birthday parties, but inflatable bounce houses can be dangerous, with the number of injuries soaring in recent years, a nationwide study found.

Kids often crowd into bounce houses, and jumping up and down can send other children flying into the air, too.

The numbers suggest 30 U.S. children a day are treated in emergency rooms for broken bones, sprains, cuts and concussions from bounce house accidents. Most involve children falling inside or out of the inflated playthings, and many children get hurt when they collide with other bouncing kids.

The number of children aged 17 and younger who got emergency-room treatment for bounce house injuries has climbed along with the popularity of bounce houses — from fewer than 1,000 in 1995 to nearly 11,000 in 2010. That's a 15-fold increase, and a doubling just since 2008.

"I was surprised by the number, especially by the rapid increase in the number of injuries," said lead author Dr. Gary Smith, director of the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.

Amusement parks and fairs have bounce houses, and the playthings can also be rented or purchased for home use.

Smith and colleagues analyzed national surveillance data on ER treatment for nonfatal injuries linked with bounce houses, maintained by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. Their study was published online Monday in the journal Pediatrics.

Only about 3 percent of children were hospitalized, mostly for broken bones.

More than one-third of the injuries were in children aged 5 and younger. The safety commission recommends against letting children younger than 6 use full-size trampolines, and Smith said barring kids that young from even smaller, home-use bounce houses would make sense.

"There is no evidence that the size or location of an inflatable bouncer affects the injury risk," he said.

Other recommendations, often listed in manufacturers' instruction pamphlets, include not overloading bounce houses with too many kids and not allowing young children to bounce with much older, heavier kids or adults, said Laura Woodburn, a spokeswoman for the National Association of Amusement Ride Safety Officials.

The study didn't include deaths, but some accidents are fatal. Separate data from the product safety commission show four bounce house deaths from 2003 to 2007, all involving children striking their heads on a hard surface.

Several nonfatal accidents occurred last year when bounce houses collapsed or were lifted by high winds.

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