Was Naomi Watts's Swimsuit the Best of the Break?







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01/04/2013 at 04:00 PM ET











Jennifer Aniston, Ashlee Simpson in BikinisSplash News Online; INF; Splash News Online; FameFlynet


There’s Christmas, there’s New Year’s Eve, and then there’s “every celebrity in the world takes a tropical vacation” week. It really seems that almost every star worth talking about (Jessica! Lea! Julianne!) went on an exotic getaway this week, and we’re jealous — and cold.


But we’re also keeping mental notes on the swimsuits we want to steal for summertime — and these pretty ladies had four of our favorites.



Naomi Watts made a splash while vacationing in St. Barts, choosing a neutral scoop-neck one-piece accessorized with a printed white sarong. Jennifer Aniston opted to show off a few more curves in a black bikini and sheer sarong, a low-key follow-up to her red-hot two-piece from earlier in her visit to Cabo.


Sofia Vergara put her famous assets on display in Miami in a sexy black one-piece and teal skirt that somehow left a lot and very little to the imagination at the same time. And in Hawaii, Ashlee Simpson showed off her fabulous figure in a patterned two-piece that was definitely the most fun of the bunch.


Which bathing suit do you like best? Are you a one-piece or two-piece person? Vote in our poll below, and leave your thoughts in the comments! 






PHOTOS: STARS HOLIDAY IN THE SUN




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FDA: New rules will make food safer


WASHINGTON (AP) — The Food and Drug Administration says its new guidelines would make the food Americans eat safer and help prevent the kinds of foodborne disease outbreaks that sicken or kill thousands of consumers each year.


The rules, the most sweeping food safety guidelines in decades, would require farmers to take new precautions against contamination, to include making sure workers' hands are washed, irrigation water is clean, and that animals stay out of fields. Food manufacturers will have to submit food safety plans to the government to show they are keeping their operations clean.


The long-overdue regulations could cost businesses close to half a billion dollars a year to implement, but are expected to reduce the estimated 3,000 deaths a year from foodborne illness. The new guidelines were announced Friday.


Just since last summer, outbreaks of listeria in cheese and salmonella in peanut butter, mangoes and cantaloupe have been linked to more than 400 illnesses and as many as seven deaths, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The actual number of those sickened is likely much higher.


Many responsible food companies and farmers are already following the steps that the FDA would now require them to take. But officials say the requirements could have saved lives and prevented illnesses in several of the large-scale outbreaks that have hit the country in recent years.


In a 2011 outbreak of listeria in cantaloupe that claimed 33 lives, for example, FDA inspectors found pools of dirty water on the floor and old, dirty processing equipment at Jensen Farms in Colorado where the cantaloupes were grown. In a peanut butter outbreak this year linked to 42 salmonella illnesses, inspectors found samples of salmonella throughout Sunland Inc.'s peanut processing plant in New Mexico and multiple obvious safety problems, such as birds flying over uncovered trailers of peanuts and employees not washing their hands.


Under the new rules, companies would have to lay out plans for preventing those sorts of problems, monitor their own progress and explain to the FDA how they would correct them.


"The rules go very directly to preventing the types of outbreaks we have seen," said Michael Taylor, FDA's deputy commissioner for foods.


The FDA estimates the new rules could prevent almost 2 million illnesses annually, but it could be several years before the rules are actually preventing outbreaks. Taylor said it could take the agency another year to craft the rules after a four-month comment period, and farms would have at least two years to comply — meaning the farm rules are at least three years away from taking effect. Smaller farms would have even longer to comply.


The new rules, which come exactly two years to the day President Barack Obama's signed food safety legislation passed by Congress, were already delayed. The 2011 law required the agency to propose a first installment of the rules a year ago, but the Obama administration held them until after the election. Food safety advocates sued the administration to win their release.


The produce rule would mark the first time the FDA has had real authority to regulate food on farms. In an effort to stave off protests from farmers, the farm rules are tailored to apply only to certain fruits and vegetables that pose the greatest risk, like berries, melons, leafy greens and other foods that are usually eaten raw. A farm that produces green beans that will be canned and cooked, for example, would not be regulated.


Such flexibility, along with the growing realization that outbreaks are bad for business, has brought the produce industry and much of the rest of the food industry on board as Congress and FDA has worked to make food safer.


In a statement Friday, Pamela Bailey, president of the Grocery Manufacturers Association, which represents the country's biggest food companies, said the food safety law "can serve as a role model for what can be achieved when the private and public sectors work together to achieve a common goal."


The new rules could cost large farms $30,000 a year, according to the FDA. The agency did not break down the costs for individual processing plants, but said the rules could cost manufacturers up to $475 million annually.


FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg said the success of the rules will also depend on how much money Congress gives the chronically underfunded agency to put them in place. "Resources remain an ongoing concern," she said.


The farm and manufacturing rules are only one part of the food safety law. The bill also authorized more surprise inspections by the FDA and gave the agency additional powers to shut down food facilities. In addition, the law required stricter standards on imported foods. The agency said it will soon propose other overdue rules to ensure that importers verify overseas food is safe and to improve food safety audits overseas.


Food safety advocates frustrated over the last year as the rules stalled praised the proposed action.


"The new law should transform the FDA from an agency that tracks down outbreaks after the fact, to an agency focused on preventing food contamination in the first place," said Caroline Smith DeWaal of the Center for Science in the Public Interest.


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"Cliff" concerns give way to earnings focus

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Investors' "fiscal cliff" worries are likely to give way to more fundamental concerns, like earnings, as fourth-quarter reports get under way next week.


Financial results, which begin after the market closes on Tuesday with aluminum company Alcoa , are expected to be only slightly better than the third-quarter's lackluster results. As a warning sign, analyst current estimates are down sharply from what they were in October.


That could set stocks up for more volatility following a week of sharp gains that put the Standard & Poor's 500 index <.spx> on Friday at the highest close since December 31, 2007. The index also registered its biggest weekly percentage gain in more than a year.


Based on a Reuters analysis, Europe ranks among the chief concerns cited by companies that warned on fourth-quarter results. Uncertainty about the region and its weak economic outlook were cited by more than half of the 25 largest S&P 500 companies that issued warnings.


In the most recent earnings conference calls, macroeconomic worries were cited by 10 companies while the U.S. "fiscal cliff" was cited by at least nine as reasons for their earnings warnings.


"The number of things that could go wrong isn't so high, but the magnitude of how wrong they could go is what's worrisome," said Kurt Winters, senior portfolio manager for Whitebox Mutual Funds in Minneapolis.


Negative-to-positive guidance by S&P 500 companies for the fourth quarter was 3.6 to 1, the second worst since the third quarter of 2001, according to Thomson Reuters data.


U.S. lawmakers narrowly averted the "fiscal cliff" by coming to a last-minute agreement on a bill to avoid steep tax hikes this weeks -- driving the rally in stocks -- but the battle over further spending cuts is expected to resume in two months.


Investors also have seen a revival of worries about Europe's sovereign debt problems, with Moody's in November downgrading France's credit rating and debt crises looming for Spain and other countries.


"You have a recession in Europe as a base case. Europe is still the biggest trading partner with a lot of U.S. companies, and it's still a big chunk of global capital spending," said Adam Parker, chief U.S. equity strategist at Morgan Stanley in New York.


Among companies citing worries about Europe was eBay , whose chief financial officer, Bob Swan, spoke of "macro pressures from Europe" in the company's October earnings conference call.


REVENUE WORRIES


One of the biggest worries voiced about earnings has been whether companies will be able to continue to boost profit growth despite relatively weak revenue growth.


S&P 500 revenue fell 0.8 percent in the third quarter for the first decline since the third quarter of 2009, Thomson Reuters data showed. Earnings growth for the quarter was a paltry 0.1 percent after briefly dipping into negative territory.


On top of that, just 40 percent of S&P 500 companies beat revenue expectations in the third quarter, while 64.2 percent beat earnings estimates, the Thomson Reuters data showed.


For the fourth quarter, estimates are slightly better but are well off estimates for the quarter from just a few months earlier. S&P 500 earnings are expected to have risen 2.8 percent while revenue is expected to have gone up 1.9 percent.


Back in October, earnings growth for the fourth quarter was forecast up 9.9 percent.


In spite of the cautious outlooks, some analysts still see a good chance for earnings beats this reporting period.


"The thinking is you need top line growth for earnings to continue to expand, and we've seen the market defy that," said Mike Jackson, founder of Denver-based investment firm T3 Equity Labs.


Based on his analysis, energy, industrials and consumer discretionary are the S&P sectors most likely to beat earnings expectations in the upcoming season, while consumer staples, materials and utilities are the least likely to beat, Jackson said.


Sounding a positive note on Friday, drugmaker Eli Lilly and Co said it expects profit in 2013 to increase by more than Wall Street had been forecasting, primarily due to cost controls and improved productivity.


(Reporting By Caroline Valetkevitch; Editing by Kenneth Barry)



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McChrystal Book Details Tensions With Obama





WASHINGTON — In a memoir, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the former American commander in Afghanistan, writes that tensions between the White House and the Pentagon were evident in the Obama administration from its opening months in office.




The beginning of President Obama’s first term “saw the emergence of an unfortunate deficit of trust between the White House and the Department of Defense, largely arising from the decision-making process on Afghanistan,” General McChrystal writes. “The effects were costly.”


The book by General McChrystal, who was fired from his post in 2010 after an article in Rolling Stone quoted him and his staff making dismissive comments about the White House, is likely to disappoint readers who are looking for a vivid blow-by-blow account of infighting within the administration.


The book, titled “My Share of the Task: A Memoir,” does not provide an account of the White House meeting at which Mr. Obama accepted the general’s resignation. General McChrystal’s tone toward Mr. Obama is respectful, and he notes that his wife, Annie, joined the crowd at Mr. Obama’s inauguration. The book is to be released on Monday.


An advance copy of the book provides revealing glimpses of the friction over military planning and comes as Mr. Obama is weighing, and perhaps preparing to overrule, the troop requests that have been presented by the current American commander in Afghanistan, Gen. John R. Allen.


The account is all the more noteworthy since General McChrystal, who retired from the Army, remains a respected voice within the military and teaches a course on leadership at Yale.


According to the book, the tensions began before General McChrystal took command in Kabul, Afghanistan, and were set off by a request from his predecessor, General David D. McKiernan, for 30,000 additional troops at the end of the Bush administration.


Instead of approving the entire request, in February 2009, Mr. Obama decided that 17,000 would be sent, adding that decisions on additional deployments would be based on further analysis.


From the White House perspective, General McChrystal writes, “this partial decision was logical.” After less than a month, the president had increased American forces in Afghanistan by 50 percent. Though Mr. Obama had cast the conflict in Afghanistan as a “war of necessity,” as a candidate he was nonetheless wary about a prolonged American military involvement there.


But the Pentagon pressed for an additional 4,000 troops, fearing that there was little time to reverse the Taliban’s gains before the August elections in Afghanistan.


“The military felt a sense of urgency, seeing little remaining time if any forces approved were to reach Afghanistan in time to improve security in advance of the elections,” he wrote.


The White House later approved the 4,000 troops, but the dispute pointed to a deeper clash of cultures over the use of force that continued after General McChrystal took command.


“Military leaders, many of whom were students of counterinsurgency, recognized the dangers of an incremental escalation, and the historical lesson that ‘trailing’ an insurgency typically condemned counterinsurgents to failure,” he writes.


In May 2009, soon before he assumed command in Kabul, General McChrystal had a “short, but cordial” meeting with Mr. Obama at which the president “offered no specific guidance,” he notes.


The next month, General McChrystal was surprised when James L. Jones, Mr. Obama’s first national security adviser, told him that the Obama administration would not consider sending more forces until the effect of arriving units could be fully evaluated.


That contradicted the guidance that General McChrystal had received from Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates that he should submit an assessment in August of the additional forces that might be required, he writes.


At an Oct. 8, 2009, video conference with Mr. Obama’s National Security Council, differences again emerged when General McChrystal outlined his goals: “Defeat the Taliban. Secure the population.”


That prompted a challenge by a Washington-based official, whom General McChrystal does not name, that the goal of defeating the Taliban seemed too ambitious and that the command in Kabul should settle instead for an effort to “degrade” the Taliban.


At the next video conference, General McChrystal presented a slide showing that his objectives had been derived from Mr. Obama’s own speeches and a White House strategy review. “But it was clear to me that the mission itself was now on the table for review and adjustment,” he wrote.


After General McChrystal determined that at least 40,000 additional forces were needed to reverse the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, Mr. Obama provided 30,000 and said he would ask allied nations to contribute the rest.


General McChrystal acknowledges that he had concerns that Mr. Obama’s decision to announce a date for beginning the withdrawal of the additional “surge” forces might embolden the Taliban. But the general writes that he did not challenge the decision.


“If I felt like the decision to set a withdrawal date would have been fatal to the success of our mission, I’d have said so,” he writes.


General McChrystal has little to say about the episode that led to the article in Rolling Stone. He writes that the comments attributed to his team were “unacceptable” but adds that he was surprised by the tone of the article, which he had expected would show the camaraderie among the American, British, French and Afghan officers.


As the controversy over the article grew, General McChrystal did not seek advice before offering his resignation. The book does not say if he was disappointed when Mr. Obama accepted it at a brief White House meeting.


Returning to his quarters at Fort McNair after that White House meeting, he broke the news to his wife: “I told her that our life in the Army was over.”


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EU says its Google case not affected by U.S. ruling






BRUSSELS (Reuters) – A decision by U.S. regulators to end a probe into whether Google Inc hurt rivals by manipulating internet searches will not affect the European Union‘s examination of the company.


“We have taken note of the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) decision, but we don’t see that it has any direct implications for our investigation, for our discussions with Google, which are ongoing,” said Michael Jennings, a spokesman for the European Commission, the EU executive.






U.S. regulators on Thursday ended their investigation into the giant internet company, which runs the world’s most popular search engine.


Other internet companies, such as Microsoft Corp, had complained about Google tweaking its search results to give prominence to its own products. But the FTC said there was not enough evidence to pursue a big search-bias case.


The European Commission has for the past two years been investigating complaints against Google, including claims that it unfairly favored its own services in its search results.


Google presented informal settlement proposals to the Commission in July. On December 18 the Commission gave the company a month to come up with detailed proposals to resolve the investigation.


If it fails to address the complaints and is found guilty, Google could eventually be fined up to 10 percent of its revenue – a fine of up to $ 4 billion.


(Reporting By Ethan Bilby; Editing by Sebastian Moffett and David Goodman)


Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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Professional Bull Riders: Who Is the Sexiest Cowboy Alive?















01/04/2013 at 03:45 PM EST



The bulls are back in town – and they're bringing a bunch of strapping cowboys with them.

The Professional Bull Riders kick off their 2013 season Friday at N.Y.C.'s Madison Square Garden with a whole lot of cowboy hats, chaps and swagger.

In the arena, the riders will battle it out atop the toughest bulls in the world, but here on PEOPLE.com, we're pitting them against each other. Get to know a little bit about these top 25 bull riders in the most dangerous eight seconds in sports and let us know who you think is the sexiest of them all. (Scroll through the carousel above for more photos of our top five if you're on a desktop or laptop computer.)

Professional Bull Riders: Who Is the Sexiest Cowboy Alive?

From left: Guilherme Marchi, Luke Snyder, J.B. Mauney, Silvano Alves and Douglas Duncan

Courtesy of PBR and Bull Stock Media

Guilherme Marchi
A former world champion, Marchi (nicknamed "Hollywood" for his movie-star looks) fought and scraped his way through the 2012 season, only to come up just short of another gold buckle. And his year wasn't without distractions: the Brazilian cowboy's wife, Patricia, suffered major injuries in a rodeo accident. She's since recovered, and this 30-year-old family man often gives shout-outs to his two young children on the PBR telecasts.

Luke Snyder
Snyder, 30, won readers' hearts last year when he wed Jen Manna in a rustic, romantic celebration. His bride may sum up the Missouri man's appeal best: "He was the cutest thing I'd ever seen. I couldn't get enough of that hat, that accent!" the new Mrs. Snyder told PEOPLE of first meeting her future husband. "I don't think I'd ever met a cowboy before. But I just thought he was the bee's knees."

J.B. Mauney
Newlywed and new dad Mauney, 25, made history in his sport last year after a broken hand nearly ended his season. Never one to sit out a competition, he did the nearly impossible and switched riding hands (riders use one hand to hold their bull rope while the other hand is raised in the air). PBR co-founder Ty Murray likened the move to a major league pitcher switching his throwing arm. Look for the now-healthy North Carolina cowboy to pick the toughest bulls and swing for the fences all season. "Anytime somebody tells me I can't do something," Mauney has said, "I'm gonna try everything I can to do it."

Silvano Alves
In October, Alves became the first back-to-back PBR World Champion in history. "Every bull rider dreams of winning the world championship. To do it twice is very special," says the 25-year-old Brazilian rider, who took home top honors in 2011 just after being crowned Rookie of the Year. But he's managed to stay humble amid all the records he's broken. "No one's ever done this before and I didn't think I could ever do it," he said last fall. "From when I was little I never would have dreamed I could do this."

Douglas Duncan
After growing up in a ranching family, Duncan says he's into everything about the lifestyle. "I love waking up in the morning, putting on my hat; I love everything about being a cowboy." To keep in shape, the 25-year-old Texan focuses on stretching, core work and riding – both horses and bulls. After hip surgery sidelined him last year, Duncan is hoping to crack the top ranks of the sport.

Runners up: For their classic cowboy names alone, (other than Pistol, these are all their genuine given names), we're granting these guys honorable mentions in the sexy race.

• Stormy Wing: The 23-year-old Texan, ranked 17th in the world, says his parents always planned to name their child Stormy, boy or girl.

• Pistol Robinson: "My dad called me Pistol, and rodeo buddies picked it up," Robinson tells PEOPLE of his longtime nickname (his given name is Caleb). "I lived a double life. Caleb went to school, and Pistol was the bull rider." He broke both legs in a wreck at last year's New York City event, but after a year of grueling rehab, Robinson is eager to compete again.

• Ryan Dirteater: Thanks to his Native American heritage, this aptly named Oklahoma cowboy's nickname is "Cherokee Kid." He's currently ranked 14th going into the 2013 season.

• Chase Outlaw: A rising star in the PBR, 20-year-old Outlaw's style has been likened to that of newly-retired PBR great Chris Shivers.

The Monster Energy Invitational at Madison Square Garden airs Saturday at 10 p.m. ET and Sunday at 8 p.m. ET on CBS Sports Network. View the full event and TV schedule here.

Who do you think is the Sexiest Cowboy Alive?

Guilherme Marchi

Luke Snyder

J.B. Mauney

Silvano Alves

Douglas Duncan

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Data helps pace Wall Street higher, but Apple drags

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks advanced on Friday, putting the S&P 500 on track for its biggest weekly gain in over a year after a jobs report showed employers kept the pace of hiring steady in December.


The Labor Department said payrolls outside the farming sector grew by 155,000 jobs last month, slightly below November's level. Gains in employment were distributed broadly throughout the economy, from manufacturing and construction to healthcare.


Also helping to keep equities afloat was data from the Institute for Supply Management showing U.S. service sector activity expanding the most in 10 months.


"It feels like the economy, we're not burning the barn down, but we are doing fine - we seem to be growing and the fiscal cliff does not seem to have weighed too much on December employment," said Paul Mendelsohn, chief investment strategist at Windham Financial Services in Charlotte, Vermont.


The S&P 500 index's weekly gain would be its largest since December 2011. The majority of the gains were achieved earlier in the holiday-shortened week, including the largest daily gain for the benchmark S&P index in more than a year on Wednesday, after a deal was struck in Washington to avert the "fiscal cliff."


"So far there is nothing that has come out that has been negative following the push, they tried to read into the Fed minutes yesterday and take it down but so far they haven't had much success," Mendelsohn said.


But a drag on Apple Inc shares, down 2.6 percent to $528.36, kept the Nasdaq near the uchanged mark, as the iPhone maker continued its downward path of recent months.


Adding to concerns about Apple's ability to produce more innovative products, rival Samsung Electronics Co Ltd is expected to widen its lead over Apple in global smartphone sales this year with growth of 35 percent. Market researcher Strategy Analytics said Samsung had a broad product lineup.


The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> gained 28.46 points, or 0.21 percent, to 13,419.82. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> rose 5.47 points, or 0.37 percent, to 1,464.84. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> added 2.50 points, or 0.08 percent, to 3,103.07.


The CBOE Volatility index <.vix>, a measure of investor anxiety, was on pace for its fourth straight decline, a drop of nearly 40 percent which has pushed the index to its lowest level since September.


Eli Lilly and Co was among the biggest boost's to the S&P, up 3.5 percent to $51.47 after the pharmaceuticals maker said it expects its 2013 earnings to increase to $3.75 to $3.90 per share, excluding items, from $3.30 to $3.40 per share in 2012.


Fellow drugmaker Johnson & Johnson rose 1.2 percent to $71.55 after Deutsche Bank upgraded the Dow component to a "Buy" from a "Hold" rating. The NYSEArca pharmaceutical index <.drg> climbed 0.4 percent.


Shares of Mosaic Co gained 2.7 percent to $58.29. Excluding items, the fertilizer producer's quarterly earnings beat analysts' expectations, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.


The rise in payrolls shown by the jobs data did not make a dent in the still-high U.S. unemployment rate, but it calmed fears about the possibility of the U.S. Federal Reserve ending its highly stimulative monetary policy.


Concerns about the duration of the Fed's stimulus program prompted a pull-back from the market Thursday after a rally.


Minutes from the Fed's December policy meeting, released Thursday, showed Fed officials were increasingly worried about the risks of asset purchases to financial markets, though they looked set to continue with the open-ended stimulus program for now.


(Reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Nick Zieminski)



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Malala Yousafzai, Shot by Pakistani Taliban, Is Discharged From Hospital





LONDON — Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani schoolgirl shot in the head three months ago by the Taliban for advocating the education of girls, has been discharged from a British hospital. Doctors said she had made “excellent progress” and would be staying with her family nearby before returning for further surgery to rebuild her skull in about four weeks.







Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham, via Reuters

 Medical experts say Ms. Yousafzai, 15, has a good chance of making a full recovery because of her youth, but the long-term impact of her head injuries remains unclear.






“Following discussions with Malala and her medical team, we decided that she would benefit from being at home with her parents and two brothers,” said Dr. Dave Rosser, the medical director.


Video released by Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham showed Ms. Yousafzai walking slowly out of a ward, wearing a head scarf and accompanied by a nurse.


The release was a promising turn for the teenage activist. Her shooting brought global condemnation of the Pakistani Taliban, whose fighters killed six female aid workers this week in the same region in northwestern Pakistan where Ms. Yousafzai was shot.


On Oct. 9, gunmen halted her school bus as it went through Mingora, the main town in the Swat Valley, singled her out and opened fire. A bullet grazed her brain, nearly killing her, and traveled through her head before lodging in her neck.


Six days later, after emergency treatment in Pakistan, she was airlifted to the hospital in Birmingham, which specializes in treating British soldiers wounded in action in Afghanistan.


Medical experts say Ms. Yousafzai has a good chance of making a full recovery because of her youth, but the long-term impact of her head injuries remains unclear.


In recent weeks, she has left the hospital regularly to spend time with her father, Ziauddin; her mother, Toorpekai; and her younger brothers, Khushal and Atul. The Pakistani government is paying for her treatment.


Ms. Yousafzai rose to prominence in 2009 with a blog for the BBC’s Urdu-language service that described life in Swat under Taliban rule. Later, she was featured in a documentary by The New York Times.


Now her father, a school headmaster, has accepted a three-year position as education attaché at the Pakistani Consulate in Birmingham, making it unlikely that the family will return to Pakistan anytime soon. In any event, it may be too dangerous.


The Taliban have vowed to attack the teenager again, and last month hundreds of students in Swat protested against plans to name their school after Ms. Yousafzai, saying it could endanger their lives. After she heard of the protest, she too asked that her name be removed from the school.


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Can the Government Really Ban Twitter Parody Accounts?






Arizona is entertaining a law that will make it a felony to use another person’s real name to make an  Internet profile intended to “harm, defraud, intimidate or threaten,” which to some sounds like a law against parody Twitter accounts. The legislation, if passed, would make Arizona one of a few states, including New York, California, Washington and Texas, to enact anti-online-impersonation laws. If these regulations seek to put a stop to fake representations online, that does sound like the end of fake celebrity baby accounts and Twitter death hoaxes. Then again, these laws have existed in these other places for years, and that hasn’t stopped the faux accounts from coming in. So what then does this mean?


RELATED: The Army’s Social Media Industrial Complex






What kind of stuff is the law intended to prosecute?


RELATED: Why French Broadcasters Can’t Say ‘Twitter’ and ‘Facebook’ Anymore


The law does not say that all uses of another person’s real name can be charged as a felony, but only profiles made for the more nefarious purposes fall into that territory. The legislation is  targeted at more serious forms of impersonation, like cyber bullying. Two Texas teens were arrested and charged under this law for creating a fake Facebook page to ruin a peer’s reputation, for example. Or, the case of Robert Dale Esparza Jr. who created a fake profile of his son’s vice principal on a porn site might fall under this law, suggests The Arizona Republic‘s Alia Beard Rau. Or, in one of the cases brought to court under the Texas version of this law, an Adam Limle created websites that portrayed a woman he used to date as a prostitute. (The case was eventually dropped because of a geographical loophole. Limle lived in Ohio, not Texas.) 


RELATED: Prius Drivers Will Get Their Own Social Network


Okay, the harm and threat in those situation is pretty clear. How can it at all apply to something relatively harmless, like a Twitter parody account? 


RELATED: How the Deported American Teen Spent Her Time in Colombia


The term “harm” is pretty vague, as this Texas Law blog explains, referring to that state’s version of this legislation, on which Arizona based its own law. “‘Harm’ can be very broadly construed–one person’s joke is another person’s harm,” writes Houston lawyer Stephanie Stradley. 


RELATED: Netanyahu’s Son Demonstrates Another Political Risk of Social Media


So, that could extend to parody accounts then? 


Well, possibly. Stradley suggests that politicians who had parody accounts created to mock them might have a case. Some of the impersonation of Texas lawmakers has gone beyond just the jokey fake Twitter handle. Jeffwentworth.com is not the official site for Texas state senator, but rather redirects to the web site of the anti-tax advocate group Empower Texans which considers the San Antonio politician the “the most liberal Republican senator in Austin.” Wentworth told The New York Times this domain squatting amounted to “identity theft,” and could be the basis for the law’s usage. 


The law could also possibly effect sillier parody accounts, suggest privacy advocates. “The problem with this, and other online impersonation bills, is the potential that they could be used to go after parody or social commentary activities,” senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation Kurt Opsahl told The Arizona Republic’s Alia Beard Rau. ”While this bill is written to limit ‘intent to harm,’ if that is construed broadly, there could be First Amendment problems.”


Ok, but what about precedent? Has the law ever applied to a faux Twitter handle? 


Twitter has its own parody policy that mitigates a lot of the possible damage that could ever lead to a court case. Saint Louis Cardinals manager Anthony La Russa sued Twitter in 2009 because of a made-up account, but the account was removed before the case went anywhere (And that was before these laws went into effect.) 


But it’s not clear that parody would ever be considered harmful enough for the law. When California’s version went into effect, a first amendment lawyer suggested to SF Weekly‘s Joe Eskenazi that jokes could go pretty far without prosecution. “You’re going to have to have room for satire,” he said. The account would have to look fool people, he argued. “A key question is, ‘is it credibile?’” asks Simitian. “Do people who read it think it’s him?” Because of our increasing skepticism of things on Twitter, unless the site has verified checkmark, it’s unlikely that most people believe in a fake account for long. So, unless the imitation tweeter does something extremely harmful to someone’s character, it doesn’t sound like anyone would have a strong case. Alas, parody Twitter accounts, for better or worse (worse, right?) are here to stay. 


Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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Check Out This Year's Victoria's Secret Swim Cover Model




Style News Now





01/03/2013 at 03:00 PM ET



Candice Swanepoel Victoria's Secret Swim
Courtesy Victoria’s Secret


While most of the country is hiding from cold temps, the Victoria’s Secret Angels are heating things up! The ladies star in the 2013 swim catalogue — in mailboxes nationwide today — and South African beauty Candice Swanepoel has the privilege (again) of covering the coveted issue.


“It was such an honor to be picked for the cover,” the model tells PEOPLE. “It is such an iconic catalogue. Before I was a model, I used to see Gisele Bündchen, Tyra Banks and all of those iconic women on it. It is amazing that a little South African girl can get on the cover.”


In her big shot, Swanepoel wears a Very Sexy bandeau top — one Victoria’s Secret’s newest offerings for 2013 (in stores and online today). “I love it — it’s so sexy and gives me amazing cleavage,” the model shares.


For this catalogue, Swanepoel and her Angel pals hit the beaches of Miami and Turks and Caicos, and were shot by famed photographer Russell James. And though there is always pressure to look perfect in pictures, Swanepoel says she was never nervous during her shoot.



“Victoria’s Secret is like a big family,” she explains. “The swim shoots are always really fun, and I love being on the beach. I can’t really complain [about my job] — I feel very lucky!”


This year, the company is offering a little something extra for swim fans in the form of the new Angels & Artists video series, which basically pairs hot songs with hot models in bikinis. The first clip in the series, “Bikinis & Bruno Mars” (below), features Swanepoel and Doutzen Kroes making waves to the tune of Mars’s “Locked Out of Heaven.” Additional videos featuring music and models will be released throughout swimsuit season.


If this catalogue leaves you wanting more, you’re in luck: three more catalogues, shot in Tulum and St. Barth’s, will hit mailboxes throughout the season.



–Kate Hogan


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